The Blog

   300 posts later...

...and I still want to do this blogging thing. Who would have thought?

So, in the personal news, Minako is back! Woo! *does the happy laptop dance, which sounds much dirtier than it actually is*

James bought me some stickers from MOO with my flickr photos on them, and I've been gleefully sticking them all over my once immaculately white iBook. I'll post photos later, I imagine.

Actually, on the subject of photos, the other week I knitted a scarf in three days for my dear friend Nilanka's birthday. It was the short row rib from Magknits, knitted in Vintage Hues by Cleckheaton and it was really fun to knit something fun and simple for a change. Which is to say something other than my jacket of doom (last seen in this blog post by my mum), which is coming along nicely, but the last stages (knitting the collar and sewing it up) are going very slow.

As a part of her birthday present I also promised to teach Nilanka how to knit herself, and so last Sunday I went to see her and taught her how to both knit and purl and she's now the proud creator of the first 15cm of a scarf in a 3 rows knit, 3 rows purl rib (much the same as the one I knitted for her, but without the short rows). It's very pretty and I hope she enjoys knitting from now on. I may have to go back in a week or two to teach her how to cast off.

I've also knitted a scarf for Heidi in the last few weeks, but I forgot to photograph it. :(

I'm currently at 6 pages on "Skirting the Paradox", for those who care about my fictional works. I'd love to have this finished soon, but I'm really bad at writing fight scenes, and when you get right down to it the whole story is one long string of fight scenes. *sighs* I kinda just want to skip them and get on with the fun mystery stuff, because that's really the point of the story, but the violent setting keeps getting in the way.

Oh, and I suppose you want to know about the PhD. Well, I think I finally made a breakthrough today. I'm still not going to finish anytime soon, but I feel like I know what's going on and where I'm headed. I'm sure that'll only last a day or two, but right at this moment, I'm feeling good about it.

James has started a new job today. That makes me inordinately happy. I imagine he'll be blogging about it soon enough. In the meantime, everyone should go and read his post where he points out the uncanny resemblance between the latest iPod posters and screenshots from Battle Royale. Because it's awesome and while I believed him when he first told me that was what they look like I didn't realise just how similar the imagery was.

My sister has packed herself a "go-bag" in case of terrorist attack during the APEC summit next month. We're reasonably certain she's being ironic, since it primarily consists of her St John's Ambulance first aid kit (which she keeps in her car anyway), a change of clothes and a packet of timtams (which will someday run out), but you can never be too sure.

My grandmother on my father's side is currently in the Sydney Eye Hospital (she had the cataracts removed from one eye last week and it promptly became infected) and yesterday she had an operation which was apparently successful. She's in the room next door to Anthony Mundine, who's got himself a horrible eye infection because he noticed a speck on his contact lens and licked it to get it clean. The good news is that my nanna will be fine, the bad news is that no one is sure about "the Man".

Actually, while we're on the subject of Catherine's relatives, my grandmother on my mum's side recently loaned me her collection of newspaper clippings about her father (my great grandfather), Edward Michael Boland. My mum took the time to scan them all into a pdf file for posterity, and it's available for download if you are interested in my family history. He was a great man (even the Queen recognised it, giving him an OBE *smiles*), being Apprenticeship Commissioner in NSW for more than 20 years, known for being fair minded and working with Liberal governments in power despite him being a Labor man through and through. Grandma informed me that the Liberal government actually changed the age of retirement laws so that he could stay on longer in his job.

My favourite quote from the collection reads:
The Commissioner is not concerned that his OBE puts in the same order of chivalry as the Beatles with their MBEs. But he commented wryly: "I still prefer youths with hair short back and sides."
- (We think the Sunday Telegraph), 27th June, 1965


Moving on to the world outside my circle of peoples, we have a couple of great bits of news to discuss:

Giant Lego man washed up on Dutch beach
This is just amazing. Both for the quotes ("I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England.") and for the thought that maybe he was made to walk the plank on a giant Lego pirate ship. Or maybe he was just washed overboard. We may never know!


