Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Fiber and Martial Arts

The mad spinning on the merino/angora/silk stuff carries on. I love working this fiber blend, but the angora gets all over the place and I really want to be plying so I can start on something new. Something with some color maybe. I have more of the same blend but dyed a really lovely sky blue, that might be a fun one to try next. Now that I think of it, it might be fun to ply that with the white and have a sort of tweedy looking yarn when I'm done...I shall have to think about this. I had sort of thought I might try doing some natural dying with the white but the tweedy look might be nice. Too many options!

Aikido is still on hiatus, so I've started taking kendo through the same group that runs the aikido class at school. I have to drive 45 minutes away to get to class once a week, but it's totally worth it. Who knew I'd be this excited about martial arts? I think part of it is that it's a really good stress reducer to hit things with bamboo swords and punch walls and toss people all over the place, plus the physical activity is good relief, but it's more than that too. This is the one thing that I do where I am not being measured against my classmates every step of the way and where I get constructive and instant feedback on my understanding of whatever we are doing. Cultivating my ki and general awareness is also hugely helpful. I feel more able to cope when I am practicing regularly, partly because I'm more able to get myself focused.

This research assisting job I have for the summer is interesting. Right now I'm working on editing page proofs for a book on court-martial procedure, which is very tedious work, and the fact that I have yet to find a clean page should tell you something, seeing as I can't edit anything for crap in general. The only problem with this job is that is 1 - does not pay enough to cover food and rent at the same time and 2 - I won't get paid until June 16th at best, which makes it difficult to pay rent for June and put gas in the car and feed myself. So I am looking for another job on the side, and having very little luck with it. I have a couple of leads which look promising, so think happy thoughts for me!

Oh! The big news is that I get to go to TNNA in Indianapolis with my friend from back home who runs KnitWhits. This should be a lot of fun. I get a free trip out of town, and I get to see all the new products and things coming out in the knitting and needlework world. I'll be working at the KnitWhits table for pretty much the whole weekend, so if you happen to be an industry person who will be there come by and say hi!

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