20th June 2013 - Back from holidays

I am back from holidays and straight away back into my daily routine. The last two days were a bit messy and I could feel that I was struggling to speak English and understand instructions. However, I think I almost back to normal.

This week I take it a bit easier. I have a facial booked for Saturday and I am thinking of hitting the Trinity gym afterwards. With the exception of yesterday, I have been going for walks since my return from Germany. Today, I managed to put in a few short joggs while listening to Three Days Grace.

I found another few bands over the last couple of days and bought a few albums: Rise Against - Endgame; Rise Against - Appeal to Reason and Three Days Grace - Life Starts Now. These albums are of older release date and again I am behind as usual with current music. I got them at Saturn for almost next to nothing and it fills my iPod for some time. Still, Breaking Benjamin are still running on a repeat shuffle too. Just love their music.

I started a couple of projects: 

• A short sleeved cardigan: in a silver merino-metallic yarn:

I am half-way through the back of the cardigan. Took me three attempts until it finally took off

• A crochet bag: in a dark pink I picked up somewhere ages ago.

I doubt thought that I have enough yarn. I have only three balls of it which is already less than the pattern asks for. It's 14 hexagon-shaped pieces and sides I have to make. So far I have completed one while watching "Kick Ass"

I bought a lot of fabric while I was on holidays and instead of running to IKEA again, I managed to clear a box of yarn which was only half-full and put my fabric in it. And guess what I have space for more. I might go to Hickeys und buy that cotton PVC-glued owl fabric I saw in Hickeys a few weeks ago. They should still have some and I saw yesterday that a few shops have the sales on ... so who knows, maybe I get it a bargain price.

And another photo shot ...

A picture of me in Helgoland. Praise to Dropbox - uploaded this picture without a cable or without emailing myself. Yeah!

Now, for something completely different ... a shower!

28th May 2013 - My first bag

I finally managed to sew my first bag from a pattern all by myself. Took me longer than expected and as my teacher once said: it takes longer to prepare everything from cutting out the pattern on tracing paper, cutting the fabric and ironing on the interfacing, before the actual sewing starts - which doesn't take you too long then.

Please admire my piece of work; I am really delighted with myself:

The fabric is actually curtain fabric which I bought in Hickeys. They had a big piece of it in the scrap basket. It came at a price of €10 for two meters and I still have material left, hopefully to make a matching rucksack. Overall costs: around €25, which includes fabric (the purple one above and a silver grey I picked up in Germany the last time I went over), a zip (can't see it here, it's at the top) and two different types of interfacing: a volume interfacing and a thinner one to stiffen the inner fabric.

The strap is a bit wider which makes it look a bit wonky but I am delighted that it turned out so well. The pattern was rated "2" on a scale of 1 to 3 and I even understand the instructions no problem. Only made the mistake of sewing in the zip wrongly first time around, but was able to fix that.

Overall time invested: about 8 to 10 hours, split over a couple of days.

10th May 2013 - Exams are over ...

and I am very tired. Almost fell asleep today in work. Can't believe I've finished the first year. Seems like it only started yesterday. Tells you how fast time goes.

I would like to thank everyone for their support. I really appreciate all the help I got.

Now, I will enjoy my well deserved break.

I've spoilt myself with a few little things for my birthday, and also to celebrate the end of the first year.

I bought this on GlenAran Irish Markets a couple of days ago. First time I fell for advertising on Facebook. Can't believe it, actually. It arrived with today's post in work and I am really delighted. And what's more, they sent me a €10 voucher for my next purchase when I spend €50 which might happen soon enough. There jewelry is just lovely.

I also bought a Pandora charm:

I took the picture of Google, as you are not able to see the colour properly on Pandora.net

I seriously spoilt myself this time but I feel I really deserved it.

7th May 2013 - Spooky - Google knows it's my birthday

I am sitting in the library, looking at my Visual Basic stuff for later on. Wondering about the variable data types, I opened Google and was greated by this:

I am currently signed in on Google, to write this post. So I assume, Google knows it's my birthday.

It's kinda cool, but also creepy ...

1st May 2013 - Two down, three to go

Okay, this is the truth: these exams are just taken it out off me. I am really tired and at the same time I don't sleep a lot. I go to bed late and I wake up early, I go to bed early and again I wake up early. At least after tomorrow the majority is done and dusted and I have theoratically pasted the two exams for next week, so can't complain.

In the meantime, we are working on the film premier of the StartUpKids. We got the original movie from Iceland and are planning a show in Trinity College on 29th May. Anyone interested, please have a look at the Facebook page.

And yes, I got myself a Facebook account again, after I wasn't able to get into my old one. Might check once I am on holidays that I can ask a few friends to help me get back into it. Then I just have to see that I somehow merge them if that is possible.

Despite exam time, I managed to put a few hours aside late in the evening to work on a knitting project. Louisa Harding has released new patterns based on her new Jesse Yarn. I am currently working on Oakley, long sleeved, in dark denim by Rowan. Here is the picture:

It's just plain stocking stitch up to the should part where it's a few rounds of lace.

