Sagittarius (Nov. 23rd- Dec. 22nd) Lucky you! Your expansive ruling planet, Jupiter, is transiting Sagittarius all year, promising you substantial growth, meaningful inspirations, and fascinating connections. Your challenge is to keep your passions focused on growing what’s really worthwhile to you, while avoiding going overboard in activities that won’t really benefit you. Fortunately, the astrological energies this April will help you figure all this out. Abrupt course corrections the first 11days of April and from April 26th-30th show you what or who you might have to let go of or change in order to meet with success. But between April 12th-27th there are loads of powerful, creative, and yes, lucky aspects that will fire you up, promote your creativity, tingle your love life, and help you to expand most anything else you want to express. So do what Sagittarians do best: Look upon the changes, surprises and course alterations as learning experiences that teach you something truly valuable about yourself and life. And enjoy the ride!

Typically I don't believe in horoscopes or fortune-tellers and the like. I'm a social psychologists after all and am well-informed of the Barnum effect and the stock spiel. But sometimes when big life events seem out of control, a horoscope can feel uncannily accurate.

"Abrupt course corrections the first 11days of April and from April 26th-30th show you what or who you might have to let go of or change in order to meet with success."
This part scares me because of current non-events (that I'd rather not discuss right now).

"Look upon the changes, surprises and course alterations as learning experiences that teach you something truly valuable about yourself and life."
I'll try!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aside from the frustrations of life, I have lots of pictures to share (if only I'd work at the proper computer for uploading them): finished Monsoons, cutie pie hamster, two new projects (a scarf and another sock), and cute shoes from a quickie shopping therapy session (and 2 skeins of STR from an online retail therapy session that should hopefully arrive later this week). Maybe in a couple of hours, I'll get up off the couch and upload the pics on the other computer.

I'm a Doctor and I have a job starting in the Fall!

First of all, thank you for all the congratulations! It makes me so happy that I have so many friends cheering for me.

So here's the story... (I'm too lazy to proofread myself today, so please excuse any typos!)

Back on March 20th, I went for an interview at XC (I know, I know, you want the actual college's name, but I need to start being a little more anonymous, so XC is what you'll get, but I will add that it is in the NYC area). The interview went great, they said many fabulous things about me, and then told me that they'd like call by March 30th with their decision. All last week I anxiously waited and waited. Friday came and went with no phone call. Needless to say, I was depressed and fairly convinced that they had hated me. Monday morning I'm sitting in on a class and 2 minutes before the end of class my cell phone rings. I quick shut off the ringing and look at the number. It's the area code of XC! Of course the professor decides to go about 10 minutes over class time, and I think that I was more in a rush to leave than the students were. I listened to the message and it was from the chairperson at XC saying to call because he wants to talk about the position. I race back to my office and dial the number, only to get his voicemail, so I leave a message. I stare at my cell phone for the next 40 minutes until it rings (I was so distracted I couldn't knit or even surf the internet). Chairperson calls back, says they want to offer me the job. In my head, I want to scream "yes yes yes," but I somehow maintain professionality while listening to the details. When I got off the phone, I called Kevin, and my mom, and my dad, and emailed my advisor and committee, and knitting pals. When I finally got home, I spent a few minutes jumping up and down (I had wanted to jump up and down at my office, but was worried some might see or think I was totally insane). Kevin and I got all dressed up and went out to a super fancy dinner.

So yeah, I am going to be a professor at XC. Teaching psychology and conducting research. I know some of the details, but not all. But overall, I'm just ecstatic to have a job!

Yesterday morning was my actual dissertation defense. When I set the date back in March it seemed so far away, but then suddenly it was here. My mom actually came up for the defense, and Kathy and Cordelia showed up too. Kevin came, as well as two of my students. (The rest swore they wanted to come, but you know how it is with undergraduates). I gave my presentation for about 35 minutes, and then there were about an hour of questions. The first few questions related directly to what I had done, but then the questions turned more theoretical and speculative. Overall, the questions weren't hard and the audience (including my committee) was very supportive. After the questions, everyone had to leave the room while the committee discussed their decision. About 10 minutes later, they brought me back in the room and said "congratulations!" There are a few minor revisions that I need to make (mostly changing a few typos and points of confusion), but they all signed the paperwork.

Afterwards, Kevin, my mom, and I went out to lunch. I had to get back quickly after lunch because I still had to teach my class in the afternoon. I was about 10 minutes late for class and I could hear them all talking when I walked up to the door. When I entered the room, it got really quiet and someone said "well?" And I nodded my head, and they all cheered! Instead of actual class work, we had a brief discussion of what grad school is like. I referred to myself as Dr. a few times and they all cheered again, so I let them go home early.

And as Marian mentioned in the comments, I celebrated by going to knitting night (partly because I had to get up early today and still come to job 2). Tonight there will be some wine with watching the Mets, and Saturday should be a good celebration with some friends in the city.

For the next few weeks, my work load is immensely lighter and with the return of baseball, there should be a lot of knitting progress!

I'm totally stuck in second sock syndrome. I finished the first strawberry basket sock a few days ago, but I just haven't been able to cast on for the second one.





