Nearing the End of a Long Journey

In the fall of 1987, when I was 18 years old, I registered for my first college course at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona.

In the fall of 2010, I registered for the last college course I needed for a degree, at American Military University. Today, I applied for graduation. 

     It has been a very long journey towards this degree, mostly because I was young and inattentive and easily distracted. I have attended two brick-and-mortar schools; PCC in Tucson, and McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. For the last three years and 4 months, I have been taking online classes at AMU. I used the GI Bill for almost all of my education, but I exhausted that back in August. I have taken 19 classes at AMU, and I attended the other two schools for roughly three semesters each. Once I grew up and settled down, education was easy! It's certainly wasted on the young. Then again, so is youth. And common sense.

     I can't believe I'm almost done. Six more weeks to go in my current class, and I'm finished. I'll have a Bachelor's Degree in English, which is not quite an accurate description. It should be Literature, not English, and it didn't focus exclusively on British and American literature (by the way, we need to reclaim this word ... or someone needs to tell Border's Book Store that Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts do not belong under a sign that reads "Literature").

     I am currently reading "Spoon River Anthology" for the class. It's a collection of very sly poems. Last week was "A Rose for Emily," which is one of my all-time favorite short stories (take that, Homer Barron!). Next week is "Heart of Darkness," which I have exhaustively covered in another class. We were also issued "Waiting for Godot," but I don't see it on the syllabus anywhere. 

     Okay, on to the knitting!

A silly hat for a silly 5-year-old boy ... my design: 

 

The "I-Ran-Out-of-Blue" socks for an almost 11-year-old...

The "Oh-Crap-I-Mixed-Wool-With-Acrylic" socks, in random patterns for a random 8 year old...

And a pair of pink socks for a little girl who is unclear on the concept:

For pictures of the socks on the feet of the boys, see their mom's blog. The toes look funny because I am really bad at the Kitchener stitch, so I just bind off on 2 needles. I like to think that reinforces the toe.

Something new for me: 

Damn cat.

It's a simple shawl with merino-bombyx silk I bought at Maryland Sheep-and-Wool, and spun on my Kromski Prelude. It will be a triangle, and I will block it a bit. I like to wear shawls over my wool coat in the winter, it brightens up the drab of winter. 

Thanks for visiting! I leave you with Uninterested Cat ...

And Immodest Cat.