It's time for a Grand Day Out.

For one thing, it's going to be quite beautiful (if a bit hot) today, and after the rainy spring it will be nice to be out in the sun.

And I need a batting - preferably cotton - for the someday-to-be-hand-quilted Zen Clouds quilt. (My mom, when I described my idea to her, responded that (a) she could see no reason why it would not work and (b) there are no Quilt Police to enforce doing things the 'expected' way. So I think I'm going to give it a try.)

And I want to look for a shadowbox or perhaps some kind of bigger box to hang on the wall - either to hold my Re-Ment collection, or, if I can find something "just right," to be a permanent home for Wilbur.

And I just really want a nice day out at McKinney before the busy-ness of Summer Semester starts. I have one manuscript written (well, as far as I could get it written; I'm waiting on a couple of Inter Library Loan articles to see if they contain any further information I need to include) last week; next week I am doing the second soil-critter sampling (and that work my slop over onto next Saturday as well).

So this is the best day to do this.

Speaking of Wilbur (and of Re-Ment), he wants to know how you like your steaks cooked?


Hahahaha. I've been wanting to take a picture like that since I first got the little bbq grill. He SHOULD have a little apron that says "Kiss the Cook" or something similar on it, but I just haven't had time to make one for him.

(It's a little hard to see but there's a tiny ear of corn, and a shiskebab, and a steak. And he's holding a tiny pair of tongs. And next to him (from a different set) is a bucket of "ice" with pineapple and orange drinks in it. The detail on these things is really incredible.)

Another thing I completed over break were the Weasley Homestead socks:



This is an easy pattern but it works up nicely. I think I'm going to do a second version of it some time, in sort of a "semi-solid" yarn (I have some of the "kettle dyed" KnitPicks sock yarn that would probably look good done in this pattern).

It's a broken rib pattern - six rows of the ribbing done one way, then six rows of it done the other way.

Here's a close up that shows the texture maybe a little better:



I like simple patterns like this. First, because I'm not two years making the socks (like some of the twisted-stitch pattern socks I have done in the past). And second, there just is something pleasing about something that's simple but not TOTALLY plain and boring (hence my trying out different ribbed patterns on self-striping socks, rather than just knitting them all plain).

The colors in the yarn for these socks almost make me think of tennis courts now as much as they make me think of chalkboards...that particular green seems to be a common color (or at least it was the green of the tennis courts at the place where I went to Day Camp years and years and years ago when I was a kid).

Sometimes, while I'm reading journal articles, one part of my mind is clicking away on other stuff. And I came up with a possibly-crazy but also possibly kind-of-cool idea.

Remember the sea glass quilt I made a while back? I never took it to the quilter (well, I haven't been down that way in quite a while, what with being busy.)

I saw the top the other day and thought, "You know, I'd like to hand quilt that one. I'd like something fun and small to do after I finish the quilt in the frame" (which is getting close; I think I have three of the big blocks left to do after the one I'm working on now, and then the border). And I thought how I'd like to do a "swirly" or "organic" type design, rather than the more rectilineal quilting I ordinarily do.

And then this afternoon, it popped into my mind - the backing fabric is that Zen cloud fabric (it's that swirly print in the second photo). Couldn't I quilt the quilt from the backside, using the zen clouds as my quilting guide? So then I'd get the swirly patterns AND I wouldn't have to mark.

Not sure if I can make the reverse of my quilting look good enough to be the "public" side. I will have to look at the quilts I've already done do evaluate how good the quilting looks on the back.

An alternate idea that I also like would be to just quilt motifs in each block - follow the swirly clouds in the blocks that have them, outline the big crystanthemum-type flowers in others, figure something out for the blocks where I'd be quilting around every darn 1/2" wide circle for those that have those...maybe do some sashiko like designs in those.

I don't know. Maybe quilting the Zen clouds on the back is a better idea. I'll have to think about it more.

I did make a couple of toys over break, both from the Hansi Singh book.

Today, it's Nessie:



Of all the Hansigurumi toys I've seen, I think this is my favorite. I've always liked the IDEA of Nessie (whether or not she may actually exist). Years ago, in a grade-school class, doing a segment on myths, we were asked to make a model of a mythological creature and I made a little stuffed toy of Nessie (I don't know what became of it; I don't have it any more).

The patterns for these toys are pretty complex - you go line-by-line and there is a LOT of short-row shaping to make the body curved. (There's also almost no seaming - you knit the underbelly by picking up stitches on one side, and then Kitchener stitching them to stitches you pick up on the other side. I'm not sure but I'd almost rather do seaming, though it might look less neat. I had to run out and buy a short size 5 needle because it was too tricky to pick up all the stitches on doublepoints). And you pick up stitches on the finished body to knit the flippers and then the little horn/ear things.



I used some Elann worsted-weight wool I had hanging around. I don't remember what I originally bought the green for (the brown, of which I only used a tiny bit, was for a scarf that may or may not be made some day). I used beads for the eyes rather than embroidering them; I think I prefer the more "inquisitive" look that the beads give.

This is the kind of toy I would have loved as a child - for one thing, as I said, I've always liked the IDEA of Nessie. Also, I liked the idea of small versions of giant things (I probably also would have liked the whale amigurumi I made). And this Nessie, scale-wise, would have been the right size to play with along with the many little plastic farm and jungle animals I had - of course Nessie would have been MUCH bigger, but the "real" Nessie would be bigger than, say, a "real" cow in the same proportion as this Nessie is bigger than one of the toy cows.

Interesting link for those interested in Victoriana/Edwardiana: St. Nicholas Magazine online. St. Nicholas was a magazine for children, designed to carry good quality literary stories, to be generally "improving" and of high quality. Although the stories carried moral lessons, and the idea of "behaving well" (particularly being honest and polite), they were not the heavy-handed moralizing common in some Victorian (and pre-Victorian) children's books, where "ungodly" children got eaten by wild animals or particularly godly children died beatific deaths and were carried off by angels...(I would have found that second sort of story particularly scary as a child).

(I wonder if there is some link between the mindset of making a "children's literary magazine" with good-quality stories and basic information on science and current events and the idea of Everyman's Library,, which I've written about before? They are of roughly the same era...I wonder if there was a general trend for autodidacticism in early 20th century America, if it was "cool" to be studious then?)

I haven't time at the moment to check out the full site (I found it in the course of researching something else) but it looks interesting. (There is, as there often has to be from things of that era, a disclaimer: people of African American heritage were NOT treated well in many of the stories. So much so that apparently the NAACP at the time put out a competing magazine designed to be free of that sort of prejudice. Ah well. That mars St. Nicholas a bit, just another link in the long chain of people being unable to love their neighbors as themselves)

And I wonder if perhaps pockets of that kind of attitude persist, or have been revived today - St. Nicholas, from what I've read on the website, sounds almost a bit in the same vein as "The Dangerous Book for Boys" and its companion "The Daring Book for Girls" (which I have a copy of; looking at it makes me wish fervently it had been around when I was 10 or so).

Thirteen pounds of sheet music.

My uncle had called me a while back - he had a client (he's a stockbroker) who gave him a bunch of sheet music (from a family estate, I think?). He had offered it to his son, who is in the process of training to be an opera singer, but he didn't want it (not his style, plus, he's at that peripatetic stage of education where having a lot of stuff is not a good idea). So he asked me if I wanted it. I said sure, being a sucker for that kind of thing.

He sent it while was gone - but I had a neighbor pick up the UPS box from my porch. I got it from her yesterday.

It's an interesting mix of stuff, mostly from the 1930s, I'm guessing. A lot of it is the sort of sentimental "drawing room" pieces - reprints of the kind of stuff a young woman in the 1800s might have learned as part of her arsenal for snagging a husband. (I presume after marriage and children she would not have so much time for playing music). I like that kind of music - and though I can't play any of it yet, maybe someday I can.

There's also a lot of...I guess you'd say, Catholic-themed music? Several songs about the rosary, one called something like the Knights of Columbus March, it's sort of an interesting window into what the long-ago person chose. (There are also a few "Irish" pieces, though the name written on a number of the music books is "Engelbreit" - I assume the Engelbreit was the owner of them, and that's a German name)

There are also a number of pop songs. They range from 1910 (the earliest copyright I noticed) until the early 60s (there is a song from the movie "A Patch of Blue").

