Vips

Two pictures of finished objects to post today. Thanks to Eyjafjallajökull, no flights are leaving Europe, and I along with the rest of my household am down with a nasty cold, so I haven't had the energy or motivation to do anything but knit the past three days. So here is the Marius yoke sweater:

Since this is yarn that has been knitted up and frogged twice before, it was pretty chopped up and there were a ton of ends to weave in. I ran out of the Jamieson and Smith Moorland with only 11 rounds to go, so I used the lighter color that I also have for the very top of the yoke. I can't decide whether it's okay, or whether I should go to all the trouble and expense to order more of the Moorland. I'll just have to see.
Since the camera was out, I took the opportunity to get a snap of the second Miss Honeychurch too:

I wasn't expecting it to be so see through, but I think it will work. Love the linen for sure. These are sweaters five and six for the year.

Not quite sure what the next project will be. I got a new book (consolation prize for the canceled flight): Tove Fevang's Helt enkel hekling (ISBN 9788202314903). I'm pretty excited about it. It's an introductory book with a bunch of projects that, though very simple, I really want to make. Here are some snapshots of a few of the projects, to give you an idea:

This last one is even written for Garnstudio Drops Alpaca, and since I already have all of those colors left over from the ripple blanket, this seems like a natural choice.

utbrudd

Here's the reason I'm lying on my sofa composing a blog post, rather than sitting on a plane bound for Portland, OR right now. It was kind of a surreal morning. We woke up at 03:00 and had an uneventful drive up to Gardermoen. Everything seemed fine until we got to the check in counter and discovered that there had been an eruption during the night, and that KLM airlines had canceled our flight. They tried for a couple of hours to get another plane through SAS, but eventually they gave in and sent us all home. They booked us on a flight out tomorrow. Not sure whether that will work or not, but we'll give it a try.

The funny thing is, I feel as jet-lagged and exhausted after 3 hours in the car and 3 hours at the airport as I usually do after an intercontinental flight, and I didn't even do any of the driving. Odd.

ETA: I found an amazing link on the Meming of Life to Jamie Dunbar's illustrated comic book version of the origin of the universe, Bang. It looks spectacular. What's not to like about the theory of relativity and the big bang in rhyme?

Utslitt

I finished Miss Honeychurch II, and it has been blocking since yesterday. It will be fun to try it out on the big trip to Eugene and Seattle. Tomorrow is the last day before E and I leave. Things are extremely hectic, and as is often the case right before a big trip, I have come down with a cold. My energy level is really low, but there's so much work to plow through that I don't really have much choice but to grind through it all. I got through all my grading over the weekend, and although the students were happy to get feedback so quickly, quite a few of them pushed me for more specifics and more guidance on how to improve their work. It's kind of an amazing group, and I feel like I'm shortchanging them.

Today we had our big seminar meeting between the Ibsen Center and the Nordic Literature Program up at Voksenåsen. It took a full hour and a half to get there, but the meeting was very positive in a lot of ways. My own contribution was pretty poor, unfortunately. It was one of those (not uncommon) instances where I felt that I really sold myself short, and that my oral presentation of my research oversimplified and to a certain degree misrepresents what I actually write. One of the Ibsen scholars disagreed pretty openly with what he perceived to be my the central premise of one of my articles. I knew that I wasn't explaining it very well, and that it was coming across the wrong way, but I really didn't have the time (or patience or articulateness) to explain it better. Then he majorly snubbed me at the lunch afterward. I'm so tired this evening that I'm on the verge of tears over the whole affair, for no rational reason. It's unfortunate that I wasn't at my best, but it's not the end of the world either, and I had a really nice lunch conversation (with the one person who deigned to sit with me) despite being snubbed. Harumph!

I had to stay really late at work in order to show a film to a grand total of three students. The enforced time on campus was a good thing though, since it gave me a window of time to finish off the conclusion on the Frobenius article. My friend E gave me great advice--basically confirming what I already knew, but just hadn't quite managed to pull off--so it went pretty quickly. I didn't want to second guess myself so I just sent it straight off to Edda, since that's the journal that counts the most, and since their turnaround is fairly quick. As always, if they don't want it I have a few other venues in mine. It was a huge relief just to get something into the "hopper," as I like to call it (I think most people call it the publishing pipeline). I've been feeling so incredibly unproductive this year...

So now I really just need to 1) prepare one lecture for tomorrow afternoon, 2) pack, 3) find out exactly when we need to be at the airport and 4) read my PhD student's final dissertation chapter (which is supposed to appear in my inbox tomorrow morning). Oh, and get a decent night's sleep.

Arbeid adler kvinnen

This was a full week, and I have to admit the fact that E and I are leaving for the states next week didn't really sink in until, oh, yesterday. Climbing out of vacation mode made my re-entry into work on Tuesday pretty tough. I rather frantically dusted off the article draft that was supposed to be the basis for the conference paper I'm giving in two weeks. I had thought I could do the revisions in a day but it took two days plus a little extra. I'm actually really happy with it though, and very excited to present the topic. This will be my official entry into the field of 18th century studies.

