catch-up london style, #2

i hopped across the pond just over a week ago, and finally have the interwebs at home again. meet the catch-up post, dated for your (my) convenience.

le 3 octobre 2012

today was our registration day, and it was both boring as can be and incredibly exciting. most of our class was there, and we all hung out for lunch afterwards. my laugh has already become infamous (the snort very quickly came out, unsurprisingly), and a classmate has commissioned a cowl. go me :) of course, i’m also extremely low on funds, so i may have to wait to pick up the yarn. sigh. meeting with the estate agent in a short while to finally sign the papers, and i have a student card, which is apparently good for all sorts of discounts.

one of the things i’m most excited about is the library. we have 40,000 books solely about performance right on campus, plus loads of digital material and journals. and another library with 2 million next door to the british museum (we have to go early in the morning to register with them). i picked up one of my reading requirements, but an even more exciting find was “exercises for rebel artists: radical performance pedagogy” by guillermo gomez-pena and roberto sifuentes. i’ll probably hunt down a used copy for myself at some point, but in the meantime, i have a month to get through it.

some interesting things about london that people back home might be interested to know:

-there’s a store called argos, and it’s basically a supply-and-demand design. you walk in, search through a catalogue for things you need (i.e. bedding, toys, furniture…think sears, but in catalogue form). you write down the numbers of items you want, pay for them, and then they’re delivered to you from the back warehouse. it’s bizarre, and kind of brilliant, because you’re less likely to pick up extra crap that you don’t need. on a side note, the flatmate and i are going to ikea on friday. i’m sure the extra crap there will more than make up for argos.

-you can’t get a phone contract without a uk-based bank card. you can’t get a bank card for 7-15 business days after signing up for an account. internet takes 5-7 work days to set up. everything in the uk seems to take ages to sort out, and the country is paranoid about identity theft. it’s all a bit absurd. luckily i have a home address, because otherwise everything would take even longer to sort out. 

catch-up london style, #1

i hopped across the pond just over a week ago, and finally have the interwebs at home again. meet the catch-up post, dated for your (my) convenience.

le 2 octobre 2012

so here i am, in the uk. it’s been a crazy ride, but i’m settling in to my new house. i have bedding now, which is really the most important thing when you’re trying to make a home feel more like one. my flat is beautiful, although we’re finding a number of things that need sorting out (two of the four burners don’t work…). there’s also a very noisy baby in the house adjoining us on my side, which was interesting last night when it was screaming at 10pm. luckily i was so knackered that i just passed out.

my flatmates are truly lovely. we all went out shopping earlier today to sort out house stuff, and last night we ordered pizza, drank wine, and watched a movie. it’s so nice to finally be living in a house situation like those i envied for years (with the exception of the first housemates i had).

finances are going to be iffy for the first few weeks. i set up my bank account yesterday, but nothing clears for a couple of weeks (it can take up to three) and my cards and such arrive in the post in the next two weeks. it’s probably a good thing to be on a very tight budget for the first little while anyway, as i make all my main household purchases. the one thing that’s killing me a wee bit is the food…we’ll see how it goes.  we don’t get internet for about a week, so i’m going to rely on my iphone for now, and write blog posts (like this one) ahead of time. they’ll get published eventually. i’m off again to set up my phone contract, then to check out the library and find some peanut butter. life is always better with peanut butter.

on a side note, the homesickness isn’t too awful yet. some songs make me melancholy, and i felt a strong pang last night before i passed out, but it’s been surprisingly doable. i think a large part of that is the fact that i’m living in london, and that i’m living with lovely people. snail mail will be very much appreciated though…righty-o, i’m off! more updates later.

pulling in every direction

i'm feeling overwhelmed right now, due to a combination of factors, including the fact that i pulled an all-nighter to finish the mohawk hat for my friend (it looks great...pictures to follow soon). i leave for the uk in little more than three days now, and am feeling the crush of leaving lovers and loved ones behind. that anxiety is being coupled with a feeling of being...attacked? misinterpreted? both?...by people who i thought were friends. it sucks when you try to help out your community and get blacklisted by members of that same community. i suppose it's the norm when you're an activist, but it still sucks big time.

