Time goes by

Well I had planned to make everyone something for V-day and I started but never did seem to have the time with school. The day just snuck up on me. It also took me awhile to figure out what to do. Since I did the big hearts last year I thought of making heart doilies -- which I'm totally getting into, doilies in general -- Then I found tiny hearts and I got 3 done. oh well, I guess they can just be put as part of my stash and maybe at some point they will show up at your door.

This semester is a bit more under control. Not much, but a little bit. I'm taking Visual Anthropology, studying the history and styles of documentary/ethnographic films, Linguistics, and Physical Anthropology. I also need to start working on my thesis. oh vey!

I've been dancing, which helps relieve stress. I will be in a new piece, which we will show in Sept. It's a rope and harness piece which I love working in. Though the company is so broke rehearsal are a little sporadic. We are in the experimental stage and have been video taping so maybe I'll put together some clips so y'all can see.  

A friend came to visit, and we went to the Armory show which was really great. It got some creative juices flowing. She also gave me a hard time about my problem CADD - crochet attention deficit disorder. I have about 6 projects all going at the same time and none finished. So I'm listening to her advice and finishing them one by one. I'm finishing up a sweater, which will be just in time for spring :P oh well.

Other then that things are good. Daniel is still waiting to hear back from colleges. So our future is still unknown. One day at a time.

Here's some pics of some finished projects.

Snow Day

Well the snow finally came, i'm not counting the freaky snow storm in October.
The snow has already stopped falling and I think that might be it for a while. Daniel took advantage of it and went out snowboarding on the streets of New York. We live in a hilly area so he went to some paths and did some mellow slow speed snowboarding. He said it was fun. I wish I went with him to take photos, but I am sick with a cold. Not fun.
I have one more week before school starts, and I want to take advantage of it.

So I realized even though I like the idea of making sweaters and buying yarn to make sweater, I don't like actually making sweaters. I like making afghans and other tiny projects. I don't have the patients to make sweaters.

The colors look a little different, but that's the afghan I'm working on, which will take me forever to make.

Not sure why my iphone made the colors look off. oh well. Though even with getting the yarn on sale when I'm done it will be an expensive afghan.
With my holiday crocheting, I missed Halloween because I couldn't make enough skulls (will save them and start to make more for this years Halloween). I couldn't get everyone a snowflake for the New Year, I sent a lot out to family. They take awhile to because you have to starch them. So now Valentine's is coming up again, and since I already did puffy hearts I'll have to figure something else out. 
We'll see :)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

    Well my first official semester at Hunter College has finished. It was a lot of work, and kicked my butt, but I did pretty well. Now I have a nice long month off from school, and am looking forward to it. I already have some crochet projects in the works; a hexagon afghan (which will take me a year to make), 2 sweaters, and a cardigan I want to start (Daniel got me baby alpaca yarn when he went to Peru, hehehehe!). And of course my parliament of owls - one flew away but 2 were added.

   This month will not only be about crochet, I actually do have to do some school work. I need to start thinking about my thesis, oy vey! I have so many interests so pin pointing one to write a 100 page paper on is difficult. I've changed my mind a few times already. My latest plan is inspired from a paper I had to write in my Politics of Reproduction class (great class!). It was on Black Market Sperm, yes you read it correctly. So I'm thinking this break I will do some more research on it, as well as expand on the ideas of sperm & egg donation and what that means morally, socially, economically, and genetically. If it keeps my interest it might have the makings of a thesis. I always thought it would be about gender, since that is what I'm interested in so we'll see.

   This month will also be catch up time with everyone. I know over the past few months I've been terrible at emails and calling, sorry. School becomes all consuming. Though there really isn't that much to tell. So here's a bit of catch up:

-All consuming school. Went well.

-Helped Fly-by-Night dance group with their Aerial Festival. I worked back stage, which was a first and kind of fun. I have a new respect for tech & crew. They are the unseen machine that makes a performance run. My friends Ashley and Kiran came out and performed in it. They also stayed at Casa de Soto. The festival went well, and there are already new plans in the works for next year. I might even perform, who knows.

-Visited California which was wonderful and to short.

-Daniel went to Peru for a week to speak at a conference. Brought back beautiful soft grey baby alpaca yarn :)

-My brother got married, and I took the photos. hey maybe it can be a new line of work.

- Daniel is in the process of sending out applications to University's. I think he will hear back from them in May or June. This all makes things a bit up in the air for us about our future. There are a few possibilities so we will have to wait and see how it all plays out.

That's about it.

The weather just started getting really cold here. Time for hibernation.

Well off to eat some oatmeal and do some crocheting :)

Subway Sounds

September 7th, 2011

Products of Irene

 Crazy Eyes

Growing Parliament (need to add feet to pinkie)

Back to School .......

Had my first day of classes Friday and there is something to be said about college. Walking through the hallways as students rush to and from classes, the excitement in the air of new possibilities, and potential knowledge.
It made be giddy.
Though the first week consists of professors going over their syllabuses it's still fun. I had Medical Anthropology on Friday. It looks to be an interesting class that will help with writing and critical thinking.
There were threats that classes on Monday would be canceled because of Hurricane Irene but we were not hit that hard. A bit of rain and wind. My parents did loose electricity and am not sure when it will be turned on. Some areas flooded and parts of the electricity were turned off in lower Manhattan. But over all NY seems to have weathered the storm alright. A bunch of trees got knocked down in Brooklyn. But it seems like it could have been worse.

