Tiny crocheted animals

I've only been making amigurumi for a week or so, but I thought I'd post some pictures of what I've been up to.

This pig was the first complicated thing I tried. It's based on a pattern from Wire My Soul, though I'm constitutionally unable to simply follow a pattern. :D





This is the second time I've tried this elephant, and I think it's a very cute pattern by Lucy Ravenscar. I'll be making more of these, for sure:



And finally, here's my favourite thing of all: a freestyle bee that I designed myself. It's inspired by the previous/next bees on the KinokoFry web comic, but simplified and 3D. I can't even tell you how cute people are when they see this. They cannot resist picking it up, squeezing it and messing with the wings. Adorable.



And for educational purposes :D the base of the bee, where you can see the colours overlapping. Because amigurumi are made as spirals, there's always going to be a bit of a mess when swapping colours.

Comfortable to be labelled an atheist

Since I only update during even years, (guilty cough) here I am updating. Been reading/watching/learning a lot about atheism lately and I'm a believer! Or rather, a non-believer.

Many of my friends are roleplayers/fantasy readers/speculative fiction aficionados. People who get intrigued with exploring other worlds, and I've been thinking about faiths in other worlds, particularly how weird it would be if there were one or more gods who, you know, existed. What if prayers were answered. We've all imagined worlds like that, right? Even something as simple as D&D forces you to examine how freakish it would be if the gods actually took sides.

And wouldn't atheism be an interesting choice in a world where there were gods who made a difference? It would require an active denial of reality. An ability to see the world and say, yes, but I have *faith* in my own beliefs; a faith which transcends logic and facts.

And then I make a coffee and I'm glad I live in the real world, where atheism is rational, because there are no sky wizards here.

bringing it home

You know how cats love to bring dead birds, lizards and, in rare cases, socks to their humans? Well, Printy just brought in a big piece of bacon. And then ate it in front of me.

This raises some interesting questions: Why? Why me? Where the hell did she get it? (Our neighbours? A nearby bacon tree?) Is she going to throw it up? Near me?

What was she thinking? (My best guess: CAN HAS PIG MEATZ NAO?)

LOLPRINTY macros will be looked upon with great favour and amusement.

So, Prozac gives you vivid dreams and in the last week or so the nightmares have returned (why do they go? why can't they go back there?) and are so consistent that I've actually noticed a pattern. Warning, this is some freaky shit right here and possibly a window into my brain that you don't want to look through.

Phase One: something lovely happens to me, often involving cuddles and acceptance. This phase is usually very tactile and detailed. Some vaguely nasty undertones, but nothing I don't ignore using dream logic.

e.g. I discover a new creature kind of like a cat and there are two of them and they depend on me for everything and I love cats so it's all good. Sure they drink blood, but that's not really a problem, right?

Phase Two: Weird interlude. Something odd but pleasant enough happens which takes me out of the situation of phase one. Also tactile, but not so overwhelmingly lovely.

e.g. Go on a tour of a garden of alien plants. In the meantime, arrange for the first delivery of live food to the cat things, and they tear it to pieces as expected. They're also growing really fast, but nothing to worry about, right?

Phase Three: Something ghastly happens. Usually quite vague on the physical details (thank christ) but also the start of the really evil subversion/blame thing that my brain does to me in this dream.

e.g. Cat things dismember their first human victim leaving the bits in my room. It's someone I love and they're doing it because they need to (not their fault) and they wouldn't hurt me (because they love me).

Phase Four: Attempt to solve the problem which goes Very Badly.

e.g. Decide to destroy the cat things, so I capture one of them in a big glass jar (for maximum pathos) but the other one escapes. The one in the jar starts starving to death. I realise that they're silicon based lifeforms and that more of them are evolving/transforming from ahem, my anime figurines. (Wtf brain, thx for that.)

Phase Five: Realise the real solution is to destroy someone or something I love, so I do. This is fucking unrelentingly grim, sometimes involving me crying the whole time.

e.g. I have to burn all my anime figures but for some reason I can't admit to anyone that I've worked out which thing of mine they're transforming from, so instead I have to box up everything I own and throw it on to a fire, with the help of the people who don't understand why people keep getting killed by the still-at-large cat thing and are grieving for their loss.

