Late Night School Work

The first draft of my senior thesis is due tomorrow and although I'm not exactly behind I'm not exactly ahead either.  What this boils down to tonight is me writing frantically for forty-five minute stretches and then taking fifteen minute breaks.  If I ever actually get my head in the game it's possible to work indefinitely this way.

My head is not in the game.

So for you enjoyment I thought I'd post a junk food filled poem that I wrote just now.

Oh french fry.  Perfect french fry.
Among so unworthy of kin,
how did you end up my din?


Thank you,

Thank you very much.

Insert Clever Title Here

I've secretly been trying to post something witty and adventuresome every Tuesday and again around the weekend.  This of course requires that I do at least two witty and adventuresome things a week to write about.

Which I haven't.

Unless of  you count banging my brain against mini-tab all weekend and desperately trying to remember what a chi-square test even does.

See, the first draft of my senior thesis is due this Thursday.

I'm writing on some of the differences in debitage we see at a certain site between layers dated several hundred years apart and the implications those differences hold for stone tool production in that particular town.

Would you like to hear about it?

No?

That's okay. I don't really want to either.

I guess that means that I'll have to default to talking about my feelings, and specifically my sense of self- confidence.  If that offends your sense of entertainment, just remember, I could have been talking about my thesis.

Generally speaking I'm actually a very confident person. I know that I'm smart, witty, and good learner.  I also know that I'm funny, and that I'm good with kids (except for putting them to bed for some reason, I need to work on that.). I also know that I have many talents and that if I really wanted to I could learn to do just about anything.

My fears are much quieter than that.

I'm afraid that no body likes me, and that somehow even the people I've hung with for over a year just can't figure out how to politely get rid of me.

I know,  it's a silly fear. Yet, just because you know that something is completely irrational doesn't keep it from coming back to you in those quiet moments.

The thing is,  I've seen this situation happen before. It's even happened to me on occasion.

There was this girl who sat at my table for a year during middle school.  She a little loud, she tended to exaggerate, and try to over-familiarize herself with people she didn't know that well.  The first impression you got from this chick was that you should take a small step back and smile politely.  Still, she was nice, and overall she seemed alright to me.

Except all my friends thought she was really annoying.  Sometimes they would whisper in angry tones about how they just wished that she would go away.  They even conspired to pointedly sit somewhere else once or twice.

Sometimes, when  I'm doing something slightly outside of my comfort zone, like chatting up a new acquaintance, it hits me all of a sudden that I could be this girl. The annoying one. The one that everybody secretly wishes would just go away. 

Honestly this doesn't bother me so much now. I have been blessed with awesome friends, who happen to like and care about me.  However, it's turned into another, more specific form of the same problem.

I don't find myself datable.

I don't think I'm pretty, and I'm quiet enough that most guys don't notice me.   I also feel like most men out there  are put off by the whole 'so short that her feet never touch the ground when she sits' thing (n=1). I doubt that guys even perceive me as dating option.

Let me put this in perspective for you.

More geriatric old men have told me out of the blue that I'm lovely or that I "have perfect proportions" than guys in my peer group have actually asked me out.

That affects a girl.

And yes, I know that I have the opportunity to take boys out on dates myself.

But what if they just say yes because they don't want to hurt my feelings?


I have enough quiet doubts to ruin a night.

Look,  I'm not trying to throw myself a pity party. I just know that I lot of people struggle with loneliness and confidence issues.

So, you're not alone.  Okay?

The Sound of Music

Since the majority of my views are still generated via the constant spamming of facebook most of you reading this know me personally, or at least have known me personally at some point in our lives.  So, the odds are good that you already know that I have a deep and abiding love for hiking.

I love the outdoors, I love the trees (Washington), I love the gorgeous red-rock (Utah), and I love the quiet moments when you come across something precious and for that instant that beauty belongs to me.

Well, if you haven't heard of it before, letterboxing is like hiking, except better.  None of this willy-nilly appreciation of nature and exercise crap. What you're doing there is adventuring.

Unfortunately since my car gave up the ghost (at the tender age of twenty no less) I have not been able to hike, or letterbox very much.

So this weekend I thought I'd whip a little something up, particularly since midterms and the first draft of my senior thesis was dulling my mind down to a little nub.

I've actually been thinking about doing a box for a while, so I've been keeping tabs on nice possible niches to hide my container of awesome. There are several promising spots around campus, but from my experience all the boxes that are byu specific seemed to get snapped up fairly quickly by the cleaning crew.

