The Tenth Doctor

The first of Mat's Hallowe'en costumes:

One good turn...

I cleaned the craft room today in preparation for the purchase of a large file cabinet. My house is approximately 875 square feet, so space is always at something of a premium, and new additions need to be plotted out very carefully. The cabinet in question did not actually materialize, but I'm happy to have done some serious organizing in my room, and you'll be pleased to know, Readers, that I actually culled a whole bunch of acrylic yarn from my stash and sent it on to the Value Village.

I almost sliced off the tip of my right index finger last night when I was cutting onions on the mandoline. I was holding the onion with my hand, and thinking, "I wonder where the holder is for this. I'm probably going to cut off the tip of my finger." About three minutes later, I nearly did that. Fortunately I stopped in about 3/4 of the way through. It's not a deep cut, but it is right on the tip, so it is pretty sensitive. According to my mom, I should've superglued it shut--this is the new hot treatment in the ER for this type of wound, rather than stitches.

A strange thing happened, though. After I'd washed the cut out, and wrapped it in paper towel, I was holding my finger above my head to help slow down the bleeding. Suddenly, I just felt all of the blood drain out of my head. My vision went blurry, and sound went far away. Fortunately, I managed to get my head down between my knees before I keeled over, but it was pretty touch and go for a few minutes there. The same thing happened last summer when I sliced my ring finger instead of a cucumber.

I don't know what my problem is. I'm not an especially squeamish person, and I've certainly injured myself in much worse ways, involving much more pain and blood. (I wouldn't say that I'm accident prone so much as just a bit careless and a bit foolish.) I've treated people with much worse injuries--the time Fiancé fell off the wall behind Cellarman's, anyone? It usually doesn't bother me at all. And yet, these last two times...who knows?

I blocked both of my Ishbels tonight. They look great.

oh, the weather outside is frightful...

I could not blog today without talking about the weather. It is cold here. In all fairness, cold does not begin to cover it. At present, it is -32 celcius here in North Bay. The television tells me that this can technically be referred to as a deep freeze. The only good thing I can think of right now is that at least when it's this cold, it doesn't snow.

Second term is now underway. I feel bad for my second year students, as I think they are vastly unprepared for the onslaught of work that's about to hit them in the next three weeks. I have to keep reminding myself that it is not my fault if they are unable to read the schedule of assignments off their syllabi.

I've decided to make it a point to mention Twilight in each of my classes this week. We're doing Great Expectations in first year, and Tennyson's "Tithonus" in second. What is the relevance, you might ask?

For Great Expectations, we're reading and comparing the two endings that Dickens wrote, and discussing which we think fits the tone and scope of the book better. (I am published ending FTW, by the way.) One of the questions I like to put to the students is to what extent an author needs to consider how his or her audience will react to a text. Harry Potter and Twilight are the obvious comparisons because of how personally invested their readers tend to become in the stories. It's actually prompted really good discussion from a (normally) fairly quiet class, so I'm quite happy about that.

For "Tithonus", we've been talking about what aspects of the Tithonus myth are relevant to us, and the idea of eternal youth/beauty to go along with immortality presents an interesting segue to Twilight and our larger obsession with vampire stories. The ideas of immortality and eternal youth are so closely intertwined for us that you almost wouldn't consider them separately. (And, of course, in Twilight, Bella is obsessed with being even slightly older than Edward.)

I finished my sweater, and it is huge. It actually looks more like a sweater dress. Stupid blocking. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. Perhaps once I get the sleeves on I'll feel more kindly to it. I've started a new Wisp in the KnitPicks Imagination sock yarn, which is an alpaca/wool/nylon bled. The colourway is called Looking Glass, and it's the most lovely shades of blue, green, and grey. It actually reminds me of beach glass.

I need another project, but just can't seem to figure out what I want to knit. It's making me antsy.

iPod game

My MP3 player's name is actually Marigold. She's a SanDisk Sansa 4 Gb player and rocks my socks off.

Ok, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool..

Waking Up: Lay All Your Love On Me - ABBA
First Day at School: Now and Forever - Carole King
Falling In Love: El Condor Pasa (If I Could) - Simon and Garfunkel
Fight Song: Whispers and Moans - Crowded House
Breaking Up: America - Simon and Garfunkel
Prom: We've Gotta Get Out of Here - the Animals
Life: Volcano - Damien Rice
Mental Breakdown: The Old Apartment - Barenaked Ladies
Driving: Wandering Star - Portishead
Flashback: Oh What a Night - the Four Seasons
Wedding: Song for a Winter's Night - Gordon Lightfoot
Birth of Child: I Have A Dream - ABBA
Final Battle: Sleepy Maggie - Ashley MacIsaac
Death Scene: Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran
Funeral Song: On Peak Hill - Stars **the lyrics to this are fucking eery for a funeral song**
End Credit: Left and Leaving - the Weakerthans

I really, really love Marigold. She is about 3/4 full right now, and she's made me realize how much I missed having music as part of my life. I threw out my broken stereo when I left Guelph and it's really never been the same. I think I need to go to more concerts this year - I'm starting to feel the itch.

Children of Men is awesome!