your what hurts?

the turnover rate for cute little coffee shops is sadly high- first we lost Cyber Bugs coffee/internet shop...and now Moos-a-Brew has become Cantabria Coffee Co, which is just not kitschy-cute enough.

I miss Pie in the Sky.

well, no...I miss Eric's baking. thaaaat's why I miss Pie in the Sky.

I have started on the tunic-tank top thing (T4). slightly terrified- I've now knit my 8 rows and my purl-hem-turning-row and now get to start on the T4 itself....eep. it's been too hot to knit on anything else- although I finished my Jayne Hat (for me, this time!) and wore it a few days ago, to the confusion of the small children and the amusement of my fellow counselors- so the giant shawl of doom is still in its baggie.

I'm living with three other counselors who are working all summer, which means we get to live in a cabin to ourselves and get to be 'aunts' to a different cabin. I'm an 'aunt' to the credit girls, which is pretty entertaining. today we're going to have a Stavanger Hunt (if you mispronounce Stavanger, which is a city in southern norway as well as the name of our cabin, you get something that sounds like scavanger) ending up back at the cabin for a brief film. Then us 'aunties' are going to have our own cabin evening together. muahaha. popcorn and apples to apples.

It's my free day today, so I got to sleep in late and have no responsibilities whatsoever- except for making sure my responsibilities are covered by other people. so far so good, although the post office has hidden itself from me so Kim will have to deal with not having actual 90 cent stamps.

I miss the boy.

I hope my dad is remembering to feed the fish. he's got 14 day feeders, so there's not much that can go wrong.

My computer has a cold. That, or it seriously hates me and is possessed by anti-me spirits. it decides to freeze and die, and then it won't turn on repeatedly until it decides to turn on and load windows fully. I'm starting to consider considering (how's that for decisiveness?) looking for a new laptop. something tiny. and functional. and tiny. Adam's little flippy tablet thing, for example, although that's definitely more money than I'd want to spend...

mom's random text message is still bothering me. it involves my birthday present and an injunction to not purchase anything major online...what does it mean?! bah.

I have a 5 dollar coupon to borders/waldenbooks and I can't use it because it expires on the 30th and the closest thing I've got is a b. Dalton, which is barnes and noble- although I do have a gift card to them, which is happy. if I can find it.

mmmmm.....

felt somewhat like a machine, finishing so many projects- Dr Who, my Saami shawl, a Jayne hat of my very own (okay, okay, so I need one more tassellet- it's done), a little cell phone carrier in the shape of a jayne hat, and the recycled silk sweater.

oh, the recycled silk sweater, which shall henceforth be known as...the Turtle Net Sweater.

why? you might ask...well, here's how it is:
Turtle Net: 100 meters of 3in square mesh gillnet. hellishly difficult to repair. unending.
Recycled Silk Sweater: many meters of yarn turned into a sweater of triangular mesh. hellishly difficult to repair/seam/rip/etc. seemingly unending.
plus, one half magically has a different colorbase than the sleeves and the other half. one is clearly warm-predominant, while everything else is cool-predominant. sigh.

therefore, recycled silk sweater = Turtle Net Sweater. evil. shudder.

but oh well. two more days with the boy and then it's off to camp. eyep. the madness shall ensue again.

and check this out!

Telemark PrOn!


man, I want to be skiing right now.

ook. or perhaps that should be eek.

today I discovered something that is both highly entertaining and somewhat...disturbing.
you, yes, you yourself can now own your own personal Librarian. That's librarian in the Terry Pratchett sense- your own soft, cuddly little mechanical/electronic orangutang to feed bananas to.