It's an interesting mixture. The things I pulled out and set aside (in the "I might want to learn to play this sometime" pile as opposed to the "I will need to find somewhere to store this" pile) include a slightly-simplified arrangement of Clair de Lune (slightly simplified, but still beyond my expertise), a copy of "O Sweet Mystery of Life" (kept mainly for comic effect; thinking of the last scene of "Young Frankenstein"), a couple Sousa marches, Daisy Bell, "Believe me if all those endearing young charms" (an old edition of that; it has no copyright date but it looks fairly old), "Let me call you sweetheart" (which I love and would love to be able to play; I can pick out the melody line but the harmonization is still a bit more complex.)

There's also a piece called "Oh, Johnny, Oh" which I know better from an old Tex Avery cartoon. (it starts at about 3:30 in that YouTube clip. And they've slightly rewritten it to apply to the wolf in the cartoon - rather than the eponymous Johnny).

(It's funny, actually, a lot of the older songs I know from "classic" cartoons. Picking out the melody of "All those endearing young charms" reminded me of a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Yosemite Sam had set the piano with dynamite under one of the keys that you play in the song...and that Bugs kept "intentionally" making a mistake and missing that key - in fact, it's a mistake that's very easy to make when you're trying to play the song, I made it myself)

I really hope I do develop enough skill to play some of these things someday. Right now I look at them and despair a little - could anyone actually play that? Obviously they must have been able to. Even a few pieces marked as "grade school level" or "simplified for young players" are still beyond what I can do.

"They" say you need 10,000 hours of practice at something before you become an expert at it. I hope it doesn't take that full amount to become at least marginally proficient, because 10,000 hours, at one hour a day (about the most I can manage), is just over 27 years and 3 months. And you know, that's kind of discouraging to think about.

Okay, so I got interested in searching. I think actually it's GOULDER not GOULDEN (I can't always read the old copperplate).

There are no Charles GOULDEN listed for Cleveland. But there wass a Charles Goulder in 1900 Cleveland.

He was in real estate. Of course, "my" Charles could just as well have been his son and been a student. Or perhaps the real-estate-Charles had made enough money in his career to indulge an interest in buying books.

And this may have been a commercial building he owned. (It looks sad now; it seems that part of Cleveland has gone downhill. It's what used to be called Superior Avenue. Poor old Charles; I'm sure he'd hate to see what had become of the building he had an addition made to in 1911. If it is even the Charles Goulder who owned the books I now own)

I'll never know. But it's interesting to speculate.

And, the internet being what it is? If you know someone - or are someone - who was related to Mr. Goulder, and know something about him, I'd LOVE to know it. All I know is that he either lived in (or perhaps went to school in) Cleveland, Ohio in 1891 and 92, and he bought at least a few Shakespeare plays. (I wonder if there was originally an entire set, and I just got the ones that were left. Oh, to be able to reassemble the hypothetical complete set! Yes, I do tend to have somewhat quixotic dreams)

The first thing I finished over break were the simple socks using the "Harald the Proud" Opal sock yarn.

I'm glad I made the effort to make them match; I think with a busy and asymmetrical striping pattern they would have looked kind of a mess otherwise.



They're just simple socks - a 7 by 1 rib, with a slipped stitch heel flap and the basic toe decreases. I did continue the ribbing all the way down the toe which is a little different.

I also am going to go ahead and reveal the "mystery" of the thing I found that will help me fulfill a goal:



Remember how I said back in January that my New Year's Resolution was going to be to read more Shakespeare? I never started that - in part, because a check of the plays available on dvd at my university library revealed few (most are on VHS - and while I still have a player, it's integral to my old television, and both are packed away, which would require more effort and set up to watch videotapes). And then I got busy with learning the piano. But after I found these, I decided to revisit that resolution.

While I was up visiting my parents, I was helping my brother search for a rock tumbler that he knew he had, and I ran across these (both were in the garage*)

I bought these years ago - I think I bought them at a used-book sale my high school (which had been open since the late 1820s) had when they cleared out both some of their library storage, and also books people had donated.

All of the books are over 100 years old, which pleases me. (Mostly from the 1890s). The Shakespeare plays may not necessarily be the ones I'd choose to read - this partial set is weak on comedies, and there's no Hamlet or Richard III or Henry V (all plays I want to read, eventually). But used editions of Shakespeare are probably pretty widely available, and I bet a quick check of the used book stores either in Denison or McKinney (I plan to go this weekend) will turn up copies of what I want - perhaps even in that very same series (this one is published by "Harper and Brothers Publishers, Franklin Square" and edited by William J. Rolfe, Litt. D.) Or, failing that, perhaps Powell's or Alibris will have what I want. (I admit I like the idea of all the books being of the same series, even if my copy of Julius Caesar is a slightly different edition, and I find a copy of Antony and Cleopatra on my shelves here that is from a different publisher)

The other two books in the stack are one of three epic poems (Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which I read back in high school, and then Sohrab and Rustum, which is apparently Matthew Arnold's take on an ancient Persian story, and Enoch Arden, which is (I think) a tale of three young people growing up impoverished in Scotland) and a book called "Sonnets of This Century" which is, of course, the 19th. (it was published some time between 1882 and 1888; there is a poem in it referring to an event in 1882, but they list Matthew Arnold as still living and he died in 1888)

The books themselves probably have little "collector value" as the spines and edges are a bit worn, but they're still good reading copies. And I mainly value books for what they contain rather than what they are as objects (though I do like a nicely produced book with nice illustrations - and these have some interesting engravings showing the settings of different plays, or in a couple cases, scenes from plays "after" some particular production of them).

But there's another reason I like these older books - the sense that they belonged to someone before me; the reminder that they've been around longer than I have



I have no idea who Charles Goulden was. His name is in most of the Shakespeare books in the stack, so they came either from his own collection (or, considering that I bought them in the mid 1980s, the collection of one of his heirs). Obviously he lived in Cleveland (not far from where I grew up) and he meticulously noted when each book was purchased (I assume; maybe it was when he had finished reading each one). This one was purchased (or completed) February 18 of 1892. And I kind of love that. And I kind of love that he just used a slash for the "18" of "1892" - not thinking, as most of us did not in 1992, that there was a new century just around the corner.

I don't generally write in books myself. In ones I loan out (an increasingly rare practice these days after losing a few to people I thought I could trust to return them), I will sign my name on the flyleaf or one of the first blank pages. And once in a while I may underline or draw an asterisk next to an important point (but always in pencil). And I admit annoyance when I buy a used book (usually a more recent used book, and usually one that turned out to belong to a student) and find it all underlined or highlighted inside, or snarky comments written, because then I feel like the previous owner is hanging over my shoulder, imposing his or her opinions on my reading of the book. But I do kind of like the idea of finding the name of someone long-gone in the used books I buy. I never will know who Charles Goulden was, but I can kind of imagine him shyly nodding at me or smiling across the more-than-a-century.

(Who was he? Was he a student? A teacher? Just someone who wanted to learn Shakespeare? I'm tempted to Google his name and see if I can find it, but I suspect there were enough Charles Gouldens out there - and unless he did something famous (or infamous, and it would make me sort of sad to find out that the previous owner of my little books was a famous swindler or something) or is on one of the genealogy sites, that I wouldn't find anything to help me, and it might be impossible to figure out which of the Charles Gouldens he was.)

(*I know the garage is not the best place to store books, but there wasn't room yet in the main house, and the attic gets too hot in the summer, and the basement is too damp. And both the attic and basement are more prone to have mice)

Thanks to Hulu (which I was aware of but had never really used*), I have now seen the season finale of House.

Two thoughts:

1. I stand by my observation that the show's final finale will probably be a child holding a snowglobe with Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital in it. (How are they going to work through what happened here? I don't see House keeping his license...)

2. "As Tears Go By" may have worked for the very ending with Wilson and House, but by golly, what an inappropriate song to play over clips of Chase and Cameron's wedding. (it may not be on any of the several lists of inappropriate wedding songs out there, but still, it seems rather too mournful for what should be a joyous occasion. (And I also observe that, as much as I like the Canon in D by Pachelbel, it's also a bit too somber for weddings in my opinion.)