Owls and Aliens

New crochet projects.
Love doing these cute little Aliens and playing with color and button combos.
My friend Jessica was in town (had a great time, she stayed at Casa de Soto B&B) and took the 3 aliens as a baby gift for her friends baby. - ooh boohoo now I have to make more :)

Am also working on these Owls.

 Love the little butt.

 Little creepy in maroon and because of the different yarn it changed the proportions. 

Don't really like it.

 Need to add feet.

I like the brown (soooo 70's) and lavender one. I want to make a bunch in different colors but keep the face yarn the same on all and the feet yarn the same on all.

 A group of owls is called a parliament. 

hehe they make me happy. I can just envision a whole bunch of them sitting on a shelf.

Watkins Glen, Upstate NY

Daniel and I finally got out of the city for a while. Our plan was to go up to Watkins Glen on Saturday and camp till Thursday. But there was a Nascar race there with 200,000 people so the camp grounds were full on Saturday. Typical. So we went up Sunday. My parents let us borrow their car and it was only about a 4.5 hour drive. Upstate NY is really lovely.
There was a rain storm so one night we feared we might have to sleep in the car but the tent held up well. Because of the rains one of the Nascar races was delayed, so while most people left there were still a bunch and we got caught in traffic for an hour trying to get into town.
It was a pretty chill week. We hiked the Watkins Glen gorge (pictures), went swimming in the campgrounds pool, read a lot, rested, hiked some chill trails, drove around Seneca Lake - which has a lot of winery's and is beautiful, ate, had camp fires and relaxed.
It was rejuvenating.
Next time we want to try to get up to Maine and camp around there. Try to take advantage of the east coast.
Now things will amp up. I start school in about a week. I'll be taking Archaeology, Medical Anthropology and Ethnology. There will be a ton of reading and paper writing.
I'm starting to freak out. But am still excited.

Hunter College

This fall I will be going to Hunter College for an MA in anthropology. Some might think it's strange that I'm not going for art or education. Maybe that will be my next masters. But I've always been interested in anthropology and I figure it's about time I do something about it.
Not sure what I'll do with it when I'm done but I'll worry about that later. I'm pretty excited and nervous. There are so many classes I want to take but this semester I'll take Archeology, Medical anthropology, and Ethnology.
To show my school spirit I got a pair of short with the logo, I didn't like the style t-shirts and it's HOT so I live in the shorts. Well actually as soon as I come home I put them on.
I wouldn't say Hunter is the best school for an MA in anthropology but it's here and relatively inexpensive as far as colleges goes, since it's a state school. And I have met a few professors that I like. It also means that we will be here for 2 more years. Daniel's program ends next summer so we will have to see what that means. He'll be looking for professor jobs and if something amazing comes up he'll have to take or he'll try to get funding to stay on one extra year.
It's crazy to think we have been here for a year now. We celebrated our 1 year anniversary with my parents, brother, and his girlfriend. We went out to dinner and a show. How New York. It was kind of funny celebrating a one year anniversary when we have been together for 10.
Well I have to go shower and head off to work. We're having a field trip to the movies to see Harry Potter (i'm kind of excited, sshhh).

Hot town Summer in the City

It's 7:15am and it's already 90 degrees. It is suppose to get up to 101 today.
It's been a hot week. Yesterday there was a breeze, but it felt like Satan was blowing his hot stinky breath on me.
So our fans are blowing and we spritz ourselves with a water bottle. Keeps you kind of cool. The fire hydrants our broken open in our neighborhood but I have yet to jump in one.
I will definitely have to try it before the summers over. It's such a New York summer icon. Of course it's illegal to open them but the cops and fire department look the other way. It makes sense though, tensions rise when it gets this hot (anyone see "Do the Right Thing") and it provides relief. Not everyone can afford an air conditioner.
Just got back from work. We took the kids to Ripley's believe it or Not. They had a good time. It's up to 103 degrees, 90 degrees in my apartment.
I'm going to sit in a cool bath with a book.

Summer Solstice

Daniel and I went out to the Stony Brook area on Long Island for the summer solstice. A guy Daniel works with grew up on this farm on the sound and they have big parties all the time. A bunch of people showed up and camped out, they had bands playing all day and night, we went swimming in the sound. It was fun and nice to get out of the city for awhile. 

 Horseshoe crabs doing it

I start work July 6th for a program called BELL. I'll be teaching art in the Bronx. We had a training day Saturday and it looks like it will be fun. Came up with a few projects I think the kids will like. I'll be working with 6th-8th graders.

Since the city is so expensive I've been pulling out all this fabric I shlept 3,000 miles and am starting to make dresses and stuff out of it. I figure it gets ride of "my to much stuff" and I don't have to spend money. I will post them later and I have 2 other crochet projects I need to post.

I finished my jewelry class at Harlem Village Academy. There are some pictures of the girls work at the bottom of the page at this link I created of student work

http://alissakaplan.com/Studentwork/Alissa_Kaplan_Soto.html

From one of the weeks we had a heat spell

"Hot town summer in the city"