finished the David Weber/John Ringo series consisting of March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars, and We Few. quite entertaining, and now I have to reread them all because as I'm reading along in We Few I come across this phrase: "...Dark 'Lord' of the Sixth" in reference to an admiral of the Sixth Fleet. I chuckled to myself and went, "ok, kind of cheesy, but no way would I have been able to resist, were I writing this book. "
then someone on the other side of the fight curses "Dark Helmut" (the aformentioned dark lord of the sixth, who gets dubbed that at least 3 times that I remember).
and a tac team quotes the wizard of oz (I'm melting, I'm melting! and follow the yellow brick road).
and there's an alien flying a fighter designated Red Six.
and someone says "I'm from the IBI. I'm here to help you," which immediately dropped Mark Hamill's face into my brain saying "I'm luke skywalker, I'm here to rescue you!" (even though that's a mite thin).
and someone has a quote from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, ('fell deeds await! now for wrath, now for ruin, and a red dawn!') referenced as coming from 'an ancient human history.
and then, not 50 pages from the end of the book...a defense captain for the good guys sings these words: "fifteen thousand tears I've cried. . .Screaming deceiving and bleeding for you.." and I about died. Evanescence in spaaaace! I love it.

I loved all of it. I had a brief thought that maybe it was too much, but no- no way. it didn't distract from the world, or from the experience created by the authors. and who is to say that, 1500 years in the future when the navy is a space navy and we've met aliens and colonized other worlds that people still aren't reading Tolkein, or consider him to be history, or listening to evanescence or watching star wars? okay, maybe not. still. it was enough to make me want to be all fan-girly and write an email to the authors (David Weber and John Ringo, if you've forgotten, and you should go buy their books) and say "soo...how much fun did you have writing this book?" and "how do I get to even the first step up to where you are now?"

I could dream. someday I hope that someone will read something of mine and laugh just as hard, escape just as easily into a different place. and not sue the pants off of me, which would be nice.

and sound the trumpets, the choirs of angels, the rock'n'roll bands of the devils, the scraggly euphonium ranks bullying those silly french horns out of the way-
I not only finished Dr Who and gave it to Lars and gave y'all a picture as proof...
I finished the Saami shawl! wheehooo! yaaaaaaay.
and I finished a sleeve and a seam on my weird recycled sari sweater thing. I am never, ever, ever knitting something requiring seaming in recycled sari yarn. ew. slubby shreddy evil deathness.

wowzers.

amazing what you find when you're trapped at home with the air conditioning man. apparently there's a big (well, comparatively) scandal involved with the creator of this site, which I didn't (still don't) know much about except in relation to references in other webcomics, and an artist connected with david and goliath, creators of the somewhat cute, somewhat...okay...mostly stupid kitschy tshirts/keychains etc found in places like target, spencer's, that sort of thing.

I was getting somewhat frustrated because there were lots of sites saying the equivalent of "boo todd yay pp" and no representation of todd's/david and goliath's side- which is still true, but the evidence of this website is sort of scary. granted, several of the examples are a stretch and could be considered parody or coincidence (or at least, if I were the creator of the original I'd shrug and move on), but the majority are...a little scary.

aah, the wonderful world of plagiarism.

although the forum of one of the sites made my day just by this phrase: "I knew it. I knew if you put Thomas Kincaid and Hot Topic too close together, there'd be cross-pollenation." said by Relatively Bear.

but HEY! check it out!
drumroll, please...you call that a drumroll? seriously? sigh...

yes! Dr Who is done! done done done, done, fin, finished, ferdig, never ever ever again. no. you can see mine and the second one I did for lars- he's got it doubled around his neck so it doesn't show the full length. the stewardesses on the plane to minneapolis were giving me very strange looks. one lady walking back from the bathroom stopped and commented thusly-
lady: oh, what lovely colors! are you making a sweater? that's gorgeous!
me: thanks. no, it's not a sweater, it's a-
lady: oo, an afghan?
me: no, it's a scarf- if you're familiar with the Dr Who TV show, that's where it's from.
lady: (blank look)

well, drat. and caution- rant ahead.

a bit of happiness before the rantiness. apparently, there's such a thing as the World Association of Copepodologists. I love it. love love love it. I want to belong to the WAC. I mean...c'mon. it's copepods. hooray for copepods!

plus, there's the amazingly sexy Coastal and Oceanic Plankton Ecology, Production & Observation Database, which just so happens to spell copepod.