It's very soothing knitting, as I only have to watch my tention and the row I am on. The only issue I have is that the Rowan yarn dyes my fingers blue, as if I've spilled ink it's that bad.

Still can watch Anime while working on it, admiring my blue fingers and hands. Good they invented soap. Found my love back for Japanese cartoons, rewatching Final Fantasy Unlimited.

Here are another two patterns from the book, I am going to do.

Miss Kitty - I have lovely red yarn left made of silk and viscose which will go nicely with it and I am dying to knit some proper lace again.

And Mae - I have a light green alpaca yarn left that would suit this pattern. Just have to check the yardage.

More on Louisa Harding's new patterns can be found here.

Tomorrow it's Organisation and Management - another three hour exam but than at least it's the weekend after that.

Now, what was that about team building ... *zzzzzzzzzz*

14th April 2013 - Sorry for not posting an update

I know that this is very bad behaviour but I had my reasons. College is just washing over me. Exams are around the corner and I only posted my last assignment a few minutes ago. I am just tired, exhausted and I have another 3 weeks to go.

I've spent the last few hours in the library, learning about Greiner and Mintzberg organisational models and there is actual smoke coming out of my ears. I am sick and tired of my laptop, kinda start hating it even. Would love to through out my laptop and bang my head against the wall, I am so sick of starring at a computer screen.

First exam is on Monday 29th April: Information Systems - all this general stuff about inputs and outputs and hardware and software and supply chain management and system types and bla bla bla. Hope my lecturer is not reading this. Not that I didn't like his subject, it's just so much stuff to squeeze into my brain. At least I am sleeping like a baby at the moment. 11pm comes around and fall asleep like a stone and don't wake up before the either the alarm goes off or the sun is high up -- as it's the case on weekends.

I sent an email to my class asking them for things that motivitate them to keep studying. A few good things have come through. It's less a lack of motivation on my side, it's more that I just too tired to look at a book and my right hand actually hurts from writing notes. No clue how to survive TWELVE hours of writing exams. At least it's over soon. Two weeks of exams and the two longest ones of them (three hours each) are in the first week.

At least it's over in four weeks and the assignments are off my back. Will watch a bit of Netflix, just to distract me.

Sorry, really had to rant about this. I am so tired ...

11th March 2013 - Just a short note

Just to let you know that I am still alive, posting and working on college stuff. College is really taking over now. Exams around first and second week in May but still, I have decided to start gathering materials. I also got another assignment to hand in and another three to work on, two of them haven't been defined yet.
I have finally made up my mind and will do a 2000 word report on "Artificial Intelligence" for one of the assignments - explaining it, where we find it modern society and what we can expect will happen within the next years. I found some interesting material on the Gartner website. I might pick up some ideas from movies, such as "I, Robot", "Minority Report" and "Total Recall". Might find some good stuff.

I have also decided to take Friday, 15th March off. I will go to the library early and I have agreed to help a student from one of the year above me to give an interview on adult education. The topic personally interests me and I am happy to help. It will also get me out of the library for an hour or so. I hope my answers will be of help.

I went to IKEA yesterday and bought a few bits. I got myself a plastic container with a separator you can take out, to store my fabrics. IKEA has some lovely new prints with roses (picture hopefully to follow soon), so I got myself a squaremeter of that. Looking forward to my parcel with all my sewing stuff, cutter and hot-glue gun. Last week, I bought a book on paper crafts and I got a few ideas I would like to realise during summer and for that I need a hot-glue gun. Thanks to my mum for going shopping for me.

At this point, I would like to dedicate a few words to my friends, Marco, Michael and Simone:

Leute, noch einmal vielen Dank dafür, dass ihr meinen Eltern ausgeholfen habt. Mag sein, dass einige das für selbstverständlich halten, jedoch finde ich es super von euch, dass ihr geholfen habt, den Keller leer zu räumen. Michi, tut mir Leid wegen deiner Hand, ich hoffe, der Schnitt ist am Verheilen. Wüsste nicht, was ich ohne euch täte.

Aerlingus has flights on offer for summer, so I am looking at holidays for June. Might be able to get something for around €200.

Now, I will check a few sewing pages. I have this crazy idea of sewing myself a dress, a red dress ...

5th March 2013 - Saw this ...

And thought I share it with you.

Picture taken today, while train stopped at Tara Street Station.

Camile offers to take order via QR code scanning. Might be normal to other people, I found it an interesting "new" and fast way of ordering takeaways. Each dish has its own QR quote. You scan it in with your smart phone and place the order online, while you have the dish already selected. I didn't try it now - don't even have a QR scanner (memo to me: download one!)

Another thing: I have added a new recipe to the Download page for "Stewed Apples". Currently it's available in English only. Don't know when I get the chance to work out the German translation with being back in college. We received another assignment tonight, so next weekend is reserved for another Visual Basic programming session. At least we were told, that it adds 40% towards the overall mark which means that the final exam for the module is worth 40% too. The first assignment gave us the first 20% for the module. So far so good.