(No, I don't know what songs I would have played were something somewhat less likely than an asteroid hitting the Grand Canyon happen (my planning a wedding for myself). I would think some of the bouncier bits of Mozart or perhaps that fluty bit from one of the Brandenburg Concerti would work, though I might go in another direction and try to script upbeat swing jazz pieces instead. But, as I said, somewhat less likely than an asteroid hitting the Grand Canyon and therefore something I don't need to be concerned about.)

(*My brother and sister-in-law were talking about the wonders of Hulu when they came by to visit while I was up at my parents (they must have a faster connection than I do; it took a long time to download the House episode). My brother has been going through the 80s shows he watched as a kid - The Fall Guy, the A Team, and others. I'd probably use the service more if the chair in front of my home computer was more comfortable...but then again, maybe it's good that it isn't, because I could see a person wasting an awful lot of time watching stuff. As much as I enjoyed the A Team in its first run, I probably DON'T need to see any of the episodes again...)

I'm back.

I never do much over my breaks, but that's how I like it. My "normal" daily life is so regimented - from getting up at 5 to get in the hour of exercise, attempting to be at my desk by 7, the daily round of classes and office hours and meetings, and now the making an hour (if I can) to practice piano, that it's kind of welcome to have a large chunk of unstructured time to do "nothing."

I did wind up helping my mom dig up and turn over the soil in her garden so she could plant the cucumbers and tomatoes she had started. And I replaced a bad coax cable to the television she uses in the kitchen. And I replaced the ballcock assembly in the toilet in my parents' bedroom. My dad's knees no longer permit the kind of crawling around on the floor these jobs require, and my mom isn't very handy. (Well, I think she COULD be if she had to; it's just that she hasn't had to do that kind of stuff, well, ever, and I have, so it was easier for me to turn off the water to the tank, take the old thing out, hand it to her, and say, if you go to the hardware store and tell them you need a new one of these, they'll find it for you and then I'll put it in). Oh, I also mowed their lawn, which is about eight times the size of mine. And they have one of those huge, heavy gas powered mowers, which is actually a lot more work than the little reel type mower I use.

Part of the reason for the burst of fixing activity was finding, to my dismay, that my weight had not budged a single ounce when I had my annual checkup. I really thought I had maybe dropped SOME, seeing as I'm able to wear slacks I couldn't comfortably zip up this time last year, and seeing as some people who see me only occasionally told me I looked smaller. Oh well. Maybe I gained muscle and lost fat, which I should accept as a fair trade, but I can't quite, seeing as how we get so hung up on NUMBERS...the size dress a woman wears, her age, her weight.

So I had to convince myself that I really was still sufficiently agile and capable and wasn't turning into a female form of Jabba the Hut. (On the upside, my blood pressure was even lower than it was last year. Not that it's ever been a problem, but it's reassuring to know that those other numbers are still OK even if the weight technically isn't.) And I think the fact that I was able to spade up a roughly 20 foot by 6 foot area of garden in about an hour without being winded or even sore the next day says SOMETHING.

Other than that...my parents' deck (or rather, the underneath of it) was at least briefly host to a mother groundhog and her five babies. (We didn't see them the last several days I was up there; I wonder if maybe she moved them like cats do with their kittens). My mom doesn't like groundhogs (they eat her garden and even knocked down a wire fence last year to get at her peas) but even she admitted that the baby hogs were pretty cute.

I received a second "Please please please can I have a D instead of an F [that I earned]" e-mail while I was gone. This one was more explicit; apparently the student in question is going to be off a sports team without the D.

I haven't responded to the e-mail yet. (the answer, of course, is NO. I'm a little TOO nice to add, "Maybe if you had talked to me about your grade concerns back in March when you could still work to bring up your grade...). But that's what irks me - people (more this year than previous years) e-mail me or stop by my office asking for a grade raise on the last stinking day of the semester. No, scratch that. AFTER the last stinking day of the semester. But do I see them in my 10 hours of office hours DURING the semester? Almost never. (There are probably some dots I could connect here with the current credit-card mess and people having spent themselves into giant holes, but it would make me too sour were I to connect them.)

I'm just glad that (apparently) the stream of begging e-mails have stopped. (Almost time for summer semester to start!)

I do have two weeks off remaining. During that time, I want to get a journal article manuscript I have mostly written finished and out, polish up another one that's essentially done, and inquire about two others that are somewhere in the review process. (I hate bugging editors, but I also hate going more than a year without hearing anything).

Oh, pictures will come starting tomorrow. I finished two pairs of socks, plus a couple other amusing little things.

And I found something that will help me do something I'd been wanting to do for a while, but just hadn't gotten around to starting.

I can't quite believe this semester is done. That I have a week-long break starting today, and then two weeks when I get back to work on stuff, before the summer session begins.

(And summer session is GENERALLY more free of the special snowflake sorts)

I'm almost completely packed - I have to throw my makeup/toothbrush/otherstuff case* in my carry-on, and bag up the socks I was working on last night, and put the shoes I'm taking in the suitcase.

(*Remember, I HATE the word "toiletries," so I won't call it a "toiletries case" and the alternative, "Dopp kit" sounds a little too much Johnny-goes-off-to-WWII for me)

But this afternoon I'm on my way. Wow, do I ever need a break.

****

I didn't get all that far on the Weasley Homestead socks but here's an in-progress shot:



I like how the colors are sort of striping. I hope they continue to do that. I'm not so fond of the multicolor yarns where you're knitting along and suddenly realize you have an inch-wide blotch of a single color that is not really obvious anywhere else. I love variegated yarns but they frequently break my heart.

I'm also taking the in-progress "simple socks" (the pink and yellow ones), and a couple of skeins of un-started sock yarn. Oh, and the Hansigurumi book and yarn for earthworms and Nessie. I decided not to drag along the sweater, it's kind of big right now, and I'm only going to be up there a week - so better to work on smaller projects.

***

I'll be back the end of this month.

oh, my gosh, I am done.

Everything is graded. All the exams are over with. All that remains is to deal with people who think they got a raw deal (when in fact, with two classes at least, I was probably more generous than I should be - "spotting" a few points to make up for difficult questions on the final in one place, not subtracting as much for skipping class as I should in the other. I will admit one bit of the rejiggering was to grant someone not-entirely-deserving a marginally passing grade, just so I don't have to see their unhappy face in my classroom for a third time. And no, I don't feel bad at all about doing that in this case.)

I made it through without either crying or getting too angry (I was rather short with someone who showed up as I was mid-grade on an exam, demanding I explain why he didn't earn an A. I told him I had no time at all to explain why, he could come in after break and look at his exam. Because I'm sorry, but I've explained all the meetings I have today, that I have to be leaving town tomorrow, and that I have NO time.)

I will say on the other side of things, several people I was pulling hard for earned As - WITHOUT any rejiggering on my part. So that's good.

***

And the flood warnings along the Amtrak route are receding. So no bus, it looks like.

***

And yes, Charlotte - a shadowbox would work just right for the Re-Ment stuff. Even better if I could find one with glass doors to keep them safe. I'll have to look around when I go antiquing this summer. (I have two weeks after I get back before classes start; I think I'm going to take at least 1 day to go out and have some fun).

For Wilbur, I want something a big bigger and deeper. I do have a small "box style" wall-hung bookshelf but right now it's full of books so I don't think I'm going to empty it out for that. Perhaps I can find a similar one somewhere. (This one came from one set of grandparents; apparently it has some sort of a history behind it I don't remember right now, but it's potentially valuable because of where it was made or who made it, something like that).

One of the things that is making me happy right now is my little Re-Ment collection.

Re-Ment, for those unfamiliar, is a Japanese line of incredibly detailed miniature items - mostly food, but I also have a couple of the little sets with pandas.

But I've decided what I really love the most are the little collections of dishes and of food.



(This is stuff from a couple of the sets - the "Euro style" tea set, the "Lovely Danish" set, and one piece from a crystal-ware set).

They are so very cute. And so detailed.

I've loved miniatures since I was a child - periodically I forget about how happy they make me but then something comes into my life to remind me of it.

I'm addicted to these little Re-Ment things. (They can be mail-ordered, from Superbuzzy, among other places. I guess also some doll shops have them, and probably some of the Japanese stores that are found in some larger US cities).

Part of the fun is that when you get just one or two, it's what's called a "blind box" - it can be any of eight or ten different sets and you don't know. So there's the little surprise there. (Not unlike the surprise of the vending machine that has served as this week's story line in Nemu Nemu.)

