Weird stuff I have done

Most of what I do in my spare time is sleep, that is because I don't really have spare time but, every so often there is something that I have to do as part of a club or just cause I can. Today it was narrate at a naginata demo during a Sakura Matsuri at Smith College. To get to Smith I rode the bus in full uniform complete with dragonfly patch and name tag. It was rather fun, slightly odd sitting in the seats because the knots of the hakama dig in if the seat has a back. Once I got to Smith and the club and I got all of our stuff together they demonstrated stuff and I narrated. I was rather fun.

There was food as well, I got to make onigiri for the first time, they were rather tasty and fun to make. Also you could eat mochi and drink barley tea. The tea was quite good.

The naginata club was selling pocky to fundraise and did quite well in that. There were a couple of people who had brought a collection of kimono and yukata for people to dress up in. I got to wear a kimono and it was rather comfy. A kimono is generally silk and lined while a yukata is cotton and unlined (generally).

I also got bored and the Friday before I dyed my ponytail blue. See the two tones of my hair in the above pictures, that is the cause. 

On the knitting front I am crocheting a shawl for myself to wear to my brothers college graduation. It is red and is lace. I am using some red yarn that I got on sale at Webs. Pictures will come later.

Spring has arrived

Spring is officially here in all of it crazy weather glory. The week of Spring break was like summer then the weather went back to normal, now the temperatures are starting to go back up to normal temperatures. The turtles in Lower Lake are coming out onto the partially submerged logs to sunbathe.

Turtles

Also my puppies came to visit me, with my parents. It was my first time meeting the younger Luna.

Luna, the puppy who can't stay still

After they visited me we all went to my brothers track meet, and watched him run. Luna especially liked it because everyone petted her.

The naginata club had some guests so we had lots of really good training, and much fun also. The knitting has changed to crocheting a shawl for myself for attending my brothers graduation. The gift shawl was finished over Spring Break.

Blocking on my bed

I have a fort!

It is spring break and today is blanket cave day! So I made a fort, it uses most of my sheets, all of my blankets (and I mean all), my pillows, most of my furniture, and a large amount of tape.

Its amenities include: light, electricity, internet, computer, tea, stuffed animals, more electronics, padding on the floor, two exits, and complete privacy.

The computer set up, with tea.

It is quite comfortable in my fort, as long as I remember about the desk.

In not so pleasant news, some one on my floor thought it would be a good idea to have an extreme party last night. The managed to make it to the bathroom to puke, they didn't make it to the toilet though.

Later today I will be going grocery shopping to get stuff to make dinner and other meals so I don't starve to death.

Other interesting news, I have completely caught up on my sleep. And my crochet blanket continues to grow, as does the shawl. 

Aren't you proud of me Grandma?

Nothing to random today but here is something I found.

For all of your problems. Actually from a computer game.

SPRING

Spring has officially arrived, the temperature has risen over 60 degrees on more than one occasion. Midterms have also started and the semester is half way done. Spring Break is next week and people are already sun-bathing.

The anual spring flower show at the green houses has started and there are lots of flowers.

So many flowers. The theme of the show is wine, they didn't have any actual wine though.

Crocheting a blanket because I can and it seems to be going faster than when I knit blankets. I need to learn how to do granny squares. Pictures will be coming.

In a fight is was voted that Spock will beat Sherlock Holmes (There was voting involved).

PI day

It is pi day today.  3.14 or March 14th.

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609...

Drag Ball, Snow and Knitting

We finally had snow, at the end of February but we have snow now.

Otherwise the weather has be rather warm for winter, this is not at all comfortable as it keeps raining. The Campus is much prettier with snow that with rain. The snow canceled both of my morning classes yesterday, so I slept in and then did work until my afternoon class.

On February 18th we had Drag Ball, Drag Ball is a large dance that happens every spring. It has a large number of men and women who are dressed in drag, with varying degrees of success.

So not photogenic, but the dress is sparkly!

 

We have a Lucius Malfoy pimp cane!

The knitting is progressing, no new pictures as is is large enough that the shawl resembles a giant blob.

Other news, wrote an entire short story, and have managed to reference Stargate and confuse people who eat with me.

Rurouni Kenshin is getting a live action movie!