The rude snarky teenager in me would like to hide a small vessel in the obvious hiding spot on this statue.  Unfortunately I've never been up on campus late enough that I could check out that... situation with out seeming suspicious.

So I've jumped ship to another promising plan, hoping that maybe maintenance doesn't clean this particular venue very often.  Unfortunately since it is in a part of campus that most outsiders don't have access to you will have to be a student, or know a student to get at this thing.

Here are the hints.

1.Go to the spot on campus where the movies are kept.

2.Go to the back of the room  where there is a door that is always kept closed.

3. Gain entry to this room.  You can either ask the TA in the room next door politely or reserve it online

4. look up.

Happy Hunting!

And since this is my first box ever please feel free to leave me with constructive criticism in the comments.

The Problem With Girls...

Is that at some point in their lives they will have to worry about their hair.  ...  Guys too I suppose, but I'm  talking about girls here so don't get your knickers in a twist.

When I had very long hair all it required was a good brushing and one of those elastic hair things every morning. When I got it all chopped off in the superior interests of Archaeology my process became even simpler and I got to throw away all my hair bands.

Now the demon thing has gone and grown out into the 'Awkward Stage'.  I can't leave it down anymore because it's mutated into a collection of blocky angles that only multiply when I try to comb it into submission.  And I can't put it up yet because it's not long enough to be pulled back.

if so, please tell me, I want to try this out

Unless of course this is a hairstyle now.

The obvious solution is to don increasingly tacky headbands until my hair grows past this, or until I give up and go make an appointment with the BYU barbershop.

But not the hard plastic kind of headband because those were created by the devil.

Seriously.

Have you ever put one of those things on?  Who else do you think could convince legions of girls everywhere to walk around with a vice wrapped around their heads?

This leads me to the unveiling of my second crochet creation;


It still needs some tweaking so I wont post the pattern just yet, but the basic idea here is that it would be as comfortable as a cloth band while being thinner around the back so that it doesn't make my hair stick up like a duck's butt.

Yes, this is what I do with my weekends.

No, none of my friends with cars wanted to go hiking in the snow*.

*they all have lives or something

Keyhole Lace Hat

I'm the type of person who gets regularly distracted by shiny ideas.

I happen see an interesting tutorial and I just have to try it for myself. It's how I ended up spending a weekend with a couple obliging friends making acorn flour, and it's why I've tried certain beautiful cakes on more than one occasion.

Usually I'm passable, and I get a new, interesting experience out of the night when I would have just bummed around doing nothing instead.

Rarely do I ever return to the issue (particularly if I have made any purchases) as I am already off trying to play with some other kid's new toy instead.

This also extends to my admiration of those who create art in any form.  I draw, paint, write, and it's even currently my ambition to publish a webcomic on these here internets once I write the rest of that script*.  I see somebody else put their soul into a project and reaping glorious results and after a while my soul just has to try that thing too.

*The plot boils down to a battle in-between gods for survival from the perspective of their pawns. 

I was talking about this phenomenon a while ago with my dear friend (who happens to be a song writer).  He felt that way about music, and still carries that entranced heart around with him in his back pocket.

Only of course, he actually remembers to take it out and polish it off once in a while.

It occurred to me while trash talking all the lovely talented musicians out there who have never bothered to write themselves up a song that I do much the same thing, only with crochet instead of notes.

I love to crochet, and I deeply admire those crocheters out there on Raverly and other similar sights who can see the finished project in their minds eye and know enough to hook their way to those results.  However, strange as it seems to me now, it had never occurred to me to try my own thing until that moment.

Here's my exciting attempt:

I was inspired by the amazing Liz's (Playing Hooky Designs)  lattice hat which I have thoroughly gushed all over already.

This lacy looking crochet is called the broomstick stitch  and there are several good tutorials for it on youtube. It was actually kind of frightening to deal with my on first go at a design, since it takes about an hour to do a single row, and having to rip it out would be heinous.

Here is my pattern, please let me know if you spot any mistakes.

.... and for that matter tell me if you can think of a better name for thing thing than "keyhole Lace Hat"  it just doesn't sit perfectly on my tongue yet.

you will need;

Two different colors of yarn (I used Caron simply soft's black and autumn red)

One 5.5 mm hook

One 4.25 mm hook.

And...

