Post # 62: Shower Shoes, Raising hands, and Italians

So I've started at UNR, and I managed to find my classes okay, and I'm doing pretty okay. I can't believe how many kids and teachers wear shower shoes on campus! I wore my super-industrial tac-lites on Tuesday and my feet were still killing me. And those are like military grade shoes. I don't understand how their feet haven't just fallen off like those terrifying dolls.  I need to pick up a pedometer so I can see how much I'm walking. Because it's definitely a ton. And I'm definitely not the only one thrilled about the lack of dress code rules. I've seen some... Things.
My classes are okay. They aren't anything spectacular, but they aren't terrible either. Math is, well, math, and my English teacher tried to tell me that police stations aren't places and thus I can't use them in my research paper. I'm pretty positive that Police Stations are places. They occupy space on a geographical plane. You can go there. But, maybe I'm wrong. Criminal Justice is pretty cool, and my Substance Abuse class seems cool. We have to give up something for the semester in order to understand what it's like to give up an addiction, so I chose cracking my knuckles as my "drug of choice".

Because my financial aid was going to be revoked if I didn't take another class, I signed up for a Political Science class. World politics. I have never been so thankful for Mr. Burge's chat's with me about raising my hand. I tried to listen, to varying degrees of success. I wasn't always great at keeping my hand down, But at least I tried to bring something to the conversation (I hope) rather than screaming extremely political veiwpoints whenever someone disagreed with me. The person in my world politics class excels at sharing their tree-hugging extremist views. Today they decided to share their views on our military. That ended the class conversation pretty quickly. And I think they might spontaneously combust before the semesters out. 

I went to see Sultan Bathery last Friday at The Holland Project, and boy was it awesome! The band is an Italian punk band, and it was one of the best concerts I've been to in a while. It was really intimate, because there were maybe 40 people and the Holland Project is pretty small. It was so much fun! The guys signed my CD, and I got a picture with them, and I bought a shirt. It's pretty cool and I wore it on Monday. The whole album is kick ass, but Mirror is definitely one of my favorites.
"It's great to learn, 'cause knowledge is power!" - Schoolhouse Rock
-D.

Post #61: The End's Not Near, It's Here

As summer draws to a close, I look back at the past three months and I ask myself like I do every year, what did I do with my life for the past three months besides watch TV? Honestly, not much. I got my First Responder cert (sort of), I got crafty, and I placed 21st at Nationals. I didn't read nearly as much as I had wanted to, at least not books. I read a bunch of Batman Comics, but the only "books" I read were War, by Sebastian Junger, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, by Seth Grahame-Smith. I made it through two seasons each of The O.C., and  Justice League, and one season each of Fringe and The X-Files. Plus my live TV shows, Dominion, The Night Shift, Gang Related, Endeavour,  and Poirot (but let's be honest, summer seasons are like 10 episodes long, tops. so it's more like one and half seasons of the average TV show). I'm still working through Graceland and Last Ship. I narrowed my Halloween costume options down to two, either Black Canary or Suzy Bishop (from the Justice League and Moonrise Kingdom, respectively.) and I did end up going to the Lake, which was fun. But I'm still left feeling like I wasted my summer. Which is a little ridiculous. I went to Nationals for Pete's sake! And I'm now certified to put pressure on wounds and call 911 (that seriously sums up most of my abilities as a first responder)!
I'm ready to go back to doing things everyday. Too much free time drives me a little crazy. I need something to do besides laugh at the antic that is Wally West and make a squinty face at the questionable decisions of the Cooper Family.
With the advent of fall, also comes cooler weather (hopefully), my birthday, and better television programming. And back to school is my favorite time of year! New crayon smell is the best, and post-it notes and index cards are on sale! My two favorite things! My other favorite thing is lined paper, but I have been banned from buying that as I found nine unopened packs of lined paper plus a bazillion loose sheets, so I'll use those this year.
The title is from a song by The New Years, but I like the Band of Horses version better.

"it's such a waste to always look behind you, you should be looking straight ahead."- JET
-D.

Post #60: Crafty, Crafty Summer

So this summer, I spent a awful lot of time being crafty. For this week's post, I have the highlights of my craftiness.

These gloves are made from the beautiful Hacho yarn (Colorway 323) I received for Christmas last year. I finally found a pattern I felt would do the beautiful yarn justice. The pattern is Autumnal Mitts. You can find it on Ravelry here.

This is a close-up of the quasi-cable pattern.

Those are my fingers and hands modeling the gloves. The nail polish color is Revlon, "1000 Volts" from the Amazing Spider-Man Collection.

I was on a bit of an Octopus kick over the summer, and made a couple of different things featuring my favorite cephalopods.



