I know. I just used the words 'sexy' 'database' and 'plankton' in the same sentence. I don't care.

on with the rant! I shan't be offended if you cease reading- I've illuminated the darkness of your non-copepod knowing soul. I'm content.

my nice happy non-ecoterrorist Sierra Club shares a close connection or two with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. and it's impossible to tell what's coincidence, what's vitriol and what's on second. (I don't know/third base!)

Drat. the sscs makes my skin crawl almost as much as the earth liberation front. sigh.

I have reaffirmed my -I can't really call it hatred, but it's pretty much as close as I get to true hatred- towards PETA. I can understand and empathize with the desire to not test cosmetics on animals, to better conditions for feedstock like chickens and cows and turkeys, etc. free range good, antibiotics and growth hormones bad. check. no argument here. but condoning violence, giving money to anyone even remotely connected to terrorists like the earth liberation front- no. the whole point to freedom of speech is that violence isn't necessary to be heard. ugh. blarg blarg blarg. stupid.

and wounded! I have been sorely, deeply, painfully wounded by the knowledge that The Man- Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver)- is on the board of directors of the sea shepherd conservation society.

that's like finding out obi-wan kenobi was emperor palpatine's bowling buddy.

MacGuyver on the dark side. whaat? and Pierce Brosnan. it makes you want to go...ok, yeah, great, support the environment! stop non-indigenous sealing! awesome! but don't, oh god don't support ecoterrorism. they sink ships. they say it's legal, but it's legal in the way that only really slimy smarmy lawyers can find. it's vigilantism at its worst. or finest. it's a greenpeace spinoff.

and greenpeace runs ships into reefs. oh sorry- they had bad charts given to them.
and they blow up ships. no wait, that was France's fault. and it was, actually, but you gotta wonder why greenpeace needed the ship in the first place.

there is no impartiality. you go to a greenpeace website, a peta website, a sea shepherd website, and it all looks great. sometimes sort of intense, but hey, intense can be good. although the phrase
"We accomplish these goals through public education, investigation, documentation and, where appropriate and where legal authority exists under international law or under agreement with national governments, enforcement of violations of the international treaties, laws and conventions designed to protect the oceans." (from the Sea Shepherd website)
should make you kind of go ...hm... if you're reading carefully.

and then you go to something like activistcash or the center for consumer freedom websites and get bombarded by "look! evil! they LIE! see this and this and this and this" (I'm paraphrasing. actually no, I'm hyperbole-ing, but you understand. or maybe you don't.)

and then you go look up who exactly is running those websites and get sent to websites saying "Look! EVIL! funding from phillip morris/exxon/enron/cato institute/heartland institute etc etc etc bad bad bad don't listen!"

(and if you really want your head to hurt, look up who's running/funding the websites of the websites of the websites.)

it's a depressing cycle. are they (peta/sscs/greenpeace, etc) as bad as they (activistcash, etc) make them out to be? probably not quite so evil.
are they (activist cash, etc) as bad as (peta/sscs/greenpeace etc) say they are? probably not quite so evil. everybody's got fingers in everybody's pies.

but it does beg the question: if government/big industry/etc hates all environmental advocacy groups and tries to discredit them with lies, terrible lies...then why does a google search for the ocean conservancy yield nothing like the vitriol connected to peta/sscs/greenpeace etc? or the worldwide wildlife fund? the nature conservancy? earthwatch?

maybe they're just not important enough.

I don't really care that neither side is telling the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I subscribe to the parenting philosophy of "if you're both fighting, you're both not right." or to the Simon Burris philosophy of "no, you're wrong. but take heart- there's always someone wrong-er."

still. in this age of going green, buying green, offsetting your carbon footprint through action or donation, etc...

where's your money going, ultimately? do you know?

advice?

so I set up my fishtank. once it's done building up a biofilter, then I want to get a fishy, because I miss Ovid.

but I'll be leaving all summer for the skog and, quite possibly, moving to the sanfran area sometime after that.

grarg.

someone give me a major kick in the pants so I finish Lars's Dr Who.
and then someone agree to kidnap and beat some sense into me if I ever think of making another Dr Who.

must rip out crown of beret, too.
and finish shawl the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
and finish the samesjal.
and the rest of the projects in the happy stashbox.
good lord.

update, finally.

so I didn't get the MBARI internship that I was hoping for, but the pain is mildly lessened because there were 170 applicants for 18 positions, and for some reason 6 of those positions weren't filled. why? no idea. maybe the professors leading them decided they didn't really want a labmonkey. maybe MBARI ran out of money to support those extra positions. dunno. next year?

besides, this way I get to torture yet another round of kids with norwegian. and the badestrand. muahahaha.

finished an aaaancient pair of wristlets (dalegarn aya or aja or whatever its name is) and found enough yarn in my stash to construct a hat.

