Incoming: rant

My apologies in advance for this non-crafty, rant-a-licious post, but there's something that's been weighing me down for weeks now and I've finally taken a step forward so I feel like I should let some of the stress out.

It's about my thesis.

As you may or may not know, I'm a student and am currently trying to finish my Master's Degree in Translation by writing a thesis. My subject: Young Adult Literature. I love YA lit. Not just as a reader, although I must say many of the YA-titles that came out in the past few years have entertained me very much. I love it as a bookshop-employee, because it gives me the opportunity to help kids find something interesting to read when they no longer feel at home in the children's section but don't feel like switching to adult literature yet. I'm probably projecting; it's how I felt when I grew up and had read every single book in the children's section of our local library by the time I was 12 and moved on to fantasy because there was nothing to read.

Anyway.

I love this category to bits, so I figured that writing a thesis on translating YA should be a piece of cake for me.

Wrong. Very, very, very wrong. It's a difficult subject at best. YA as a literary category is relatively new, but it's known under so many different names that finding secondary literature on it becomes a slow and frustrating process: you never know if a text is discussing YA under another name, or simply discussing something different alltogether. And that simple fact has made me push it away from me since I started last year in June. Summer interfered heavily with my work too, since I was gone most of August. Then September hit, and it hit me hard: I felt so stressed I was unable to sleep for nights in a row, it was affecting my health very much, it was making me tense and probably not very pleasant to be around. I had row after row with the boyfriend about really stupid things. I think we once had a fight over toilet paper. I was ready to break down. So I finally made the decision to stop what I was doing.

Well, no, actually, that's not entirely true. I've made that decision three weeks ago, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, and wrote something down in a notepad on my phone about it. I didn't do anything with this, though. I just didn't want to admit defeat and move on to something that would be more productive, like an actual translation. I'm stubborn like that. Very unattractive trait.

But I've done it; I've admitted defeat. I've bitten the bullet. After not sleeping again all night because I was tossing and turning and frustrating myself with thoughts about my thesis, I got up early and sent my supervisor an email explaining the situation, along with a proposal for 2 texts I would like to use as a translation thesis instead. Now all that's left is waiting for a reply and hoping he'll accept one of my proposals, so I can get started.


I've been taking deep breaths all morning, ever since I pressed 'send'. I hope he'll get back to me soon. In the meantime, I think I'll just go and sort out my stash. I've made a small start on that last night, but I'll devote an entire post to it one of these days. It'll be both yarn-porn-ish and yarn-horrorish. I promise.

Summer is really over, I'm afraid

One thing is certain in our household: we don't plan birthday parties in detail. Why, you ask? Because half of our family was born in March, and the other half in September. It can snow in March, but it can also be 20 degrees outside. Same goes (well, not the snowing part) for September... Last Saturday, we went over to the parents to celebrate my baby sister's birthday.

She's turned 19 today! 19! Can't be, she was only 12 yesterday!

Anyway. It was gorgeous outside Saturday evening, albeit a little cold, so half the party moved outside to enjoy the fresh air or a cigarette. Me, being the idiot that I can be, forgot to bring my sister's little present I made to go with the 25 euro she got from us to help save for her camera. I decided to bring it around yesterday, and took my bicycle out for a ride in an attempt to get more excercise. And to take pictures, of course.

The weather was once again taking the piss, since it had been reasonably calm and sunny on Sunday, but turned windy, cloudy and ugly on Monday. With the wind in my back on my way over to the parents' house, I managed to snap a few pics while cycling.


Amazing, isn't it, how you can pass something on your way to school/work/go shopping/see friends your entire life and never realise that it's kind of pretty?

I mean,

Imagine having one of those little boats over there. Hmm..

There's trees everywhere, and for the largest part of the way, I cycle along the canal. In the summer, there's bugs everywhere and you have to keep your mouth firmly closed or fear an unexpected meal of flies and musquitos. Yesterday, they were all gone. The only bug I encountered was a very grumpy bee, that flew straight into my chest and decided to hang around for a second while buzzing furiously. Reminded me of a grumpy old man, driving in his car, with his window down so he can swear at kids racing a traffic light.