Maybe it is because my new sock yarn from Blue Moon hasn't shown up yet, so I have no motivation to finish these socks.


Although there should be the motivation that Sockapalooooza 4 should be having sign ups early next week!

Now that I have a little more free time on my hands (and because I forgot to bring part of what I need to currently work on to my office), I spent the last two hours on a major blog update.

*The finished projects gallery is now up-to-date. There are 102 finished objects (and that's excluding a few horrific things that I purposefully left out, as well as a few lost projects).

*The socks gallery now matches with the rest of the blog and is updated. 22 total pairs of socks in less than 4 sock knitting years. The number could be up to 24 if I finish up 2 second socks, which would mean that I can tie last year's sock total (5 pairs) before the year is half finished!

I still need to rebuild the pages for the "Evolution of Sexie" and "Knitting Backwards" to match the blog. The archives from 2004 are still pictureless, and of course all of the archives from before March '06 look like crap. Slowly it is all coming together and I have until July 16th before I've been at this bloggie home for a year.

So the Yarn Harlot's new book finally arrived on my doorstep last week. I've been racing through it like someone starved for reading material that isn't dissertation related. Indeed, I do like it and enjoy it, although I do find it kind of cutesy. And that's not to criticize or say that it is bad because I am definitely enjoying it.

In the Pests chapter, she discusses different kinds of knitting pests. And these aren't moths and bugs and other gross creepy-crawlies, but different types of knitters who can be pests.

As the Yarn Harlot describes:

"The goal of an enabler is to get the hapless victim to spend a great deal of money, therefore creating a vicarious experience for the enabler, who walks away having had the joy of a yarn purchase without the resulting damage to her budget."

She focuses mainly on "in-person" enablers, a category into which I myself certainly fall, but today I'm going to have to be an "online" enable.

Sale on Koigu at Kaleidoscope Yarns!!!

On Sunday I decided to knit a mini sock instead of casting on for the second strawberry basket sock.


But the picture with the pen is kinda of boring...



The hamster didn't seem very interested in posing with the sock, I got Freud to do it instead...



Click here for a super close up!

On Tuesday, Kevin's parents dropped his younger sister off at our place and we got her bridesmaid's dress, then ate some dinner, and because all that took less time than we anticipated, we stopped by the video game store. As we were looking for something entertaining to play, Kevin and I finally decided it was time to take the Wii plunge. We'd been talking about it for months and delaying, but now was the time. There were boxes at the store, so we went up and asked to purchase. Turns out the boxes were empties and there were no Wiis in the area. In fact, Wiis are still near impossible to find as they show up randomly at stores (the employees typically don't know when they are coming) and sell out instantly.

Being that we're a country that is obsessed with instant gratification, it was pretty damn frustrating to not be able to walk out with a Wii. So we started searching on the internet for tips and advice about tracking a system down. Came across the website itrackr.com. This website tracks hard to find items at your local stores (mostly Target, Gamestop, and Circuit City for electronics) and tells you as soon as a store has the item in stock.

I obsessively checked itrackr on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday I checked before leaving job 2 and there was no change. I was beginning to think that it was hopeless and that the itrackr didn't actually work. On my way home, I stopped by an out of the way K-mart hoping that there was an off-chance that they'd have one because it isn't a popular location. The guy at the store said they might get some this weekend. I drove home after my detour and as I drove passed a Circuit City, I thought maybe I should stop there. And then thought, no they probably won't have any and kept going.

When I got home, I checked my email and surfed some blogs. And then randomly checked itrackr again. And it was suddenly showing available Wiis at the Circuit City I had driven past! I ran out the door dragging my purse, trying to put on my coat, and calling the store. I couldn't get any answer at the store, but figured I'd just go for it and hope for the best. Now, this Circuit City is down the evil Rt. 18 which is under construction and at 4pm on a Friday nearly a parking lot. With some creative route selection, I made it to the CC about 30 minutes after seeing the change on itrackr (quite an amazing feat). I ran into the store, did about 3 laps around the video game area before spotting an employee who I pounced on.

I asked him if they had an Wiis. He said he didn't know and he would check, but that he doubted they did because they hadn't had them in a long time. He typed some things into his computer and got a shocked look on his face and said "how about that, we do have some!" He held one on reserve in his computer while I grabbed a game and extra controllers (which in actuality he had to do for me because I couldn't find them). I paid and very nearly hugged the salesman. Then I had to wait at the Customer Service desk for the Wii to come out of the back area. There seemed to be a lot of confusion.

Turns out the Wiis hadn't even been unpacked from the boxes off the truck yet. None of the employees even knew that they had them in stock! As I was waiting, another guy came in and bought one and I'm pretty sure he was monitoring itrackr or a similar site too. The employees were amazed that the two of us knew they had Wiis before they did.

The Wii is awesome! Kevin and I played for over 5 hours last night barely remembering to eat dinner and staying up waaaaaaaay too late. So far we just have the Wii Sports that came with the system, and Rayman: Raving Rabbids, which features these cute but deranged bunnies...