But a bigger part of it, for me, is just having the little pieces - having them to look at, and to arrange, and to marvel over something so small. I think I am going to invest in some kind of little wall shelf to display these (and NOT hang it over a heating vent. I dropped one of the little cups the other day and it took forever to find it - and I was at first worried it had fallen down the heat vent).

I had a number of dollhouses when I was a child. There were a couple of commercial ones - a very simple one with boxlike rooms when I was very small, a more realistic one with 'real' windows and a set of stairs in it when I got older. I delighted in getting furniture for the houses and especially in getting or making tiny accessories. My houses had miniature books, and "paintings" made by cutting pictures out of catalogs or magazines (the "Smithsonian" catalog or other art-museum catalogs were the best for this). I made food out of oven-hardening clay, and carefully filled in the holes in the right-sized buttons with melted crayon in a matching color to make dishes. And woe unto either of my parents if they threw away things like toothpaste caps or film canisters without asking me if I wanted it first.

There were a bunch of books that the local library had on dollhouses and miniatures - some aimed at children and more "make it and play" in attitude, others aimed at adults interested in verisimilitude. I was somewhere between the two - I lacked the equipment to do things the really RIGHT way (what I wouldn't have given for a small-sized miter box and saw, and one of those little pin-vise drills, so I could have made "really real" wood furniture) but I was also bugged by things that were too obviously "fake."

(I did have different types of houses - I had one big complex one in which an Edwardian-era family dwelt, and part of the fun of that was researching what was appropriate - would they have had phones yet? What types of upholstery would have been used? What style of paintings would have hung on the walls?

I also had a house for Guinevere, one of my toy mice. Because she was a humanized mouse - and therefore, presumably living in a way similar to how Jerry Mouse lived in the walls of the house*, I figured it was OK for the labels on the tiny matchboxes to show - the tiny matchboxes that made her dresser, with "real" drawers that actually pulled out, that you could store things in. And she had pop-bottle-cap pie tins (those old, crimped-edge pop bottle caps).)

I loved being able to make stuff - although I was never one of those kids for whom the line between fantasy and reality was blurred, I still enjoyed pretending that I was "taking care of" the doll house residents - that they had what they needed, courtesy of me. All the beds had proper (stuffed) mattresses on them, and pillows, and even sheets sewn from old handkerchiefs. There were tiny books in the rooms so they wouldn't get bored, and little checkers games made from bits of cardstock with black and red beads for the checkers. I learned from a craft newsletter my mom used to get how to make houseplants using the fine florist's wire along with masking tape colored different shades of green using crayons.

(*Those cartoons, along with the ones about Sniffles the Mouse - a Warner Brothers character - were some of my favorites, I always used to watch them closely, mainly looking at the backgrounds for the fun of, "oh, that chair is made out of an empty spool and an old side-comb" or "he uses a man's pipe as a fireplace!")

Part of it was that I loved the tininess - the contrast between the things I made and the real, "big" things. (The more realistic the miniature, the greater the pleasure. I cherished the relatively few miniatures-shop accessories I had that were more realistic than what I could make).

I also think that perhaps there was another reason I loved the miniatures - the idea of a small, self-contained world, where everything the family (or mouse) living in the house needed was there - I could look over the rooms and see it all in place, see it all "right," and know that if the dolls were really-real (and the stuff in the house was really-real), they would have everything they needed - enough food, books to read, clothing, winter coats hanging up in the hall, sheets on the bed, even towels in the bathroom. And somehow, that pleased me. Perhaps part of it was being able to imagine those small, self-contained lives (if they actually existed; as I said, I was a pretty logical child and once I was past the age of reason, really couldn't fall deep into fantasy the way some of my friends apparently could) separate from my own, yet in a way, dependent upon me.

I don't know if it was an early manifestation of my control-freak tendencies (and yes, I am a control freak. I admit it and I do my best to squelch the impulse to request more control over situations than I have, or to "mother hen" people), but somehow it was deeply satisfying to me to imagine that dollhouse, sitting there in my room, with everything that was needed in it. I do remember at times sitting in front of the dollhouse and imagining what it would be like to be that size, to be able to walk in through the (really hinged) front door, close it behind me, and have an entire house to myself - a still, quiet house, where there were no other people. (No squalling little brother, in particular). That may have been part of my love of the dollhouse - the idea of it being a place that was all mine, that I had control over, and that, if I imagined hard enough, I could be in that world.

One of my favorite library books when I was a kid was a big book the local library had about Colleen Moore's dollhouse. This was an enormous, elaborate, richly-made castle-dollhouse, made for silent film star Colleen Moore. No expense had been spared, and in the book the photographs were beautiful. (I particularly adored the princess' bedroom, with her gilded bed and the pearl-like tiles on the floor that glowed in the light coming in the window).

(OH! You can see it here. And they even have photos of the greatly-beloved-by-me-as-a-child Princess' bedroom)

So the Re-Ment stuff has reopened that cabinet of my mind. It makes me happy.



One of my favorite bits is the "Euro Style Tea Set." I think it's supposed to look like Wedgwood, though I've only ever seen that cameo-style Wedgwood in the blue color. (This was one of the things I was really hoping to get, before I opened the box containing it).

I may have to start looking around, see if I can find some kind of nice wall shelf or box-like thing to go on the wall, to make a "real" house for Wilbur, the little toy tardigrade I made a few years back. Right now he and his stuff are parked on a bookshelf in my bedroom, which is not quite ideal... I'd like to have some kind of permanent place for him to live, with enough space for the chairs and the little stove and maybe one or two of the Re-Ment sets (they are about the right size) for him.



You can see how tiny they are. Love!

Just call me Chief Inspector Dreyfus.

I have developed an eyelid twitch. It is, apparently, stress-related (at first I thought it was allergies, but as it comes and goes at odd times - and it stopped as I was leaving campus yesterday to go to the piano lesson - I'm concluding it's stress). Ugh. I hate having junk like that happen that I can't control. (I hate it too when I "run out of cope" and start to cry over some stupid little thing that normally wouldn't bug me).

I just hope no one calls me today needing something I can't give them.

If I weren't so touch-averse I'd look into going for a massage somewhere. But I might find that even more stressful, I don't know. I'm pretty touch-averse.

Two more days. Two more days.

***
I had the last piano lesson of this semester yesterday. I don't start up again for three weeks. (I will be gone one of those weeks). I do think I'm going to keep practicing - maybe not as long or as much, but I am going to keep it up. Work on scales and triads and inversions, I think, because I like those. (Yes, I LIKE doing scales. When I'd get frustrated because I kept messing up a piece I'd take a break and play scales for a while to get my head back in the right place).

I also think I'll continue playing "Ecossaise in G" (despite the fact that it broke my heart at the recital) and get back to working on "Minuet in G." I could play it halfway decently (well, for a beginner) before I heard an expert play it and kind of lost my mojo for it. But if I can block that out of my mind and remind myself that *I* am playing it with *five months* of experience, maybe I can be happier about it. And maybe try "The Merry Farmer" or whatever that little Schumann piece is called. (I have the sheet music for it in one of my books, I took a stab at it months ago but didn't really have time to work on it).

***
I'm liking how the "Weasley Homestead" socks are turning out. The yarn sort-of stripes, so there won't be any weird-bad pooling. This is definitely a take-it-on-vacation project. (I'll post a photo, maybe tomorrow, if I get farther on it)

I'm also thinking of taking the Hansigurumi book and my earthworm yarn (yes, I tracked down - from the Loopy Ewe in St. Louis, which may be a new favorite place to order from - the two colors of yarn needed for the worm). And yarn for the Nessie, which I already have in my stash. And maybe the crochet dolphin pattern and the yarn for that. I feel a need to make a bunch of toys. (I have enough yarn, if I'm reading the pattern right, for four or five earthworms - so I may make up a bunch and keep one for myself but save a few for funny gifts for people.)

Charlotte: my (perhaps flip) assumption as to why the guy wanted to know: he's hypercompetitive and a pre-med. So if he figures someone else who is a pre-med is "out of the running" for the "good" schools, it's to his advantage. (If I were more devious, I could "play" the pre-meds off each other the way Greg House did to his fellows a couple seasons ago. Then again, I'm not psychotic*)

(*I missed last night's episode but apparently that fact was revealed - that he has had a break with reality, or some such. I wonder if the series is going to end either with a child with autism playing with a snowglobe containing a model of Princeton-Plainsboro, or with Hugh Laurie waking up in bed next to Geena Davis and telling her he had the strangest dream...)


