Shall I learn to crochet?

Actually I've been so busy, especially with work (leading up to Christmas) and dealing with busy crowds...selling a lot of Trollbeads in the past two weeks (I swear, I must be the only one selling them to new people)! I've been working nearly every day, actually, and am quite exhausted. (Today, being the day after Christmas, I am especially exhausted). On Christmas Eve, I didnt' sleep well (no, I was not expecting Santa Claus). But I was just so exhausted, not to mention that I had some bizarre dreams that I was yelling at my ex-boyfriend (!) about Very Awful Things that happened. Very weird.

My (current) boyfriend ;) gave me some knitting things: a bag from knitty.com, a t-shirt about not sharing needles and a mug that says, "knitaholic". Cute, huh?

In trollbeads news, I had a bit of excitement: I have a Facebook fan club for Trollbeads, and a couple days ago, a couple of the artists for the beads actually joined the group! How cool is that? And my mom and dad got me a necklace that I've been coveting (trollbeads, of course). I have no beads as of yet--I sold almost everything I love to customers, because, well, profit is not a bad thing to have at all.

In knitting news: scarf swap (I put my camera somewhere and I am too pooped to go find it and its memory card) was cool. I finished the scarf I made for my secret knitting pal, who turned out to be Laura. I used the pattern from Vogue Knitting. My scarf is BEAUTIFUL (the one that was knitted by the incomparable Meg. I will post pictures later (when I figure out where I put my camera...) Thanks to Meg!

And because the scarf swap was so much fun, we're doing an amigurumi swap. Now, I am a knitter, not a crocheter, so this will be interesting. I found a cute knitted pattern that I am dying to try, and I think I may try to crochet something. Maybe this will be the kick in the pants that I need, in order to get a little better at crochet. We'll see how that goes. I may end up knitting two little amigurumi things instead, but I'll try my hand at crocheting something a little simpler to start with. We shall see how this works out.

Whoo-hoo

This week, we discussed factor analysis in statistics. I don't remember a thing from the lecture. Because at this point, it doesn't matter, but maybe in the future, it will, and I will have regretted not paying 100% attention. it's a bit like having senioritis.

And today was my LAST learning and conditioning class. We talked about amnesia, which is something I hope I never have. Today was also my last reading processes class, and it's like having a huge weight lifted off my chest, though I still have to finish up a paper (I am seriously almost done), write an exam, and study my head off and get all this reading done prior to the exam, so that I can at least squeak by with a B or a B- .

I also probably was not very nice to my annoying student on Wednesday. Call it a culumnation of frustration with her, but my irritation has been building over this entire semester. She always asks, "Is this going to be on the exam?"--but she never asks in class--it's always after class and she'll keep me for a long time, and I have been very annoyed with that fact. I was ready to lose it. She didnt' ask me, "Is this going to be on the exam?" but she did ask, "Should I study this?" and I said, "I can't tell you what to study or not to study, because it's not fair for me to tell you and not tell the other 55 students in the class." At this point, I knew I was getting snippy, but I didnt' much care at that point. For those of you who know me, you know I'm not the type to do that. But just all this frustration. Then I think she tried to kiss up to me, cause she was all like, "Well, I know that you must be so smart that you can understand this material so easily, but everyone studies a different way, blah blah", and the thing that went through my head...truth be told...I was one of the few people who didnt' get an A in anatomy and physiology, and I struggled with this very same topic that I teach. Ha! I think I told her something like how she just has to study her notes, get the book (which I recommended to her like 4 times! and she still did not get)!

I hope she is not in my class next semester. If she is, I will have to take a very deep breath. I have to stop writing about her, because it makes me mad all over again. I hope that if she plans to be a speech pathologist, that she doesn't make it into the program, because for someone to pretty much want to be spoon-fed all the answers tells me that maybe this person isn't exactly the type of person who would be able to think on her feet and be quick enough to come up with solutions. Much of what is done is, how do I say...we have to be able to synthesize all the information and be able to connect the dots between the various clinical things and anatomical and theoretical. And I can tell she doesn't get it.

Here's a good example. I gave an entire lecture on the cochlea for THREE DAYS. In my lecture (powerpoints) I had multiple pictures of the cochlea, which depicted the structures (including the basilar membrane, tectorial membrane, etc.) and she didn't understand that all the things I was talking about was all in the cochlea. She kept me literally for 2 hours one day, and at the end...she was like..."OH! So the basilar membrane is in the cochlea!"

Well duh. That's what the entire 3 days was about, and none of my other students had that problem. Or perhaps they took the time to look at the diagrams and photos. I know this is mean, but I don't want this student to do well on her exam.

Now I need to talk about happier topics, so I can go to sleep not feeling annoyed. Then I went to Joanns to pick up some knitting needles--the ones I needed are currently on another project, so I thought I'd just go ahead and get myself another pair. See, what happened is that I started a scarf for my SnB secret pal person, and picked it up...lost some of the stitches and my stitch marker for the beginning of the round fell off. I'm not about to count off hundreds of stitches again, so I am doing something different. I've started it already and I feel like I'm making progress. It's in a lovely shade, and the yarn is so nice and soft. It's definetely a unique pattern, and it's very easy (that is, I can watch TV and knit at the same time. Not that I have loads of time to do so--but tomorrow, I ought to be able to knit for a couple hours before heading off to work!)