G. Stanley Hall: aka "The Man"

It has been quite the busy week. After post-handing-in FYP euphoria, I realized that I was in charege of a 1.5 hour class session on Friday (today), on the topic of G. Stanley Hall, one of his studies "The contents of children's minds" and his general contribution to psychology. Oh, and I would be traveling in the middle of the week for QUINCE research...and Andy and I had our first community ed ballroom dance class on Monday...and we met with our wedding photographer on Tuesday night to see the oh-so-fabulous album she made from our photos to entice new clients. So it was a busy week.

The good news: I MADE IT! I gave my presentation this morning, with just the usual amount of stumbling, rambling, and technical difficulties, and all went basically well. It helps when you end the class with a round of G. Stanley Hall-themed Jeopardy! ala PowerPoint, with candy for the winners, I think :). So for those of you who don't know (and I don't care if you don't care, because I just HAD to care for a class), G. Stanley Hall was, among other things, the founder and first president of the American Psychological Association, the first person to receive a PhD in psychology in the US (from Harvard, 1878), and held the first professorship in psychology in the US (at Johns Hopkins, 1884). There you have it, the one sentence version of my presentation. Oh, and here's his picture:

Hat Frenzy

This week has included not only the completion and the turning in of my fyp, but also a frenzy of hat-making. In addition to Andy's hat, which I already posted a photo of, I made this one for me:


And, I just made, last night, this adorable little acorn-looking hat for BOJ. That's right, what does a baby due in November in Chicago need? A hand-knit warm, woolly hat, of course! So this one's for you, BOJ, I'll have to mail it to your parents:

Oh, and don't worry--Pea tried it on to make sure it would fit the not-yet-born BOJ: perfect!

Done with the FYP!!!

I just wanted to announce to my family and friends that I have officially completed my first-year project (or, what I have come to call my fyp): I turned it in yesterday.

This fyp is the culmination of my first year at graduate school...the proof that I did some research in my first year, and the pain in the *** that has been haunting me all summer. This is also (well, probably a revised version) what I will be turning in next year around this time as my masters thesis, assuming I pass my written prelims next summer. And now, it is DONE!!!!

A few stats:

• Length of the fyp manuscript: 50 pages
• Length of actually written (prose, not tables/appendices/etc.) part: 22 pages
• Number of people who worked on the fyp: 4 (me & SweetPea, and our two fabulous undergrad coders)
• Number of months it took to complete: 10 (I believe, since our first meeting about it was in December)
• Number of evenings I almost drove Andy insane due to working on the fyp: ??? (I guess you'd have to ask him)
• Number of people who care about the above stats: 1, maybe 2 (SweetPea?)
• Number of drinks I will consume with SweetPea tonight in order to celebrate: ???

Knitting-ness

I have recently been drawn into a cult-like group of fellow child psych grad student knitters...we are an odd bunch, and take great pleasure in basking in that combined oddity once a week as we stitch'n'bitch together. Some of these fellow knitters also have the nasty habit of being knitbloggers...i.e. people who have blogs devoted to knitting. While I vehemently swear off such a prospect for my blog...well, it is a bit tempting to join the club and post some photos of my knitting projects as well. So be it. My blog, while not a knitblog, will have to submit to housing occasional posts regarding my knitting-ness!

Perhaps I should start with a brief history of my knitting adventures. I learned to knit from my host mother, while I was an exchange student in Finland. She taught me the basics and I set off: scarves! That year my mother and each of my two sisters received scarves for Christmas :). As the dark Finnish winter ended, my affinity for sitting still and knitting began to wane, and so I decided that I ought to make one last scarf before I tired of it altogether--a scarf for me, using all the stitches and patterns and color changing, etc. I had learned to do over the course of the previous three scarves. This scarf, which I still wear despite its oh-so-long length, is below.

Now, that scarf was created back in 1997-1998, and after it came just a few random squares when I occasionally thought I might make another scarf, but never could bring myself to do it. And so ended my knitting career, at the tender age of 16...or so I thought!

We went to my parents' for Christmas last year, in 2004. It became my task to clean out my old room, at least to some extent, so that it could be used as a guest room...and what to my wondering eyes did appear, but some knitting needles, a stack of randomly colored squares, and a bag of yarn, at the bottom of my closet! (The aforementioned grad student knitters, I should mention, had revived my curiosity about knitting just prior to Christmas break...) So, solely because I didn't have to try and re-figure out how to cast-on (I was mid-square, apparently, when I quit years ago), I picked up the needles and re-figured out how to knit a few rows. Then, my dear husband gave me knitting needles, lovely wool blend yarn, and an awesome knitting basket that Christmas. That sealed the deal--all my knitting supplies came home with me.

