rebecca soble

I can probably chalk it off to post-holiday-back-to-work and pms coinciding but the past few days I’ve felt a seriously strong lack of desire to do anything combined with a palpable boredom due to not doing anything.

I’ve actually socialized a bit more than normal this week, going out for a few hours on Thu after work (10pm is after work, btw!) and also Saturday evening, but overall I just feel blah. The idea of leaving the house is totally unappealing, but staying home is almost equally so (except I do enjoy my balcony). There’s nothing I feel like cooking, all my knitting projects are in the blah-zone at the moment, I’m in a lull in my turkish language education, etc etc.

What I’ve done so far today:

• downloaded some podcasts and listened to On Point Week In The News while washing dishes (these days, any podcast on the economy has me entranced).
• cleaned and reorganized some cupboards and one drawer. oh, and another drawer in a different room.
• half-watched some biographical program on BBC while knitting and then put it away (and turned it off) mid-row/mid-show.
• randomly swept and dusted, managing to not complete any room except the balcony (by far the smallest and easiest)
• felted a wool sweater in the washer (it had already been accidentally washed and half felted), cut it up into trivet- and coaster-sized pieces, and started some blanket stitch edges.
• cleaned the filter in the fish tank, entertained myself stacking up the decorative rocks in new arrangements.
• put whites in the washer (they’re still there, I assume they will get hung to dry by someone in a while)
• reviewed photos, games, and commentary online from the 2008 National Scrabble Championship, happening this week in Orlando, FL. Rah rah scrabble-buddies! And then realized nobody would be around to play Scrabulous on Facebook with me for a whole week.
• Grated a zucchini in preparation for making some mucver for dinner, with yogurt, yum.
• More stuff but, i can’t recall anything else worth mentioning.

(Sorry, RG, for the boring list, but that was sort of the point.)

I’m really in a quandary with my knitting, primarily with the problem of the socks. I wanted to try a pair of toe-up socks, and I wanted to do a bit of stranded colorwork (though it’s very simple, just blocks) but to be honest, I’m just up to the first heel and I’m pretty much not enjoying it. It’s a great carry-around project, and I have a hard time giving up, but I think I’m gonna hafta frog it because it’s just holding me back. What I’d rather be doing is a pair of simple cable fingerless mitts in preparation for winter. I also seem to have a bit of a felting bug (despite the difficulty of a front-load washer) and might try some felted bowls. But I have a t-shirt that is lacking just one sleeve that I really should finish…

Everything I do these days, other than walking around the city, feels pretty sedentary, and I feel the need for some new active thing to do. I thought about a yoga or tai-chi class, but the social interaction required from that is anti-motivating, plus the idea of having to do it according to someone else’s schedule. I really like the idea of geocaching, but would need to invest in a GPS device (I had an old one but gave it away to a friend who is easily lost, not sure how it’s helped). I’ll have to investigate how much they cost here in Turkey and maybe after payday (7th of the month) I can afford to get one. Geocaching seems ideal because I can do it alone or with a friend along, it would GET ME OUT OF THE HOUSE, plus it’s both puzzle-y and earth-y, both things that appeal to me. Yes, it sounds good.

Finally, I also need to get some energy back for my actual work. With my students also taking holidays and feeling “summer blahs” these days, what lessons I’ve had have tended to be more low-key and I’m feeling like they haven’t been very directed or effective. So I have to find some inspiration to get some energy back into my lessons. Ideas welcome!

Blah-ly yours,
Rebecca

My log cabin blanket is finally finished after a bit of delay due to distraction by other knitting projects.  But happily the weather is still cool enough in the evenings that a cozy blanket is just the thing when sitting on the sofa.

showing its full 48×44″ dimensions…

The second strand of mohair is what makes it so soft and snuggly…

pretty colors!

I have a plan to make another one, this time with different colors and smaller squares seamed together, probably single strand for a crisper look.  But i might not start it until late summer, or at least until some other projects are finished.

Pictures from Cumalıkızık coming soon….

A little of this, a little of that… a roundup of the last month-ish. Mostly working … a fair bit of walking … not enough knitting! Now that the weather is nice, all I want to do is sit outside in parks or outdoor cafes, watching people and ferries come and go and KNIT KNIT KNIT. And drink tea.

My work schedule is now at maximum (24 teaching hours plus travel time) but since all but one class is 1-1 students, every week I have a cancellation or two that eases the load. I’ve been walking to and from work more often now that the weather is warm. It’s about a 40 minute walk total over easy terrain except I’m still befuddled about the correct etiquette for passing people on the sidewalk. The rule seems to be “The foreign lady should step off the curb into the street while the three turks walk down the sidewalk arm in arm with 17 bags completely oblivious to anyone else on the sidewalk”.

A few weeks ago Emrah and I rode a new ferry (for me), from Beykoz meydanı to Yeniköy, and then had a nice twilight walk to Istinye and back. I took a picture of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge, keeping the shutter open extra long because of the dark. And then we drank some tea.

Last weekend it was raining, so after giving up on a plan to go to Camlıca, we ended up at DenizAtı Cafe above the Kadıköy iskele (ferryboat terminal) reading the newspapers and watching the ferries. I worked on the crossword puzzle - in Turkish - and actually got five answers! The problem isn’t understanding the clues, which are relatively simple to read, but thinking of ANOTHER word that means the same thing. Emrah helped me with a few but I don’t think he’s crazy about crosswords, so I let him read the paper. And we drank tea.

This was a while ago, but a couple ex-students Zafer and Tuba (in photo) came to my place and cooked lunch - spanish omelet. We drank tea juice. Also, on the 6th Emrah and I went to a dinner party in Sultanahmet, the 25th wedding anniversary party of a couple friends of mine. We drank champagne, ooh!

Below are a couple of the things I’ve been knitting recently. First, a set of cute coasters for my boss’s birthday. They’re from the Mason-Dixon ballband dishcloth pattern (see Mason-Dixon knitting in my rather short blogroll to the right). And a pillow sham I’ve barely started, using some turkish patterns I found on the internet. I got the yarn for that from the Yarn Han in Eminönü, on a shopping expedition with Anne. The yarn for the coasters came from my local yarn shop - they’re starting to get to know me there, which means they don’t feel the need to follow my every movement while I’m in the store. Every time I buy something, they say goodbye with “güle güle kullanın”, meaning approximately “go and use it happily”.

Good news, the aquarium is alive again! This time the fish (5) are a bit smaller, Emrah replaced the gravel with a more natural variety (his theory for why the original fish died), and I’ve put in a few more plants to give them places to hide and play “obstacle course”. I’m not 100% sure fish like playing obstacle course, but I would if I were a fish.

I still spend a fair amount of time absorbing news from the internet, and I like to keep up with long-distance friends via livejournal and facebook. Whenever I look at facebook and find myself feeling envious about particular aspects of other people’s lives, I contemplate how they undoubtedly must feel different on the inside than they seem from the outside. Everyone has the mundane moments of doing laundry, the difficult moments of personal relationships, the occasional moments of extreme personal angst, right? Yeah, they’re running marathons, doing aid work in Africa, and designing their own knitwear, but for the most part, most people have pretty normal lives, right? Is it possible that my 87.8% mundane life seems interesting to other people who only see it from the outside? Is it possible that I’m living my life okay even though I’m somewhat unsocial, rather scattered career-wise, unmarried and childless, and a bit pudgy, given that I’m also mostly happy? Is it okay that I’d rather knit and drink tea on a sunny afternoon instead of collecting trash while scaling a mountain, rescuing kittens or doing a million other possible good deeds? Can making breakfast for my sweetie count as a good deed? Sometimes I wish I had an overarching purpose for my life, like Al Gore with his slide show, so I could feel useful to the world and less worried about wasting my time here on earth. But on other days I think it’s okay to be just a normal person, living as millions of other normal people do, never to make history or even a really exciting facebook profile. And the fact is that no project has come up yet that makes me want to give up knitting, walking the streets, people watching, and drinking tea.

None of these questions are rhetorical, answers are wanted. And, especially, from what you know of me (assuming you are a friend reading this), what kind of life-project could you imagine me taking on? Inspiration wanted.

Registration for commenting has been temporarily suspended as I await your answers. Big hugs to everyone. XOXOXO Now, how about a glass of tea?

The genesis of this bag was getting a large ball of beautiful lace-weight mohair as a gift from my mother. The first thing I made with it was a simple airy shoulder wrap, garter stitch knitting back and forth with increases at each edge and two in the middle. Well, I got tired of garter stitch after a while, so I bound it off and started wearing it, but the ball of yarn wasn’t quite used up. I intended for this lace pattern to be a matching scarf but - whoops, not enough yarn! - so I got creative and turned it into this bag. The knitting was blocked and sewn to a piece of leather using blanket stitch and the bag closes with a simple button. It’s currently holding school (teaching) supplies.

Current Thoughts:  preparing to return to Turkey, saying goodbyes and hellos.

Current Read: No God but God, by Reza Aslan.  An excellently written, educational, and balanced history of Islam.  I have 80 pages remaining.