****

I've had several increasingly-agitated messages from a student who (I assume) is in danger of failing a class; he is demanding to know why his lab grade is not higher. As I do not teach the lab section of the class, I have no knowledge as to why.

If he calls again, I am going to give him the lab instructor's phone number. He is claiming she told him he had a score 9 points higher than he had; I have no idea if that was an honest mistake, an attempt at sowing miscommunication, or what.

This is someone who's had a difficult attitude all semester so I'm not exactly cheery about working with him at this point. Add to which I have two more exams to give, a textbook evaluation to write, and two candidates for a job to observe and decide upon before Friday, and I'm really in no mood to be the intermediary in this situation.

***

I'll be glad when Friday afternoon gets here and I'm (hopefully) sailing down highway 69 on my way to the train station (or, failing that, driving up the Indian Turnpike to get to 44 and eventually to 55...that's if there's flooding that turns the train into a bus, not unlike how midnight turned Cinderella's coach into a pumpkin.)

***

I did get some work done on the new lace scarf:



The pattern is called "Crest o the Wave," it's an old Shetland lace stitch.

I'm not as far as I might be, because (a) the students got done on the final yesterday faster than I expected and (b) I made a mistake (forgot a yarn over) and had to unknit several rows because I couldn't find a way to "fudge" it that looked good. (So now I'm counting yos as I do them - there are four to a repeat.)

I think the fact that it's dark yarn makes it harder. It's certainly more difficult to see what you're doing.

***

Another reason why I'm not quite on top of things...the reason I am having to be involved with interviewing two candidates? One of my colleagues is retiring. Today is (I think) her last day. This is someone who's been a friend, who was my first grad student, who could be depended upon to fill in for stuff when needed.

We're having a lunch for her today. Because she's someone who watches her diet, it's a "light" lunch (one of the wags in the department said he was bringing "Miller Lite." Not possible, because we're a dry campus, and besides, I think he's the ONLY one who would actually drink beer that early in the day...and it wouldn't be Miller if it were). So I made a salad that I've made a few times already, it is really good and fairly simple, with a homemade dressing:

Good Big Spinach Salad.

2 bags (or 3-4 bunches) of spinach (or a comparable amount of other greens)\
2, 11 ounce cans of mandarin orange segments, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1 cup of slivered almonds, toasted for 10 minutes in a 350* oven

Wash the spinach and combine it with the other things.

Dressing

3 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons sugar
1-2 teaspoons white wine vinegar*
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup salad oil (I use the "light tasting" olive oil)
1 crushed clove of garlic.

(*at first I wrote that "whine." It's been that kind of a week)

Combine the lemon juice, sugar, salt, vinegar, and garlic. Shake them up (you will be removing the garlic after it's "steeped" in there for a while. Add the oil and shake to blend. It's best if you make the dressing a couple hours in advance and keep it in the fridge to let the garlic flavor the dressing.

N.B. This is a VERY mild vinaigrette. I had to add the vinegar (the original recipe didn't call for it) because it wasn't sharp enough for me - and I usually like my salad dressings pretty sweet. If you want something sharper, I'd recommend cutting back on the sugar and maybe adding more vinegar (maybe upping the vinegar to oil proportion).

You can do other things with this - you could use other fruits (strawberries are a classic but I think also small cubes of fresh pear would be good), or other nuts, or add sliced boiled eggs.

I had a student in (arguing about a grade, sigh), who then dropped the question:

"So....who was it in our class that plagiarized?"

Seriously, dude? You're asking me that? Have you not heard of FERPA - and even without FERPA, in which bearded-Spock universe would it be OK for me to share that information?

The fact that he dropped it oh-so-casually, I think with the thought of catching me off guard, irritates me a little.

(I did say: "Sorry. Not allowed to tell you that." I mean, shouldn't the fact that it's NOT HIM be good enough?)

I finished the Pele's Socks!



The striping on the feet came out a bit different on the second sock, but not differently enough to make me want to rip back and try to re-jigger it so it would come out the same as the first.

Orange is SO not my color but I really like these. I could see wearing them with black slacks and a plain crisp white blouse - just a little shot of color. Or jeans and a gray t-shirt. Or a yellow t-shirt, I have several of those.

The pattern is "Rib Fantastic," from the new-ish "Knitting Socks from Handpainted Yarns" (which is a neat book, if you haven't seen it yet). I think I will at some point make a second pair - in different colors, of course - using this pattern. (I think it would also look nice made of a "nearly solid" or solid colored yarn).

It is, once again, raining this morning. Raining very heavily, in fact. I hope we don't lose power - and I hope my students can get in safely for their 8 am final. (From this class, I'd rather more anticipate someone risking their neck to come in than calling me and going, "It's raining! I can't get there!")

I'm fearing a repeat of summer 2007, when everything flooded (and all the field sites were under water most of the summer).

On a happier note, I've already planned the next pair of more-complex-knitting socks (I like to have at least one "simple" pair and one "more complex" pair going at a time). I had been wanting to do the sock pattern called The Weasley Homestead for a while, but hadn't found the just-right yarn yet. Well, I had a skein of BeBop in a color called "Chalkboard" (it's the perfect green of grade-school chalkboards, highlighted with grey and yellow - you can see a photo here). Somehow, that seemed right to me. I think it's because my brain makes funny jumps from thought to thought: winding off the yarn, I thought "Green and yellow: it looks like Hobbit yarn." And then that made me think of the Weasleys for some reason - I think it's the red hair, and also the way their house was portrayed in the movies - it makes me think a bit of a hobbit's home. (COULD the Weasleys be part hobbit? I know Mr. Weasley is probably too tall...but as Tolkien said, the hobbits probably disguised themselves by intermarrying and the short genes (and I suppose, the hairy-feet genes) dying out over time...)

So anyway. The progression went: "Chalkboard" colored sock yarn ---> "It's Hobbit Yarn!" ---> "The Weasley Homestead pattern would work for this!"

So I printed off the pattern and have it and the cake of yarn sitting next to my big chair, so I can cast on when I get home tonight. (I am going to use dpns rather than the recommended circulars. I know lots of people do socks on two circulars - and lots of people use the so-called "Magic Loop" technique with one long circular, and that's fine for them, but for me - I like my little old double pointed needles. They work well for me, I know right where they all are (I have a special case where I keep them; the circulars seem to migrate all over the house even though I have a needle-keeper for them). Also, I don't really have many small-diameter circulars; I mostly bought needles in the 4-5-6-7-8 size ranges for doing sweaters.)

Stitch markers are your friends.

I started the Crest o the Wave scarf (and I do think it is the "right" pattern for this yarn). Except, I kept screwing up in one of the early rows and having to rip back. Finally, on try #3, I put in stitch markers between each repeat (and between the two "edge" stitches and the start of the pattern itself)

NOW I'm doing it right. If I get enough done on this by tomorrow evening for it to be photographable, I'll post a picture.

Well, this is the last installment (for this semester) of "As the Classroom Turns" - the soap opera that is my life:

1. The student who requested the F-to-W change? Hit up two other people in the department. Including one who teaches a course that he cannot graduate with a degree in biology without. So I don't know if he was aiming at a BGS out of desperation, or what. The good news is my buddy who has served on Academic Appeals says that there's "no way in heck" his request will even be considered...it won't even make it to the committee on the basis of the information I supplied.

Incidentally, the whole "you failed me and ruined my life" thing ticks me off for another reason. And since Sya brought up a personal story in the comments, I might as well note mine:

I was "asked to leave" the first grad school I attended. Big, prestigious Research I type school. I didn't know how to do research, really, and my adviser was more interested in jetting off to Washington to lobby for money rather than in working with his students. So I did my best on my own but it was deemed "not good enough."

At the time, I thought my life was ruined. (Though unlike many of today's Specialer Snowflakes, I blamed myself 100% - when in retrospect, I think the school and my adviser share at least some of the culpability). At the time, I thought, "That's it. I better start reading the paper and try to find a job waiting tables at a restaurant, because that is all I will ever do with my life...it is all I am qualified to do."