luckily, i have wonderful people close around me who are helping me feel a bit better about the whole thing, and who keep reassuring me that i'm not a terrible person blundering around on sensitive issues. ah life. leaving for new lands will be great and terrible at the same time. my heartstrings are being pulled in many directions, resulting in a straining ache. cuddles, tea, yoga inversions, and dark chocolate are the solution. and knitting, of course. always knitting for those fidgety fingers.

busy busy busy

sorry i haven't posted any of those updates i said i would. i've been knitting like a fool, trying to finish these final four projects before flying out in a week and a half, while also seeing friends and partners as much as possible. i finally finished the baby cardigan yesterday night (pictures to follow once it's dried and has buttons), and am simultaneously knitting a handshoe and spinning fibre for a cowl. hoping to have those two finished by saturday when i get the materials for my final project, a mohawk hat...yeesh.

today is a rainy day and the first one in a while where i didn't book anything in advance, so i've been taking advantage of it, baking cupcakes, doing laundry, spinning, and hanging out with a partner. hopefully i'll have time to post pictures of finished projects soon.

on a side note, i had my first-ever pedicure yesterday, at a local organic spa courtesy of a beautiful friend. she gave me a gift certificate after i helped her get into film school, and knowing that i have issues with my feet, told me to use it on a pedicure. 75 whole minutes strictly spent on my tootsies. i have never let anyone touch or look at my feet for that long ever before. it was a beautiful gift, and my toes are now a pretty navy blue! being a femme is kinda fun sometimes.

handspun!!!

i made handspun last night! my second time working with my drop spindle...

which then turned into this...

loving the slubby nature of my yarn!

(i'm knitting my best friend back home a wasabi cowl for her birthday this month out of the handspun.)

here's the pile of rovings i have left to spin.

they're kettle-dyed merino top from local fibre lady UberWench. know what's awesome about buying from your local dyer? if you need more, all you have to do is email them and arrange it :) i'll be picking up another 4 bundles after she dyes them this weekend for me. hopefully that's enough to get me through the project.
on a completely unrelated note, i'm getting a new macbook later today to replace my old pc (my parents are awesome folks), so that inundation of posts i promised yesterday will probably be up in the next couple of days. i got distracted yesterday by cupcake baking and spinning. and chores, but those were less fun.

hurricane showers

it's pouring rain today, and is supposed to continue doing so for the next few days. a hurricane is headed our way, and apparently a shift in one degree east or west will determine whether we get hit or just get a lot of rain while newfoundland deals with the major storm. either way, it means i'll be hermitting for a little bit, which is nice when you've been too social recently and just want to knit curled up at home with le netflix.

anyway, today's plans include venturing out briefly for groceries and then doing laundry, making appointments, doing paperwork things, and knitting. and hopefully getting some stuff on here updated. i've done a number of projects and adventures recently that need to get posted, including a YARN ROAD TRIP AROUND THE PROVINCE! yes, i went on a road trip specifically for yarn. it was awesome. multiple yarn-gasms awesome. so that will be posted in a bit. and i knit some new stuff, and have a couple of projects on the go, and several projects planned, so maybe i'll be a dork and post a bunch of fibre-related things. sorry if i inundate any newsfeeds (i don't think that will be much of a problem though...).

teaser pic of one of the EIGHT skeins i picked up during the trip...

this is handmaiden fine yarn's casbah, which is a blend of merino and cashmere (and a bit of nylon, so that you can make nice socks from them). i have no idea what it will become, but i love the colours. my partner described them as 'lego'.

nomadic queer knitting club

for those of you living in the halifax area, a friend/lover and i have started up a knitting club - the nomadic queer knitting club, to be exact (the link connects to our ravelry page). our interests are wide-ranging and our plans are broad - knit shit, subversive yarnbombing, and teach others the basics. we move around from location to location, and occasionally take classes (like today's drop spindle class at our LYS). people don't need to identify as queer to join us, but the point is to offer a safe space.

i hope to start up a sister-branch in london when i move at the end of the month. this friend and i are discussing the logistics of including fibre arts in the co-op, so perhaps in a decade or so, we will have a permanent home for the knitting club. in the meantime, join our facebook group to keep up to date with events and meetings.

stay calm and carry yarn.