I am never ever ever going to decide casually "hey, I know- I'll design a nice floppy beret-crossed-with-a tam! it'll be great!" want to know why?

Q.E.D. (note that I am using it to cover my face in shame.)
because the usual "oh, god, surely I've knit enough by now to accomodate a head and I can do crown decreases? no? ...obugger." cycle of pain is trebled when it comes to a beret. and I've no excuse- I'm sure I could have found a pattern easily online. but le no. I had to be le creative.

(-kates, help, I'm having flashbacks to high school and lunches out on the lawn...eep!

I'd put on the wristlets to show how they look but....I spilled scalding hot noodle soup all over myself in the car a week ago (no, I wasn't driving. I was in the passenger seat, in a parking lot.)

and today is the first day that my hands haven't itched like mad (healing = evil sometimes) so I'm afraid to aggravate them and not sleep until 0400 again.

look! the boy skis! look! tatami mat! look! people more pyro than me!

why am I posting a picture of my tatami mat? because it is proof that my room finally looks good- and that I have enough floor to roll it out.

some days I really hate having two x chromosomes.

fun quotes!

"you will never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars."
thomas fraherne

"ectoparasite-modulated deposition of maternal androgens in great tit eggs."
ok, so that's not really a quote, it's the title of an article. still.

"may your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view."
edward abbey
(that's what I wrote at the top of the mainmast, in case you were wondering, which you weren't, but that's ok.)

"those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own countrymen, change their climate, but not their customs. they see new meridians but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies; but untraveled minds."
c.c. colton

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
galileo

so anyway. knitting knitting knitting, and off to the hot shop tomorrow for some glassblowing watching. whoo!

I found a most depressing tv show. "are you smarter than a 5th grader?" yes, you could potentially win a million dollars for proving that you, an adult, presumably in your mid 20s or older, are smarter than a 5th grader. an actual 5th grader will help you answer the questions for two of them- you can peek at their answer or take their answer once each. the woman I saw received the question "what country is on the USA's northern border?"

...and she peeked at the 5th grader's answer. peeked. USA- northern border. it's not like we're in europe, where you've at least got lots of options in lots of places. dear lord.

tomorrow I have to clean my room. I need to rip out the top of the beret I was knitting because I (once again) succumbed to the thought that I'd knit enough, I'd have enough space for a head...notsomuch. maybe if I had a really flat head. right now it actually looks like a fashion hat- recognizable as a beret, but funky looking on normal people. if I were a supermodel with electric- green eyeshadow and four inch long eyelashes, it might look decent, in the way that anything that crazy is decent-looking.

I found that the type of blueberry I fell in love with in finnmark is most likely the mountain blueberry or dwarf bilberry/blueberry/huckleberry/whortleberry, also known as Vaccinium caespitosum so now the next step is finding seeds or plants and planting them.

I also found that I really, really, hate that "mid-march" is such a broad span of time. waiting for a response from MBARI is killing me. ugh.

internet = way too entertaining.

sooo...what follows is the result of my mom giving me a card she picked up in the market in seattle that was an explanation of my 'sign' in the african astrology system. (I'm the market, if you're wondering.) this, of course, led to my searching for the website of the company that made the card, which led in turn to finding a company that sold the cards, which led to flipping through their systems that they had and finding my place in the egyptian zodiac (see below), aztec zodiac, etc etc etc. internet = evil.

I really should have been cleaning my room. I also really should have been working on the hat. I'm trying to make a pattern for a floppy beret-y hat. hm. not working stunningly well.

