Friday, May 08, 2009

My yarn budget is safe

So we went to the library yesterday, and my mother foolishly took her eyes off me while she made some photocopies. Before you say that at my age I should be able to look out for myself, let me explain why this is bad. After realising that I had too many knitting books, I went up to find some fiction. My selection of books got me accused of bragging, and caused a minor tussle between my parents. (It was a new to us book by Bujold, the arguments were over who read it first).

One of the knitting books I brought back was KnitLit the Third. One of the stories is from a woman who explains her thrift-store yarn as follows:

"Our local Mennonite-run shop was a treasure trove of old, funky, and discontinued (long discontinued) yarns. They were so damn cheap, I never could bring myself to leave them there. In all, I had eight totes of yarn, as well as several plastic grocery bags."

I have ONE standard-sized PC shopping bag, half full of yarn and needles from the thrift store. And it was for a specific purpose. I didn't buy ANY of the lovely wool they had that once (I was just a pusher and encouraged my mom to do so, but that's neither here nor there). I think that there is absolutely no reason to assume that living across from Michael's is a bad idea.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

A New Experiment

So I have recently discovered that there isn't actually any point in me having a Facebook account. I found pictures of myself and decided to not bother doing anything about them. So who wants to help me with an experiment? I think I figured out a way to actually delete an account, but it needs an assistant. Anyone?

Monday, May 04, 2009

Catholic Education Week

I found out at church yesterday that this is Catholic education week. Sometimes I wonder whether I had a particularly bad school, because none of the purported benefits really struck true to me. No, I don't feel that I had "Catholic values" integrated into every part of my education. I ended up learning more about a lot of folk practices, and I did get some basic (very basic) religion classes. But, had the Catholic board had a high school with a good math and science programme, I probably never would have learned very much about my religion. Probably not until I went to university, if then.

I have to wonder though. I don't see anything about the way that the school was set up that could allow there to be a strong difference. From what I've heard from a teacher in the board, there's rules against things that could make a difference. The teachers really aren't allowed to discuss moral or religious decision making, not when it comes to anything serious. In theory, the advantage of a Catholic school would be that the teachers there are Catholic, or at least hold Catholic values. You should be able to turn to them for advice. Which is a lovely idea, if they weren't so worried about stepping on the parents' toes.

What did I get from my Catholic schooling? Well, in fairness my mom attributes her return to the church to it. I also got peer-pressure to make my confirmation (first communion and reconciliation don't bother me as much, although we did do them out of order), which was done at an age I consider too young anyhow. I also got a strong admiration for the public school board.