But over Christmas break that year, my dad urged me to go in and talk to people in the biology department of the university where he taught (still a decent research school, but not as high-pressure - and not Research I). Two separate individuals seemed impressed by my undergrad record (I didn't mention the "asked to leave," I said - as my dad counseled me to - that I was "dissatisfied" with my experience at the school. Well, it was TRUE, at least partly. Though I think in retrospect no one would have cared if I had told the whole truth). They both said, "Well, you know, if you came here to work on a degree you could do..." and then outlined several interesting projects.

In the end, I worked with the plant ecologist, as that was my real area of interest. I started out working on a Master's - honestly believing that was all I was capable of achieving. (You can see how the experience of FAIL damaged my self image). About 6 months from completing the degree, I had been looking at job postings and realized that if I wanted to teach at the college level (which I had decided I had - heck, I had decided that back before entering grad school the FIRST time), I'd need a Ph.D.

So I gathered up all my courage, expecting to be told, "No, I think you can probably at best look for an agency job" and went to my adviser. And I asked him: do you think I could manage a Ph.D?

And he kind of chuckled, and said, "I wondered when you were going to ask me to do a Ph.D. I figure for the kind of job you'd be best for, you will need one." Immediate assumption that I could do it (well, he turned out to be right).

So I don't have a lot of patience with the "You've RUINED my life!!!!" accusations. There is ALWAYS a plan B in education. It may not be what you wanted, it may not be ideal, but it is there.

(And actually, in my case, Plan B worked out to be the better plan - I think I received a more solid education, more attention, more help, and became not just a better researcher, but a better teacher, by being able to work more closely with the faculty at the smaller school.)

Anyway.

2. The plagiarist? Apparently did an elaborate mock-up of the start of the experiment (collecting swabs that would allegedly be used to plate bacterial cultures...which were never plated). Also, the person in question asked the Micro TA if the Microbiology prof would know for sure whether someone had incubated plates or not...which brings us back to the first clear inkling I had of proof that this was faked - I had asked the Microbiology prof if she knew of plates fitting the description of the ones in the experiment had been incubated and her answer was definite: she would have known if there had been, and NO there were not.

So I don't know if it was simply "Look! I wasn't the plagiarist she referred to!" bravado, or if it's something more devious, like she's going to claim she did the experiment after all, with the photographs of her taking the swabs as "proof." (The fact that she has no evidence of plates - and in fact, had no photographs of them and NO description of how she did that part - should be enough to sink that claim). At any rate, if she takes this somewhere above the department, I know the microbiologist - who is also my department chair - as my back on this.

Argh. At least the semester is over now, except for finals.

****

I did go home "early" (2 pm) yesterday afternoon. I mowed the lawn first - you will remember those OH NOES SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WITH 60 MPH WINDS AND HAIL THE SIZE OF SMALL BABIES!!!! warning that was given for today? Bunk. It's coolish and overcast but other than a few unmotivated raindrops, nothing close to the apocalyptic weather being predicted.

But, not knowing that THEN, I mowed the lawn and cleared the crud out of the gutter. (I have one gutter on my house, attached to the back room-that-used-to-be-a-screened-porch.)

Then I cleaned house - well, I ran out of steam before dealing with the guest room clutter, but I think I can get to that some time in the coming week.

Today I trimmed the shrubs on the front of the house (including the hollies, which are a mixed blessing - they do attract birds with their berries, which is nice, and they are probably anti-peeping-Tom, which is also nice, but they sure do scratch a person up when they try to prune them). So I have more natural light coming in the front windows now, and it looks less unkempt.

I also figured up the scarf pattern - I think, three repeats (it's a 12 st pattern) plus 3 knit stitches on either side. I want it a bit narrower than the Lace Ribbon Scarf, but longer. I think it will wind up about 6" wide, which seems right for a dressy scarf of that nature. I also wound off the yarn for it but haven't cast on yet. I do think this will be my knitting-while-invigilating project for next week - it is portable, and as I said, Crest o the Wave is an easily memorized pattern that I don't particularly need to look at to do.

I have spent some time working on the Rib Fantastic socks (the ones out of the Kilauea-inspired yarn). I've turned the heel on the second sock, so these should be done soon.

It is nice to have the clean house, though. I find that dust and such distress me on sort of a subconscious level, and I always feel better after cleaning the place up.

This is pretty much how I feel about the "Twilight" series:


see more Lol Celebs

Hah hahahaha.

(Except, The Count kind of scared me when I was a kid. I don't know if it was the fact that he could summon thunder and lightning, or the bats, or the compulsive counting, or what)

I continue to be tired.

And I kind of ache. Whether that is because of the junk I've been dealing with in this horrible week-that-will-not-end or whether it's because we've ramped up into Summer Humidity Mode, I can't tell.

I got an ACADEMIC APPEALS REQUEST (and yes, that's how they send them out - all capitals) on behalf of someone (not the someone I've talked about before this week) who, IMHO, is not really deserving of the mercy pass. Yes, they won't have the required GPA to graduate. Yes, I've "ruined their life." (Good grief how that makes my ears smoke. I didn't "ruin your life" by your failing a class that you need to graduate. I didn't force you to skip. I didn't keep you from studying for the exams. I didn't prevent you from handing in lab reports - in fact, I accepted LATE lab reports, in direct contravention to "da rules" I laid out in the syllabus).

I hate that. I'm not punching the ticket for your guilt trip. You can see I have no bags packed. I am not going there. I don't care that you had to work multiple jobs, or had small kids at home, or broke up with a Significant Other. Other people do those kind of things and they manage to cope.

Gosh, it seems that I've finally run out of sympathy. Gee, too bad.

So anyway, I sent an e-mail back to the administrator who sent it, explaining the problems this student had presented and why I felt the student didn't deserve a W rather than an F.

I'm bracing for blowback. Which is why, I think, my shoulders just started hurting worse.

*****

Usually this weekend is a celebration sort of weekend - a little "thank God I survived another one" (because exam week is next week and all my grading is done until I get the exams back). Usually I use the opportunity to run out to McKinney.

But they are once again predicting BIG GIANT FREAKING STORMS WITH HAIL THE SIZE OF CAT'S HEADS!!!! so I think maybe I'll stick at home. Probably clean house (I plan to start this afternoon as soon as I can escape campus - and I do want to escape in case of disgruntled students; I find it's easier to let them sit and re-gruntle before they speak to me). I'm going to do the "big" cleaning and try to hit the super-cluttered guest room/office as well.

And then, I think I'm going to reward myself by starting a new project. Not sure what, yet. I might wind off the dream-in-color yarn with the silver sparkles in it and start the scarf of that. I want to use one of the old Shetland patterns, just not sure which one yet. (Probably NOT feather-and-fan, I've used that in a lot of things)

Some possibilities are here, but I think I am going to use one called Crest O the Wave (one example of this worked up is here, the Walker Treasury Project version is here (I really like that the Walker Treasury Project is available. I may have to link it in my sidebar because it's a useful way to see good clear examples of how stitches look)

I like Crest O the Wave because it's simple to do - I've done socks of it before - and I think it will look very nice in the dark-blue with silver sparkles yarn.

I may even start this this weekend and use it as invigilating knitting in the coming week - it will be simple enough (the pattern is easily memorized), there is no shaping, and it's a situation where I can tuck the "cake" of yarn up under one arm and walk around the classroom while I knit.

It's probably the only openly eccentric thing I do. I have a lot of eccentricities, but I mostly keep them hidden from students (I am less successful at hiding them all from colleagues).

I don't know. I like it. It amuses me. And if it generates a bit of cognitive dissonance in the students (here is this "modern" woman, with a Ph.D., who teaches some pretty hard science...and she's knitting a lace scarf!), all the better.

I like how I feel like I look a little atavistic walking around the room, with the ball of yarn tucked up under my arm - just like Scotswomen of old did when they knitted while roaming the fields after the sheep or while walking down to meet their husband's boat at the seashore. As I've said before, one of the things that I love so much about knitting is that I feel like I'm reaching back over time when I do it, and sort of shaking hands with women of the past. Even more so when I knit an old pattern like Crest o the Wave. I like honoring the past a little bit in that way.

Incidentally, while looking for some example patterns to share, I found this site of historical knitting patterns. They have everything from Monmouth caps to a funny cheeky 1930's ladies hat.

A while back (wow, over a year actually) I made a little crocheted ball representing hyperbolicity. Well, there's another geometrical/mathematical pattern out there: A pattern for a crocheted dodecahedron (in English and, I assume, Dutch).