So if there's a drop off in knitting reports, it's because I'm a Wii-er! (hmmm, that doesn't sound too good).

First off, Wii rocks! I think Kevin and I logged over 9 hours of playing time yesterday. I even turned it on this morning to receive some Miis (and it took a lot of self-control to then turn it back off and start doing some work). I stayed home today instead of going to job 2 because of the rain and flooding (trains were severely delayed and driving would be near impossible). I also stayed home because there was a little incident involving my laptop and a glass of water, which means that the laptop is currently out of commission, and needs to be sent off for repairs. So send good vibes that they can recover my files. The Dell repair place is sending a box for me to mail it off and I should hopefully have it fixed by the beginning of May (which, if they get the data back, would mean that I can give my class actual grades, instead of making something up).

But I'm trying to keep hopeful and upbeat about the laptop, and inline with that, let's look at some pretty yarn!



Freud is posing with some lovely yarn from Kevin's parents as congratulations for finding a job and defending my dissertation. There's some Brown Sheep Handpainted, some Debbie Bliss Cathay, and Regia Crazy Colors.



This is the Blue Moon Socks that Rock yarn that I ordered a few weeks ago. On the left is colorway Lucy and on the right is colorway Little Bunny Foo Foo. Both are primarily tan and brown. Lucy has some blue and Little Bunny Foo Foo has some pink. I'm dying to cast on with these and knit some socks, but I need to finish that Strawberry Basket sock first.

But instead I've been making a scarf...



This is another Colinette multidirectional scarf. This took 2 skeins and is just short-row triangles.


Here's a comparison between the 2 Colinette scarves...

I really love both of them. Fortunately, I can give one away as a gift and keep one for myself!

Here it is the first NICE day in a while and I'm sitting in my office staring at a pile of papers that need grading. There is really no rush for grading them, I don't plan on handing them back until Thursday. And they are short papers that I don't need to stress about editing, just a simple read through, comment, and grade. But I don't feel like doing it.

So why am I sitting in my office instead of sitting outside?! Heck, I could even sit outside and stare at the papers there. Oh, that's right, because at Job 2 today, I need to shepherd some papers from one office to another once the secretary has finished copying them. That seems like a good reason to come into work.

But it has been several days of errand running. Yesterday I had to drive to one campus to get a form signed, then drive to another campus to pay for the publication and copyrighting of my dissertation, then walk to another building to turn in the 6,000 forms you need to fill out with your dissertation, and then drive to a farther part of the campus to purchase my academica regalia. Finally, drive to a third campus and teach my class. In purchasing the academica regalia, doctoral students are given two choices:
1) The cheap looking $69 robe.
2) The cheap looking custom made $700 robe.
Which do you think most graduates select? Seriously, after six years of graduate student stipend, I would like to meet the graduate student who has $700 for a robe.

Anywho, I'm bored and rambling and trying to avoid doing work, hoping that the secretary will hurry up with these copies so I can just go home (and play "Cooking Mama" on the Wii).

I started the Lucy STR sock a few days ago. I just turned the heel on the train ride to work. I'll try to get some nice outdoorsy pictures for a post later tonight.

This weekend was beautiful! We spent much of it outdoors walking around the neighborhoods we may be moving to (and sooner than we thought) and sitting in the sun reading. There wasn't much knitting because of the walking and reading, but here's the latest picture of the STR Lucy sock...





When it got too dark to sit outside and read, we went inside and played Wii. I had to capture the greatest bowling score I'll ever achieve...



...which happened to coincide with Kevin's lowest score ever. He normally bowls much, much better, and I normally bowl much, much worse.

More maybe just green because of a poorly functioning camera.

My Rockin' Sock Club package for April arrived today. Here's a horrible picture of the yarn...

The yarn is a merino and silk blend called Silke and the color is Walking on the Wild Tides. It is incredibly soft, so I'm anxious to start knitting with it. The colors aren't necessarily ones that I would have picked off the shelf, but I certainly like them much more than the Monsoon colors.

I finished the first Lucy sock about 30 minutes ago, but I'm not even going to try a picture since the camera seems to be less functional than when I took the Wild Tides picture earlier. I really should cast on for the second sock, but I'm very tempted to just start on the new kit.

Tomorrow is my last class for the semester. While I am very excited, I'm also kind of sad because I really enjoyed this class and my students were fabulous. I've still got at least a month, if not a little more, at job 2. Things are quickly wrapping up as my graduate school career is nearly over. In fact, Kevin and I just found a new apartment and if all goes well we'll be signing the lease on Friday and moving in throughout the month of May. Who knew that Craigs List would be the best apartment finding resource on the internet!

(Sorry for another terrible picture! My camera is just not cooperating these days.)

1. The yarn is very splity which means knitting slower.
2. The p2togs in the lace pattern are annoying (partly because of #1, partly because I hate p2tog).
3. The yarn has a lot of halo and fuzz.
4. I'm knitting the medium on size 1s (instead of the small on size 2s because I didn't read the directions correctly).
5. The toe is waaaaay too pointy for me. I'll have to make the foot a little shorter than normal to force it to stretch out over my toes.

But despite all that, I'm in love with this sock!!