Phase Six: no real resolution, just more self-blame. Wake up. Have a great day!

I can remember three versions of this sequence in detail and suspect that there are more. I'm hoping that writing this down will help to exorcise it, or at least improve my chances of realising that it's all a dream while I'm in there. Wish me luck, dear reader.

Here's a photo of some of my favourite people wearing things that I made for them: Simon's wearing the scarf that I already posted about. Dave's got a long black and grey scarf for keeping him warm on the walk to the bus. Fiona and Connor are wearing hats. Connor's wearing my first attempt at a beanie: tiny and grey and blue, complete with a pom-pom on top. Fiona's hat is white wool with a very funky greeny/gold brim. Jimbo's wearing the first of two black gloves made of mohair. These are super simple gloves basically made from a square of fabric sewn up one side with a hole for the thumb. They work really well.

I am making a pair with the same design for Emma-sensei, but hers have purple and black stripes and are long and hyperfunky.

While I was putting up photos, I thought I might also link to a photo of some woman holding Connor. He's very cute.

some kind of medal

I'm sure I deserve to have something nice happen to me, given that I just spent about four hours fiddling with bills, statements, tax certificates and other dreadfully important pieces of paper. Not just because it's a pain in the ass to file things, but because it's like a litany of things that require action and OMG my life is falling apart. Also worrying about money is never fun. Stats are fun!

Unopened envelopes as a percentage of total paperwork heap: 80.

Oldest unopened envelope found: March 2006.

Total number of unopened letters from Wonky-wah: three for me and one more addressed to Anne.

Number of companies who sent the you-missed-a-payment, you-missed-two-payments, we're-cancelling-your-service, your-service-has-been-cancelled letter sequences: four.

Number of companies who sent followup OMFG-you-owe-us-money letters: two. Insurance companies don't let you get into debt with them, apparently.

Total number of letters that I didn't open: NONE. Go team me, fight and do miracle. I also rang the tax office! And a buncha other people who needed to be called! Woot! (Reread the wiki page about Social Anxiety if you don't get why this is a big deal.)

Number of years of tax returns outstanding: eight. At least.

Number of years the tax dept is going to charge me $550 for not putting in a tax return: two. (I intend to make poor starving puppy faces at them until they cave and waive this. I can dream.)

Number of thousand dollars I owe in HECS (yes, STILL): 18. And a half.

Sigh. So this is all depressing and shit. Sigh. It represents (in a stark, map-is-the-territory sort of way) the past year and bit of my life.

And Xopher isn't well and I've started coughing today (damn you, Centrelink germs) so we're not going visit Dave and Fiona and Simon and Jimbo and Connor tonight, so *sadface*. No stitch and bitch for me. No presenting the scarf I made for Dave to him. Or the hat for Fiona. Or the gloves for Jimbo and Emma-sensei. No holding the baby while everyone else has dinner. *sob*.

My life is deeply tragical today. I might go watch some emo bands making dreadfully earnest and homoerotic declarations to cheer me up. Fauxmos! \o/

Finished another scarf, so I thought I'd show you. The last one was made of hand-painted mohair. The crocheting was therefore fairly boring, because the yarn itself was so interestingly textured and coloured. This one started out as a test of an old-fashioned stitch which can be made into three dimensional repeating bumps as you see here, using some old wool I had lying around. I decided I liked how it looked, so when I ran out of the green wool I added black to each end.

Yesterday I gave it to Simon for a belated Christmas present. He seemed quite pleased.

I've been doing quite a lot of crocheting lately, ably assisted by our little stitch and bitch group. It was originally something for Fiona and I to do on Tuesday nights while everyone else played RPGs, but Emma-sensei has also attended a session and it's fun -- unironic fun, even. For one thing, having crocheting to pay attention to takes some of the pressure off conversation, and for another, making things is neat.

I was going to make a big list of the tv and music that's making me happy lately, and then a contrasting list about medication and anxiety, but there's some links instead.

orz

So I haven't posted in a while, but hey, posting now. Lately I've been doing some crocheting and I made this scarf for my friend Anne. Also featured is our sole surviving cat, Printy. She's doing remarkably well at being an only cat though we both miss Manson. Hope you're happy and well, dear reader.

Incompetent and Unaware

I know it's been ages since I've actually said anything interesting, so thanks for persevering with me, gentle reader.

I find psychology fascinating. Part of this is the comfort of knowing that many of my reactions are in fact very human, and part of it is validation of my belief that I'm really not like most people (or, actually, most women).

This article is intriguing in both these ways: http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf

Go ahead, read it. Read the whole thing! Skip over the stats analysis like I did, but definitely read at least the intro, just so you know why "But I wore the juice" is funny.

So here are two of my conflicting reactions to the article (which you have just read, right? It's really interesting and well-written, apart from the stats bits which made me cross-eyed).

Firstly, there are some skills which I may not realise that I'm no good at. This is deeply worrying. 8) If you know me (and if you don't, why are you reading this?) you know that I like being good at things. Particularly, I like being smart. One of the quickest ways to get me angry is to imply that I'm stupid. (Remember how Seneca said that anger is a failure of expectations? I *expect* you to know that I'm smart.) But from these results, even if I'm presented with evidence that I'm no good at something (say, comedy, for instance) then I won't realise it, because I'm no good at it.

Worrisome!

Secondly, people consistently generally over-estimate their own skills. This one is not so bad for me, because many of the skills on which I pride myself have been objectively measured (many, many times) through formal, university-level exams, and the fact is that I *am* good at them. So, phew. This is one of the "I'm not like most people" things, I think. Anyone who's seen me immediately after an exam knows that I'm chronically unable to believe that I've done well until I have the high mark as proof. I think I'm much more likely to believe in a false consensus: everyone else can do what I do, because it is in fact, fairly easy. Except that really, no, not always. Some of the things I do are hard for most people.

Yay me!

Of course, the article isn't perfect. For one thing, the subjects are volunteer university students, so it's applicability to "normal people" might be hard to gauge. But then, I'm more like a university student than a "normal person" (and you are too) so I choose to believe that it's a freakin' excellent article which really helps to explain how come some people can spend all their *life* being incompetent. And no, this is not a secret message for you. I'm not talking about you. I like *you*. Geez, sensitive much? 8)

That's a whole lotta tv

What I'm downloading each week and why (in five "words" or less).

Battlestar Galactica. Robots vs. puny humans.
Bleach (Anime). Ichigo 4 Ishida 4 eva.
Bones. Agent Angel vs. Smart Lady.
Family Guy. She'll pretty much have to.
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. Who's feeling Peanutty? *
House. House 4 Wilson 4 eva. *
Justice League Unlimited. Flash, Bats and GL. *
Kyou kara Maou (Anime). So pretty, so gay. *
Lost. OMG WTF polar bears. *
Numb3rs. Bad maths with Doctor Joel.
Rome. Historical and dramatic. *
Smallville. Clark 4 Lex 4 Eva. *
Stargate Atlantis. Rodney 4 John 4 eva.
Stargate SG1. Jack 4 Daniel 4 eva.
Supernatural. It might get better.
Surface. Gonna need a bigger boat.
The Dead Zone. Walt 4 Johnny 4 eva. *

* Or at least I will be when the hiatus/Xmas break finishes.

Too much weather

It's almost 9pm and it's 38 in my living room. There are currently warnings for severe storms, severe winds and a total fire ban in both Canberra and NSW. There's enough smoke around that earlier the sun was doing the apocalyptic red glare thing and I can smell burning house paint on the wind.

Fuckin' weather.

You lookin' at me?

We had our work Xmas party today and it had the usual fare: awkward conversation, bad food, endless discussions of how/why/what-sort-of/no-really-why-am-I vegetarian (on behalf of all vegetarians: sigh).