A large knitting needle, (since I don't actually knit I just glued a piece of paper into a cylinder. The diameter is about two pencil widths or two centimeters wide.)

Color A (the outer shell)

Row 1; hook up 65 chainless double crochet (or whichever multiple of five happens to fit around your head), join.

Row 2;  slip stitch into next two dc.   Pull up a long lp with yarn on hook, slip lp off of hook and onto knitting needle as stitch holder, working to the right  pull up long lp on each stitch  slipping  lp off of hook and onto knitting needle as stitch holder as you go  until you have used every st—65 lps on needle. Slip lps off of knitting needle. (I found it easiest to pull the loops off of my paper cylinder every quarter or so).   Insert crochet hook into first 5 lps,  sl st into grouped 5 lps ch 1, 5 sc in same group of lps, **group next 5 lps together,  5 sc in next group of lps, rep from ** around, join with sl st in first sc. Do not turn.

Row3-4; repeat row 2

Row  5; Pull up loops just as you would for the first few rows,  but instead of doing 5 sc for each group do 4 instead.  Join, do not turn.

Row 6: slip stitch into one dc, pull up lps again,  gather in groups of 4 lps and do 4 sc for each group.  join, do not turn.

Row 7; slip stitch into 1 dc, pull up loops,  gather in groups of 4 lps, 2 sc in each group.   Tie off, allowing enough  yarn to weave through stitches, using a tapestry needle do just that and pull tight.

Color B (the inner shell)

Row 1: using the magic ring technique crochet 12 hdc in the round.  Do not join here or throughout. 

Row 2: work 2 hdc in each st around. (24 sts)
 

Row 3: work 2 hdc in same st, 1 hdc in next st, * 2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc in next st. Repeat from * to end.  (36 sts)
 

Row 4: work 2 hdc in same st, 1 hdc in next 2 sts, * 2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc in next 2 sts. Repeat from * to end.  (48 sts)

Row 5: work 2 hdc in same st, 1 hdc in next 3 sts, * 2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc in next 3 sts. Repeat from * to end. (60 sts)

Row 6; work 2 hdc in same st, 1 hdc in next twelve sts *2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc in next 3 sts.  Repeat from * to end (65 sts)

Row 7- 16; 1 dc in each st  around. 

Row 17; 1 dc in each st around, 1 hdc in the next st, one sc in the next.  tie off.  (65 st)

With right side facing out on both layers put the inner shell inside the other shell and slip stitch with color A through both.  Chain 1 and working through both layers again Single crochet around. Tie off and weave in ends.

So there you have it,  my very first attempt at my own original creation. 

The red doesn't quite shine through the black like I was hoping it would but it's a very soft hat, and so far I like it a lot. 

Seed Starting and Other Witty Banter

(In honor of Valentine's day please read the following post in a seductive voice)

I've finally got around to starting up my seeds for the exciting new grow season

I know, I know, you've been waiting for this with baited breath haven't you? Sorry to keep you waiting baby, but the time just wasn't right yet.

I bet you're dying to get a gander at my process aren't you? Well let me tell you 'sweet thang', *flicks off sunglasses* you've come to the right place.

I start off with sixteen sexy seed packets that I got at the  seed exchange last year.  I've been harboring them under my bed all winter, and it's fun to finally pull them out. I've only have hot pepper seeds, but that must just be because I am so darn hot.

Now, I don't have a lot of room in my apartment for plants, so I just stuck these little babies in wet paper towels to get them started off. I then gently caressed the paper towels into plastic baggies, careful not to get them too crumpled.

I then labeled the ziplock bags with the variety of pepper, the date, the estimated days until germination if I could find it.

I did it in purple sharpie... because I'm a rebel *wink*.

Now I'd normally keep these cuties right next to my heart where they can feel the warmth of my bosom but this year I decided to give my new heat mat a try instead.

I don't currently have a working thermometer so I make do with shuffling the baggies every few hours so they all get the same amount of heat.

That's right, I put an insulartory object on top of a heating mat despite the direct instructions not to. I'm just cool like that.

How to Save a Desk

To make a long story short; my apartment did not come with a desk, and I have wanted one since I have discovered this terrible tragedy.

See, although the administration counts this workbench thing as a collective desk for all four girls it doesn't really fill the void a desk is suppose to inhabit in my life.

I though the poor lighting added to the picture overall

It doesn't  have much space for long term storage.

