Knitting Woes, but then Triumph!

My aim for this week was to a. tell my boss that I still didn't want to work for her and that my last day will be the 26th. and b. to finish the front of my flippin' cardi.

My notes from my Ravelry project page chart the misery of kidsilk haze on very small needles...

17/08/10:
I've had this yarn in my stash for a year and have finally cast on - what I think is - the perfect project.

Fingers crossed I'm right!

20/10/10:
Still knitting on the back of the cardigan. It's quite slow going (teeny needles and thin, thin, thin yarn!) but it looks gorgeous and feels super-luxurious.

The instructions are really clear and it's pleasingly mindless to knit acres of stocking stitch while on 15-hour buses across India.

1/11/10:
Finished the back at long last! Going to start on the fronts in the next couple of days. I was craving an easier project so cast on something in an aran weight (this is the hat that I made in a couple of nights, a far more sensible project).

7/11/10:
Started the left front today!

10/11/10:
Apparently I am retarded and can't tell the difference between 79 and 73. This means a difference of 36 stitches in length. It's bodging time!
Also I changed the name of this cardi, I'm doing most of it in India, so this is more appropriate (the pattern is the Geneva Cardigan by Erika Knight, but I've christened mine the Bangalore Cardigan)!

19/11/10:
I am made of fail. The left front is WAY longer than the back. No amount of blocking is going to make this right. Going to rip back so that the armholes start in the right place (not 4 inches away...) and work out the decreases from there. I just can't finish it, and hope that the right front is going to turn out the same way. FAIL.

20/11/10 (at 1.30am):
Ripped back, cried, swore, drank gin and fixed the bloody front! I'm now just working straight until the armholes match and I can cast off the first front!

21/11/10:
IT MATCHES! AND I CAST OFF. I HAVE A FRONT!

I'm amused that I went from chirpy optimism, to slow plodding, to rage and tears then to manic, effusive joy.

The cardi currently looks like this:
It's actually starting to look like an item of clothing that will fit and also look nice. It desperately needs blocking (note the hilariously curved edges) but I'm feeling a little more positive about finishing it before I leave India.

I also managed to do the first thing on my list, and will be finishing at the nursery on Friday, a full month after I realised I DID NOT want to work there. It's been quite hard, and there have been times when I've been so frustrated that I just wanted to sit down and cry. I love working with kids, and I've worked with kids who were far more difficult than this lot, but I've always been able to make myself understood, and I can't. I can't even make myself understood to the support staff (this is no fault of the kids or the support staff, I'm the one who doesn't speak Hindi or Kannada) to ask for help.

Because I'm finishing at the nursery on Friday, Ollie and I are planning a long weekend in Mysore next weekend. We're going to try to head to the train station today to book the tickets for either Friday night or Saturday morning. I'll report back on how convoluted this was once we've done it. I'm thinking we'll need to fill things out in at least triplicate...

We failed spectacularly at doing anything yesterday. Ollie decided to work till 5am and didn't wake up till 2ish. I decided that my cashmere jumper and merino cardi needed a handwash, so I did that. Somewhere in this rock'n'roll chaos we decided to go to MG Road for some lunch. Ended up at 20ft High again where the food is pretty good and the beer is cheap, nice and comes in pitchers. The food, while being nice, is also pretty mental. Ollie had a fairly respectable burger, and I had the Vegetable Cordon Bleu. This was a fried, spicy bean burger, covered in cheese and tomato sauce, served on a bed of spaghetti in tomato sauce, which came with chips and steamed veggies, all of which was served on a bed of raw cabbage that was slowly being cooked by the metal platter it was all served on which was hotter than the Sun. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, and Ollie ended up demolishing the majority of the bean burger which I couldn't face. Fortunately the pudding was nice (Brazilian Monsoon Supremo - chocolate and coffee roulade essentially) and we puttered back to the ISI feeling pleasantly well lit after a couple of pitchers of beer.

I was chased along the street by a small child demanding money while we were trying to find a rickshaw home, which was pretty horrible. The parents sit with their kids on busy shopping streets like Brigade Road and MG Road, and when they spot a promising looking mark, shove the kid off to chase said mark down the street. The problem was I literally had nothing to give the kid and tried to explain that to him. Unfortunately, as with the nursery, I can only explain things in English, and when walking very quickly away didn't work, I had to turn round and inflict the teacher voice on him. A couple of stern "No!"'s helped to bring the attention of a bookstall owner who shouted at the kid in Kannada and chased him away. As someone who doesn't really like being grabbed or pulled at (which is why I could NEVER be a primary school teacher), having a small child attach themselves to me while entreating me to give them money I don't have wasn't terribly pleasant.