Happy days

I have just finished the work for college.  I submitted the work last night and was glad that I got it in on time.  I am thoroughly enjoying the course.  It is taxing and draining but I am really happy that I'm doing it.  I am aware of myself changing - I am a lot calmer and  understand a lot more about myself.  I have another 4 modules to go, spread out over 2 years so I do wonder how much I'll change. 

I still feel like me though, just a more secure me, if that makes sense.  I am both excited and a little scared about the prospects of becoming a counsellor.

Me and the fella are flat hunting.  We are looking for places in the Long Eaton / Beeston / Stapleford area (Nottingham), so I am leaving Leicester.  He is a full time student nurse and as I am studying part time, it makes sense for me to move there.  We have seen one or two places.  We very nearly got one place but my fella was waiting for a letter from the NHS Bursary people to say how much he received, but the letting agents / landlord didn't want to wait.  There was something quite fishy about the whole situation - the person who I was dealing with said there was someone else interested in the property, but the other people in the office said there was no interest whatsoever.  When we viewed the property, it had been empty for 4 months, so not much interest in it at all!  The letting agents said they definitely had found someone else for the property when questioned.  Ho hum.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if we get a call back in a week or so to ask if we are still interested in the property.  So very tempted to say maybe, but for a reduced rent.

Oh!  When we did view the property, there was another guy there doing a viewing at the same time as us.  Most unprofessional!  It wouldn't have bothered me if we'd got there and someone was still viewing it, or someone was coming to view it after us - but to book 2 viewings at the same time on the same property?  Not good!

We have arranged a viewing on another house that we like today.  We shall see how that goes.  It looks to be a nice 2 bed house in Beeston, really close to all the amenities.  Right now, I'm a bit worried about the money situation.  I will have to do a lot of travelling initially as I will be travelling back and forward to Leicester until I can find work in Nottingham and with fuel prices as they are, that's not good.  I will probably be spending the time off college getting my CV into a few places - I am finding that flat hunting, college and work are all enough right now and I don't want any additional stress.  However, while I'm not at Uni, I can spend the next 2 weeks or so responding to job adverts.

That's another thing I'm learning.  Better time and stress management.  I am kinder on myself.  Once I've moved and settled in, I will definitely be able to job hunt more effectively, but given how I spent about a year sending CV's off to different places, I'm thinking that there are so many people applying for jobs that it's hard to get noticed.  I don't want to get too despondent though!

Heh, that was a bit of an essay.  I came here to talk about something else entirely.  I was watching Sunday Brunch, which is a clone of Something for the Weekend, with the presenter / chefs doing a bit of cooking and a bit of interviewing.  I was watching it with a cuppa as I waited for the fella to get out of bed and they had someone on there - a trendspotter - talking about knitting.  My ears pricked up!

When her segment came around, she showed these knitted trainers that someone had done.  Really!!  They looked better than I imagined they'd look to be quite honest.  They had proper rubber soles and everything.  She then went on to say how knitting is now cool and how it's not just for grannies.

I don't quite know how to feel about this.  After all, I hate the Shreddies adverts - "knitted by nana's" or being so damn stereotypical but I dislike how knitting is portrayed as cool because certain famous people knit.  As an aside, I couldn't tell you one famous person who knits.  Meh.  For me, I knit and spin because I love it.  I love the process (most of the time, when I'm not cocking up a simple feather and fan pattern and have to unravel a weekends worth of knitting!!) and I love the product.  I love being able to make something.  I love seeing things grow, stitch by stitch. I love seeing the fibre I spin turn into yarn and then into a garment.  I love letting the yarn speak and tell me what it needs to be.  I love the fact that I've not bought any socks in  5 years because I've always got a pair on the needles.  I love the surge of excitement that I feel casting on, then casting off and blocking.  I love meeting other knitters and talking about projects.  Even if the person is someone I don't really know, we have knitting to talk about.  I love the feeling of yarn in my hands and I love the wide range of colours you can get.

I can see how a surge of interest in knitting is going to benefit me as a knitter (new products, new patterns, new books, new magazines etc), but I don't know if I like being labelled as a granny (I'm 33!!!!), or someone who is just doing it to be cool or on trend (I loathe that phrase with a passion!).  I don't know if I like being labelled at all.  I'm just me, doing my thing.

Maybe it's to do with the feeling that I don't like having attention drawn to myself, which is odd, coming from someone who did some guerilla knitting and will gladly knit in public, but then I don't knit in public to get attention.  I just do it because I want to rather than to elicit a response.  We have some odd reactions from people sometimes, when they see us knitting; from outright laughing at us (WT everloving F??), to people asking if we are a group and can they join, people saying how lovely it is to see people knitting, to people asking for a knitted thong (this really did happen once), or people saying "You're knitting.  Why?".  It can be quite disconcerting to be in the middle of a row, concentrating on your stitch pattern, or in the middle of a conversation about Being Human / Dr Who etc to have someone butt into our conversation to say something like "I know you're knitting, but what are you doing?"  It can feel a little rude or intrusive sometimes, but I've never seen it done with any malice.  Most of the time, it does make people smile - perhaps they had a family member who used to knit things for them.

It goes with the territory, I suppose.  If you knit in public then you are bound to attract the attention of people who will either think that it was something that grannies did years ago, or that we are doing to be cool.  Perhaps the problem here is whether I am too concerned with how people see me. 

Food for thought!