Nerves

I am very nervous/excited/eager/hesitant about Monday. What happens on Monday? Well, that is the first day of my class. When I say that the class is mine, I mean that I am the instructor... the sole instructor. Thus, I am fully responsible for the class. I am nobody's assistant. I am in charge. This is both thrilling and a bit terrifying.

I feel significant pressure, in part, because this is where my life has been leading for many years. In high school many of my teachers predicted that I would teach someday. Since then I have had copious amounts of education and worked as a tutor, workshop provider, teaching assistant, and grader/reader. Yet, Monday will be different. I feel like now is when I'll find out if this is really what am supposed to do with my life.

Breath. Think calm thoughts.

How about knitting?

Well, I keep knitting fishes, and I'm afraid that anyone reading this blog is probably getting a bit bored with the fishes and starting to wonder if I am capable of making anything else.

(An aside: I spoke with my Dad on the phone yesterday, and he suggested that a fish obsession may run in the family. He used to have an aquarium cleaning business (when he was about my age?), and my sister's first word was "ish" meaning "fish," probably because my parents sat her in front of the aquarium to entertain her when she was very little.)

Perhaps, I will wrestle up some more original knitting content by combining the two themes of this blog entry: teaching and knitting.

I have taught many people how to knit. Here is one:


This is my friend Holly at our knitting group last weekend. (You can see the entryway to my favorite LYS, the Swift Stitch, in the background.) She is working on her second project: a knit-one, purl-one ribbed scarf that she started more months ago than she cares to admit. I taught her knitting basics last fall, and she quickly knit up a very pretty garter rib scarf. Unfortunately, her knitting was stalled when she cut off the tip of one of her fingers at work. Now, she has healed and returned to the project. I predict that she will be done knitting the scarf very soon.

I'm happy to teach anyone to knit who shows an interest. I've shown random women at parties. My 11-year-old brother picked it up from me in a snap (Cody is 12 now and leaves very sweet little comments on this blog). I taught one of my favorite baristas. I've shown classmates and coworkers. A couple of times I've helped students who approached me after class with knitting questions instead of history questions.

Maybe I should just breakout the yarn on Monday. Our first class could be a little knitting party. It will be my Birthday.