He's here!

First of all, my biggest excitement from last week was when Camus arrived.




For a long time, I wrestled with the idea of getting anime figurines. I was a fangirl but have never crossed the line of actually collecting merchandise. But then I thought, who the hell cares! So on July 21st, I made the purchase on Ebay from a store in Hong Kong and was quite pleased.

He's Aquarius Camus from an old series called Saint Seiya and we plan to run away together.

Onto other stuff now! I took my language proficiency last Wednesday, and I have to admit, I haven't used my brain that much all summer. I had to translate two excerpts from Chinese to English. It was fairly easy since the language was modern and in simplified Chinese. Thank goodness I didn't have to translate hexagrams!

The first piece was an excerpt from a short story written about an event in 1917. Unfortunately, I was not aware of the naming conventions of years, and my best guess for the year was 1955.... doh! I was wondering why there were still rickshaws after the Revolution. The way they said the year was.. "in the sixth year of Ming Guo." Apparently Ming Guo (the start of new... or rather, Nationalist China) starts dating their years from 1900. So in order to get the equivlance in Gregorian calender, you have to add 11 to the number and then to 1900. I know now!

The other piece was a scholarly essay on Lu Xun's "Biography of Q." There was one word in there that could mean two things... "kill" or "cop a feel". Since the essay was so somber throughout, I went with the former since I never read the original. It turned out that the "Biography" was a satirical piece, thus it was the latter meaning... Doh! I know now!

Other than that, I think I did fine. I was able to translate everything and convey all the messages, which was the main goal of the practice. They can't be expecting something perfect because I only had two hours for each.

I am very excited about this upcoming semester. I'm going to be a Teaching Assistant with the department, and that will not only speed up my progress, but also give me invaluable experience in my field. I can't wait!

I do actually have lots of updates this time! Let me start by showing off the FINISHED stuff.





Two dishcloths and a baby blanket! I found out that one of my mom's friends in Burleson is having a baby in October, so I wrapped up this one for her. But I haven't forgotten Alyssa! I already started another one for her, and it'll definitely be done before the end of the year.

The dishcloths, well, Joann's and Michael's were having a sale on their Sugar 'n Cream stock, so that's all I have to say.

Here's some updates on the unfinished stuff:





I have quite a bit to say about the last one. It's a flutter scarf! Ever since I got the goldish yarn from the scarf exchange, I've been dreaming of a ruffle scarf, and now it has finally come true!

On Saturday afternoon at 4:30 PM, 20 minutes before we left for a movie date, I bought the pattern. It was a glorious moment and I casted on the same night. I will now proceed to make seven... one for each day of the week!