Set Perfectionist, prone to anger or irrationality. Aspects of Duality. Colors: male: turquoise, female: black Compatible Signs: Geb, The Nile Dates: May 28 - Jun 18, Sep 28 - Oct 2 Role: God of chaos, evil, the desert, war, violence, conflict, and sandstorms Appearance: Form of a man, with the head of an unidentified donkey-like animal. He was sometimes seen as a pig or a hippo. Sacred animal: the mythical "Set animal" What is Your Egyptian Zodiac Sign? Designed by CyberWarlock of Warlock's Quizzles and Quandaries

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

brain melty.

done with CV!

mostly done with cover letter. need to read through it. writing a "here, this is why you should hire me and this is what you've got what I want and what I got you want" letter is harder than it sounds. ugh.

I love the letterhead on Aaron's reference. it's in arabic. so is all the contact information at the bottom.

in celebration of being done:

Lead Stick Well done. You've managed to get 85!

You totally rock! Either you completely cheated, or you know your stuff! Congratulations! Feel free to talk to me about percussion, as it is of interest to me. By the way, may I have your autograph?

Link: The Percussion Knowledge Test written by mistressdenna

Official Wench! Congratulations! You scored 77%!

pirates official wench! there be no low life 1 piece of ait wenches fer me when ye be about!

Link: The pirate Test written by TTRCDan Sexy Geek Congratulations! You scored 57! Congratulations! You possess that heady combination of intelligence and social skills, geekdom and sex appeal. You're probably nowhere near as popular as you deserve to be, but deep down you know that anyway. Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me voleri? Famous sexy geeks include Nick Drake, Glenn Gould and Luke Skywalker. Link: The Sexy Geek Test written by littlecellist Kitsune You scored 13 in Malice and 32 in Chaos! You are the Kitsune, or "Fox demon," the ultimate doer of mischief. Kitsune belong to a class of demons known as "Henge," or animal shape-shifters, along with the Tanuki, or badger-demon. They are uncanny creatures who are notorious as much for their malevolence as for their wild and unpredictable behavior; a fox demon may help a human, only to betray him in deepest consequence at a later date. Kitsune are known to frequently possess women or pose as humans, causing chaos and catastrophe where ever they go. They are mischievous creatures who take great pleasure in playing terrible tricks on unsuspecting mortals; however, this behavior indicates that they are more perversely playful and apathetic to human suffering than genuinely evil and desirous of harm. Link: The Japanese Demon Profile Test written by Maharbal

woohoo!

yes! pleading to the gods of cyberspace equals result! (that's result in the sort of sketchy Jeff voice, because it's more fun that way.) thank you thank you thank you Aaron.

I now have three letters of reference coming although I still haven't heard from Jan (plead, beg, help out a fellow skandihuvian, o gods of cyberspace and gmail) -hah, and that just reminded me of the Oh God of Hangovers, the Forgetfulness Fairy, the Verruca Gnome...ah, Terry Pratchett.

anyway. now I'm too wound up to sleep. I may actually have a chance at my internship. But I need to sleep so I can get solid work done tomorrow and so I can ravage my pathetic pretense at a CV and a cover letter and make them shiny and glittery and inspiring of 'oh-my-god-we-must-hire-this-one' statements thanks to my aunt Helen's magic.

possible skiing sunday. weehee! still jealous of Debbie, who left the boat and promptly began a backcountry tele haul in the Wasatch. gr.

I'm out of Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak books. gasp. whine. snif. on the plus side, after about a week I probably won't be going 'mustmovetoalaska....mustmovetoalaska...mustgetbiiiigpuppy...mustmovetoalaska' like I have been this week. my freshman year roommates are probably right, I caught a terminal case of arcticitis when I lived in norway.

I found the most awesome valentine's day present ever but it's too expensive to justify me sending it to myself. and I could send it to matt but then I'd just steal it, which would be rude. I can't help being a total sucker for cute teddy bears.

and socks. I have new socks, knit for me by mum. mmmwarm. we have to leave the window in the room where the computer is open a crack -that was some horrible sentence structure, it's time for bed- because if it's not the smoke alarm goes off (of course, it goes off every time you look at the stove, but hey, it's not like you're supposed to cook in a kitchen or anything.) so as a result it's really cold if you're bumming around the internet trying to burn off a glee-rush.

and that leaves me wondering what a ghee-rush would look like, and with that, I'm forcibly removing myself from the keyboard. night.

