Yesterday I received an RAK from Liz156 in Canadia! She sent me Kool-Aid, a notebook and a pencil.

But Wait!, you ask. Where is the Pencil?
The answer is (here)

Yes, another package opened by quarantine! Mum says that one day someone will send me drugs, and if so, I'll be the one legally responsible. Somehow, that doesn't sound right to me. Anyway, I was under the impression that these days people were smuggling drugs OUT of Australia.

Quarantine documents, if you like looking at this sort of thing. (I thought it was exciting)

More quarantine documents.

My options are:
a) Pay them $42.50 so they can chemically treat aforementioned pencil and send it to me.
b) Pay them $42.50 so they can return pencil to sender.
c) Pay them $00.00 and let them use it at work, or take it home to their kids, or do whatever it is they do to it.

You win this round, Quarantine.

Hi Juliana!

Went to the Australian Idol final on Monday at the Opera House! Juliana had free tickets, hurrah.

You know when you watch on TV and you see those people standing around the outside stage, and you think "Those poor saps" ? Those were us! Overall it was better than I thought it would be.

Highlights:

I thought Casey looked less fat in real life, but Sophia said she looked fatter.

The kid who sang "Climb Every Mountain" (sorry, can't remember his name) sounded much better than he did on TV. And I think he's going to grow up to be a hottie.

So many B-grade celebrities! Loved it! If we'd been closer to the red carpet we could've scored hugs from the Neighbours boys.

Being taller than many people. A lot of them hadn't hit puberty yet.

Would've been better if the music were louder. My ears were ringing when I got home, but that was from screaming tweens.

Went to Pancakes afterwards and there was hardly any line. See, I was worried that parents would let their tweens out in the city at 11 pee em on a Monday night, but I was wrong.

Friday:

Went to Bondi with Spa and had a look at the sculptures. It was good going on a Friday because there wasn't as much of a crowd. And luckily the holiday season hadn't really started yet, so I didn't see any pasty topless tourists :)

Forgot to bring my camera. However, I'm really keen on going next year, and I won't make the same mistake again. My favourite sculptures were:

1. Two goldfish in a tank.
2. Inflatable octopus-thing.
3. Colourful something made out of plastic bottle bits.
4. The mini van.

And next year I'll bring money with me. I survived the whole day on 20c. Where are the Commonwealth ATMs at Bondi, if any? Sophia bought me an Icypole for a dollar! Thankee muchly. I really needed it. It was hot, with that special sort of Australian sun that crisps your skin. So next year I'll be wearing sunscreen too, or at least a nice hat.

The sea was bluey-green and the sand bright. It's the sort of scene that makes you want to have a picnic at the beach.

Let's go to Nam. It looks pretty good from outside.

No more thinking until March 2006!

(OY! I've noticed no one's asked for a FSM hat except for Sophia. What, not stylish enough for you? :P )

So it looks like it's going to be knitting and soaps for the next three and a half months, with the occasional hearty partae thrown in. Uni is o-ver, and the relief is the biggest rush I've felt for a long time.

I did two exams today (Thursday). O harrowing day!
I'm not entirely sure that I've passed QMB. I got to the exam late, but that didn't matter because I had plenty of time (I even left early).
"Can't answer that... don't know that... don't understand the question... Well, I've done all I can do. Time to leave!"

It got me thinking - I've never failed anything before. I didn't even fail DT in year 7, and THAT was the year I cut a hole in my bag with the overlocker, tried to tie-dye with rusty ball bearings, and undercooked my final cookies. I didn't even fail PDHPE, when I left labour out of the "child-birthing" cycle and took nearly 14 minutes to "run" 1.6 km. I even did WELL in science, when I thought the atmosphere was made out of mostly methane. I didn't even fail history, when I didn't know who Vladimir "do you mean John Lennon" Lenin was.

(Time to stop exposing my ignorance? Okay.)

Philosophy was MUCH better. Edmond helped me to cram, so from now on I'll be nicer to him. Provided he's nicer to me 'course.

Y'know, it sorta pisses me off when people think that studying philosophy makes you a better person. Like "hey, you should care more about mankind because you study philosophy." That's philANTHROPY, not philoSOPHY!

Sorry, non-knitter friends! Don't read this post.

Warning: the following is as quick and dirty as a night with Paris Hilton.

I found my Branching Out chart, which I thought I had deleted!

Note: this is a modification of the Knitty pattern. I didn't design Branching Out. However, all the bits below are mine.

Click here for chart

What I did went something like this:
CO 9 with provisional cast-on. On the first row, slip 1 purlwise, then k to the end. Then knit border chart 5 times. (61 + 1 rows)

TURN CORNER 1: Use short rows. I can't remember exactly what I did, but it involved a lot of fudging. Try to end up with 9 sts on the needle, but if you don't, don't worry about it.

After you turn corner, place marker. Look at the straight edge. You have one slipped st for every two rows, ie 30. Put the front loop of the first slipped stitch onto the left needle, then knit into it tbl. Pick up and knit the remaining 29 sts this way.

Place marker. Pick up 9 sts along the cast-on edge, removing waste yarn from the provisional CO.

TURN CORNER 2: Fudge this. Do whatever you like, as long as it's roughly the mirror image of what you did for TURN CORNER 1. Try to end up with 9 sts for the border section (or whatever number you got at the end of TURN CORNER 1). When you're done, your yarn should be at the end of the row, not in the middle of the scarf.

MAIN SCARF PART:
Now you should have something like 9 sts for each border, and 30 sts between the markers. This is where it can get a bit confusing, if it isn't already. If you don't have row counters, you will cry.

One of the borders will begin with border row 12, and the other will begin with border row 1. One side will always be one row in front of the other. If you have a border amount other than 9 sts, find the two rows on the chart that have the numbers you need, and begin on those.

Note: omit the "sl 1 pwise wyif" at the beginning of odd border rows.

Row 1:Work border row 12, slip marker, knit row 1 from the Branching Out chart, slip marker, work border row 1.

Row 2:Work border row 2, slip marker, knit row 2 from the Branching Out chart, slip marker, work border row 1.

Row 3:Work border row 2, sm, knit row 3 from the BO chart, sm, then work border row 3.

And so on.

If you are lucky, when your scarf is about long enough, you'll hit a magic row with the border on rows 1 and 12 and BO on row 10. If not, you have to do more fudging. Sorry. If you can't find this magic row, you can cheat a little by doing a couple of stocking st rows instead of the BO chart.

Work the magic row. Turn corner as appropriate, working on just the border sts.

Now. You're going to be attaching the top border. To do this:
When you work even numbered border rows, knit to the last border st, sl 1, remove marker, slip st back and k2tog. Turn, place marker, knit odd numbered border row WITH slipped stitch at beginning.

(Basically, you're knitting the last border st together with a Branching Out stitch. You don't need the marker anymore if you know what's going on.)

Keep going until you've eaten up all the Branching Out stitches and all you have left is 9 border stitches on each needle. Turn corner and graft together.

~the end

Spread the word!

If you have not yet been enlightened, go to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If anyone wants a FSM hat, leave a comment and I'll do you one after exams...

...which finish TOMORROW!

*hopes He will touch her exam papers with his Noodly Appendage*

Will blog bigger and better, later. Right now I'm trying not to make any sudden movements, lest I dislodge all that stuff crammed in my brain.
(What sort of clause is that? A negative wish clause? A purpose clause? I'm so tired I don't even know what's going on anymore.)

The albatross, around my neck

I don't even remember casting on for this, it was that long ago. NO MORE lace scarves until next year. I can't take it anymore.

Pattern: Orenburg lace scarf from the IK free patterns page.
Yarn: Madil Kid Seta, in colour about which I'm unsure. I lost the ball band. Neither picture is accurate. It's more like the first, but a bit lighter.
Needles: 3.75mm
Length: 6-and-a-bit feet
Width: 23(-ish) cms



Look at it, stretching out forever. And ever. It's longer than the piano by a fair bit.


And because I never put a picture up, here's a detail of my Branching Out. Slapped a border on because it made it more fun.



Hours of fun

Slightly heartbroken about not being able to make a booking at Oscillate Wildly. Though a group of 11 in a restaurant that seats 30-something was probably a bit much to expect.

But look how cool this is. Wow!
Am I wrong for thinking that'd be a fantastic place to go for a date? (Okay, but I thought paintballing was a great Valentine's Day idea too.)

So anyway, if you stumble along this post in the next couple of days, recommend me a restaurant. Otherwise I'll end up trawling food blogs instead of studying.

0 down, 4 to go (final exams for this semester)

Holiday plans

Dinners, sleepovers etc with beloved high school friends

Finish off all WIPs and write up patterns before I forget what I did.

Finish all RAKs I've been meaning to send off.

At least learn how to turn on the car, if not actually drive it.

Get new job

Do [something good] for NYE. I'm thinking harbour views and fireworks.

Go to M'sia and do clothes and accessories shopping for the year.

Go to Egypt and take lots of photos.

Read the books I've been meaning to read. No audio books; that's cheating.

Write the book I've been meaning to write (for the past 6 years or so).

Draw some eyes.

Clean my room, if I get everything else done.

New Year's Resolutions

Get tough, and stop letting people push me around.

Take up some form of exercise. Anything, really.

Become more decisive so I don't have to hate being BOSS.

Attend at least 50% of lectures and 80% of tutorials.

Take shorter showers.

Become better at replying to emails, SMSes, and PMs instead of letting them sit for a few days.

