I did it!

Well apparently guilt-induced guilt is very effective!

I did finally get around to studying last night (not very much, but hey it's something). I just finished the exam about 2 hours ago. And it died under my pencil... it begged for mercy... but I spared no question! Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! And I knitted... unfortunately it's for Christmas so I can't really give any details. But I'm about one pattern repeat away from completion!

Here is a picture of the yarn, though. I'll get pictures of the FO up after Christmas, but for now this will do.

And I shall call it squishy and it shall be my squishy...

For those of you wondering, this deliciousness is Diamond Yarn Luxury Baby Alpaca Sport (link goes to Ravelry). And oh boy they aren't kidding when they say luxury. It's so soft and nice and I'm sorely tempted to keep this present for myself but I won't, because that would just be silly  bad probably not so good.

Part of the reason I got so much done yesterday knitting-wise was because I was watching TV at the same time. I find it really, really difficult to just sit down and knit, unless the pattern is really complicated or something. This project I'm working on now is dead simple, mostly stockinette... and so it doesn't really need my full attention. Last night I knit and watched episodes of Full Metal Alchemist, which sounds is really nerdy. My defense is that my boyfriend started watching it and recommended it to me. Haha. I can never seem to get motivated enough to "just knit"... although I've got my eye on some really pretty lace patterns, so I might need to break that habit. I knit in cars, on buses, in class, while watching TV... but hardly ever just by itself. I'm currently hunting around for an audio book copy of WoT book one The Eye of The World to see if maybe I could listen to reading and knit at the same time. I generally much prefer to read a book myself, but I'll discuss that in another post, I guess.

I promised pictures of fresh baked bread a few days back, and I have a confession to make... I totally ate all the bread before taking pictures of it. Instead you get a conciliatory photo of these really cool penguin crackers President's Choice has started making. President's Choice, for all you non-Canadians out there, is a supermarket brand that makes some really tasty stuff*.

Trying to make love work despite a cable needle chasm... much more charming than those stupid Red Bull commercials.

Anyhow, lovelies, I shall post again at a later date. (Tomorrow, probably, but saying "at a later date" is more suspenseful)

* I am in no way affiliated with PC. 
 

And now just 3 more to go...

So, first take home handed in = check.
second exam written = check.

I think it went okay. I am very happy I did some reading just before the test, otherwise I know I would have gotten at least a few questions wrong. I know there are questions that I didn't answer exactly the way she wanted them answered, but I'm not sure exactly how far away I was from the perfect response. I suppose I will see come January.

My next exam's on Sunday, which means all day tomorrow is study study study time! I probably should be studying today too, but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm tired of exams, and they've only just started.

The only good thing about having exams all squished together like this is that I'll have a lot less to worry about come Sunday afternoon.

One Exam Down

That's right folks... I have successfully completed my first exam!! Submitted the electronic copy of my essay just now, Submitting a hard copy in about an hour. I'm so glad to be done that one.

Bad news, though... second exam begins at 2:30 today. I'm not sure about it... it could either go really well or really horribly. I've been holding consistently at around a 70% for all the other examinations (except for one that I got perfect on! Woot! Too bad it was only worth 10%). That is kinda comforting, because it makes me think that I'll probably be able to pull off a 70 in the exam as well. I'm still pretty nervous though. This professor (Sylvie Grosjean)is really excellent... but her exam questions tend to be pretty specific, so if you don't know the answer you really don't know it. It's hard to fake it on her tests. I'm just hoping I won't have to.

I'll let the world know how it goes after.

Oh, and I'll post some bread photos soon... it was delicious.

Gingerbread Lattes, Bread, and the Studying continues...

So I'm taking a little break from the Communication Theories take home exam (Oh P.S. CMN3109-- go die) to post. I forgot that I started a blog yesterday, hence the no post thing. Oops.

So I have not been knitting Christmas presents, despite my best intentions to knit lines (hah sounds like a drug) as mini study breaks. Instead, I have been baking! Made a loaf of bread yesterday using the famous 5-minutes a day bread recipe... it was okay. This isn't the first time I've made bread (and I don't really understand yeastophobes). It was worth trying, I guess, and the crust was nice, but pretty bland and very dense. I found it a little bit too salty, as well. I think the density was my fault though, not the recipe's. But still. So today I'm trying a different recipe, just a slight twist on this recipe here. I'm hoping it will be more flavourful. Although I think it's impossible for it not to be, with the addition of a tad bit of whole wheat flour (just a quarter cup or so, and that's my modification to the recipe), sugar, milk and butter as opposed to just flour-water-salt-yeast. It's almost done its first rise, so I will (hopefully) be popping it out of the oven in two hours or so.

The thing about bread-making is that it doesn't really take too much effort, but it does require you to have at least 3 hours or so just around the house. I rarely make bread because of this. I've just realized though, that laundry takes me about the same amount of time and I almost never leave when I'm doing that (publicly shared washer-dryer), so there's no reason why I can't make bread too. Perhaps at the same time as laundry. Although not today. Laundry and I had a bit of a chat and it agreed to wait until Sunday.

As I was writing my timer for the first rise went off. It hasn't risen as much as I expected it would but, soldiering on, I've shaped it, and it does look like a pretty nice loaf. I'm thinking maybe the lack of rise is due to my addition of whole wheat flour. But oh wells. Back into the slightly-warmer-than-room-temperature oven to rise some more. I'm actually finding that the bread making process is making some really relaxing study breaks. I'll have to keep that in mind.

Second thing on the puttering-in-the-kitchen-avoiding-essay list of today is the making of Steph's (over at a Year of Slow Cooking) gingerbread latte. And Oh My is it ever good. Next time I make it I might cut the ginger just a little. It's very gingery... the original recipe calls for 2tsp of ginger to every 4 cups of milk, and if you know your ginger you'll know that that's more than it sounds. I was feeling cautious when I was preparing this so I gingerly cut back... using only 1 1/2 tsp (haha, see what I did there)... and it's still pretty strong. But SO GOOD. I'm gonna be up all night drinking these, I don't have any de-caf coffee (what's the point of coffee if it's decaf!! I guess now I know). I'm definitely going to try Steph's pumpkin spice latte next. MMMM.

Anyways. I really should get back to Edward Said's impact on the perception of media representations of Muslims post-9/11. Ugh. No I did not choose this topic. But I still have 5 more pages to write before the end of the night. :)

And on today's menu... Stress Breakfast :(

Today, I have a feeling, is just gonna be one of those days...

Woke up with the immediate knowledge that I have only about a million things to do and not enough time to do them all in. Ah, exam time.

I feel like December exams are far worse than April exams. Nothing really happens in April. Exams are always stressful, because you add the pressure of studying all the time on top of normal duties like cleaning up and doing laundry (and somehow ordinary chores multiply and expand during exam time). But December has the added pressure of Christmas.

This year I'm knitting Christmas gifts for my family, but I don't know whether I'll be able to get them all done. Only 3 weeks left until Christmas! And only about 4 and a 1/2 knitting projects left to finish! :(

But I really can't be piling more stuff on the "to do" list... I'm having enough trouble sleeping as it is.