Maybe my hyperbolic ball needs a "friend"? (It also looks a little bit like a katamari ball (for which there is also a free pattern (but don't attach your credit cards to it if you make it magnetic))

I'm not quite sure where I set my little hyperbolic ball. It's probably on one of the bookshelves somewhere.

Chris: good point, except the files are behind a password-protected "firewall" that I only open for a short period of time. And I've never left it unattended when I was logged in. (And besides, she'd have had to spend a lot of time searching for what she had wanted to steal; I had about 15 old presentations on there - all of which have now been "slurped" onto a flash drive and deleted from the desk top).

I suspect what happened was the other student gave her her paper (innocently, I think) as "Hey, here's what I did, you can use the same procedures as I used" and without realizing the student would just steal her data.

At any rate - it's over with. Student gets a zero, regardless of whether the other student was a dupe or a co-conspirator.

I'm surprised at how TIRED this has left me. Just worn out. I'm glad my exams are already written.

****

This week is a "slower" week for piano practicing - next Tuesday is my last lesson for this semester before a couple-weeks break between it and the summer session starting in June.

So to still get in some practice time (most of the lesson book stuff this week is pedal-work, WHICH I ALREADY KNOW HOW TO DO THANK YOU and not very complex stuff to play, I pulled out some other books I have.

Including the "Orange" John Schaum book (which I've talked about before). This is an older book, I think my dad got it in a boxlot at an auction shortly after we got the piano. It's always been a bit more advanced than however-far I got in previous lessons, but I could kind of noodle out a few of the pieces in there.

Well, in January I was disappointed to see how much my skill had decayed. (And I think one thing I've noticed, learning the piano at an older age - I "lose" stuff faster, and I don't progress as fast, as I did when I was a kid)

But I found that this week, I could play a few of the pieces in there (particularly the "Ruben and Rachel in Society" - a funny little pastiche-piece where the old folk tune is arranged to sound like Mozart, a Strauss waltz, Chopin, and Sousa, and a medley of simplified Strauss waltzed). I couldn't play them PERFECTLY - there were halting spots and mistakes - but I could play them BETTER than I could in January. Clearly better.

I also find that I can play the D major scale (I'm going through the scales, week by week, doing either contrary or parallel motion and then doing the blocked and broken chords and arpeggios - so I'm only up to D now) through pretty much perfectly without having to think about where my fingers go - both the "do I switch after 3 or 4 here" thing, or the remembering-the-sharps thing. So I guess I am beginning to learn, my hands are beginning to get more skillful at this.

You know, I realize another thing I like about learning piano: there are no short cuts to it. The only way you get better is to put your derriere on the bench and practice. And if you practice more, you get better faster. (It's FAIR. It seems like one of the few things in life that is FAIR right now - the harder I work on a piece, the better I get at it. It's simple but it's strangely comforting). You can't cheat your way to playing the piano well. And while some people may have more talent, there's probably a point where talent + not practicing = less talent + rigorous practice or even talent - practice < less talent + rigorous practice.

I don't know; it's nice to have something that feels fair in that way. Where my effort is rewarded by getting better. Maybe not concert-quality better, but better enough to make a difference to me. And also knowing that the "better" came about because I worked at it.

So, I was loading the last bits of stuff (photos and maps) about soil taxonomy onto the computer this morning before class. And I noticed my "desktop" on the computer (this being the one in the classroom where I usually teach) had a bunch of old presentations on it.

Hmmm, I thought, I wonder if the one from the student that I think was plagiarized off of is here.

I checked.

It was.

It was ALL I could do not to cackle evilly as the class - who have absolutely nothing to do with this issue, as the plagiarism is in another class - filed in.

So I'll do it now: MUAH hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

But I have that presentation now! I made a copy of it and I can compare it to the presentation today - and I can compare the data to the data in the paper. And as they are the same, oh how busted!

And oh what a relief for me to have PROOF. Real, true, incontrovertible proof. Stuff I could send off to the Dean if need be.

Fate has smiled on me today. For being a slob about cleaning up the desktop of my computer.

As much as it's going to be a pain in the patoot, I am going to require electronic copies of everything from now on - because it makes checking up SO easy.

At long last, sleeve:



I finished the first sleeve (well, up to the point where it is joined to the body - the sleeve is now on holders) and began the second for the Cobblestone pullover.

I think this is more tedious than it should be, because I'm having to switch skeins every row, to avoid the "there are no dyelots, each skein is unique, a veritable Special Snowflake unto itself!"

Yeah, not so happy with Auracania right now. I think my next project is going to be using Cascade 220 or some other yarn that doesn't carry bad color or texture surprises. (I have at least one sweater's worth of Cascade 220 tucked away).

Funny how something that sounds so wonderful at first, when you first encounter it, becomes so annoying after you spend a lot of time with it.

I really need a Special Snowflake-free zone, whether it's at work or at rest.

The sleeves are sitting on the "Boppy" pillow I use to support my arms while knitting (you sit with it around your waist; the open part goes to your back. I think they were originally sold as nursing pillows for moms to help support their babies, but they're also now sold for people who do handcrafts - or even read; it's nice sometimes to have your arms supported while you're reading). It's one of the most useful recent-ish (I think I got it for Christmas a few years back) gifts I've received.

My final exams are all written and ready to go to the copy-shop.

With my chair's consent, I'm giving the plagiarist a 0 (even though I don't have the copied paper - I'd love to have it, though, so I could staple it onto the back and go "SEE?!?! SEE?!?!"*). I'm going to put "come see me if you disagree with this grade" on her grade sheet. And if she comes in, grill her on the lab techniques, WHERE she did the work (it was not done in OUR labs), etc., etc. I hate having to play bad cop but it's probably the only way if she doesn't just swallow the 0 and figure that she got caught. (Oh, and her presentation gets a 0 also)

(*I've done something similar when students copied off the 'Net -printed out a copy of the webpage they copied from, stapled it back to the paper. No, I don't get all vindictive about it but I do write, "Come see me if you don't understand why you got a 0")

I'm eating lunch now. I'm going to go see if I can get my allergy shot, then go home and practice piano (lesson is this afternoon). Then, this afternoon, I am going to go home and do something that has NOTHING to do with school. I don't know what yet but I am DONE. I am sick of worrying about this, feeling bad, dealing with the stress of grading and writing exams...

No, no head crushing.

I did get through the rest of the papers. I think I graded...shall we say, less generously than I sometimes do? Ah well, too bad, so sad. I'm fresh out of sympathy.

I also read through alllllllll the scholarship applications. This one is partly need-based, so there were a lot of distressing hard-luck stories (some of which you wonder if they weren't just perhaps a wee bit more EMPHASIZED than they actually were in real life, you know?)

And I did get in a bit of piano practice. Not a full hour but enough, I guess.

I'm resisting doing any further Ruinous Comfort Spending than what I've already done in the past week.

My box from Superbuzzy did come yesterday. I didn't take time to really examine the "Little Nordic Embroidery" book but it DOES have Moomin in it. No fillyjonks, though, I guess I'll have to enlarge-photocopy the line drawing out of one of my books. And there's a Hemulen, but he's a policeman hemulen, not the botanizing hemulen that I really want on the pillowcase. (So again - I'll have to do a little enlarge-photocopying). But they do have the whole family, plus Snufkin and Sniff and Little My and Too-ticky. And the Groke (why) and the hattifattners and some other less-desirable sorts.

I may also have to draft up a pattern of The Ancestor (from the Midwinter book) to put him on with the family.

Along with the book, I ordered a couple Re-Ment sets. These are incredibly detailed miniature things. There are a series of "themes" and then you get either a "blind box" (don't know what's in it) or you can order a whole case of ten.

One of the lines they had was "Panda Kindergarten" (or so they called it). I bought two:



I'm calling this one Ralphie...because he looks like a Ralphie. A little fat panda slumped on a swing, with bamboo (?) leaves, a rice ball, and a little box that looks like a bento box (the accessories are all separate - tiny, probably easily lost, certainly not for small children).

So since he's Ralphie, these have to be Bart and Lisa:



Yeah, the little hats are supposed to sit on the center of the head but my fingers are clumsy tonight (I hope it's tiredness and not a SYMPTOM. And yes, I watched "House" while reading the scholarship forms). So they're stuck on their ears for now.

