a pimp and a post

Pimping!!: Susan is giving away Manos del Uruguay! You read that right. Go to her blog to enter, and hurry! She's choosing winners tomorrow. :)

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I think I must be the slowest knitter in creation. Eris is *still* on the needles but at least I can say I'm at the cuff of the first sleeve. I had planned on working on it today but it's been very warm here and the thought of having that very warm cardigan on my lap is not very appealing right now. Must wait a few more hours. As for my mom's socks, I finally CO the second sock on the flight home from Salt Lake City last weekend. And the Charm Wrap is pretty much hibernating, though it is turning out nicely.

Knitting's taken a bit of a back seat the past few weeks as I've worked on the dissertation and the temps have gone up and down. Last week I did an intensive course on course design for university level classes. This week, I've been working on the portfolio for that class, which is due next Friday. I decided not to redesign one of my previous courses, since those are mostly freshman/intro level classes where I've got to meet departmental and institutional requirements with students. So, I decided to create a course for upperclass English majors (primarily) that grows out of my dissertation, in essence. It's on women writers of the Romantic period, but rather than look at English and American Romanticisms separately, which is what's usually done, I've designed it so that we'll examine British and American writers together. This way, students will be to examine how women writers built on each other's ideas and arguments, and hopefully gain a better appreciation for Romanticism, learning that the ideas didn't happen in a bubble and stop at a certain place on the nineteenth-century timeline. Anywho, that's the academic ramble of the day. :D

Next on the knitting front are some KAL and swap projects--and I'm keeping myself to my stash (it minimizes later guilt :P). I was thinking Hew by CanarySanctuary for the color KAL with the SPEW group, but I'm dithering again and reconsidering Endpaper Mitts, which I've had queued for-eh-var. But I was also thinking I'd combine the color KAL project with the Master & Commander RAL/KAL project, since that's 'Mediterranean'. Bah. I'll make up my mind eventually .... by Monday, lol.

Anywho, the food's on the barbie, so I'd better take myself off. The temp's cooling, the Mets game is about to start, and the pundits are still spinning from Hillary's speech this afternoon. Say what you will about her, her run at the White House is just as amazing as Obama's. I hope people remember this year's historic presidential campaign--so many gender and color barriers and prejudices being shattered. More still need to come down, but these steps sure do make me proud of my country.