winged orange

I’m going to be so sad when spring break is over. I’m really enjoying having a whole week off, even if today is the first day I haven’t left the house. So far on my spring break, I have:

Visited the Franklin Institute with Scott

This is one of those things we’ve been meaning to do for the five and a half years we’ve been together, and are only just now getting to. Neither of us had been to the Institute in about 10 years, and a lot of stuff had changed. We had a pretty good time, though. :) I even had my very first astronaut ice cream, which was much better than I expected room temperature, freeze-dried ice cream to be.

During our trip, we also learned that New York is better than Philadelphia in terms of public transportation and city layout (and everything, really), did a half-ass toe stand on the light-up Billie Jean floor (see photos), and discovered that I have the most awesome but ultimately useless Spidey Sense ever: I can correctly identify a Michael Jackson song from a block away within one note. No lie. There was an impersonator in a park about a block away, and while we were waiting to cross the street, I heard the very beginning of Smooth Criminal – the part right before the heartbeat – and I was all, “What? Smooth Criminal? Where?!” Scott thought I was hearing things until we got farther down the block and he saw the impersonator. “Honey,” he said, “that is AMAZING. One note.” I win. :D

Went to Fordham to meet my advisor

This was yesterday. Ultimately, it went pretty well. Turns out that my master’s degree isn’t entirely useless – out of the 11 classes I took for my MA, I can count 6 of them towards my doctorate. I may also be able to get a seventh, if I can argue it well enough, because APA just changed the requirements on cognition courses. I really hope I can exempt out of it, because not only would it save me $3,000, it would also save me having to take another cog course. It was such a bitch when I took it at Columbia. :P

Anyway. Six courses is a semester and a half, seven is almost a full year. That will save me between $18,000 and $21,000, which is FANTASTIC. I also learned that even though you have to register for some thing, like doctoral residency, thrice (I said it), you only pay for it once, and it’s only a $1,000 fee as opposed to a $3,000 fee. Also, the first three years are heavy coursework, and the last two are practica and internship, which means that those two years are lighter years financially. This is all good news. I sent in my deposit today, with the thought that if I can’t find a job to support myself before the semester starts, that I’ll either withdraw or try to defer my admission.

So in short, #DrWingedOrangePhD is a tentative go. :D (Guys, when I graduate, can I get a sign for my office with that hashtag on it? Please?)

Did no knitting, but lots of spinning

It was 90 degrees most of this week. For some reason, I decided this was the perfect time to play with all my nice, warm wool. I know. It doesn’t make sense to me either, but there you have it. The first thing I wanted to do was finish spinning this fiber I’d had on a bobbin for the last year. The way I screwed up the first half of it was such a disappointment that I couldn’t even touch the second half for the longest time. I wanted my bobbin back, so I just sucked it up and spun it. I’m not even sure how to categorize the final product.

It looks fine in the picture, I know, but see how many skeins there are? That’s a problem. I got that first good-sized skein done and was apparently at 240 yards before the yarn snapped. I was annoyed, but I just skeined up what I had and started over. After another 82 years, the yarn broke again. Nuts. Skein, restart. Then after another 50 yards, I had another snap. By that point, I was yelling, “OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” every two minutes. I got one more 100-yard skein done before I had to stop. You should see what I had to throw out. Probably 50 yards, at least, of little 10-yard pieces that would snap off randomly between the smaller skeins.

I can’t bring myself to wash it. I’m convinced it’s going to disintegrate. The part that gets me is that all told, there’s enough for me to make either of the shawls I want to make. I just don’t know if I trust it. Spinning friends – thoughts? Should I try to use it? Should I treat it like The One Ring and try to burn it, because clearly this stuff is cursed?

In the meantime, I picked up something new so I wouldn’t hate spinning forever and ever because of the Yarn of DOOM. This is cormo/bamboo I got at MD Sheep & Wool last year. It has sparklies in it, which means that everything else in my little world will contain yellow sparklies for about two months after I finish the yarn. :)

Tags: grad school, Photos, scott, Spinning, trips   Posted Academics, Geek, General, Photos, Spinning |