Too many projects

I think I've reached that point. I have one or two things very close to done, but I started a new project last night.

I have three or four collar rows left on Rosedale, and then the front bands (I'm not going to put a zipper in it; I'm just going to leave it without a closure), then grafting the underarms and weaving in ends. But for some reason it's hard to get motivated to wrestle with those last few rows of corrugated rib.

I also have a mostly-done Pony that someone on Ravelry is swapping me sockyarn for. I have the body and head done, and the front legs done and attached, and one back leg nearly done - so just the other leg, the ears, and the decoration remain. I should work on this this weekend, both so I can get it mailed off to the person I'm making it for and so I don't have that feeling of an obligation hanging over my head.

I've also been picking away at the Little Ice Age socks. I'm getting faster at the pattern because I've sussed out the code used on the charts and don't have to look up things any more, or think as much about "is this a back or a front cable cross?" but still, they go slowly. I'm maybe 2" from starting the toe decreases on the first sock.

I also did get quite a bit more done over break on the first of the Alpenglow socks, but haven't touched it since I've been back.

I did start something new last night. When I was tidying my bedroom I ran across the issue of Knitscene that had the Live Oak Shawlette in it, and the yarn I had put aside for the shawlette. I'm pretty sure the yarn is a Fleece Artist yarn; it may have been one that had some silk in it (I remember when I bought it, I put it aside for something "special," as it was a more expensive yarn with fancier fibers in it). I think it was also the colorway called Fire Opal, though the Fire Opal on the FA website looks a bit different. (I lost the ball band so I am not exactly sure of the yarn). I know I've had it for a couple of years and dyelots change, though....

Anyway,. I started the shawlette up. One of the nice things is that the main body of the shawl is just all stockinette; the fancy lace knitting comes near the end. And also, I now know how to make a semicircular shape in knitting - the shawl is more or less a semicircle, which is made by increasingly-widely-spaced increase rows (where first you start increasing every other stitch, and then in later rows the increases are more spread out) with stockinette rows between them. So I was able to knit and watch most of "The Doctor Takes a Wife," which was a surprisingly funny movie (I had never heard of it, but it turned out to be one of those comedy-of-errors movies from the 30s/40s that I like. Short synopsis: an author of a bestselling book on why women don't need to marry winds up catching a ride back to New York with a doctor. By some strange accident, his car gets a "Just Married" sign stuck on it (rather than the car of the bride and groom parked next to him.) Of course the tabloids go mad - the "#1 Spinster" (and yes, I winced at that term) of the United States has turned traitor and married! And of course, there's no explaining it, and so she and the doctor have to pretend they are married - and then he winds up getting a professorship at the university where he had "just" been an instructor (Because his dean likes to see married men in professorships, another old attitude that I'm glad no longer exists)....and on, and on. And, because this is that type of comedy, the mismatched couple winds up falling in love for real.... Loretta Young, who I already knew was good at comedies, and Ray Milland, who I had not known to be so)

But yes, too many projects. And I have too many research things to think about here at work. I REALLY REALLY REALLY need to get  to revising that paper, but it's hard to open up the file (three pages, single spaced) of things the reviewer found wrong with it. The first suggestion they made that I took, yes, I can see how the paper was confusing. But the combination of This Is A Lot Of Work For What Might Be A Long Shot coupled with the Something You Did Really Wasn't Very Good and Other People SAW It is hard for me. (Even moreso, when I realized I listed my graduate advisor as a potential reviewer -and it could well have been him who reviewed the paper, ugh, I don't like to think of his reading something that was clearly not very good). The thing is, I thought the paper was okay when I sent it off. That's what I hate about journal article submission: you work on something until it is, you feel, the best you can make it, and you get it back with lots of detailed input on how it's not very good at all. And that plays on all my "My best just isn't good enough" issues, and so it hurts.

I also got my evaluations yesterday. Haven't looked at them yet; I can only take so many potential ego-blows in a week. (Even though, when my secretary handed them to me - she said, "Do you want your teaching evaluations?" I kind of laughed ruefully and said, "I don't WANT them, but I'll TAKE them," and she responded, "Oh, but they're GOOD." I kind of shrugged and said that the negative comments were the only ones I remembered and she laughed and said that everyone was like that. But if she was the person who typed everyone's evals up....and mine were apparently good compared to everyone else, I guess I don't have too much to worry about. But I want to work on the paper first before looking at the evals.)