Anyway.

Then I got to my parent's house and presented my sis with her...

Camera!

Sis approves.

On the way back, the sun broke through the clouds for a little while and I came along a little cluster of trees at the side of a lake and saw.. well..


Sun shining through the trees. I don't know about you, but to me, that screams summer. I smiled the rest of the way. Summer wasn't gone yet.

And then I woke up this morning and found that I was proven wrong.

I'm afraid Summer really is over now.

Done!

It's done! The bag, I mean. I finished it 5 minutes before we left to go to my mom's birthday and it doesn't have an inside pocket yet (so, yes, I know, that means it's not 'done'-done. Shush.) but I'll add that later.

Here it is!


I folded the lining fabric over the edge and sewed it together that way, because I'm a noob and can't measure a square piece of fabric. I had a bit too much fabric left at the top... Sewing the lining together was a Bitch, but together with the bf, I managed to get a sturdy lining. The handles gave me a headache (did I mention that for some reason, the yellow-pink-red one was much longer than the green-blue one? And that I have no idea how that happened?) and the bag itself rekindled my RSI, but it's done, and my mom is very happy with it. I'll call her tonight to see if it survived her taking it to work yesterday.

Sweden

We went to Sweden with a bunch of guildies to have our Second Annual Vintage Guild Barbeque and had a great time! I kind of forgot I had my camera with me and didn't take that many pictures (only 42, wth..) but this is basically what our weekend consisted of:


Friends
Booze


Good food (lots of, even)


And.. cats.


And remember these?


I made a small army of them, added a label saying 'Vintage Oneshots Sweden, August 2010', and gave them to my guildies. I'm glad to say that they were adored by all and are now proudly dangling on keychains and purses.

Thanks guys, for a great, great, great weekend!

In between holidays

It's such a weird feeling! I will be leaving Thursday for a weekend-long festival in Holland (Lowlands!) and am currently preparing for that. Plus, I'm busy preparing for the guild-trip to Sweden next week! In other words: I'm back to doing laundry again. But not just that.

Today, because I had received a final warning from the university library to hand in a book, I had to make a little trip to Utrecht. I realised that I have never really understood why people would come to Utrecht as a tourist, but as I was walking onto Stadhuisbrug across one of the canals running through the city centre and looked to the side, suddenly it hit me. It's a beautiful city!

The little canals, the old buildings, it speaks to me.

But maybe I was just in a sentimental mood because I realised that I was entering my very, very last year of uni.

Anyway.

The project is coming along nicely, and since I figured the recipient is too busy at the moment anyway, it can't hurt to show an in-process pic.

I've done two whole colourrepeats now and have done the first two colours of round three. It's growing quite nicely! I'm thinking three more colourrepeats and she's ready. I want to be able to at least fit a large binder in it. But I'm on a tight schedule and since I'm going away for most of the coming two weeks and will not be bringing it along (think about that for a second. 14 balls of yarn, and a project, stuffed inside some bag, being hauled around from one country to the next... Oh, the possibilities to lose one of those balls are endless!)

Last but not least, I was in the mood for something sweet and have been toying around with the idea of using yogurt in a cake for a while now. So I took the plunge. With this recipe by Ree/ Pioneer Woman I managed to whip up a nice cake using a cup of yogurt in stead of butter. The end result was.. different.. than I had expected it to be. It's much more bouncy and chewy than normal cake, but sweet and tasty (albeit not tasting like normal pound cake at all) nonetheless. I ate a bit with some fresh strawberries and it was very nice, so I guess it takes some getting used to the flavours.


It does look pretty though, doesn't it?


So anyway. I will be off for a week or two, see you guys in September! I'll be bringing gifts. And by gifts I mean pictures of Sweden and maybe Lowlands.