Distractions

My semester finishes two weeks today, and it's not been an easy one, so I am already making mental lists of all the nice things I'm going to do when it's all over. I have the entire month of May 'to myself', sort of, as Fred's school will not finish until the end of the month.

On the list are a number of domestic activities, like finally getting proper curtains put up in Fred's room, and finding a contractor to start a landscaping project around the front of the house. But in between advanced pathophysiology, which I only passed by the skin of my teeth, and grading nursing ethics essays, and determining my personal management philosophy, I have been knitting.

And crocheting. Lucy's blanket was finished before Christmas, but I have had some trouble combining photos.  Lucy takes hundreds of photos every time we go anywhere, so her graduation present of a Macbook and a student edition of Adobe photoshop meant that we basically got our family computer back. Consolidating and organizing photos is another May Project for me.

I also finished the Forest Canopy Shawl, by Susan Lawrence, which I cast on last July while we were on vacation in Seattle. It was my first big lace work, and was probably the most satisfying and absorbing thing I have ever made. It didn't hurt that it was made with Blue Sky Alpaca & Silk, which was a dream to handle. I kept stroking my cheek with it when I hoped no one was looking.

I have given it away as a present but did take some arty, Yarn Harlot-style pictures of it first.  If you've ever wondered what possessed people in the past to make anything as ridiculously intricate as lace, I can assure it's fun and fascinating. There are two small mistakes but I'm not about to point them out to you.

For some crazy reason I also have returned to Dishcloths. I swore them off about two years ago but keep coming across witty patterns that look ludicrously easy, and then the Peaches & Cream yarn is about $1.50 per skein and you can buy it at Walmart, which makes a visit there a bit more soothing.

This is Mason-Dixon knitting's Linoleum Dishcloth which I gave away to a friend who bequeathed me her entire stash, including some wonderful handspun yarn from Vermont, after she decided she wasn't going to use it.  These heavy cottons are supposed to be great for polishing glass, and if you make yourself a week's supply I'm sure it makes cleaning the kitchen more fun.  Some days I think I'll make a whole set themed around the holidays of the year, and become a kitschy old woman.

Hard work

I am a TA, or teaching assistant this semester for two undergraduate nursing classes. The first is a standard class on healthcare ethics, and the second is a kind of overview of contemporary issues in nursing for seniors who are almost ready to enter the work force.

My job is basically to grade their essays. I taught one class in January when the professor was away at a conference, and that was great fun. But the rest of the job is boring, and I won't be doing it next semester, despite the tuition credit. My office hours are on Thursday afternoons but no one ever comes to see me.

Today I came prepared with spanish vocabulary to and a little distraction.

My Favorite Things

Ugh! Start of new semester, allergy season in Austin *cough*, and no rain to speak of. Here is something nice.

A knitted lampshade. Isn't that just what you need? And not just knitted but stranded fair-isle. We saw it in the window of a boutique on a lightening visit to Marfa, Texas, a small artists' community in the high desert in far south west part of the state.

Marfa has its own NPR station, a beautiful old Spanish-style railroad hotel many art galleries. It also had this, just to remind you that you are in Texas.

Weather or not

The A/C came on this afternoon while we were putting up the Christmas tree. We went for the Blue And Silver theme this year, which we used to great effect way back in the early 2000s, when I first discovered Themed Christmas.  I am not a natural decorator, and found that imposing limits on colors and styles on different years made the whole process more fun. It also helps us all keep track. "Yes, we did the All White Christmas the year we were going to Florida to see Laura and Dwayne, because we just had a little tree because we were flying out that afternoon..."

Anyway, this year was to be a contemporary, sleek look, but we realized ("we" being Jessica and I) that Blue And Silver has been appropriated by the folks who market Hanukkah in the US, no doubt because it's such a contrast from Red And Green. And so a few people have remarked that our tree will "look like Hanukkah" which was never an issue in the UK, where Jewish culture was all but ignored.

We don't mind, though, and have persevered with blue, turquoise and silver ornaments, lots of silver glitter and a total ban on anything red or gold. Poor Freddie kept holding up perfectly nice ornaments like a little gold trumpet, or carved red elf, and saying, "can I put this on the tree?" and we'd say,"NO!" as though he were suggesting something pornographic. I'm sure the poor child is mystified.