I don't have a place for these yet - right now they are sitting next to my computer.

I wonder if it would just be too snarky to not post grades on the papers until the cheating incident was resolved? And if people asked me why I hadn't posted grades, to tell them.

I will admit I fantasized about giving everyone a 0 and telling them that I had a plagiarism incident, and if the plagiarist came forward the rest of the class would get the grades they earned, but I realize that's completely indefensible.

I don't know what to do in the future. Require everyone to do their research in the lab or the field under my supervision? Tell people "days x, y, and z are field research lab days, we will go out to THIS field site and you WILL do a project there?" or what. I don't know. Someone will still come up with a way to defeat it, that's what kills me. Maybe I need to go visit everyone's field site or look over their lab project, and sign off that I did? And create tons more work and logistics issues for myself? (Including in some cases having to drive an hour or two to reach a student's field site).

Maybe I just need to drop the project all together and just turn out crops of students with even LESS research and writing experience. Yeah. That'll show them.

Or maybe I just need to stop caring. Let the cheaters cheat. Let karma catch up to them, if it ever does. I don't know. I'm afraid not caring would lead to a class that was mostly cheaters.

Sigh. This is not helping my self-image any.

If I do not post tomorrow, it will be because I have beaten my head to a bloody pulp against a wall because of this plagiarism incident.

(My chair is aware of it and supports me, but that doesn't make it any easier.)

Send Bactine. (And cookies.)

Pardon me but I need to go throw up now.

I found a student paper that is very very likely plagiarised from an earlier semester's paper. I have no concrete way to PROVE it (I don't keep copies of old papers - but this semester, I am going to start NOT handing the papers back, telling the students I need to hang on to them).

I tried e-mailing the student that may have been copied off, but if she's complicit in it I'm willing to bet she doesn't send me the paper.

I don't have quite enough bravado to do what my dad once did - when one of his TAs said, "I know two people are cheating on a test but I don't have clear enough proof to yank their tests out of their hands" - he announced the next day that he had "evidence" of cheating, and that if the cheaters came forward, all they would get would be a 0, but if they didn't, he would refer the case to the campus Honor Board. (That last bit was pure bravado, but he banked (correctly) on it working)

The next day, 12 students came in to confess to cheating. (Including the 2 that actually were suspected).

I don't know. Part of me says I'm getting too old for this - to have my few lasting scraps of idealism about humanity battered every semester, to have to play cop, to have to do more and more "lawyerballing" to prevent crap like this.

I know I DON'T want to be "that prof" - the one who turns a blind eye to cheating. But the amount of effort it takes to prevent cheating - well, it's like an evolutionary arms race: you figure something out, they figure something out to defeat that tactic.

I know it's letting the lazy people win to STOP doing a research project all together, but some days I'm seriously tempted.

I do think the little bird would need to be enlarged a bit for a quilt block. (Maybe not if you were doing a baby quilt). That wouldn't be too hard with an enlarging copier (which, actually, is not widely available in more rural areas. Which is why it frustrates me that a lot of pattern books now print patterns with the instructions "enlarge to 140%" or some such. I have access to an older copier on campus, but it only has "set" enlargements - like 129%, not "dial up the enlargement you want" setting. I suppose now some scanner printers will do the same thing.)

I remember as a kid sometimes having to do the old "grid trick" - you draw a grid of squares of specified dimension (usually 1") and then redraft the pattern onto the big grid from the smaller grid it was printed on in the book or magazine. (Many magazines had maddeningly small grids...it was like, "You expect me to get the detail correct from that tiny of an original?" I guess the "grid method" of enlarging is mostly a lost skill now. (I will admit to being a lot less enthusiastic about making a project when I had to enlarge the pattern first)

****

I got more done on the pillowcases. This is the one that's farthest along:



The butterflies are done, and I'm slowly adding the outlining.

****

We had some borderline severe weather on Saturday. We never get the "golf ball" or "tennis ball" sized hail that the weathercasters salivate over, but this go-round, we did get some tiny, pea-sized hailstones:



They had mostly melted by the time I got the camera out.

Well, even craft-land is not untouched by controversy.

Several of the embroidery blogs have been commenting in the past few days how a particular new embroidery company has a few designs out that are somewhat similar to some produced by Jenny Hart, of Sublime Stitching.

There's been a lot of argument back and forth, discussion of the dreaded "c" word (copyright), responses from the accused company....It's on the verge of getting ugly and that makes me kind of sad.

And you know, I tend to feel like the best response in a case like this? Support the business you believe is in the right. I've dealt with Sublime Stitching in the past - I've always had good fast customer service (once when they sent me a pattern in error, they told me to keep it, and they sent on the correct pattern at no postage cost to me). So I decided to "vote with my wallet" and bought a couple pattern packs I'd been thinking about getting.

(Even if I hate their "This ain't your gramma's embroidery" tagline with the fierce heat of 1000 exploding suns and wish they'd find something less ageist and self-consciously hip. For the typical reasons: a. My grammas were very cool and b. if it were not for all the grammas who embroidered, knit, tatted, did crochet, etc., those skills might well be lost to us today. I have several pieces of filet crochet one of my grandmothers did; it's amazing the skill in those small pieces.

And yeah, yeah, I realize it's mostly a joke, but there also used to be lots of jokes about women drivers...)

Also, a lot of the times I DO like what might be classed as "gramma" embroidery: I love this little vintage bird design from Doe-c-Doe. I think it would be wonderful made up in a variety of different colors (red, blue, yellow) and made into a small quilt with some kind of pretty sashing between the embroidered blocks. I think it would also be wonderful as a single bird on a throw pillow.

(I'm taking a break from a textbook review. I'm being paid to review a few chapters of a new non-majors textbook. I'm a **biologist** and it very nearly put me to sleep, so I think I'm going to have to get out my red pen and channel my (now-retired) graduate advisor and write "This needs work" all over it.)

Remember how ages ago, I said I wanted to do pillowcases with embroidered Moomins on the side? And because Moomin transfers apparently did not exist, I'd have to get out my books, and probably use the enlarging-photocopier, and trace, and all of that?

Well, the other day, blogsurfing, I hit upon this post. See that "mosaic"? See Little My in the teapot?

Moomin patterns exist!

But then I thought - no, it's a Japanese book, I haven't a prayer of even FINDING it, let alone being able to negotiate some website written entirely in katakana to order it.

Superbuzzy to the rescue! It occurred to me to look there - the source of many good things that are crafty and Japanese. It's called "Little Nordic Embroidery." No link to the site because apparently I got the last copy they have at this time. (But Superbuzzy does have all kinds of other wonderful things). I've ordered from them before and am quite happy with the customer service.

When the book was up on the site, I was able to verify that it had pictures of the entire Moomin family, plus Little My and the Snorkmaiden. Not sure if there are fillyjonks (I really hope there are fillyjonks) or the Hemulen, but even if there aren't, these designs give me a starting place and an idea of how big I'd need to enlarge a tracing out of one of my books to be.

And I have a couple sets of blank pillowcases just waiting. (I think one set is going to get garden gnomes, owls, mushrooms, and hedgehogs; I feel the need for something just CUTE and I have the Sublime Stitching patterns for those. And yet another set will get those quotations that I talked about stitching way back months ago - the Mother Theresa and the Therese of Lisieux quotes).

I've been hired to review a chapter of a textbook (for $150) and I tend to count this type of money as "found money" - therefore fine to blow on whatever craft supplies make me happy. And the thought of being able to easily make Moomin pillowcases makes me very happy indeed.

Well, I been done seen 'bout everything



When I seen an octopus fly!


It's the "Dumbo" octopus, knit from the Hansigurumi pattern. I used Caron "Country," which is a wool/microfiber blend. Though the yarn isn't the easiest to knit up for a toy (it has a cabled construction that makes it prone to split), it has a nice shine to it. The colors here are "spruce" (the darker blue green) and "Ocean Spray" (the lighter color).

You can kind of judge from the photo of me "flying" the octopus how big it is - it's not huge but it's not as small as I thought it was going to be when I started making the legs.

Here's a picture of Dumbo at rest:



And yes, the Dumbo octopus is a really real animal. Which makes it all the more wonderful. (Another amusing picture is here. I interpret it - incorrectly, I know - as the little octopus sticking out its tongue at the photographer).