It's in the middle of everything so it isn't a nice quite place to work,

And- well- the chairs (harvested from the table) are too short of the 'desk' so every time I sit down I feel like I should be finger painting instead of trying to figure out statistical analysis on debitage.

To fill this void in my life I've been trolling around on various sites and perusing  the local thrift store for the past few weeks. I finally decided that I just had to bite the bullet and buy a new desk and bookshelf from Walmart where it was cheaper and better quality than everything that I've seen on Craigslist.

But at the very last moment! Manna from Heaven!

Or in this case somebody posted a desk on freecycle for my area.

I was able to get one of my friends who owned a truck to take me up to Orem to pick this little beauty up, because this friend happened to a big strong man who had roommates that were also large men I didn't even have to do anything once we got there.

While everybody else was doing the heavy lifting I subtly glanced towards the bookshelf and read the certificates framed on the wall.  The home I invaded belongs to a lovely gun safety instructor and her husband.  The tiny side office was being used for some kind of home business and they had tropical looking plants hanging out on two of the three desks

I decided not to edit the mess out, so you might truly know me.

I fell like these people were awesome, and I'm absolutely certain that my wonderful gift had nothing to do with that judgement.

Of  course when I got home it was to room origami and the place is still a complete mess from gradually putting off the clean up everyday until -tomorrow.

The desk itself came with a side wing that was detachable from the main unit. I was planning on just throwing the thing away since it wouldn't fit but then I discovered that it was mostly held together with easy to remove screws.

The only tricky bit was one screw that just would not come out and the fact that the back piece was actually stapled on instead of screwed in.  Since I'm cute and little I got my dear friend to take care of those steps for me.

both drawers still work fine........splee!

Now I have a sturdy desk with drawers, a new beside table, and several large pieces of wood underneath my bed ready to be reassembled at any moment.

now to acquire myself a bookcase

Something Serious

I know this blog is largely meant to be dedicated to my (totally exciting) adventures here at college-land but allow me to step back a moment and try to be serious.

Today, is my my birthday. And although the little kid in me is still overly-excited to open those shining packages that I got in the mail  I'd also like to take a moment now and thank my mother for all that she is.

I know,  I know,  there's already a saccharine holiday set apart for the occasion; but I feel like if you only do something because everybody else is doing it you don't really mean it as much the other 365 days of the year.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about my mom is her wonderful sense of humor.  She is never far from a quick remark, and never further from a good long laugh.  It is this weildy humor that has been reflected in each of her children and is absolutely integral to our personalities.  I for one know that I would not be the same person with out my snarky sardonic lens on life.

We've had a lot of hard times in my family, a  lot of things that for a while I wished could all be a dream, but through all of it my mother maintained her humor.  And she did it in a way that didn't deflect reality or make it less than was it really was but allowed our new realities to exist along side the things in life worthy of a laugh.  I think that this show of humor exposes a great deal of strength on my mom's part.

A strength that I absolutely admire and a strength that I hope that I will be able to replicate if need be.

My mom my also a great deal of charity in her heart for others.  She can see the world with a clear eyes and can think of others and their needs, even when she is having a bad day.  More importantly, she then acts upon her perceptions and reaches out to those in need.   I know that we spent more than one week opening our home to somebody who needed a place to stay for a little while.

I appreciate being shown by her how to a woman, and I can only hope to make her proud in the coming years of my own womanhood.

I love you Mom, and thank you for all that you have done.

Steve!

 This is a hot Thai pepper plant from parkseed that I-


You know what?  We've talked about this already. You know who Steve is, we don't need to go through it again.

The exciting news here is that I had about twenty extra bucks in my budget last month and I was able to get a grow light from Amazon for my poor, poor plant.

That's totally fair right?

It's the cheapest one they had, (which was the only requirement) so I'm sure that it's not the best product around. However, the reviews said that it worked just fine so at least there's that.

I got it in the mail today and was able to set it up in less then ten minutes, so what it lacks in awesomeness it makes up for with simplicity.

So now I have to do is sit back and watch my pepper plant not die.

Hopefully

I'm going to wait a little while to review the light on Amazon.  So that if it gets my plant looking like this; I'll know to give it atleast four stars.










I also drew this picture to further illustrate the coolness of this product to you, because I don't think you completely understand how excited I am about this.

This is essentially what happened when I turned the light on

Because childish drawings are the best way to explain complex ideas.