Over the spring semester that year I managed to make some more squares, all more or less the same size, and created this, my first ever not-a-scarf knitting creation: a baby blanket!


Well, I was pretty much hooked after that. But I was also bored...scarves and squares, while lovely, are not that exciting. I wanted to branch out, but nothing too big--big projects are scary and expensive--and so I found an easy pattern for baby booties, tweaked it a little bit, and voila!


I have kept my niece Ellie in near-constant supply of these cute little things by changing yarn size and needle size so they "grow" with her...but I'm afraid I'm about to run out of tricks and will have to find a different pattern soon if she keeps enjoying her little slippers from Aunt Jess and would like some more. Here are what the last size I sent her look like (hard to tell, but they're a good inch or so longer and in other ways bigger than the originals):


So. Scarves. Squares to blanket. Booties/Slippers. I made a lot of booties/slippers. I was kind of getting tired of them. And then, I got sucked into this cult, as I said, and...hey, didn't I mention I got some nice woolly blend yarn from Andy for Christmas? Yup. Well, it was time to use it. I brought it and the needles along to knit-night and asked what I could make with it that wasn't a scarf and didn't need anything but straight needles. The Knit'Nabler (aptly named) found the perfect thing: a hat pattern in one of her books. An easy hat, but a nice one. Useful, not too fancy, and knit on straight needles. Perfect! I finished it yesterday--here it is:



So, that' s my knitting history. If you've read this far, you're probably one of two people and I know who :-). Hope you enjoyed--oh, and I started a second hat, this one for me, because I like Andy's and I have lots of yarn left, so that is in progress, awaiting me at this moment...

Red Wing Tour Company

Our exploits this weekend would have you believe that we had opened a new business, the Red Wing Tour Company. We have not gone into (profitable) business yet, but Andy did lead a group of us on a lovely tour of Red Wing this Sunday, including time at Falconer Vineyards during the harvest and a gorgeous hike up Barn Bluff. Some photos are below.

Jess and Andy in the vineyard.
Andy, pouring grapes into the cool de-stemming machine.	The press: you pour de-stemmed grapes in the barrel, then the black bladder is pumped with air and presses the grapes against the wood, draining the juice from the skins.
Lovely view of the Mississippi, while hiking up Barn Bluff.	View of Red Wing from the top!

Second Week

We are well into our second of week of classes of the academic year here in Minnesota. The weather has turned from a sticky humid summerishness to slightly cooler, still warm, pre-fall loveliness. It is about this time that I wish I were not a graduate student, so that I didn't 'enjoy' the weather by looking out my office and apartment windows and walking to and from the bus. I would much prefer to enjoy this lovely weather by playing some frisbee, going to a park, going for a picnic, etc. Alas, I fear my last enjoyable outing of the year may have been the state fair, just before classes started--which, by the way, I have been meaning to post photos of, so here they are...

	Jess & Andy in front of the world's largest boot, made by Red Wing Shoes (size 638.5)!
	Ioan, devouring a deep-fried twinkie.
	Jessica, proudly displaying our combined winnings from the Midway.

Peter's Birthday

Last Sunday we celebrated Peter's birthday with Andy's family and some family friends. Pete turned 23, and apparently this was his third party--he is quite the popular guy! Here are a few photos from the festivities that we attended.

first day of school

September 6...Tuesday...the day after Labor Day. While yesterday was filled with fun and games at the last day of the state fair, today brought the dreaded first day of school. All in all not a bad day...it just came early, and lasted a very long time. But, now that it's over, I suppose life will go on, assignments will get done (somehow), and the semester will fly by...

celebrating one year

We just celebrated our first anniversary this past week.

It was fabulous.

I mean sure, classes start for both of us on Tuesday and we're stressed out grad students who are each facing our own unique mental torture that is the preparation for another semester...

...but we took a nice break away from all that and spent two nights at a cabin in Northern Wisconsin this past week. Aaaaaah. It was like a nice deep sigh of relief. We went canoeing, Andy read, I napped, we ate delicious food, we went canoeing again, Andy read some more, I napped some more...and so on.

And then of course we came back home and I was reminded of my first year project and classes starting and research starting and teaching starting and...it seemed like the right time to post something on our blog :-).