In the past two months, I have been doing some pretty neat things. I'm going to take one post to explain what I've done and learned, and in subsequent posts, I'll break each new skill down and teach you all what I've learned! As I get older, my patience for new skills has been waning, so the things I've become obsessed with are things that even people with short attention spans can get into. I hope. HEH.
So my hiatus began with a two-week journey to Manhattan to sub in for my nephew's nanny. If you've ever been within ten feet of a toddler, you're already well aware that there's no time or energy left in your day for personal hygiene or knitting, let alone blogging. I love that little gremlin and taught him some basic training fundamentals (do you have a toddler at home? Show them how to do a jumping jack, but do it Navy boot camp style - two jumping jacks included for each "ONE PETTY OFFICER... TWO PETTY OFFICER..." They love it. And their complete lack of comprehension of the movements of a jumping jack just makes it extra amusing and adorable. (Wait, is that child cruelty? The kid laughed and loved it, so my gut says no...). He also learned how to climb things he probably shouldn't climb, while I cheered him on with his new favorite chant of "YOU GOTTA WANT IT!"
After my sojourn in New York, I returned home, showered, re-packed, and left the next day on a roadtrip to Clayton, New York to spend some quality time with one of my dearest friends. While there, I did so, so, so much knitting. I had been a pretty prolific knitter of the garter stitch - the basic, starter stitch that once you get the hang of, you can do while watching a movie or reading or whatever. You can zone out and your fingers just know the feel of the needles and the yarn and each stitch and oh boy it's really heaven. But, I didn't learn how to knit so that I could stay on level 1, so I learned the stockinette stitch - that knitting pattern that I used to gawp at and think, "that's sorcery. No other explanation for it, it's just sorcery." Despite the increased amount of concentration and awareness that is necessary with this new knitting method, I'm determined to finish one very special blanket for one of my many friends who has recently had a baby. (In other news, seriously, what was going on nine months ago that you're all pregnant or at home with newborns right now? What did I miss??).
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| I MADE THIS |
On top of that, I've made a point to brush off the dust from the knowledge of the French language that I learned from the two years I spent dating that really, really pretty French man. I've been diligently completing my Duolingo lessons and am amazed with how much I've retained. The Duolingo program is an outstanding way to learn a new language, and has been shown to be a more effective way to learn a language than Rosetta Stone (key point: 34 hours of Duolingo instruction are shown to be the equivalent of one semester of language courses in college, while it takes 55 hours of Rosetta Stone to equal the same). That study was funded by Duolingo, so here is an independent review of the two. Also, maybe the most important factor, Duolingo is free. The interface is wonderful and the way they present the lessons makes them interesting and engaging, and I've never once thought, "screw this, I'll stay a monoglot." (Aside: before I studied French, I studied German for all of last year, and my knowledge was sufficient enough to be able to talk some major trash with a group of Bavarian tourists in Barcelona this past April). If you choose to check it out, add me as a friend! Competition and support from friends is always a nice thing to have when you're launching into this sort of endeavor!
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| No big |
I would also be remiss if I didn't tell you all about the massive amounts of TV I've got caught up on. There's no cable at my house, so we, like basically everyone else in the world, rely on HBO Now, Hulu (ad-free for an extra $3 per month? Yes, please), and old faithful, Netflix. First, I decided I had better see what all the fuss was about, and watched all five seasons of Game of Thrones (are you starting to understand why I love knitting now, and why I've been so prolific? Each stitch basically represents a character's death in this series). I didn't think I'd like it, to be honest, because I had seen half of the first episode and wasn't feeling it despite the presence of Sean Bean. I dropped my preconceived conclusions and started to look a lot like these two. I started to text the people who had been watching it all along. Sharing disbelief with character's deaths or weird things that happened onscreen. Season 6 doesn't come out until April 2016 which is basically a decade away and now I know how you all devotees have felt this whole time. I'm sorry I ever made fun of you. I get it now. I am one of you.
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| Petyr Bae-lish, amirite |
Since I imagine me and Richard Ayoade are basically soulmates, I was turned on to his show Gadget Man, where he finds obscure little inventions and inserts them, sometimes needlessly, into everyday situations. Did you know that there is a machine that will paint your walls for you, autonomously? Most of these things have zero bearing in my normal human life, because I'm never going camping so I have absolutely no need for a see-through tent, but the thought that there's another human on this planet who despises the beach as much as I do, while being far more witty about it, made the viewings enjoyable.
My most recent love is the show An Idiot Abroad. If you have Netflix, please, watch at least one episode. I was belly laughing. Last night I re-watched the Beijing episode and was literally crying tears having caught little off-hand comments that I missed the first time around. The premise is, everyman Karl Pilkington is sent around the world by his frenemies Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. In the first series, Karl is sent to each of the New Seven Wonders of the World and his experiences are realistically portrayed. Karl is a miserable asshole so basically he's all of us if we were stuck in a crappy hotel room on a busy road that smells like cow poop.
In addition to the above, all while also still earning my degree (ALMOST DONE!), I decided I needed to make my best friend's upcoming birthday extra special. Since he and I have hit a level of adulthood that allows us to generally buy ourselves whatever cool things we discover, we've used birthdays as an excuse to fully nerd out on each other. One year I bought him a giant box of every bacon-flavored thing I could find on the internet, along with two sets of Lightsaber chopsticks. Why? Because why not. Since I've exhausted my usual stash of cool things to send him, and since this year he has an amazing girlfriend who will undoubtedly get him all the good stuff, I thought, this is the year I finally make my best friend a custom doll of himself.
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| Actual BFF, edited to protect the innocent |
I have become pretty fond of those adorable little Pop Vinyl figures, as you saw above with my Game of Thrones set (also adorning my desk are Tali'Zorah from Mass Effect and Elsa from Frozen because any broad who says "the cold never bothered me anyway" is my kind of gal). Once I discovered that you can buy a blank figurine and some epoxy clay, I knew what I must do. I didn't have a great deal of faith in my sculpting abilities, but I knew even an abhorrent custom-made figurine of oneself is better than no custom-made figurine of oneself.
So I got to work.
After only a few hours of carefully mixing the clay compound, I got the gist of what he was going to look like. His favorite game is Planetside, I thought I would go old-school and put his figure in the armor of his Planetside character. The clay didn't have to bake, so I let it sit for 24 hours and then began the painting.
I already had acrylic paint on hand from my canvas painting days, so I did my best to colormatch his skin and hair. Referencing old Planetside screengrabs, I think I nailed his armor, also thanks to some metallic Julep nail polish I would never again wear for fears that it made me look like one of those girls who loves mall food courts. SO Operation: Best Friend Birthday 2015 is looking good so far.
So now, it's Sunday, my school work is finished for the week, I have a pretty solid playlist happening, and I'm going to take my newly-acquired vegetable rennet and I'm going to make some fresh mozzarella, because this is what I do.
Thank you all for being patient with me as I went off on my little sabbatical!
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