China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
You read that right. The Dalai Lama must now ask permission (no doubt in triplicate) before he reincarnates.
And while that sounds amusing at first (and indeed, those of us here in the office laughed when we first read it), it's also terribly sad when you think of the Chinese government using this power to corrupt the beautiful mysticism of the Tibetan people.

Skipping away from depressing news, the new iMacs were released today. I think they're pretty ugly, what with the giant black border around the screen (which is really a quite clever way of hiding the fact that you can't actually fit a computer in the space behind the screen alone), but they're better than the mockups James showed me last week and still reasonably sexy. And I'm sad to say that I want one like burning. Good thing they haven't released Leopard yet, or I'd be in trouble. Bloody Steve.

And this story about Magic has just made my day. I must wire some of those switches into my life.

So, this is the end of my 300th blog post. Was it good for you too?

Labels: crafty-Cat, Domus Prime, family, history, iCatherine, knitting, lego, longest blog ever, magic, never going to graduate, news, old photographs, phd, reality distortion field, web stuff, writing

   Gratuitous Scarf Post...

So, I've been busy. We got to that horrible point in the semester where I end up with two assignments and a test to mark within two weeks, and it's always nasty. So between the maths department and the conferences I'm organising I've not done much since I last posted.

That said, I did get to do a little last Saturday.

As you can see, the red was where I was up to the last time I took photos, and I hadn't done very much since then. I got to knit a lot that day, as once we got Heidi moved in and she started unpacking there wasn't much else for a large group of us to do (no one wanted to unpack her stuff into the wrong places).

A better photo will follow in the next day or so as I finish catching up and my brain re-engages enough that I can make with the image-editing-fu.

Labels: conferences, crafty-Cat, doctor who, Heidi, knitting, losing sleep, Tony is a legend

   Snippets of an Update...

• Got enough HWWS conference registrations (and enough speakers not attending the dinner and pizza nights) that we can afford to give everyone gingerbread in their conference bags. Bags are still cheap ones, but they now will contain mq-branded mugs, books and pens, and star-shaped gingerbread, along with some tacky 'health bars' that we're getting for free. Yay team budget!
• The PhD is suffering because of the stupid conferences. Fortunately, I think that after today I'll be back on top of things (currently coding up the schedules and the like, which is horrible).
• I have knitted about ten rows since the last time I posted the scarf, which meant that I was in no rush to take photos this week (the fact that I've only had one night off this week may have also had something to do with it). I might do something about it tonight, but I might just go home and sleep.
• Heidi and Tony got to move in to their new house on Wednesday night. It's great, perfectly suited to them (no lawn to mow, just enough of a garden that it won't take Heidi forever to manage it and huge lounge rooms for having lots of people over to watch movies). Their furniture will follow tomorrow (hooray for moving days!), the internet will arrive in 2 weeks and then it really will be their house, full of their stuff. I'm so jealous.
• On the subject of jealousy, Manda (*Star) has gotten engaged to her boy, and it looks like they're going to live happily ever after. Congratulations you guys.
• I got an email wednesday about a film producer seeking a 'physics consultant' for a new screenplay they're working on. I replied yesterday morning, but haven't heard back yet. I hope I do.
• And blogger's autosave feature let's me know when my html is broken. I approve. (There's nothing quite like having to wait until it finishes uploading to see that you screwed up and now your blog is broken.)

Labels: blogger, conferences, feeling lucky, happily ever after, Heidi, knitting, never going to graduate, nice people are nice, phd, uni

   My subconscious works in mysterious ways...

I figured it out.

I'm not knitting it because I wanted to knit the most geeky thing imaginable (and short of knitting myself katamari ears the scarf was the most geeky thing ever).

I'm not knitting it because I need something to get me through the conference planning.