Birthday Parties and Pocky

Sunday was Missy's birthday so on Saturday night we had a party for her, the party was planned and prepared for in the space of two hours. Included in the party was trick candles and a chocolate pie, there were some oreos that were dunked in milk and eaten very quickly.  Before cake we watched "The Secret of Kells" which was a very pretty movie.

We then proceeded to watch youtube movies for amusement, this never seems to end well.

The shawl is moving right along. I have over 200 stitches on the needles so far and am almost done the second skien of yarn. 

The shawl, with pooling

The yarn that I am using is a nice variegated blue and green yarn and is pooling nicely.

The Naginata club is selling pocky as a fundraiser and it is rather fun to work on heckling people especially if you know them. The sales seem to be going pretty well and at around this point in the sales last semester we had completely sold out; this was due to not buying enough pocky. 

Nutella Day

Today was World Nutella Day and so to celebrate my friends and I had a Nutella and tea party, complete with fancy dress. Much Nutella and tea was consumed, good company was had by all.

The tea and nutella

The friends:

The awesome one/ The one with the lamps

The picture of the DJ (Co-Host/ Owner of the dorm room)

The awkward picture

Knitting has also been moving along quite well with over a foot on Missy's shawl and the yarn is working quite wonderfully for the pattern. The pattern is Milk Run Shawl found on Ravelry. For those who don't know Ravelry is an awesome website for knitters and crocheters. 

The shawl, photo taken using photo booth and it is not the best picture ever.

The pattern is rather simple, as it calls for straight garter stitch though I have changed that to stockinette to save yarn and to make telling the sides from each other easier. 

In other news the laundry got done and was even put away quickly, this is a major accomplishment as I really don't like doing laundry because it takes time and money. But on the positive side my wardrobe is constantly expanding as I raid the free bins for new clothing. Free bins are where other students put the clothes that they don't want for whatever reason and others take them to wear/ repurpose into other things. The use of the free bins have netted my friends many new clothes that are basically new and other highly useful things (lamps). I am the proud owner of a desktop gargoyle whose name is Sauron because his eyes glow red. 

Hopefully this works

Also I officially dislike Super Bowl Sunday, too loud for proper concentration.

J-Term

Wow I suck at updating. This was supposed to be written during J-term but today is the first day of classes instead. 

J-Term is part of winter break at Mt. Holyoke College where we students can come back early and take fun classes and hangout with friends. This J-term I took no classes but did spend time with all of my friends who were here. This time included visiting every free bin on campus and getting clothing and other fun things, so much better then shopping. Some of my friends as a joke put 5 floor lamps into another friends room for her to find. 

In other interesting news, I am now the proud owner of a Nintendo DS that I bought second hand off  a friend; the DS has been wonderful to play with.

In naginata news, j-term was highly productive, two of the kohai went into bogu for the first time and learned some new kamae out of bogu as well as some happoburi. We also had a couple of practices that were preceded by vigorous sandings of all of the habu (blades) so that splinters could be removed and to check on how much damage has been done so that we can know what habu are more likely to break. Me and the captain got to practice the engi forms 6-8 which was very nice as I am extremely rusty on those.

On the knitting side, I crocheted a cowl for cold weather, worked on my sweater, started a cover from my DS, started a hat that is supposed to be for someone (I get paid) but due to not getting details on the hat am unable to finish the hat base before adding cat features, and my Dad's birthday present. I deconstructed a scarf I found in the free bin and have been using the yarn and the yarn knits and crochets up quite nicely.

Case for Nintendo DS

The weather right now is rather bipolar, we had approximately 6 inches of snow in total and most of it has disappeared from heat and rain. We have had more unseasonably warm days than normal weather which is really annoying.  The warmth is rather nice in the sense of I can go outside without a winter jacket on, of course this is offset by the fact that the windows in my room seem to be sucking all of the heat out.

Saw the second season of Sherlock (BBC) and  could they have made that scene any longer. It was painful enough but then we had to stretch it out for as long as possible to make the ending as horrible as possible, and what is with that cemetery scene, really you are going to do that to us and then end the season.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson

The actor who plays Watson will be Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit movie and the actor who plays Sherlock will be Smaug apparently

And because I get amusement in weird places: