I worked a bit more on the Hiawatha shawl last night - I have now turned the third corner (which will be the last "real" turn - the fourth corner is grafted to the start).

I'm back interested in working on it again. As I said, the long sides are a bit easier (less tight; I should not have bound off so tightly on that second short side!) to knit the edging on to.

And I noticed something as I worked on it - and this is something odd about me. I had a feeling of relief, of "I'm finally getting this done!" I don't know why I impose "deadlines" on myself and poke at myself ("Hey, you've been working on this since September 2004! You should be done now!") but I do. And so, when I work on any long-term project, I feel a certain relief - it's like clearing something out.

So I think I'm going to make a concerted effort to finish this, and finish Bloom, and finish the Samus cardigan (which still exists only as the bottom band which is not-quite-knit).

I have a big rubbermaid tub that I was tossing half-finished projects into (long story but: I was having to have workmen over, it might have been at a time when I would have had to ask a friend to come and watch my house, I didn't want her to see the depths of my craziness, having eight different knitting projects going). The problem is, when I bung something into a container, I am very good at forgetting about it. And so, I kind of forgot Bloom and Samus and even Hiawatha. Until the most recent house-clean, when I started digging through the tub.

(And I also found the Regia Bamboo sockyarn I bought last fall, and some of the Berroco Keltic I bought for gloves. And I found the "Spring in Door County" socks, which I should rip back and restart at a slightly bigger gauge).

I don't know why I'm good at forgetting things like that but I am. It's one reason why I do not like to accept late work from students - and I try to articulate this to them - I will put the work in a pile because I can usually get to a whole mess of labs at once and grade them, but just one, I have to find time for, and sometimes that time isn't immediately forthcoming - and the old "out of sight, out of mind" comes into play. If it's really critical, I will write myself a list of things I need to do, but it's really easy for me to put projects or tasks out of my mind if I'm focusing on one.

And that can be a problem sometimes. I've missed meetings because I was deep in research and forgot I had to go to the meeting. Usually people are very nice about it and all, but it gets to me when I realize I've forgot something.

*****

Last night was a late night. It was the first week of the Conversational German class I signed up for here on campus (7-9 pm Mondays for six weeks. Not sure how much I'll learn in six weeks but at least it will be a start).

I knew I was in the right place when I walked into the building and heard German drinking songs playing loudly on a CD player. Hahahahaha. Our teacher is American of German descent but she is married to a German and lived in Bavaria for a dozen or so years, working with the Army and Air Force, teaching the new arrivals to speak basic German.

She is teaching a little German culture and customs along with the language. I know a little bit about Fastnacht now, and why you don't want to buy a car built the few days after Fastnacht (because, she says, a lot of the workers are hungover). And I know that supposedly it's bad form to cross arms when you're going to shake someone's hand.

I know a little bit already:

Ich heisse Frau Corbett (and the instructor tells us that professional women, married or not, now refer to themselves as "Frau" - kind of like Ms. I wanted to ask her the correct order for Doktor in there - I vaguely remember my mom telling me it meant different things if Doktor was before Frau and if it was after - that in one case it was the Frau herself who was the Doktor, and in the other case it was her husband...but I didn't want to slow the class down or look like I was going "Look at me! I'm Doktor!")

(Karin, if any of this is wrong, please correct me. I'm just going by what Frau T. says).

I know a few names of places:

das Rathaus (the city-hall)
das Denkmal (the monument)
die Schloss (the palace)
das Postamt (post-office)

I know already the feminine-masculine-neuter thing is going to screw me up. I'm not even sure I have the gender on those things correct. (I may start subbing French genders. I suspect I will. In French, "house" (maison) is feminine; in German, it is neuter.

I realize this is a very Anglophone-centric thing but I'm not sure I get the rhyme or reason of gendering inanimate things. Especially since it seems to differ between different languages. I am sure there is a linguistic reason that makes sense given the history of the language, but when it's 8:30 pm and I'm trying to wrap my mind around the concept of "Wo ist die/das/der..." I'm not so inclined to be excited by the fact that there are different genders for things.

Oh. I do know one thing that would be important to me if I ever went to Germany:

Wo ist das Kaufhaus?.

(hahahaha. "Where's the department store?" Well, at least in the absence of having the words for Yarn Shop or Bookstore, that would probably be a pretty important thing to me. She also taught us the finger-system for ordering beers - that you hold up your thumb if you want "eine Biere." )

You know? Even though it makes for a late night on Mondays, it feels REALLY GOOD to be using my brain in a different way than I normally am using it and trying to learn something new and different. I can feel my brain stretching and new neurons connecting to each other, and that's a good thing.

Even though this is just a basic 6-week course, aimed at getting us to the point where we could kinda-sorta navigate if we went to Germany without a translator, I think I might invest in a cd or dvd based REAL course in German; one where I learn some of the grammar and syntax rather than just common phrases. I think it would be good for my brain. (I like the idea of a CD based one; I could listen to it and learn while I work out.)

I think German, while less practical given where I live than Latin American Spanish would be, will be more fun. It's different enough from French that I'm going to have to think kind of hard about it.