And I'm not knitting it because my earliest memories of childhood tv are of the Muppets and Doctor Who (even though they are, but not crossed over, because that would be weird and I wonder if they ever did that? The Muppet Wiki says "no", but then I found this BBC poll, which is good enough really and can I write Doctor Honeydew meets Doctor Who fanfiction please?)

Nope, I'm doing it because when you get right down to it, a Fourth Doctor scarf is absolutely necessary to complete this outfit:
and I'm going to wear one of those floppy hats if it kills me.

Labels: doctor who, knitting, may yet graduate someday, phd

   Yet another crafty post...

I told you guys I meant to make this a weekly thing, and I meant it. So here's this week's update (I messed up in a few places with the editing, forgive me?):



I'm a tiny little bit sick of it at the moment, but I'm getting another set of maths assignments to mark tomorrow, so I should knit as much as I can while I'm not working 16 hour days.

Current stitch count: 48.8%

Labels: doctor who, I made this, knitting, second sock syndrome

   So, who's sick of hearing about the conferences?

The answer is me! (For the record, we got enough people, and the deadline is technically tomorrow night, since I need my beauty sleep and we want to give everyone around the world a chance to register. And I didn't break the site at all today, go team me!)

So tonight I bring you a scaled and dated (well, more or less) photo of my latest craft project, because you all need to know just how stressed I am (I only knit this quickly when I'm stressed and need an escape).


I've made myself a promise that I'll have it finished and ready to wear on the last day of the second conference. It doesn't look like it'll be a problem, as I've still got a month and a half and it is now... *bashes head against carculator for a bit* ...31% done.

Wait, that's it? It's not even a third of the proper length, and it comes up to my chin already? I'm doomed!

Labels: bloody hell I'm short, conferences, crafty-Cat, doctor who, I made this, knitting, web stuff

   I win!...

So, Heidi got her cat (bear) beanie today. Expect photos at some point in the future when I see her and take some.

And I finished my other glove today, which is awesome.



I'm all out of ongoing craft projects now. I guess it's time to get on with the marking.

Labels: crafty-Cat, doctor who, hooray, knitting, reaffirming my faith in humanity, second sock syndrome

   One more down...

So, I also finally sat down and sewed the ears on Heidi's latest beanie, which I've been meaning to do for months but have been too busylazy to contemplate.
It's certainly not the best cat beanie I've made, and I'm still amazed that the first one I made turned out so well. This one isn't quite long enough in the back, but the ears turned out symmetric after a few tries, which is reassuring.

I also have a strange desire to put one of my crescent moon hair clips on it. I guess it's a good thing for all involved that they're at James' house.

So, in one day I've gotten done all the crafty things I had planned for the entire weekend. This is good. Tomorrow I guess I'll do all the webby things.

Labels: beanie-cat, crafty-Cat, Heidi, knitting

   Weekend projects...

I promised myself I'd finish a few of my outstanding craft projects this weekend, and since I am having a day at home all by myself, I got through a few bits and pieces, and hopefully I'll have one more to blog about before I go to bed.
But for now, here is the shrug I just knitted (as modelled by my awesome sister):
It's meant to be worn over a cocktail dress, but neither of us was wearing one, so we had to go without. This is just simple knitting on huge needles, a pattern I picked up at lincraft one time.

And then I finished the first of my wrist-warmers:
which is based upon (I only say that because I stuffed the whole thing in a number of places) Christina Slattery's pattern, which in turn was inspired by a costume worn by Rose on Doctor Who.

I totally need a knitting chibi, methinks.

Labels: crafty-Cat, I made this, knitting, second sock syndrome

   Second Sock Syndrome...

So I've discovered that there's actually a name for the malaise that comes over me when I've made it halfway through a craft project and I just want to give up because I've learned all I was going to and really, what I've done is good enough.

Sadly, giving the beast a name doesn't make it go away.

Labels: crafty-Cat, knitting, second sock syndrome