Hey! The bathroom looks useable again!

no more piles of first aid kit/ jewelery/ contacts/ shells/ CDs/ pins/ carabiners/ etc threatening to overwhelm the counter and fall into the sink when I'm trying to use it.

LIFEWISE-
...let's agree to not mention the state of my room. my closet -almost- looks habitable. for once my room resembles the horrorscapes that shows like 'clean sweep' adore.

finishing up my CV and cover letter. still waiting on a response from Aaron and Jan. (aaron! jan! this is your devoted sharkbait/labbie pleading!) I suppose I could terrify both Aaron and Homeland Security by calling his office (which is in Muscat, Oman) but that would involve calculating time change, a rather awkward conversation (hey, long time no see...uh...yeah, I need another reference...) AND the use of my cell phone, because we don't have long distance on the house phone. and I don't want to think about how much that bill would be. plus The Boy would like me to avoid piqueing the interest of the alphabet agencies since he's thinking of heading that direction and would like to be able to pass the security clearance tests, which is pretty entertaining when you think about it.

Knitwise:
Lars. oh, Lars. I know that I've been teasing you with the Dr Who scarf for too long, and I am ashamed. but barring any unforeseen-but-maybe-convenient-circumstances you should be able to dodge Daleks with the best of them this summer.

(what?! almost finished?!)

Mum and I are officially on yarn diets. I'm going to try to knit only from my stash this year. first I need to get my room to the point where I can get AT the stash. I can see it, but I can't use it. it taunts me. she's knitting me another pair of socks (yay!) and she's going to start eventually on the world's most terrifying project EVER- socks for my grandma, who not only knit, but she KNIT. (sadly past tense. stupid joints.)

I need to go through the Dominic Deegan archives and figure out a better pattern for
Taylor's wristlets.

RECENT HISTORYWISE-
I can't get my mom's Mac to accept my flashdrive and pictures from my non-Mac, so no visuals of the trip. If you want to see the ship, she's the Robert C. Seamans (showing here). I will, eventually, get pictures up. sigh.

the semester began with 6 weeks of on shore classes in Woods Hole MA; I took Oceanography, Nautical Science (how to navigate/run the ship/physics behind how sails work etc), and an Ocean Science and Public Policy class. The end result of the Oceanography class was that we wrote a formal research project proposal of what we planned on studying and sampling once we got to the boat. We had several guest speakers, including Francisco Chavez, who our group dubbed the 'rock star of el niño' and who works with the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

We lived in student housing, 10 people per house, and we were in charge of feeding ourselves. I lucked out with the house of all girls, so we had a very entertaining time of it, especially when we hosted thanksgiving dinner with our professors and anyone else who would fit in our living room. our dinner conversation reminded me strongly of when you invited our anatomy class over for dinner and charades. What happens when you get a houseful of science gerls (our contraction of nerd and girls) together? copepod rice krispie treats and dinoflagellate cookies, which were our contributions to the school all hands lunch. our class thought it was hilarious, the crew and staff were slightly disturbed, and the other class (more humanities based) thought we were terrifying.

On the boat, we became crew members and were assigned to one of three 7-person watches that rotated between two 7 hour shifts (in daylight) and three 4 hour shifts (night). we also rotated through the engineering department, learning how the boat worked and how to fix things and code restrictions and such, and the galley, serving either as dishwasher, assistant steward, or steward. When our watch was on shift, we were further divided into two groups, one of which was on deck steering/setting sails/checking the radar and the boat, and the other of which was on the science deck. Twice a day the science department organized deployments of a hydrocast, which samples water at preprogrammed depths for on-ship analysis, a CTD (conductivity temperature density) probe, a fluorometer, and a CDOM (carbon and dissolved organic matter) probe, and a variety of nets that sampled either at the surface or at a depth we chose based on what we were trying to catch. We'd haul it all back on board and test for oxygen concentration levels, nutrient (nitrate/nitrite, phosphate) levels, zooplankton biomass and lots of other interesting procedures that become quite interesting when you're doing them in 9 foot seas, or at three in the morning.