This is my school planner for this year. I used Sharpie paint pens. Those things are fabulous!





































I also designed a purse featuring another tentacled friend! This was also made using sharpie paint pens.


I did more knitting this summer, and one of my projects was a tiny 'CARE' hat, inspired by the mistake on one of the EMR tests that I took while getting my certification. The answer was SUPPOSED to say "The best care THAT you can provide" but instead said "The best care HAT you can provide". So I provided one.

It says 'CARE' all the way around.

I also knitted a hat to combat what I think is the worst part of traveling by Airplane. Ugly, gross, nappy hair. I knitted it for my trip to Nationals, and I didn't look too bad, even after spending 6 hours on an airplane.


























I used Brown Sheep Company's "Cotton & Fleece" in 'Pink Diamond'. It was a wonderfully light cotton with just enough merino wool that I stayed warm on the airplane. The pattern is "Scallop Lace Hat". You can find it on Ravelry here.



























This is a close-up of the scallop pattern and a better representation of the color.

Even though it has been too hot to turn on the oven in the shoebox, I have still been working with shrinky dinks.


















It's Catbug from Bravest Warriors! I still need to shrink these, but they're going to be earrings when I'm done.

And because it's back to school time, I made a new notebook.


































It's Christopher Lowell.



































This is the back.


So, those are some of the things I made this summer.

"No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world." - John Keating (Robin Williams), Dead Poets Society
-D.

All Photographs by Novel Productions

Post #59: Disoriented and Burned Out

So I went orientation earlier in the week, and now I'm like 'I don't want to go to school.' I honestly really like school. I love learning and taking notes. But after five campus tours, two hours of sleep in the freezing dorm, and frustrating seminars that made no sense, I was ready to lay under a table and cry. And I'm not a public crier. But during the registration seminar after a night of two hours of sleep and one mug of horrible coffee, I seriously considered hiding under a table and crying. I didn't, but it was definitely an option. Eventually everything got straightened out, I ended up dropping Spanish, and I still have 8am classes, but it sort of worked out. At the registration seminar they kept saying you can only take 15 credits. You can't have more.  Prior to dropping Spanish, I had 18. "Well, you'll have to drop something. You can't have more than 15 credits." the ever-so-pleasant liberal arts college representative practically yelled. "Well, why can't I take more? Is it a financial aid thing?" I asked. "No, it's just that you can't handle more than 15 credits. No one can handle more than 15. That's a full load." Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever lady. I did end up with 15, but I'm looking for another elective class. They kept telling us "You're going to have 3 hours of homework per class every night." and "You can't just show up and expect to do well." and "This is nothing like high school."
You're right. I get to take what classes I want and I don't have to fight the School District. And I'm paying an awful lot of money to be here (or at least the federal government is. Thanks, FAFSA!). But other than that, it seems a lot like high school.
At AACT (go trailblazers!), we got almost the exact same spiel every year. Lots of homework, you can't just show up, this isn't a regular high school. But honestly, with the exception of APUSH, I never came home with more than 30-45 minutes of homework per class, and for most of my classes, I could just show up. I had to participate, but I pretty much just had to be present. So as people keep telling me it's so hard and so time consuming, I can't help but feel a little skeptical.
And to top it off, I had to go to the MANDATORY (it was all in caps on the schedule) "How To Be Part of The Pack". It left me feeling embarrassed and like I'd much rather join the Honey Badgers (but aren't those generally solitary creatures who don't give a shit, you ask? Exactly, I reply). What they called team spirit seemed belligerent and a little mean spirited, and never once did anyone say "we might be rivals in sports, but we are all from the same state, and we're all human beings, so be respectful to the UNLV guys." We got yelled at about how the University of Nevada, Reno is actually The University of Nevada and they don't ever want to hear us say UNR. 'But don't you want to make sure people don't confuse you with your evil arch nemesis UNLV' I thought to myself. Apparently not. UNR was first and UNLV is terrible and blah blah blah. We are from the Same. Flipping. State. And we might be a tier one school, but I don't think we are anywhere near the best school in the west. We are not the pride of the west. And I will wear whatever I want on campus. Maybe not a UNLV shirt, I don't want to get beat up, but I'm going to wear my red converse and my red sweaters and shirts. They tried to tell us we can't wear red on campus, and I think that that's ridiculous. One of the things I am most looking forward to is the lack of silly dress code rules. If I want to wear a hat on campus, I will. UNR can't stop me from wearing my bright red Yukon Jack hat. I"M GONNA STICK IT TO THE MAN! (but respectfully. If someone requests I take it off, and by someone I mean professor, I will).
"If most of us valued food and cheer and song over hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." - J.R.R. Tolkien
-D.