Thursday, October 11, 2007

My life is one big chemistry quiz

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

First, knitting progress! YAY! I've finished the neckband of Sapporo. I made it a little shorter than the pattern calls for, and added a turning ridge. Here it is shown unfolded; when it is done, it will be a folded, double layer, encasing the top of the zipper along the front edge. Next step, though, I pick up stitches along the front edge to finish up the placket and prepare it for zipper insertion.

I also dug another project out of the WIP pile -- My Mad Money Bag (kit from Blackberry Ridge). I had the knitting done except for the I-cord, so I started the I-cord -- a five stitch I-cord on size 1 needles, roughly a yard and a half of it. It reminds me of watching grass grow. This is after hours of knitting, and I'm ashamed to show you, because it doesn't look like much. In any case, about another foot to knit and I can sew it to the other side of the bag and call this one done.

My chemistry teacher is very creative. For our first quiz, he gave each of us a chocolate kiss candy. Prior to that, he had written the symbol for an element on the bottom of each one. Then, we had to find others in our class having the same element, and these are the people we'd work with on the group part of the quiz. I really don't like working in random groups. I understand they are teaching us how to get along with others, and I "can" do this, but I do not enjoy it. The first time the three people in my group met together, one guy in the group turned to me and said, "I flunked this class at the UW, so I'm taking it here now." That's all history now, because my teacher has moved on to Starburst candy. On Monday, we each took a Starburst, noted the elemental symbol on the bottom of it, and met with our new quiz group for the first time. There are some extremely smart people in this class -- the woman having a masters in statistics comes immediately to mind. However, they are not in my group. I can't complain too much. Mostly it's the drain on time, trying to get together outside of class with other people to get the thing completed, which is most difficult for me.

Anyway, quiz due on Monday, lab due on Monday, going out of town on Saturday, so I think I'll spend this evening watching tv and knitting. Perhaps I'll get the front plackets on my Sapporo finished!

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)

3 comments:

Molly Bee said...

Gorgeous sweater and bag. How do you get it all done and school too! Amazing!

Elizabeth said...

Oh, that teaching style would make me mad.

In college I had a professor put on his Micky Mouse hat in front of a large lecture hall to teach us all what a water molecule looks like. The image never left my brain!

Sus said...

In the class I TA, I hand out candy during the discussion section right before the exam. It's freebee candy -- I'd never use it to as a teaching aid. Just a "please write good evaluations of me" aid. Tee Hee.