My individual project was on parasitic amphipods on gelatinous zooplankton. I sampled and keyed out organisms (mainly salps, which are basically a gelatinous tube with a stomach, reproductive organs, and muscles) and then determined if they had any parasitic amphipods attached. if they did, I keyed them out and then looked at my data set to see if there were any interesting patterns of statistically different population groups. (there weren't.) The coolest parasites are the phronimids because they hollow out a salp or doliolid into a barrel and then lurk inside them to feed and raise their broods. They're supposedly the inspiration for the appearance of the queen alien in the Alien movie series.

They rock. in fact, this is how much they rock-

see? Baker's all "wait...hold the camera...I gotta process the awesomeness that is Phronima..."

I'm avoiding the boxes, I admit.

surfing the internet should be banned. how's a girl supposed to get anything done when there's things like this that give me such entertainment? for example- you may now address me as "Empress Marit Freya the Weird of Frome Valley" or "Lady Marit Freya the Sanguine of Oxbridge by Camford," but I would prefer the following:

I have just been dubbed: Viscountess Marit Freya the Euphonious of Mellow under Trollness Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

mainly because it made me laugh the hardest. my alter ego is "Empress Dagmar the Antediluvian of Ofsted in the Bucket." now how do you say that på norsk? ...kanskje ikke. ha'kke peiling om hvordan det ville oversette.

okei. back to work, I understand. tomorrow- What I Knit This Semester, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the red yarn. er, sort of. not really.

the return

sooo...je survivrai!

after six weeks of sailing from puerto vallarta mexico to papeete tahiti and then a week of working on the boat I have returned to the frozen land of the north, which I expect is really only frozen because the weathergnomes have taken pity on me because I've been deprived of snow for the past two fall-winter seasons.

how else do you explain Tacoma's current state? although it is entertaining to snigger at the weather when it comes on and people complain of bitter cold and they're talking about 15 degrees fahrenheit weather. granted, I'm cold, but I have an excuse.

almost almost almost got a tattoo in tahiti. would have, but the artist was busy. and james would probably have to kill me for getting ink without him.

lots of fun sailing. lots of partly digested food lost to Neptune in the first few days. for some reason my watch was the one that had the most hard-hit seasick people, although it gave us a chance to impress the scientists when we would tagteam learn how to do the procedures. (rachael would be ready to come back from the rail about when I couldn't stand being in lab any more, and vice versa). lots of very entertaining night orders from the chief scientist.

I have become an authentic real live shellback. take that! I have been punished for my crimes against neptune (bleeding into his ocean without permission -I still maintain my innocence. I didn't ask for the winch handle to bite me) and emerged triumphant. and with all my hair, because I'm not stubborn at all. no, you don't get to know the sordid details. cross your own damn equator.

I can pour noxious chemicals behind my back and staggeringly drunk (not that I would) because nothing can be worse than pouring chemicals for nitrate analysis in the middle of a squall with 9foot seas.

I can use lots of nautical, salty-sounding words and know what they mean. (as a side note, katy, dithy- I HAVE A PLOT!)

I can survive (albiet with difficulty and occasional moments of great confusion to my shipmates) 6 weeks without contact from my fiancé. if I don't see him soon though I'm gonna go crazy.

I have lots and lots of pictures, all of which are still on the boat because the computers hate me and refused to burn the cds. sigh. as I develop the pictures off of my real camera I'll slowly start to open the floodgates.

I can knit on a heeling ship and have successfully trained my shipmates to take flying leaps for yarn as it tries to roll overboard.

I'm jealous of Haley, because I want a puppy to play with, and her family just got another seeing eye puppy to train. sigh.