Wednesday I spent the whole day at another mentoring workshop at the Grand Hotel. On one level it was a total waste of time, but at least socially it was a good experience. I feel like it's a phenomenal waste of the university's money, but it certainly is enjoyable to get acquainted with the other postdoctoral fellows. I left feeling fairly pessimistic, since I can't see any way that the mentoring program can actually improve my chances of getting a permanent job. If anything, all the time spent talking about communication and gender quotas (the program is for women postdocs only) when I could have been writing is a detriment.

I had set myself a goal of finishing the Frobenius article by the end of this week. I suppose one could say that I did indeed finish a draft, though it certainly doesn't feel finished. This afternoon I sent a copy of along to a colleague who has promised to critique it for me before I submit it to a journal. I'm hoping she will have some concrete suggestions.

Since I didn't have any classes this week I really let my teaching responsibilities slide. I totally forgot that my students were submitting papers this week, so now I'm faced with a weekend of grading, plus two teaching preps. There's a lot to do, and I've really been struggling with low energy and lack of sleep.

And then of course I'm freaking out about the trip. It's starting to look like I'll have both social activities  and work tasks nearly every day that I'm in Eugene, and then the conference in Seattle won't exactly be relaxing. I'm worried that I will be utterly exhausted when we get back, and I'm also a little worried about how E will deal with the trip. I know he'll love being together with grandma, but it will still be pretty challenging, and hard to be away from his dad for so long.

There's a little bit of knitting going on in the background of all this work. Thankfully it's the plainest of  plain stockinette. The body of the Marius yoke pullover is done and I've got one sleeve well underway. I love the way the Jamieson & Smith DK knits up, though it is a bit scratchy. I'm pretty sure I'll have enough for the second sleeve to, though I'll probably have to order more to finish off the yoke. I really should finish up the sleeves of the Miss Honeychurch II, though, so that I can take it with me on the trip.

Ideologi

I threatened to write a post on what makes up my own ideological position a few days back, and I seem to have woken up this morning with the beginnings of that post in my head, so here goes. I've been trying to determine to what degree my beliefs (I suppose ideology really boils down to "belief," though maybe "conviction" is a better term?) overlap with the kulturradikalisme that I wrote about earlier, and what I've discovered is that although I share a number of their social critiques and their struggle for individual emancipation, my philosophical point of departure is quite different.

1. Active atheism
I am incredibly lucky to have been raised without religion. It was there in the background obviously, but everything I read and heard and observed about contemporary Christian or Jewish (the only religions I was exposed to as a kid) practices and beliefs seemed obviously pointless and misguided. As a young adult I ran into the awkward position of being in relationships with men who believed in God. I tried very hard to be open to their beliefs, and even spent a great deal of time in one case exposing myself to the guy's religion as much as possible in order to see if there was hope that our two world views could be reconciled. Believe me, there was a time when I was so infatuated that I desperately wanted to believe, but I simply have never experienced anything that even approaches belief in the supernatural or divine. I think that's partly why I go all the way and define myself as an atheist, even though intellectually (or scientifically) speaking I think the most defensible position is agnosticism (since there is no way to prove either the existence or non-existence of the divine without further evidence). Given that such a thing is currently impossible to prove, I find such questions totally irrelevant. If someone actually presents me with credible evidence I would certainly consider it, but I find the chance that this would happen is so minimal that I don't waste any time worrying about it.

2. The social contract
I'm copping that phrase from Rousseau, but what I really mean is just that I have a pretty rigid ethical code, not because I believe in good and evil, but because I want to live in a safe and nurturing society. I'm a rule follower because I think rules keep us from destroying ourselves and each other. I gladly pay taxes for the greater good. I try to keep to the speed limit. I want people in need to receive assistance not through the psychological drama and narcissism of charity, but through a rational and compassionate centralized government. It drives me crazy when people in the US talk about "big government" because as far as I can tell, the intention of democracy is that the government is really indistinguishable from the people--ideally we are our government. Of course most democracies I've seen don't work that way, and the US has been a democratic train wreck for as long as I can remember, but that doesn't stop me from believing in the principles of democracy.

3. Post-humanism
I don't believe human beings are the center of existence. We're just one species in a huge nexus of interdependent organisms. To be honest, on a macro level I think of the last 200 or so years of human history as a huge, rampant cancerous growth on our planet. I think that cancer is incurable. I don't believe in "God given rights" so I don't see any reason to think that my species has any more inherent value than any other. The fact that we are master manipulators of our environment, and that we are able to exploit so many other species in order to increase our chances of survival is interesting, of course, but it doesn't mean anything. Yes, I suppose this means that I'm an "environmentalist" and if I weren't so lazy and comfort loving, I would be living off grid. KE and I have spent a lot of time figuring out ways we can reduce our carbon footprint, but so far we haven't taken any big steps.

