Hmmm...

I've been feeling hot and sweaty quite a bit today. I was blaming the apartment conditions, but, although it *is* warmer than usual in here (21 C), it's only 30% humidity. Some of my friends and co-workers are recovering from colds right now. I've been feeling drained all week... I sure hope I'm not coming down with something. :(

Busy

When I help a student, I make a tick mark on the board. (Sometimes I do groups of three, after going down the row.) At the end of the 3 hour session Wednesday, I had a look at the tick marks, and had to take a photo:

All this on 1.5 hours of sleep. (Marking deadline that day.)

Granted, on days like these, my counts can be kind of inaccurate. (Did I tick those students when they arrived, or should I add the marks now that I've helped them?)

Today, I made a concentrated effort to not double count.

Okay, maybe Wednesday's count wasn't that off.

Feeling rather toasty on the way home yesterday, and not wanting a long walk in the rain (yep, still snow on the ground, but it was raining yesterday... today was a mix of rain and snow), I decided to wait for the bus that gets me the closest to home. Since there was a bit of a wait, and I was right next to a Sally Ann, I decided to have a gander.

I got this cool cookie tin for 79 cents. Cool. :)

Last night I got nine hours of sleep, but I'm still feeling rather toasty today. All those tick marks, plus an additional two hours of tutoring, and my voice was going by the end.

Three hours of tutoring tomorrow on top of help centre hours... I think I should pack a lemon ginger teabag, and some honey!

More Miscellany

Winter is back. The brief respite we had earlier this week gives me hope that I will soon be back on my bike. :) (Although I was definitely under-dressed taking the trash out wearing shorts & a t-shirt.)

Speaking of exercise, it's too bad that running in your dreams doesn't count... the other night I think I ran for 100 years. (I can't remember the details any more, of course.)

I beat the others to the laundry room today. I won't be up until 2 am waiting for my last load tonight! :) (I heard some doors just now that makes me think someone else went to check on the status of the washer/dryer.)

From the sounds of things, all of my friends' friends and family in Japan are okay... but a lot of other people aren't. My thoughts are with them. I sure hope that nuclear reactor doesn't blow... (and that the explosion that already happened was indeed not serious.)

Miscellany

March 1 the overnight parking ban on snow routes was lifted. It seemed crazy... after all, to all appearances, we were in the depths of winter. That week, the words "bitterly cold" were used to describe the forecast. Today, I was confused by my thermometer, because it wasn't using a minus sign. (+6? How can it be +6? Must be heat leaking through my cheap apartment windows.) Although the weather web page isn't saying it is as warm as my thermometer, it also isn't using a minus sign.

There is, however, a blizzard warning for today. The pain in my sinuses appears to confirm that.

Oh joy... sounds like the engineering "band" is playing in the atrium. (Drums, cowbells, some sort of brass wind instruments. Only approximations of "music", in the loosest sense.)

It appears that I'm *not* scheduled to meet with the student I tutor this morning. He wasn't where we usually meet, and none of his e-mails mention today... but I don't remember hearing the words "we aren't meeting tomorrow". However, I think he has a midterm today, so the fact that we aren't meeting isn't that surprising. I guess I should do a better job at confirming these things.

Too bad my marking is at home. However, I have a program I'm working on, and can use the time for that.

I think my angora "ice queen" thing sheds fur in my eyes. I seem to have problems on days I'm wearing it. I washed my eye when I got in, and put some drops in. (Those drops are *expensive* for such tiny little bottles!)

A friend of mine has family stationed in Japan... does anyone know the condition of the US military bases there? I haven't heard much about the levels of damage yet, just that an emergency number has been set up, and that phone lines are tied up. My sympathies to all who are affected by the earthquake and after-effects.

A Question of Semantics

On my way to & from knitting tonight, I was catching up on some past episodes of CBC's White Coat, Black Art. Two things really caught my attention: One interviewee said doctors usually say "the patient failed the treatment", rather than "the treatment failed the patient". Who/what is being tested? A letter writer pointed out that in a prior episode, pumps were described as "too difficult for nurses to figure out", rather than "poorly designed". Nurses made it through nursing school, they're no dumb cookies. It made me wonder where else some commonly used phrases have us thinking the wrong things. One that came to mind is something I experience in my job helping students: "I know my code is right, but it's not working". Actually, your code is doing exactly what you told it to do, you just haven't figured the problem out yet. I suspect that quite often, the way we unthinkingly phrase things affects how we think about things.

Blankie Repaired

Can you spot the repairs? Not bad, eh? :) Close-up of the big repair:


As a reminder, here's how that hole looked when I got it:


I think my friend, the knitter, will be happy. I think her friend, the mother, will be happy. I think the baby will find it tastes the same, although some patches have a bit of a different texture.

Blankie Repair: Forward, Backwards, Forwards, Backwards...

After doing a few more rows this morning, I noticed a mistake a few rows back, and had to rip back.

This looks better:

(Trust me, it does.)

Heh... whoopsie:

I know better than that!

Hmmm... it's not garter stitch any more, but it's still not right:


Getting better, but still not right:

Where'd I go wrong? Oh... over there to the right... two rows merged again:

Tink, tink, tink...


That's better. Now for the final two rows.

Hmmm... still not *quite* right... but I'm calling it close enough!


Hey... where'd that snag come from?

Much better:



Now to weave in a few ends:


That's a lot of ends... halfway there:

I think I'll take a break!

Footwear Organization

Before:

(Note, there's still two pairs of footwear on the mat, for people to trip over when they come in!)

After:

Good think I don't have more footwear! (Well, I have a few more pairs of shoes, but they hang out in my bedroom closet.)

Blankie Repair

Repaired a small spot to the left of the heart (the previous repair was knotting the ends), and did a few rows of green below the heart:

Note to self: check which row the pattern starts on, so I don't forget to start the heart!

Blankie Repair

When last we saw the big hole, it looked like this:

It didn't change much for quite a while, but then I had time to work on it today.

Progress shots:

Explanation: I noticed part way through that I had messed up the rows a bit (missed one, ie reduced two to one), and it was easier to continue at that point, and then go back and fix the repair.

(I found that second photo amusing!)

The yellow square is now done, except for weaving in the ends:



Up next, continuing up the green square:

(That *was* a heart.)