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Knitting, TV
Jun. 4th, 2005 11:23 amKnitted Yoda! Possibly the cutest thing ever since kittens.
My own knitting progresses. Last night I did more work on the baby sweater. I made an arm hole! I'm so pleased. I've never made an arm hole before.
I'm discovering that it's really true that the best way to pick up new skills is to start on a project and learn as you go. Luckily for me so far the only mistake I've noticed is that I didn't measure one part accurately and was about a quarter inch short. Fortunately it's just a difference of when one stitch pattern starts vs another, so I snuck an extra quarter inch in later and so long as I remember the change (so I can mirror it as I go) I'll be fine. Also lucky for me this is a baby sweater, so it's not like the kid's going to notice.
TV-wise I watched Numb3rs, and I am so going to the special Hell. (The look! The look Don gave Charlie!!) (Soooo going to Hell.)
I also watched an episode of MTV's True Life series that I actually would recommend other people see if they can. It was True Life: I'm dead broke. The title is somewhat inaccurate because it gives you the impression that it's a show about teens who can't scrape together enough money to go to the movies as often as they want to. Instead it's about two teens (18) and one young adult (early 20s) who are living in poverty.
Two of the stories that stood out to me was the 20something and the young man. The 20something was the perfect example of the Nickel and Dimed problems in our society. Both she and her boyfriend worked one job each (her technically two as she tried to hustle up cash via any means she could) and yet they still lived paycheck to paycheck. Finding out they had to find a new place to live nearly made them homeless as they didn't have savings enough to put a down payment on an apartment. I can only imagine the kind of trouble they'd be in if one of them got sick - and this is with two people contributing to a single household.
The story of the young man will break your heart when you see it. So much so that I feel like I should warn people that it's not for the faint of heart, but OTOH I feel like his story is a tale everyone should see. His situation is that his entire family lives in utter poverty - their home is crawling with roaches, their plumbing is via a pump in the sink, the house is falling apart, you name it.
The boy himself was in jail for a time because he tried car stealing to improve his situation and now that he's out he's trying to improve himself and just not making it. He can barely read (though he somehow managed to graduate high school) but he struggles every day to learn so that he can pass the entrance exam to join the army. He's on probation and when the time comes for him to check in with his PO he has to set out on the 18 mile distance by foot because there's no other form of transportation available to him.
There's more that I think will really only have impact if you watch, but seeing his struggle will just destroy you. It's not often that you would actually root for someone to be able to join the army during wartime, but for him this would actually be an improvement. And watching him try so hard to make it for that exam - even dressing up in his best clothes so he can go to the library to meet with a tutor, as though this were a formal occasion - says so much that I don't think someone describing it could ever convey.
You know, kids like him were exactly the ones I used to teach for free (meaning they didn't have to pay) until the government grants dried up. And what was Dubya's defense against this back in the debates? He can have a thousand bucks to go to college? Yeah, that'll help.
You'll be in tears as you watch it, but you should watch it all the same.
My own knitting progresses. Last night I did more work on the baby sweater. I made an arm hole! I'm so pleased. I've never made an arm hole before.
I'm discovering that it's really true that the best way to pick up new skills is to start on a project and learn as you go. Luckily for me so far the only mistake I've noticed is that I didn't measure one part accurately and was about a quarter inch short. Fortunately it's just a difference of when one stitch pattern starts vs another, so I snuck an extra quarter inch in later and so long as I remember the change (so I can mirror it as I go) I'll be fine. Also lucky for me this is a baby sweater, so it's not like the kid's going to notice.
TV-wise I watched Numb3rs, and I am so going to the special Hell. (The look! The look Don gave Charlie!!) (Soooo going to Hell.)
I also watched an episode of MTV's True Life series that I actually would recommend other people see if they can. It was True Life: I'm dead broke. The title is somewhat inaccurate because it gives you the impression that it's a show about teens who can't scrape together enough money to go to the movies as often as they want to. Instead it's about two teens (18) and one young adult (early 20s) who are living in poverty.
Two of the stories that stood out to me was the 20something and the young man. The 20something was the perfect example of the Nickel and Dimed problems in our society. Both she and her boyfriend worked one job each (her technically two as she tried to hustle up cash via any means she could) and yet they still lived paycheck to paycheck. Finding out they had to find a new place to live nearly made them homeless as they didn't have savings enough to put a down payment on an apartment. I can only imagine the kind of trouble they'd be in if one of them got sick - and this is with two people contributing to a single household.
The story of the young man will break your heart when you see it. So much so that I feel like I should warn people that it's not for the faint of heart, but OTOH I feel like his story is a tale everyone should see. His situation is that his entire family lives in utter poverty - their home is crawling with roaches, their plumbing is via a pump in the sink, the house is falling apart, you name it.
The boy himself was in jail for a time because he tried car stealing to improve his situation and now that he's out he's trying to improve himself and just not making it. He can barely read (though he somehow managed to graduate high school) but he struggles every day to learn so that he can pass the entrance exam to join the army. He's on probation and when the time comes for him to check in with his PO he has to set out on the 18 mile distance by foot because there's no other form of transportation available to him.
There's more that I think will really only have impact if you watch, but seeing his struggle will just destroy you. It's not often that you would actually root for someone to be able to join the army during wartime, but for him this would actually be an improvement. And watching him try so hard to make it for that exam - even dressing up in his best clothes so he can go to the library to meet with a tutor, as though this were a formal occasion - says so much that I don't think someone describing it could ever convey.
You know, kids like him were exactly the ones I used to teach for free (meaning they didn't have to pay) until the government grants dried up. And what was Dubya's defense against this back in the debates? He can have a thousand bucks to go to college? Yeah, that'll help.
You'll be in tears as you watch it, but you should watch it all the same.
