Knitting Expo... and the azalea bush that attacked...

I turned another year older this week, and thanks to a few wonderful friends, had an excellent Indian food birthday party! My parents also called to tell me that they were sending me flowers. Well, I naturally assumed that they were sending a vase of cut flowers, and was looking forward to getting something new for the table. Thursday morning, I got up and got all ready to catch the bus to school. With a few minutes to spare before my bus arrived, I opened the front door... and there it was...
The delivery person had pushed the nearly waist-tall azalea shrub so close to the screen door that I could not get out of the house! It took about 15 minutes to wiggle and push the shrub far enough away to open the door, making me miss the bus and late for class. And what a lovely shrub it is, too! Thanks, Dad and Andee!

I also recieved some LOVELY hand-dyed yarn from Erin for my birthday (top right in the below photo), which I can't wait to knit up! She knew exactly which color I needed. She also was my savior on Friday, and rescued me from class to go to the Knitting Expo! See the loot below:

On the top row, we have two skeins of Sleeping Dragon sock yarn, 3 skeins of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock, 2 skeins of BMFA Sock Candy, and 2 skeins of Erin's spectacular birthday yarn. On the bottom, we have four skeins of BMFA Twisted yarn (and 2 skeins of Noro Silk Garden, from a recent emergency purchase).

A teaser for this week: the BMFA Sock Candy yarn knits like a dream. I wish I had gotten more! I can't wait to finish this sock. Also to come: finished sock for aunt, and finished baby sock for classmate. Photos after the big exam on Monday!

When life feels hectic...

It is very easy to take on the stress of the people around you. In med school, there is plenty of stress to take on if you allow it! Usually I step back when it gets overwhelming and knit for a while, but for some reason I forgot my knitting at home today... Fortunately, I remembered to take a look at my favorite poem, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot. A particular passage always calms me down when I am feeling chaotic, mostly because it just feels so human:

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;	25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;	30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

We have an exam on Monday, and I am torn between swatching my new *birthday yarn* from Erin, knitting some baby things for a classmate, and studying. Obviously, my choice appears to be playing with knitting blogs! It's a good thing I never subscribe to being truly efficient... :-)

there's a first time for everything...
(no knitting today -- don't read if you're squeamish!)

Today started off relaxing... I got up when the sun came streaming in my window (hooray, it's finally spring!), and sat down with a cup of tea to read some knitting blogs. At 8:30, a classmate called me to tell me that my group was being paged to view an autopsy at the hospital, and that I had to get there within 45 minutes. That presented a bit of a problem, since the only bus that would get me there in time was scheduled to pass by 7 minutes later and I was still in my pj's...

With nothing but tea in my stomach and a muffin in my hand, I shot out the door 6.5 minutes later and barely made it to the bus stop in time to get to the hospital! At the autopsy office (which, I might point out, is VERY near the cafeteria), we suited up and entered the procedure room. Now, I have seen a dead body before, having had gross anatomy dissection last fall -- but the bodies used for gross anatomy are fixed and stored for quite a while before the class. That means that they are a fairly uniform grey color and smell like chemicals, and besides the face do not really resemble the living. The decendent on the table, however, was quite lifelike and bore evidence of many recent medical procedures.

As we watched the procedures being performed by pathology residents, the attending physician floated around the room kindly explaining both pathology technique and basic bodily structures. She gently prodded us to recall what we had learned during classes, but focused on teaching us and making sure we could see all of the process of autopsy. My biggest fear going into this experience was that I am highly sensitive to bad odors and that I might be overwhelmed by smell... and in retrospect, it was a very relevant concern! The "blood and guts" seemed only fitting to be inside of a recently alive person, but the smells and noises that came out during the procedure made me quite uncomfortable!

The process also made me reflect on when my own mother passed away several years ago... at the time, I was frustrated by the autopsy results (and the lack of a definitive cause of death), and did not have any depth of understanding about autopsy in general. As I thought about the dry respect offered by the autopsy personnel towards a body that they had never known, I focused on the decedent's family and what this process feels like from the outside. This may be the only chance I have during my entire career to focus on the emotional aspects of the experience without any pressure to know or to produce results.

In the end, reaching out to touch the back of his hand and wish his family well left the strongest impression on me. Unfortunately, due to the ridiculosly hectic nature of medical school, 5 minutes later I was scarfing down a sandwich in the lecture hall and cramming pathways of the motor systems of the body into my brain. It feels good to process life a little bit, every now and then...

it's good to learn a new skill...