My casual Friday shirt du jour was a Neon Genesis Evangelion shirt, black and red with the NERV logo and the phrase "God's in His heaven and all's right with the world." This is my sly/cynical version of an Xmas shirt. 8)

Anyway, after a brief discussion with one of the waitresses about the NGE mangas (tee hee), I was sitting innocently at a table, when I noticed one of the (cute, young) chef type people grinning at me.

Then he pointed both fingers at me, pointed his thumbs at his chest, and gave me two big thumbs up while mugging and grinning. Reading through this, you probably know exactly what he meant, but at the time I had no idea. I actually had to stop myself from turning to see if there was anyone behind me.

Apparently, he liked my shirt.

mult-eye-task-ing

On a whim (and I have lots of those) I bought a bunch of cross-stitching projects to make for my friend Anne for this Xmas. Sadly, just because they're less than $10 to buy, does not make them quick to do. I quite like cross-stitch though, it's a lot like pixel art and making things with my hands is always rewarding.

But the problem was how to find time to devote to actually making them, because I practically live on my computer when I'm not at work, and cross-stitch takes both hands and pretty much all of my attention. The solution is to get my computer to read to me.

Macs have been able to speak arbitrary text for a very long time (since at least the late eighties when the Talking Moose was pretty damn funny), and the speech system has been getting progressively more sophisticated. I get my computer to read stories to me, which have the advantage of being real sentences and it's quite good at the subtleties of English. Emma-sensei and I were testing it the other night, and it clearly uses context to decide how to pronounce words. For instance, in sentences it was (mostly) correct when it used reject as a verb (short re) or a noun (long ree).

I have a list of words that it consistently gets wrong though, and probably banal (to rhyme with anal) is my favourite. Banal conversation was never so amusing. (Or is this just an Americanism? It certainly says "erb garden".)

I've finished a book mark (Tigger with butterflies!) and almost finished one of the pictures (Tigger again, this time with flowers and trees (*@#ing trees)).

I might try to resurrect a miracle and start beading again. Most of you probably remember the beer coolers I made years ago with beaded thingies on the front. I've been trying to remember what the penguins on "Lager Drink" looked like. I don't suppose anyone has any pictures?

Casual Friday

In the past few months the IT people where I work have started wearing jeans and tshirts on Fridays. It's kind of cute, because someone thought of it, and now everyone does it, but as far as I know, nobody talks about it. (The first rule of casual Friday is...)

So, anyway, I wore my Gatchaman shirt today. Some of you might remember it as G-Force, but basically the shirt has the logo, a red G on a yellow background.

One of the few women I work with wandered past and interrupted me to say, "Super girl, super girl."

Me: It's not Super Girl, it's Gatchaman, G-Force. You know, that old animated tv show...
She: [laughing meanly and shaking her head] That's just sad. Sad!
Me: [flatly] I'm sure you think so.
She: [nothing to say at all, wandered away]

Victory! She was wearing an old, tatty, give-away Microsoft shirt. As she does almost every day. My shirt is nerdy, but hers is an ad for an out-of-date version of a Microsoft server product. Hah!

This woman is known crap-head anyway; she once asked me "Why is your life so empty that you watch *Batman*?" That day I couldn't think of a good answer ("Fuck off!" would have been perfect, but is a little outside my comfort zone.) so I owe her many snide comments.

By way of contrast, one of the guys who I work with occasionally is a much nicer person. We chat about animated shows and House and all sorts of things.

He: [walking past] Hi.
Me: Hi.
He: [notices shirt, looks jealous] Where do you keep finding these shirts!? I want a Green Lantern one...

And then five minutes of chat about finding cool shirts and variations on the Green Lantern logo ensued. Rock.

In other news, I'm another year older, and much less in debt. I love my friends. My mother visited for a week, but has now gone back to the less-than-tender mercies of my sisters. Finally, I loved HP4, and though there's no sneaky thing at the end of the credits, the Jarvis Cocker power ballad is worth waiting for.

Good boss, bad boss

So I went to speak to Good Boss (GB) on Monday, to discuss the fact that I'm having trouble staying at work for five days in a row, and that I may need to reduce the number of hours that I'm working.

