Finally, fiber!

My dad is in town to visit for a few days and brought me the best present ever! A shiny new Ashford skein winder! I was able to assemble the thing and wind off 4 bobbins full of yarn in the time it took to wind two bobbins with the niddy-noddy. This thing is a life saver for big projects, I had so many bobbins full of finished yarn after winter break, I was avoiding the task of winding them off so I could set the yarn. That much niddy-noddy action kills my arms.

He also brought me a McMoran yarn balance, which is a fun and geeky little spinning tool. It's a small plastic balance that allows you to estimate how many yards per pound you are getting. The yardage estimates seem to be pretty accurate too. For larger spinning projects this thing will be very useful. I think if you need a fairly small and precise amount of yarn for a project, counting yardage on the skein winder or niddy-noddy would be better, but for anything else this is the clear way to go.

Now if only my thumb was better and I had less reading to do, I could finish spinning the Shetland over spiring break. Oh well, there should be a few slow evenings for spinning before summer.

Thumb update

I went back to stupid health "services" today, missing two classes in the process, but it was a good thing. The doctor was actually nice about things, looked the thumb, stuck me a huge splint, and sent me (predictably) to the hospital to rule out a break of the joint. Which would be a Very Bad Thing indeed, and require trips to an orthopedist. I got lucky though, it's not broken, just very badly bruised. I have to keep it splinted for 10 days, then "wean off the splint" for awhile and if anything gets worse and fails to get better I have to go back. So really it's all good, and should be fine, even if the process of finding this out was hideously annoying and inconvenient.

At least this week is not so busy as last week. Aikido is on spring break, so I don't have as much training, and since spring break is next week most things have kind of slowed down a little. Which is good, since I have an extra assignment all the sudden I have to get done and Daddy is coming in to town on Wednesday. I'm calm about it all though, after last week just about anything seems sane.

As for knitting, probably won't be doing any of that for awhile because of the thumb, but the scarf I knit for the LYM while I was sick got used for the first time this morning and he seemed very happy with it. Seeing him wearing it and having fun playing with it was rather wonderful. He was absurdly cute for one thing, and having the satisfaction of knowing that I was keeping someone I cared about warm and comfortable on a cold morning is always a nice thing.

Oooo like I need another reason...

...to hate being a student. Add Student Heath "Services." Yesterday, being Sunday, I did something terrible(tm) to my thumb in kendo. It feels worse today and is swollen and tender and I cannot move the bottom joint at all, and there's a red patch which hurts really bad when I poke it.

So I went to the alleged Student Health "Services" office, and they said, well, sorry but we have no doctors you should go to urgent care and pay $100 for what we should be to do as part of the absurd amount of money you have already paid to have access to our stellar "care." To which I say, feh, and demand to see someone, anyone, who can tell me if this might be broken. Which someone turned out be a clueless nurse who told me nothing I didn't already know and put a splint on the WRONG KNUCKLE, and then informed me that I need to come back tomorrow to see the real doctor, who will send me to urgent care for x-rays I will have to pay for anyway. WTF? I have class all day tomorrow, and no money, and now you want me to run all over stupid town to get x-rays you really should be able to do on site? gah. What is the point of you people?!

So now I am in pain and frustrated to the point of tears and no closer to a functional thumb than I would be if I sat on it for an hour rather than wasting my time at Health "Services."

Don't even get me started on the brilliant people we have "helping" us over at the Financial Aid office.

Hmmm

So I've been sick as a dog, again, still, who can tell anymore, but I'm finally starting to feel better. I'm over a week behind in reading, but what are you gonna do? Really, I'm weirdly calm about this. No sense in freaking out about the amount of work I have to catch up on, that will hardly help anything.

Anyway, stuff is going ok in spite of the Flu of Doom and reading backlog. The LYM took fabulously good care of me while I was sick, I'm cooking dinner for his family this weekend, I got promoted in aikido, and for the first time ever I realized I'm actually glad to be out here doing this whole law school thing. It's not been easy, but I wouldn't change anything if I had it all to do over again.

I just wish I could sleep for about a week. I was out of school sick all last week, and came back into one of the busiest weeks of the semester. On top of everything else, we have a compressed ethics course for the next two weeks, so I have an extra hour and a half class, plus all the reading, every day this week and next. All to learn really complex things like it's a bad plan to take your client's money to Thailand to buy under age prostitutes. Very useful stuff. At least spring break is only a week away, then I can sleep a little and get caught up on the reading.