Hello World!

Hello World! I am going to start blogging about my adventures into cooking, knitting, and other random stuff that goes on over here at my house. First, some background.

Me:

My name is Rachael and I am better known on the internet as hypermice. I was born in Houston, TX back in Nov '89 to very young parents. They got married when I was 3, and I became a big sister to Zachary when I was 4. My parents divorced when I was 13 and my mom remarried Gary when I was 14. A short while later my little sister Bianca was born. My dad remarried in 2009. Everyone is happier now =) Both of my parents still live in the Houston area.

College:

I went to The University of Texas at Dallas for college. It was close enough to visit, but far away enough that I would become my own person. It was a great choice of school for me, I just hate how people always asked, "Oh are you planning on transferring?" When I told them where I was going. Its a small college and not well known, but amazing academically. I started out as a Chemistry and Neuroscience double major while also getting teaching certification. My first semester I took 18 hours of classes and made a 3.89 GPA. So I took 22 hours of classes the next semester and started working in a research lab! Bad idea. I dropped one class and failed another. I changed my major to just neuroscience because I decided real chemistry research is just not that interesting. I spent hours and hours adding white powders and clear liquids to a vial and carefully mixing and waiting just to discover that the amino acid I made is not effective -.-

Diving into neuroscience was awesome. All my classes fascinated me so much and I loved reading my books for class! I took Behavioral, Integrative, Cellular, and even a class on Pain. My professor for integrative did some of the coolest research I had heard of, Memory. So a while into the class I asked about joining his lab and he thought it was a great idea!

I was to start working in the lab in January of my sophomore year. All winter break I was looking forward to it, I looked at the papers he had published and got all prepared. First day we had a meeting in the morning I got to hear all the cool projects going on and I got assigned a grad student. Then it was time to make brain slices O.O At this point I honestly did not see a problem with it. I did plenty of dissections in human anatomy and it was fun to see all the parts we studied. (If you have a week stomach, stop here.) So we go get this pretty white rat out of his cage and into the holding area and he is all happy and running around until we knock him out with some gas. Then the grad student picked him up, took him to the guillotine, and cut his head off. Blood was squirting everywhere and his body was just casually tossed in the trash while his skull was pried open. Then we took the brain to the machine to make very tiny slices out of it. This all happened within a few minutes and I was standing back in shock. I walked out of the lab and directly into the professors office and promptly dropped the class.

Unfortunately, wet nsc lab is required for graduation and there was no way around it. So I had to change my major again, to Child Learning and Development with a minor in Nsc. I had been trying to decide between research and teaching for a while, and that sealed it. No research for me, ever. The worst part is the difference people have in their attitude when I tell them my college major. With Chem and Nsc it was, "WOW you must be smart!" Now it is, "Oh. Ok. Good you went to college." Even though I was one class away from Nsc >.<

As of right now I still have not finished college. I should have finished Dec '11, a semester early. I had to drop Philosophy due to circumstances. Then I could not take it early spring due to miscommunication. I took it late spring but with everything going on in my life (new house, painting, moving) I just couldn't do it. I dont think online classes are a great idea for me. I need to find a college up here to take that one last class to get my BS. Ugh.

George & Me:

I got married on Dec 31, 2011 to a wonderful guy named George. Here is our story...

Way long ago before texting or facebook, etc. computer oriented kids talked to their friends on AIM. Sometimes we would start a chat rooms with all our friends in it. Then when we were really bored or not many friends were online it was common to make a  room with all your friends and then everyone invite all their friends, etc. This is how we met... Almost 9 years ago. I was almost 14 and George just turned 15. We were 4 degrees of friends away. Me-->Jay-->Cheshil-->Dan-->George We were all in this chat room and I had just started using a new font that I was so happy about so I was telling everyone how cool my new font was (I was 13....) Well George (Murray65536 to me) said it looked plain to him (font not installed) so I messaged him separately to tell him how to go download it from my website. (Yes, I had my own website at 13, I had it since I was 9 and wrote all the html for it; I am a nerd.) Then we just started talking in our own little window (those chat rooms were never that interesting, too many people.) Well, he internet stalked me and found out my mom's name and therefore my address and phone number. Then he taught me how to change all those things so that cant happen again. He lived in Virginia, far far away and his name is George Washington, imagine how long that took for me to consider believing him =P We talked every day, sometimes on the phone, sometimes with video, usually just chatting for hours on end. He knew more about me that anyone else, and I think the reverse is true as well. I helped him get his first girlfriend (lots of advice and ideas) and he talked me through the hard times in the messy divorce my parents had.

After a year or so we decided we wanted to meet in person, and I somehow convinced my mom to go along with this plan. I talked about him all the time and she saw him on video chat and talked to his dad a few times. So he flew down here, and we spent 3 days together, and fell in love (well, lust, whatever, we were young) He was the first guy I knew I would be happy spending my life with, but we lived so far away! We started dating anyways, and we chatted every night for many hours, and talked on the phone a few times a week, but after about 9 months of that, we decided that we should date other people to deal with the loneliness that was setting in. We still talked all the time and were really close, and we both knew we still wanted to be together, but we had other relationships and gave each other advice and such. He visited a couple of other times, one of which he was in his freshman year of college; I was a junior in High School, and my spring break was the week after his. At first that seemed unfortunate, but then we found a solution: he came to Texas for a week and then I went to Virginia with him for a week. That was really fun, and we definitely knew we wanted to be together, but it still was not very feasible. It was then we decided that we would go our separate ways in dating and not wait or expect to be waited for, and in 5 years we would re-evaluate the situation.

Well, after that we stopped talking as much, him being busy with college life, and then me starting college as well. Then last summer I was reading a book about Richard Feynman, the Nobel prize physicist, and his crazy life stories, and I was getting really upset while reading it. It took me a while to figure out why I was getting upset... Feynman reminds me of George, and I was being shown what kind of a life I would have had with him. We used to talk about our life together in our latetime chats. He wanted to be someone who changes the world with science and I wanted to stay at home and raise our brilliant children to be the best they could. We both were very interested in having a big family (8+) and we have always favored homeschooling because we both hit the glass ceiling in public school. George got an almost perfect SAT score in HS if that gives you an idea of how smart he is. He also took 25 hours a semester in college and got great grades. Anyways, I tried to resist the urge to call him for about a week (he has a life of his own, why bother him?), and finally gave in. I felt so silly when he answered. He probably has moved on and I am being annoying. Apparently not. I got on a plane a week later to visit him in Maryland.

Then, my life was turned upside down. I realized the difference between love and true love. You can love multiple people, I could have been happy with a life with different people, but it would never have been the same. I felt so bad for the guy I was with that I had been dating for 2 years, because it wasn’t that anything was wrong with our relationship, it just wasn’t the one I was meant to be in. (I talked to him before I left. Still hard for him, I know.) At this point George had just graduated college, and was free to move wherever he wanted, but I was stuck in Dallas for another year to finish school, so he moved to Texas for me. None of my college friends really liked this, they didn't know him at all. My mom and my really old friends were okay with it, because they know the bond we have.

I figured out a way to finish college a semester earlier that expected, (well ok, I failed on that count, I still did not finish...) and we got married on new years. I am still trying to wrap my head around that, I think it must be fate that we end up together, the world has tried SO HARD to prevent it. Now we have a house in North Carolina, my first time being out of Texas for any length of time. We are hoping to start a family soon, mother nature is dragging her feet on that one. We also have 2 golden retriever puppies, Cygnus and Andromeda.

Knitting:

What most of you have been waiting for! What made me start knitting?

I have liked crafts for as long as I can remember. I loved going to the craft store and drooling at all the things I could do there! I liked latch hooking when I was little, then plastic canvas stitching (? Is there a name for that?) I liked making up my own designs on graph paper and creating them. I also really liked to make bead animals. I upgraded at some point to wire and seed beads, which I thought made much cooler animals. I knew haw to chain crochet with my hands and I made lots of bracelets with that. I tried really crocheting and I could not manage the hook well and gave up. Organizing was one of my favorite things to do. I loved re-winding balls of yarn and sorting seed beads. I was never very good at drawing or painting. As a teenager I did not do many crafts, but when I got to college I got back into it. I made a Christmas stocking with one of those sewing kits with the sequins and then I started cross stitching. Around that time I fell in love with audio books, and I loved listening and cross stitching for hours at a time. After I finished my project I looked at the amazing picture I made and then it occurred to me: what do I do with it? I can frame it and put it on the wall, or make it a pillow. But this represented MANY MANY hours of work... just to be looked at. I tried quilting and that was horrible. I cut these things carefully to the right size and they dont fit. -.- That is not fun for a scientific mind. Also choosing crazy fabrics that dont clash is really hard. Fine, I would be a cross stitcher and stocking kit maker and just have pretty things to look at. I went to the craft store to get more floss and I passed by the yarn section. I stopped and saw this beautiful super soft yarn. I decided I would go home and see if I could figure out how to knit a hat with this. I knew close to nothing about knitting, but why not try something new?

So I found a video that told me the tools I need and I got them and I knit myself a hat in the round. This was Aug 2010 for anyone who cares. I LOVED IT! It was fun and pretty and the things I made could be useful! So I found a video and got the stuff and made a sock! It fit and everything. I figures out insarsia and made a friend a hat with his frat symbol on it. Then I discovered there was a yarn crawl in TX happening soon so I signed up for a seat on the bus and learned SO MUCH there. I learned wool can be soft and very pretty. Also that LYS are better that generic craft stores. I learned about different kinds of needles and ravelry and I discovered that I have an amazing natural talent for knitting. Apparently on my first hat all my stitches have amazing even tension and socks and insarsia are apparently hard. I didn't think so... So I found my LYS and saw that Melissa Morgan-Oakes, author of 2AAT socks was teaching a class in a few weeks! I signed up, obviously. I never really had a lot of experience one-at-a-time, but why would you? 2AAT is awesome! Anyways, you can check out post projects on my rav page. My current obsession is socks.

I am done for now. More later!

Rachael