He was very cool. He said that he thought I was very brave for seeking help, thanked me for speaking to him, re-assured me that he'll speak to my immediate supervisor (BB), and only tell him what we agreed to. I spoke to GB first because I don't trust BB. You'll see how justified I am below.

Then today, BB asked to speak to me, and it was such a sharp contrast that it was almost laughable. Not quite though, because this is still some pretty important stuff that he's screwing up.

For instance:
Me: [On Friday, ringing at 9 am] I'm not feeling well, and won't be in.
BB: [incredulous, disappointed] Still?!

Seriously, can you imagine a worse response?

BB: [Today] So, I know that it's very personal, but can you tell me what's wrong?
Me: [pause] Did [GB] speak to you?
BB: Yes, but he only said it was a health issue... and I'd just like to know...
Me: [longer pause] Well, I'm going through a lot of things at the moment, but I'm getting treatment for them.

It's not like I didn't give him a couple of chances to RESPECT MY FUCKING PRIVACY.

BB: So how long will this [the reduced hours] go on?
Me: Unfortunately, there's no real answer to that.
BB: Well, I'm coming from a position of wanting to get you back to 40 hours a week, as quickly as possible, so you just tell me what we can do to make that happen. As quickly as possible.
Me: Er... (!)

Whereas the GB said at the end of our conversation, "We really do try to support our people here, whether they're contractors or full time staff. I'm so glad you're not resigning."

My plan of attack/defense is as follows: I'm not going to be speaking to BB alone about this from now on. I'm going to speak to GB again, point out my problems with BB's response, and ask him for advice and assistance.

You get the minion you deserve

I have a new minion at work, and when he first got here, he knew hardly anything about my speciality, and even less about Microsoft development in general. Despite this (or perhaps because of it) he's a perfect minion for me.

One of my little foibles (or "faults" if you will) is that I tend to be very good and precise at what I do, and so I expect the same of people working with me. When the person involved tends to "let the little things slide", and "gets there eventually" I can be perceived as arrogant and overly-critical. Because, I know the right way to do it, why oh why don't you just believe me and do it my way? 8)

My new minion not only has a very blank slate (so my way is the only way he knows), but he's also very self-deprecating. When he shows me his solution, and I say, "Well, you could do it like that, or you know..." and explain a better way to do it, he doesn't get mad, and he doesn't argue. He says, "OMG, you are so right. That's just... of course."

It's all good: I'm happy; he's more knowledgeable. Yay. It's not always so clear cut, and remarkably, I'm not always right, but even then, his attitude is "let's work together to solve this, OMG you're so clever".

And the other important thing here is that he's very intelligent in his own right, and smart enough to listen when I talk and takes in what I'm saying and still ends up agreeing with me.

Er... sorry about the complete silence

Life's been kind of interesting lately, but in a very hermit inducing way. Basically after struggling with a bunch of stuff which was making me feel crappy and making me miss work, I've started seeing a psychologist (hereinafter "doctorc" where the c is for crazy), and been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (hereinafter not mentioned).

This is a very interesting time to be me, and man, if you thought that having a blog made you self-obsessed, you should try working through a bunch of childhood crap.

In happier, quick let's gloss over the personal revelation parts of this post, news, I've also started reading a lot of comics. Batman is the shit. Yes, indeedy. It's a shame that it's taken me so long to catch up (gloss gloss) with how cool comics are, but now I'm here and nerding the hell out of myself.

Anyway, my doctorc says that I'm good at working out what I need, and she's one hundred per cent behind my buying comics and toys habit, so hee hee, no stopping me now.

Please feel free to relate your personal revelations to Batman in your comments. Or Cable and Deadpool, if you know who they are. Or Young Avengers (featuring Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, to make an in-joke that I expect absolutely nobody reading this blog to get -- feel free to prove me wrong).

Tattoos

Many of you have probably heard my idea to get a tattoo on my butt that says, "Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here." I've had the best idea for a matching tattoo, low on my stomach:

"Gaze on my works ye mighty and despair."

Reason #8,492 Why I Love Living with Chris

[Driving home after a lovely dinner with Ms. Fiona, Mr the Dave and Simno]
L: Watch out for that bus, it's probably turning right.
[Bus doesn't turn right]
L: It didn't. [peers in rear-vision mirror] Oh, I thought so, it's out of service.
X: It might be going this way.
L: Buses turn right there.
X: What if it's going to that bus stop?
L: That's not a bus stop.
[pause]
X: What if it's a hospital bus?
L: The buses to the hospital go the other way.
X: What if it's going to that bus stop?
L: Then it would have gone into Woden and back out again.
[pause]
X: What if it was a private bus?
L: Then it wouldn't have said "Action Buses" on the side.
[pause]
X: What if it was a private bus going to a private hospital?
L: I've already told you about the hospital buses.
[pause]
X: What if it was one of those late night buses that go everywhere?
L: Those buses are smaller, because hardly anyone is on them. Don't backchat me, I know buses.
[pause]
X: What if it...
L: Look, you've lost this one, okay? There are plenty of other arguments that you can win, so I think you should just retire gracefully.
X: I think I should fart and run away.
L: I think you should NOT fart AND stay in the car.
[pause]
X: So I win?
L: ...yes.

Classy

Yikes, it's been a while since my last post. But since I've been asked to, and I'm very vulnerable to requests (or, let's face it, orders) behold:

I've started Japanese, after an initial balk at the gate and refusal to attend the very first night. Ahh, anxiety, my old friend. But since then I've been three times and I loooove it. I've started half-way through third year, and I have a lot of catching up to do, mainly grammar patterns and vocabulary relating to travelling (which is not a frequent topic in manga or anime). There are between 10 and 15 people in the class (lots of people have other commitments) and many of them are Australian-born Asians, which means they already know at least one other language apart from English. Fluently. And quite a few of them are Chinese which gives them a huge advantage with kanji too. Grrargh. I'm torn between relief at no longer being the smartest girl in the class, and an overwhelming compulsion to study until I *am* the smartest girl in the class again.

Or, hmm, perhaps I mean most knowledgeable -- the one that everyone else turns too when the teacher asks a hard question.

All of you know what it's like to be the smartest person in the room. It struck me particularly hard on Wednesday night when we were writing some sentences, using patterns that I'd seen less than the other kids, but they just didn't remember. Whereas I seem to be able to see something once, understand it and reuse it, the others seem to be a lot more repetition oriented. I don't mind this at all, because it gives me time to catch up on other things in the mean time. I think I catch on quicker than most of the others because I've listened to and read much more Japanese than them (well, except for the ones who've lived in Japan).

I like my analogy of language acquisition requiring a framework into which new information can be placed. The more you know, the more places you have in your framework to put new words and structures. One of the few things I dislike about the way we study in class is that we often take a task (such as a ringing to arrange a hotel reservation) and learn how to do this particular task very thoroughly. We learn the particular phrases required, how to specify dates and times and so on, but this is a focussed, restricted sort of learning. Where's the love? I mean, where's the bit where we learn how to chitty-chat with people? I want chitty-chat skills dammit.

Ahem. To bring this back to the framework idea, just learning how such one such conversation might go is not very helpful. Far more useful to me would be a lesson from the text book about the various verbs involved in giving and receiving gifts. In Japanese there are (at least) three verbs for "to give" and at least three verbs (though one's usually only used by men) for "to receive". Learning these would be fun, and useful in lots of ways. It's also much more of an insight into Japanese culture and if information was included about the courtesy of gifts, then that would be cooler still. But I guess there's always the chance that I missed this lesson.

I've decided not to do Level 2 of the JLPT. Sasaki-sensei convinced me that level 3 is quite hard enough, so my kanji count is now much smaller and I'm not going to bother tracking it any more.

In other news, well, I don't have any other news. I'm studying a "lot". Oh, except that Emma-sensei and Xopher bought me a tshirt from China and it's lovely and says "Dao" (Chinese), "Dou" (Japanese), or "The Way" (English).