you go back to her, and I go back to school

School starts again on Thursday. My schedule for this year is a bit of a mixed bag. Fewer students than expected, so I'm not sure what will happen with that. In the meantime, there is ought to do but enjoy this last weekend of freedom.

I got together with a few friends from university last night. What was supposed to be a few drinks for me turned into a lot more than that, and I've been paying for it all day. Blessed be they who created Gatorade.

The boyfriend and I have been re-watching Angels in America. I haven't seen it since we first started dating, and I'd forgotten how intensely satisfying it is. I want to write more about it, but it will have to wait until I've watched the whole thing. I really can't imagine seeing this as a play.

It was a good mail week for me. I got my latest KnitPicks order, including my Options Harmony needles (lovelovelove), two bottles of fragrance oil from BPAL, my ravelry shirt, and my August yarn from the Three Irish Girls sock club.

caveat emptor

It's hard to believe, but I have been internetting around in one form or another for twelve whole years now. In that time, I have made a large number of purchases online: makeup, books, electronics, clothes, CDs/music, bath products...the list goes on.

One of the coolest things I've discovered online is the awesomeness that is Etsy. I love almost everything about it: Buying, selling, the whole "homemade" ethos...but here is a question: When you buy something from someone, and it's defective/of poor quality/not what you expected, how do you handle making a complaint or a return when it's actually a person on the other side of things?

with god as my witness...

I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would admire,
I thought it classic.
-The Postal Service, Clark Gable

The (very long, very boring) long weekend is slowly winding to a close, and I can't think of a better way to cap it off than by watching Gone With the Wind on TV, with the cat sprawled out in some sort of bizarre upside down position beside me. Poor silly kitten.

I'm trying to make the most of my last few days of freedom, but it isn't going well--making the most has translated to "wind 1600+ yards of yarn from hanks to balls" and "watch dangerous amounts of Degrassi: TNG on TV" and "discover that it takes a mere twelve minutes to walk from the house to Twiggs". Nothing especially productive, except that I am all set to go for yarn for the Ravelympics.

I've got a couple of good things to look forward to at school this week, though, not the least of which is Krista's return to North Bay, and possibly visits to see a few friends and their new progeny, to say nothing of the boy actually having some time off--and, of course, his 25th birthday.

holiday weekend?

I started back to work officially yesterday. My office pod has a few new faces in and around, which is good, I suppose, though I'm sad to see some of the people go. I made some organizational plans for the month, as there isn't a tonne to do before the students start showing up.[1] The school is under construction so everything's a little off...and since we share our space with Canadore, we're looking at feeling the effects of the looming Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology strike at the end of August.

The weekend is passing slowly. Part of me wishes very strongly that I'd gone home for the weekend - I'm missing the fun of Kempenfest, and Not-Heritage Not-Festival is just not cutting it here in town. I'm sure the fact that virtually all of my friends are out of town or have plans already doesn't hurt. I've been doing lots of cleaning, reading, movie watching, and catnapping, and have discovered that Twiggs is a scant 15 minute walk from my house. This is either the best news ever or the worst news ever. I had some of their fresh squeezed lemonade today, and it was very tart.

I cast on Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts today and I'm really not loving them. I don't know if it's the pattern, or the yarn (the colours are not quite what I want them to be), or the fact that I'd rather be knitting other things (like Matilda Jane, or socks). I also need to start thinking about actually putting pen to paper for some of my design stuff.

[1] There is actually lots to do; it just seems less frantic than trying to mark 140 essays in two weeks, you know.