Sweaters, Socks, and Midsemesters

Just when you think you're done with the whole school thing, you start teaching. Or, in my case, not "teaching" but "supervising students," which amounts to the same thing, I just don't get paid for it. The good part is that we have a pretty darn good group of kids here. The hard part is midsemester evaluations. You spend the afternoon watching them get hammered from all of their current teachers and supervisors. It's tough sometimes. But there is a lot of good that comes out of it, too. We found out some issues that the students had concerns about, and it's always good for the students to get feedback on their work so far, both positive and negative. I wish we had done something like that when I was in school. Maybe it would have been the kick in the arse I'd needed. Ah, the memories...

I really want to start the entrelac socks now. But I can't. I've been so good. It will have to wait until it's proper time in the spectrum. I'm thinking I'm goint to use the Spunky Sport in Berry Pickin' for them, which would put them either in April/May for the pink or August/September for the purple. Depends on how I do with the rest of my project list. I'm definitely not going to do the whole "two solid colors switching back and forth" thing. I did that for Danica, and hated it. I have varigated sock yarn for exactly this purpose. Well, okay, so I hadn't planned on it at all, but it works out the same =)

I am about halfway done with the back of the SRSP. You know how sometimes you're working on something, and it just kind of hits you that "Hey, this is really cool, and I'm Making It!"? That was totally me yesterday. I'm so pleased with both the look and the speed. In fact, I'm half tempted to say that I could finish this sweater this week, but as soon as I say that, I won't be able to. I'm through the first Short Row sequence and am starting the even rows before the second sequence that includes the arm shaping. I'm weaving the ends in as I go, but it's pulling at some of the stitches for some reason, so I might go back through afterwards and weave them i with a needle. I'll see how it blocks out.

Class was pretty big last night, and I wasn't the lowest belt there! We had three new white belts, although for some reason they were getting taught the orange belt form. I get confused with the form rankings sometimes - Cute Green Belt and two purple belts were also working on the same form. Ma'am, Mr. R and the real Mr. H taught last night, as Sir and Mrs. S's new son decided it was finally time to arrive. It was the first time I've had class with Mr. H, but he was fun, too. It seemed like everyone kind of stepped up to show a different instructor what they could do and where they were at and, of course, reflect well on Sir. I got a thumbs up and a "very nice" on my form work, although it was so crowded I could barely kick out without hitting someone, and we had to constantly adjust our movements so as not to run into other people. I wonder if they will have to start splitting up the classes if they keep being so large. He had us do some different kicking drills with the "tombstones" (really hard kicking targets) that were admittedly more kickboxing styles than tkd, although he tied them in with self-defense, and some punching drills. Yay for punching drills again! My shoulders are still talking about it, if you know what I mean, but I really like punching drills anyway. I got stuck with Orange Belt Kid for punching drills, but he seemed better and didn't back off as far as he usually does. I got partnered with a black belt for the kicking drills, but since the techniques were slightly different, it wasn't as painful as last time I did drills with a black belt =) The next testing date is the end of March - 8 weeks between tests. I'm pretty sure I'll be eligible, since I've had two months this time, and not just a handful of classes like the first time. I need to clean up my chambering and a couple of my stances, and for some reason these one-steps just will NOT stay in my head for anything. I have had to ask Mr. R or Ma'am to show them to me again every time. Plus, we still haven't done our board breaks and we've only done the new self-defense moves once so far. So I don't know. Maybe not. We'll see.

Now, back to SRSP. Maybe I can finish the back tonight!