I've descended into utter randomness and incoherency. time to go back to sleep. mmmmsleep.

booooooom

So now it's off to minneapolis for a week and then mexico on the 25th.

on the 26th I join the crew of the Robert C. Seamans and sail to Tahiti.

be back in mid january.

have fun knitting

as nyline says-
stay out of work. stay out of trouble. stay out of jail.

t minus...oh god.

it is 2054. in 13 hours I will be turning in my final draft of my research proposal and shortly after that I'll be on a bus to boston and after that on a plane to minneapolis and after that (on the 25th) I will be on a plane to puerto vallarta in preparation for sailing to tahiti.

eeeeep.

looking forward to bumming around boston for awhile with siv before I have to fly out.

had an amusing interlude today in nautical science:
our captain said "yeah, so not so long before we sail out on next sunday, huh?"
us: "...saturday...?"
captain: "...nnnope, sunday."
class: "uh...saturday the 25th is when we were told to be on the dock..."
captain: "...huh. that's interesting. we never leave on saturday."

so SEA is working on getting our whole boat lodging for the night, either on board or somewhere. aaah, excitement.

I managed to knit 5 hats and teach 7 people to knit. the red hats are slowly taking over. muahahaha.

well.

so I guess, dear blog, that this is goodbye until mid-january, unless I get ambitious over the interim week before I get on the boat.

once again I'm playing the "why doth technology hate me" game at the MBL WHOI library.

arg.

it'll be working, and then sometimes the pregnant pause between when I click "scan again" and when the happy green light sweeps across the page leeeennnggthhheeennnnns and then it decides it's no longer connected to the computer.

and I found a great article but it's in a volume that's checked out. who lets people check out journals? whaaaat? sigh.

ah well.

home friday night! on boat friday after that! AAACK!

notes to self.

sooo...yeah. notes to self.

#1. self, if you're knitting with handspun thick-and-thin bamboo yarn... do not (repeat; NOT) try to kitchener stitch the ends together. your yarn will fray and dehisce; indeed, it will dissolve before your very eyes, causing them to weep tears of frustrated agony. you will rip 3 rows to finally, on the third try, make it all the way through the ends without fraying.

#2. self, do not try to kitchener while sitting in the common living room where people will ask you questions constantly about things both related and unrelated to knitting.

#3. self, after wiping the tears and sweat from your face and brow, do not NOT NOT think to yourself "I should block this." you shouldn't. you're working with bamboo. go ahead. submerge it in water and just try to squeeze the water out. yeah. that's right. instant gross fuzziness. now you've got a sopping wet blob that you want to block, but it'll be mildewy before it's dry.

#4. self, invent a time machine. go back. hit me over the head when I contemplate doing numbers 1-3.


oh, and hey, have you heard? the solution to global climate change isn't in cleaner energy and more efficient use of resources- it's in putting a giant mesh screen around the earth to reflect solar energy. or about moving the earth out of orbit using H bombs. or about shooting sulfur particles into the atmosphere.

I'm serious. people have published papers on this. nobel prize winners have published papers on this.

be afraid. be very afraid.

rockin' the MBL WHOI library

and once again I have ensconced myself in the MBL WHOI (pronounced mumblewhoee! but standing for Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

and once again, I have spent several productive hours doing nothing but going oooo...articles...and oooo...I can access them, because I have the power! (in the form of a little happy swipy card. mm. swipey card.)

supposed to be writing my revised introduction and a materials and methods to my paper, though. I'll get there eventually. playing with the fount of knowledge is more fun, though.

started knitting a scarfy thing out of some more of michelle's fab yarn. can't take more Zissou hats just yet. need more boring public policy classes before I can manage that. I think I'm going to cheat and kitchener the ends together in a pseudo-moebius scarf. I'd attempt a real moebius but that, I think, would kill my brain.

two weeks left until I go home. three weeks left until I get on the boat. eek.

ROP!

ok, ok, so the nautical science's prediliction for three letter acronyms is getting to me. today is the first installment of Random act Of Poetry; acronym so chosen because "rap" means burp in norwegian but "rop" means call/cheer and I'd rather think of having a cheer of poetry than a burp of it. and "roap" looks like a frog with indigestion.

so. without further ado: TS Eliot's "The Hollow Men" (1925)

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

I love this one. I think I remember using this as a contrast basis for my paideia paper on Ellison's Invisible Man freshman year of college.