Yesterday, towards the end of neuro class, I was startled to discover that I was finally knitting without looking at my project! I have been reading other med student blogs, enviously noticing when they mention studying and knitting at the same time... I had never been able to keep from dropping stitches before, but it worked so well yesterday! Hooray! I had been working on this lovely blue sock for my aunt (yarn brand unknown -- bits from the stash):
Speaking of sitting in class, I have to congratulate our Microbiology professor for his fine work in entertaining a tired group of med students on a Friday evening. To learn about gonnorhea using Frank Zappa's great song "Why does it hurt when I pee?" as a case study was a great way to end the week. *grin*

As promised, here are some pictures of our lovely balled yarn (we had to do it in two batches):
The lower-left ball that looks a bit like a flower was an unfortunate winding accident -- the yarn got stuck under the ball at the same time as the swift jammed, popping the ball of yarn off and across the room! I tried to jam it back onto the winder, resulting in this interesting pattern...

An interesting kool-aid discovery, for those of you interested in trying it: I was able to mute some of the "kool-aid fluorescence" by adding a sprinkle of grape to a number of colors. The grape looks very muddy on it's own, and didn't mix well with other colors when I used more than about 1/4 package of it. But just a sprinkle really made reds and greens look beautiful!

quick update

Well, school has been a bit of a wild ride the last couple of weeks. I finally get to come up for air after a particularly difficult exam! Somehow, I think I may not become a neurologist...

We are learning how to do physical exam this quarter as well, and we have finished the "easy" parts (head and neck). This week is our first week of more "sensitive" material, as we learn the breast exam. In two weeks, we have paid volunteers coming to teach us how to do a rectal exam. Honestly, these are the parts of medical school that you forget to think about when you are in the scramble to apply to school! I had never actually thought about the process of learning to examine other people's bodies -- it just seemed like you would graduate knowing how! I have a lot of respect for people that would submit themselves to teaching a medical student how to examine their intimate areas, and it adds a layer of seriousness to our program of studies that was missing when we were doing only classroom/lecture learning.

Anyway, on to knitting... Last night we finished balling up the yarn from our dyeing sessions, and it was a bit more trouble than expected. Pictures to come soon. I learned a few lessons about keeping the fibers in order to be able to untangle them later! I am nearly done with all the socks that are Christmas presents from 2005... I just have one and a half pairs left, then I can send them out to the family!

Weekend after next, Erin is taking me to the Seattle Knitting Expo, where I hear there will be a great marketplace with some hard-to-find yarns. Looking forward to that trip! I promised myself I get to buy some new yarn for my birthday if I can wait until then. It was brutal to watch Felicia post so many beautiful colorways at the Sweet Shop and not let myself try to get any of them, but I feel like poor students can't justify increasing their stash QUITE so fast... :-)

Oh well... time to get back to the Microbiology studying...

koolaid dyeing part deux

This time, we assembled a few more troops for our koolaid dyeing madness. Inspired by a lovely description of a warping board courtesy of Scout, we put some quick-grip C-clamps around my kitchen table to set our yarn up for different length stripes.

This was quite a workout! It took us several hours to set up all of our skeins. Next, we soaked our yarn in slightly soapy water like last time. Meanwhile, we mixed up our jars of color with a splash of vinegar and distilled water.

Some of us chose to use the microwave, others used the stove, and the crock-pot was even pressed into service to accomidate the striping storm overtaking my kitchen...

Meanwhile, a few other methods were tried, including drizzling color on with a syringe.

After most or all of the color had exhausted, we gently rinsed the yarn, and hung it up to dry...

Now my whole house smells like fruity goodness! I can't wait to see how it knits up! We were pretty tired when it was all over...

it works!!!!

Koolaid dyed striping sock yarn, round one. Knockout! Looks like we cracked the secret code. I can't wait to see this one leap off the needles. I love it! *grin*
*dancing around the house*


By the way, I finished the Black Orchid socks (pic coming soon). I hope my aunt likes them!

flash your stash! (and koolaid part one)

First, take a look at the results from Erin (KnittingRN) and my preliminary koolaid dyeing session. See the progress through the day here. The ones on the left are painted sock yarn, the ones on the right are self-striping (we hope!) and the middle ones are our playing around skeins...Next, the obligatory flashing of the stash. Wools:Cotton:
Bulky lopi:
Wool:
Sock yarn
Eyelash/crochet:
Cheap acrylic:
Mixed polyester, mohair:
Pouffy things:
Silky wool: