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.