It has been muggy and in the 80s for most of the week. However we are waiting for a formidable cold front that is creeping into central Texas from the west and is due tonight. It is being predicted to drop temps into the 20sF by tomorrow evening, which is a pretty big change, even for Texas.

It is even supposed to bring rain, which we've not seen since October.

He-lloooooooo

Hello from the great cavern of full-time graduate school. Yes, I got in earlier this year, and even yes-er, I got a scholarship, which I took as a great compliment, even though the foundation that gave mine appears to support engineers, and I fear my application simply got put in the wrong pile. Once they find out I'm a nurse they are sure to revoke it.

So a stipulation of the scholarship is that I am a full-time student, which means 3 courses, and 9 credit hours. The School of Nursing, or SON as we insiders call it, as in UT-SON, really wanted me to take 4 courses according to its Plan Of Work for the Holistic Adult Health With Role Specialty in Teaching program under the Masters of Science in Nursing. That's the program I'm doing. But I managed to postpone one course until next fall, largely because it conflicted with Fred's piano lesson, but I didn't tell them that.

 I dithered for more than a year about which speciality to choose, and had informational interviews with 3 different departments. I ended up where I am because one of my former teachers wisely observed that "It seems you're not ready to leave the bedside".  The Bedside, being, I guess, hands-on care with a bed nearby.  And that's true, to a great extent. I love working on the floor and hope to continue to do so on a PRN - or "bank nurse" basis -- all the time I'm at school.

The alternatives to The Bedside, are the various Nurse Practitioner options, which technically I'm not eligible for as I've not worked for 2 years in one position, or at least in the US; or the Clinical Nurse Specialist, which is another kind of Advance Practice Nurse, but I am unclear about what job that prepares you for. Also an option were Public Health Nursing which I really love and suspect I will pursue in the end, or Nursing Administration.  The HAH-teaching track (everything has an acronym here) prepares you to take on either a clinical educator post in a hospital, or to be a teacher in undergraduate colleges of nursing, which I think would be fun. And as Everyone Knows, there is an acute shortage of nursing faculty everywhere in the US, so it seems a sensible option. Other SON staff have pointed out gently that the Academic Timetable is a very comfortable way to work when your children are still in school. So I am on my way.

My three classes are very different. Advanced Pathophysiology, which is one of the foundation courses for all the NPs, is a fearful reminder of how it's been since I undertook any serious science. So far I am not doing very well in it, and although I'm told I just have to pass, the Scholarship has a minimum GPA requirement.  The textbook has over 1800 pages and weighs over 7 lbs!

Advanced Psycho-Social Nursing: Culture, Ethics and Communication, has a very grand title, but is mainly a more in-depth look at the health disparities we examined last fall in my public health pre-requisite. It is being taught by a very impressive woman who had a Masters in Engineering and then decided that she really wanted to be a nurse. Being extremely smart, she zipped through an accelerated BSN program and then a PhD, and she is an expert on the use of telecommunications equipment in home health, which is a fast-growing field. I have two projects in this class:one is another look at my refugee population from last year, which you can read about HERE ; the other is a group presentation on TB among American Indians, but that's not due till early December.

The third class is one of three I will take about nursing education. It is taught by the dean of the graduate school and is far more interesting than I'd expected. We are reading a lot of educational theory, which at least is new to me, and will soon be creating lesson plans etc.  I am also TA to an undergraduate nursing course, which I hope will look good on my resume. Sadly it does not require enough hours to earn me discounted tuition, but I'm hoping to change that next semester. My main responsibility as a TA is to grade essays, which are fun to read, for the most part. I am amazed at how immature these college seniors appear. But I suppose we all grow up quickly out in the workplace.