Nostalgia blog, part 3

Was going through Spiteful Red and scanned a heap of stuff for no good reason. So here we go! All you people who weren't in Mr Seed's science class can now be incredibly jealous.

Now it becomes obvious that I stole my little birds from the Scarecrowe at Home. (Can you steal from yourself? Yes? No? Nevermind, I'm just confusing myself now.)


The Scarecrowe Cronicals (2002)

(Scarecrowe in the Woom)
Scarecrowe in the Woom is really light and wouldn't scan properly :( I'm going to try again later.

Scarecrowe at Home
Our hero doing what he does best.

Scarecrowe's Holidaye

Scarecrowe's Dream Worlde
Strange androgyny :s

(Scarecrowe on Drugs)
I don't really like this one, so it's not getting uploaded.

Burnte at Thee Steake
This is truly my favourite. Gremlins! (I think we were very disturbed teenagers)

Thee Bouncer

Thee End
What more can I say?

Et Alii
Under the Sea with Shark and Whale
You know that perforated strip on the side of computer paper that has all the holes? That's what shark and whale are.

Johanna's Page!
Comedy gold.

An Extension of the Johanna Page!
More comedy gold.

Creation

Once upon a time there were two brothers, called Night and Day. Like all brothers, they were rivals.

Both of them liked to tinker. They went around making things. Day made people. Night liked to go around stomping on Day's creations. This is why people are afraid of the dark.

Night made possums. This is why people invented roadkill.

Both Night and Day wanted their armies of death to smite their estranged sibling's creations. But they were too ... uh... tired to make any more creatures, so they decided to modify the existing animals, giving them teeth, claws, and opposable thumbs. The simpler organisms, eg dinosaurs, were used as pawns which is why they no longer exist.

--Excerpt from Spiteful Red, in which Spa and Lra decide science is full of bs and try to invent their own.

One down, four to go (years at uni)

How this year differs from last year.

Not seeing my group (love you, guys!) nearly every day. You are the square peg for my square hole. I miss how we could talk about life things, newsy things, political things, and gossipy things, as well as random things like "what's the difference between ice cream and gelato?" and "why can't you eat uncooked poultry?"

I miss doodling in Bitchy Green, Spiteful Red, Faithful Black et alii. I miss crosswords in the quad, coffee at GJs, visits to the vending machine, and even the stupid Sock Blenders.

I miss staying up all night at sleepovers and not knowing what day it was anymore. Playing Taboo until we went all the way around and the cards started repeating. Trying to play Ker-plunk quietly so as not to wake Ky's parents. Being impressed by Johanna's cheesecake, her mum's chicken and her dad's pancakes.

See how nostalgic I am?

Being totally irresponsible and skipping uni whenever I didn't feel like going. I only jigged once in six years of high school. It was double English. Fair enough?

Discovering that I can't get 98% in exams without going to lectures, reading the textbook, or listening in tutorials.

Being single for the first time ever. It wasn't too bad actually.

Guys. They're everywhere , but I'm used to them now. They tend to bag you out a lot, but not in a bitchy way like girls do.

Finally getting a bank card resulted in me blowing way too much money on yarn. We're looking at four digits here.

Got my licence and can now do 18+ stuff. Have not been to the casino yet.

Have been knitting like a demon - much much more than last year. I think this is something to do with being single and having more time and energy for myself.

(end of list)


Had a nasty experience on the train today. I freaked out at first, but settled down after talking to Brewin. He is awesome. If you want to know what happened, ask me in private. Jus' so randoms don't read my blog and snigger at me.

Flirting guide linked on the Knittyboard TMI forum.

I'm disturbed by how many times "Women, however, need to be even more cautious in their use of [action], as men will be inclined to interpret this as a sign of sexual availability" appears.

Hot and agitated

*groans at own lame post title*
For you non-knitters, that's a felting (fulling) reference.

Whipped up a Booga bag on the weekend. Okay, I made it wider and taller and decided to twist the i-cords, but it is essentially the same bag.

Dimensions: 11 x 5 x 11
Yarn: Noro Kureyon, probably in #42
Lining: Red linen
Other: Magnetic snap closure. The magnets in this are really very strong. It takes effort to pry them apart.





I realised that I keep buying yarn in the same colours. I put my pencil case from year 11 there for comparison. That's Panda Magnum Prints, 8 ply, 100% acrylic. I think the colourway is called something obvious like mauve-pink-green. It has serious pooling problems, and this was the only decent thing I could make out of it. If anyone asks, I'll say I made them match on purpose.

There's still some stitch definition, but I don't really mind.
After waiting all weekend for it to dry, I decided to take it on a visit to uni. It rained and I didn't have an umbrella. I think it's been reblocked to the shape of my uni junk.

[life blog] I'm sorry I doubted Makybe Diva. I feel like such a pessimist.