more sunlight please

Sadly the place where I applied for a PhD position doesn't want me. Ah well. If at first you don't succeed, etc. etc.

It's actually been cold enough here for knitting. I've finished knitting the most beautiful shawl for a dear friend of mine - as usual, I just need to weave in the ends and block it. I hope she likes it. It went surprisingly quickly, compared to the first time I knit that pattern. It's Ene's shawl, my own being pictured above. The first time felt like it was taking forever, those endless rows, but this time around, the pattern flowed better.

As a pattern, I've enjoyed Ene's Shawl very, very much, which is why I knit it a second time. But it's also a bit risky - what if your yarn runs out? Still, I had enough yarn for the second shawl, a beautiful green Lonco Solid from Araucania that my brother brought me from Wisconsin.

But if you want pictures ... there are none yet. While it has been cool enough to knit, it has also been too dark, on the whole, to take good pictures. Otherwise I'd show you the beautiful striped dress I made for a little girl and the cute light blue legwarmers, but noooo ... not enough sunlight.

On the other hand, I recently discovered that sewing isn't as much of a pain as I remember (crazy!) and I'm starting to think of either knitting or sewing a garrison hat, after I saw that one of the shops close to my house is selling them for 80 Euros. Maybe the cold is getting to my brain.

summer break

Oh boy. Ooooooh boy. I'm having a super-hectic July again. And this time my main workplace isn't climatised.

First of all, I am currently doing research on a somewhat forgotten composer of operettas. I can read the old handwriting style that was popular in German-speaking countries up to WWII and so when somebody calls the Austrian National Library and says "I can't read these letters from Grandma, please read them for me", they say "Uh, no, but we have someone on call who does this" and they call me. This happened again at the end of May and I got to transcribe over 300 letters and when everything was done, the woman actually writing the book asked me to help her with the historical research on the guy. So about three months after graduation, I am doing what I have been studying for the last ten years, my name will be in the book and I'm even getting paid! It's too bad we don't really have enough time, since there is a deadline from the publisher, but I have found all kinds of interesting things, so we're doing well. That's one thing. I have to go to archives, libraries and next week I'll be visiting cemeteries. Well, it's definitely educational and good experience.

The second thing, which I thought I could handle alongside the research, is a course in how to properly apply for jobs. I've wanted to do a course like that for a while, so I thought it would be ok, but there's this guy who talks allllll the time and is making things really miserable - dunno if for the rest of us, but certainly for me. But oh well, I'll learn some useful things and by the end of the course I'm sure I'll have a bit more confidence when it comes to applying for jobs.

And then there's the third thing. On Thursday during that course we had to work on the computers, drafting up a little paragraph that should advertise our greatness. I was bored and started looking around this job search engine for positions in academia, when I came across one that fit me perfectly. I got very excited and started researching and thinking about what I would need and today I already called there to ask about some details (like how many references I need and whether to send a picture or not and things like that) and emailed my professors about letters of recommendation.

With that, my July has entered crazytown. Added to that is the fact that I have committed myself to go to Berchtesgaden and see the Eagle's Nest on Monday and Tuesday - July has left crazytown and is heading for parts unknown.

The only thing I can do is do what I need to do and go with the flow. That means only little knitting (it's too hot, anyway), very little anime and a blogging break until at least two of the three things are over. I do wonder why these insane periods always come when it's hot outside which makes everything about 100 times worse, but eh. It's an exercise in Zen ... or perseverance.

ten days later she comes rolling into town

Apologies. My mother's old house in the country where I sometimes spend a bit of time has internet, but not the free-floating wireless lan kind of internet and it is not allowed too complicated to hook up my computer to the internet there is. I also don't mind periods without the net for a while if I can just have some time to re-internet afterwards. I thought about composing a blog post to post when I came back, but didn't feel like it. I was in a murderous mood, after all.

I don't know how many kilograms of dandelions I pulled from the ground with the help of my trusty sword the gardening tool I have no English name for, but I managed to clear a lot of ground. After determining that extermining every little sprig of dandelion would lead to madness and would require at least a month or so, I attacked the big fat ones which were already preparing to blossom and take over even more of the garden. In this I was successful. On my last day there, I even ate salad made from the most delicious dandelion leaves and buds that I had selected. I really wanted to take the salad bowl outside to show the other dandelions that I was a barbarian who would eat them all if they didn't stop from spreading, but it became dark and rainy outside and I didn't feel like it anymore.

Apart from battling dandelions, I cut the roses, the lavender, the spreading Fallopia baldschuanica and raked dead leaves and grass out of a sad, neglected little patch of garden. I also dug some holes for concrete blocks which are supposed to hold a wooden platform. I didn't leave the garden much. And I didn't take any pictures of the plants, either. Unusual.

I did, however, take pictures of plants in Bonn. Pictures of buildings and other things, too. The building above is one of the buildings of Bonn University from the garden side. It used to be a palace of the archbishop of Bonn. The university also uses another palace and several beautiful buildings in another part of Bonn.

But I won't give you a complete tour of my trip, just a few pictures. On the left is the cloister of the Bonner Münster from the 12th century. I really liked the way they had designed the garden and the capitals of the columns were also very beautifully carved with leaves and animals.

Searching for a supermarket, I found the most beautiful street in Germany. At least in spring. It's the Heerstraße in Bonn and would be one reason for me to move there. 500 meters of pink cherry trees. You can see it even in this picture - the light under the trees is pink!

Now about knitting. I did take some knitting to Bonn - luckily, because I had already finished my book in the train on the way to Bonn. Out of two balls of Lana Grossa Alta Moda Estate, I knit a neat kerchief with a slip stitch pattern that gave me a bit of a headache, but managed to make the knitting more interesting.

I named it Bonna, thinking about the Romans that had puttered around there for a while, before they built a big fort. Bonn also is the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven and if it hadn't been the capital of Western Germany for 41 years and the capital of Germany for another 9, it would just be a lovely little town on the Rhine, overshadowed by the much larger Cologne. As it is, it has a large number of museums and government buildings and interesting, very different areas.

I also knit in the country and discovered that I won't need as much i-cord on 250 as I thought. Maybe not any, we'll see. The skirt of 250 is finished which enabled me to determine that the sleeves will actually be longer, because I have an extra ball of yarn to spend on them. Then I unraveled the top and thought about its construction. I think making side increases and then decreasing them again to make a sort of diamond shape might be the way to ensure that I have enough space for my boobs, but smaller armholes. We'll see, I'm not above unraveling the top again if I don't like it.

With those beautiful early medieval cups from the Rheinische Landesmuseum in Bonn (note the bunny on the left), I wish you happy Easter and shall go off to knit a little - unfortunately my right hand is a bit sore from gardening, so I need to be careful.