Nervous Breakdown

In the last fortnight I put my first child into a dorm room and my last child into kindergarten.  It was heady stuff.  I managed pretty well when we dropped Lucy off. We managed to move her into the room in less than our alloted 1 hr parking pass, and  her roommate is delightful. There were a few tears when we all hugged her good-bye, but nothing like the floods that hit me the next day while pushing a trolley around Randalls.  I had to hide in the pharmacy dept and call my sister, by turns sobbing and giggling into the phone. "I'm not handling this well," I told her.   She made soothing comments about early days and new routines and giving Lucy space, and we gradually moved onto comparing our semester's graduate coursework (she is doing a PhD) pack lunch ideas and the best jarred tomato sauces.

The visual arts center at UT

Two weeks later, now that classes have started, Lucy is loving her independence and living on campus. She has been home twice in the first 10 days, but I have not had a text for more than 48 hours, which I consider a good sign. She is now in the BA in Studio Art program (the BFA -- fine arts -- was too restrictive, in that you aren't allowed to double major, and there was no room for foreign languages etc). Lucy is considering adding another major and wanted the flexibility.   For friends who are interested, she did start sorority rush, but withdrew after 3 days. I have reflected that I must have a good balance of friends; many were appalled that she even considered participating; and others were perplexed and saddened that she withdrew.  I was not in one myself, although Illinois had an one of the largest Greek systems in the US, but I did kind of circle around it at times, with many friends in the women's glee club who were in sororities. I had thought it might help Lucy to find a tight group of friends on an enormous campus, and I thought the more bru-ha-ha aspects might be fun, and a good counterweight to her art school experiences.

File photo of Delta Gamma at UT -Austin from Forbes, Inc

Lucy withdrew without consulting us, and her reasons were that the rush process itself was overwhelming and alarming superficial, and she feared that she would see and live with too narrow a scope of friends.  Her roommate has pledged Chi Omega, and they have already been to a non-alcoholic Frat party (if you can imagine such a thing) hosted by a Christian fraternity. Apparently it was fabulous fun, with more than 100 in attendance and they all staggered home at 2am and slept till noon.

Yarn Therapy

In addition to the photo compilation, my good friends will not be surprised that I am making a going away present for Lucy. After a lot of discussion, we decided on a crocheted granny square throw, but one with a little more style than the 1970s style afghans you now see in garage sales.

We trawled through Ravelry and decided on the Summer Garden Granny Square Blanket by the appropriately named Lucy of Attic24. She is a British crocheter and designer, who -- fortunately for me -- offers great online tutorials in addition to her patterns. The Summer Garden Granny Square blanket is very popular and can be made into very different looking items, depending on the color selection and arrangement.  With only a few colors you can do a co-ordinated blanket, a little like this:

Or with more colors you can get a more random, eclectic look.

My Lucy wanted a bright, snuggly blanket that did not look too formal or arranged.  In the end, we selected 10 different colors and a three-layer granny square rather than a 4-layer, with no background (which is going to make assembling it all more tricky, but I'm working on that). If you do the math, as Jessica promptly did for us, that gives you 720 possible color combinations, and around 230 if you don't repeat any combinations regardless of their position in the square. With a fairly tight timescale, we're aiming for a throw she could wrap around herself or wear across her lap. Perhaps the a/c will not be well controlled in her building?

We went from this:

 to this

in a matter of weeks.  It takes me about 9 minutes to do a square if I'm concentrating and don't have to plan the color selection or dig around for the scissors. So far I have 60 4 to 41/2" squares.

I amused myself by attempting a statistical analysis of the blanket yesterday afternoon. I've been wondering whether my color selections were balanced. I decided a few weeks ago to use the outmost layer as a color determiner, and ensured I had the same number of each outer color, which at this point is 6 of each. If you give the outer color 3 points, the middle petals of the flower 2, and the center 1, my color weightings looked like this:

Blue - 35
Violet - 37
Yellow - 47
Red - 32
Lavender - 37
Green - 29
Pink - 37
Lime - 36
Orange - 32
Teal - 36

This give me an average color rating of 35.6, a median of 36 and a mode of 37. The Yellow outlier throws everything off, of course and was a surprise, as it doesn't look very yellow when you lay it out.  If the Minitel software I had on temporary license for my stats course in 2011 was still working, I could create a lovely histogram for you.  In its absence, I'm just pulling a few of the squares with yellow in them and adding more green and orange combinations.   Watch this space.