I don't wanna go to school...

I'm sorry to report that there's not much knitting going on around here (And so a sad lack of pictures). This is for a couple of reasons. The biggest reason is because I was getting a pain in my wrist from knitting for hours a day every day. It started during Christmas knitting, but I ignored it then because I was on a deadline. Then, after Christmas I was knitting a little less, but still knitting because, hey, I could do it for me! I was hoping to finish more of the Windowpane Coat before school started, because I knew I wouldn't have a lot of knitting time (I won't, but I'll get into that in a little bit), but I took a couple day's break. I knit a few rows yesterday and nothing the night before. My wrist is feeling better and I don't want to get carpal tunnel (I've not even been knitting a year!) so I think it's good that I took a little break, although I did miss knitting.



The other reason is because, well I've been busy. School started Monday and I already have a pile of homework. My Western Civ. teacher informed us that we would be reading the entire text book, and that he wouldn't be covering all of the text book in class (fine, it's a lot of material), but would be testing on material not covered in class. But, he also informed us that the exam questions would come from the list of questions (about 10) at the beginning of each chapter for the material not covered in class and he would inform us of the chapters he was taking them for before the mid-term and final (not cumulative). So: Sucky that we have to read all of the text(It was $68 used) plus another book and supplemental reading, but not so sucky because the teacher seems pretty cool and fair about grading/testing.



My Italian class seems cool, except I learned that for a minor you need 20 credit hours of Italian classes (4 classes) instead of the 15 (that's 3 classes- a normal quarter) that I had originally thought it was. Either I was wrong (possible) or they raised the number of hours needed for a minor (also possible). So I have 2 choices, since I don't plan on being at main campus next year. I can 1) Take 3 Italian Classes and 1 English class (The publishing class I'm sure won't be offered at the branch I'll probably be going to). 3 Italian classes! Oy! I don't know if I could handle all that Italian! I have enough trouble keeping up with my readings in English let alone Italian. 2) Don't minor in Italian.

The second option is one I'm leaning towards. I love the Italian language, but the only reason I was going to minor in it was because it was an easy 15 extra credit hours. They also don't offer upper level courses during the summer, or I'd try that. Actually I may be able to take an upper level English course during the summer. I'll have to look into that. I suppose if I choose this option I could either continue with the class, or drop it and add and English class which would get me that much closer to graduation. If I do that I'll need to decide what to do by the end of the week.

My third class is an 'ethnic novel' class. We'll be looking into Chicano/Mexican-American novels. While I was expecting a hefty amount of reading for this class, I wasn't expecting 7 novels. Although, none of them seem to be too much longer than around 200 pages (judging thickness...) so it shouldn't be overly difficult. Here's the list of the novels we're reading incase anyone is interesting. I'm looking forward to the one by Cisneros. I read her in a different class and I enjoyed her writing style and voice.

Daniel A. Olivas,ed. Latinos in Lotusland; *A collection of short stories, I think.
Oscar Acosta, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo;
Tomas Rivera, And the Earth Did Not Devour Him;
SandraCisneros, Woman Hollering Creek;
DanielChacon, Chicano Chicanery;
JunotDiaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao;
Manuel Luis Martinez, Crossing

Crossing was written by the teacher, which I thought was a little lame at first, but he explained that it wasn't a 'vanity thing'. He thought it would be a good learning tool if we actually got to talk to the author of a work that we read so we could get that perspective instead of "well, I think the author was trying to say...".



Also, I'm writing this from work because they're running a diagnostics test on my computer because Trend Micro, the Anti-Virus we purchased with our computer blocks the internet. We can go to our OSU webmail, and AIM, and I was able to go to the log-in screens on Ravelry and Blogger but not actually sign in. The Anti-Virus program was even blocking itself from the internet. It couldn't update because it wouldn't allow itself to connect to the internet! We gave it to teh Geek Squad at Best Buy because we have it under warrantee with them, and the diagnostics test was supposed to take 2 days, but they're 'back logged' so it's going to take 4. Which is such a joy, considering I have work I need to do online already.

I was also planning on discussing a few other things, but it's just about time for me to leave work and head to class.

You're off the hook for now. ;-)


P.S. I started Where the Heart Is. I bought it at Half Price Books for $2 because I loved the movie. The book is well written and the characters are quirky and interesting. The only down fall is I already know what's going to happen, which takes a little of the fun out of it. I hope I have some time to finish it in the next 3 months...