4. Chaos and patterns
I think the universe and everything in it is randomly generated (I leave the question of first causes completely open. On one level it could even be Jehovah for all I care). Humans have an uncanny ability to see patterns in the chaos. In the novel Grendel, John Gardner's monster calls human beings "pattern makers." I think that's beautiful and brilliant. We see patterns and tell stories in order to create meaning for ourselves. But ultimately, there are no absolute truths, only stories. That's why I don't find my job as a literary scholar irrelevant or parasitic. I'm fascinated by how and why we construct narratives, and what they can tell us about the state of being human at a particular time and place. All identity is narrated into being.

Gee, I think that's it, at least for this round.

Oppstandelse

It rained nearly all of Easter break, which turns out to be a wonderful thing: the snow is nearly all gone! I'm tickled pink. And I'm even more delighted by the fact that the sun came out over the weekend. We have had a nice Easter Sunday afternoon together with E's buddy A and his parents. All six of us took a walk down to Hellviktangen. The boys played soccer on the grass and we had a late lunch at the organic restaurant there. Very early in the morning we did a truncated egg hunt. I think E was pretty disappointed. Clearly we'll have to up the ante next year.

I have another cavalcade of photos (well, okay, only five) to share. To my mind, this first one is just plain thrilling:

These crocuses are from our yard! And they're blooming! These are our first flowers of the year, and I can't express what a relief and joy it is to see them.

KE got a little bit of cabin fever with all the rainy days (and having both E and me at home all day for days on end), so on the first break in the clouds he went out to split some logs. I caught our copper wood bin (a garage sale purchase that we hauled all the way from Eugene) filled with newly split birch fir in the late afternoon sun. I thought it was lovely:

Less aesthetically pleasing, but satisfying in its own right is the progress I'm making on the Marius pullover. A few days back I discovered that I had messed up on the first sleeve on Miss Honeychurch II. That was just enough resistance for me to put the project in timeout and cast on for the Marius pullover instead. I'm about 25 cm into the body:


Unfortunately the moss stitch edge is flipping up. That ball of yarn is strategically placed in the photo to keep it down. Then there's this year's Easter decorations. And yes, I consider sudoku and the Easter edition of Se og Hør to be a part of my Easter ritual (check it out, this year it's a yet another special issue on celebrity cabins!):


The keen eye will recognize that this still life is almost identical to my Easter photograph from last year. Same knitted eggs and similar birch switches. The new additions are the dyed eggs, which E made in preschool this year, and a bright yellow candle. Hey, what can I say, I'm an underachiever when it comes to seasonal decorating (unlike Kristina, I might add!). I'm totally okay with that. And I think my little kitchen corner is a pretty decent spot, all things considered:

I can't get over how big E's footprint is in the calendar he made in preschool--that really is a print of his foot. The table is obviously too big for the corner. I've been wanting to switch back to the smaller oak table we currently have in our bedroom, but it will probably be a while. We did get a couple of small things taken care of in the past few days: the extra coat/hat rack we bought a few weeks back is now up in the hall, and I planted KE's newest houseplant in the new pot I bought a couple of weeks ago. And, rather unusually, I dusted and vacuumed a bit this morning too. Stranger things have happened, but not many...

Happy Secular Easter!

Værsågod, neste

While walking to the subway yesterday I had a moment of knitting inspiration. I have for over a year now struggled with what to make out of the two shades of Jamieson DK (Thistledown and Moorland) that I got from my friend L right before we moved to Norway. After frogging her abandoned project and after one failed attempt to make something else out of them (also frogged), I have been fretting over this for months. Meanwhile the two lovely colors sit on the shelf. Suddenly it dawned on me that my problem is actually the combination of the colors. They're two muted purple-brown-grays (typically difficult-to-describe heathers) that are quite close, and thus should fit with my love of tone-on-tone monocromatism. But to my eye at least, they turn into purple and lavender when combined, which is a bit much for this neutral-to-drab gal.

During my commuter epiphany, I realized that I don't have to use them both in one project. The darker of the two (Moorland) would look spectacular as the base for a sweater with a patterned yoke in a high contrast creamy white. Something like the yoke version of the classic Marius sweater published by Sandnes garn (without the third contrast color). As it happens I have the pattern and the cream colored yarn to go with it:

This pattern calls for a seed stitch edge at neck, wrists and bottom, but I'm thinking this would be the perfect opportunity to do that Swedish twined edging I mentioned a few months back.
I'm now so eager to start that I can hardly bring myself to finish Miss Honeychurch II:


Just another inch or so at the bottom, then the sleeves and neckline to go. I know it will go fast, but I'm not entirely happy with the way this is knitting up. The fabric is a little too loose and translucent for my tastes, and I can't for the life of me figure out why the yoke is so short, especially since I ended up with the correct number of stitches at the end of it. Mysterious. But I am motivated to finish since I think it would be a useful item of clothing to have along on the trip to Eugene and Seattle later this month.

Gosh, I actually sat down to write an ideological post today--one that attempted to articulate the central tenets of my politics (in response to my readings on kulturradikalisme, of course), but that all seemed to disappear once I got on the topic of The Next Sweater. I'll have to mull over the ideology bit a while longer, I think (like the next 30 years?).