No Excuses (and an FO)

I have been what you might consider busy. In the last week or so I have been up to the following:
1. Serving as the student representative on the microbiology admissions committee, which means I read many applications and passed judgment on them.
2. Taking a class on Research Ethics and Regulation, which has been really interesting but is requiring a fair bit of reading (and inspiring me to consider the idea of going to law school when I'm done here, which would, frankly, be a lot of letters after my name. I think my parents would kill me, but I kind of like the idea of being a career student...).
3. Reading the applications for an annual "This is probably supposed to be confidential" Award, given by the Hutch to the best graduate students around the country. There are 70 applicants, and the applications are long and fairly dense scientific deals that require a lot of concentration to read and consider carefully. Plus, they're all really good, so ranking them is difficult. I think we have to go from 70 to 12 or something. Eh.
4. Considering the fact that I have to give lab meeting on Tuesday, and that I should probably throw something together. This is being thwarted by #3, which has to be done at the Hutch, over their secure internet connection, since the applications are online and supposed to be kept hush hush, being unpublished scientific results.

But, I have been knitting. I finished this scarf:

I don't remember the yarn, I'll have to get back to you on that, but it was very interesting. It was thick/thin 2-ply, and in many of the thick places the thick ply appeared almost unspun and made up of several different colors (vertically) of roving. It's many colors (to state the obvious), so the pattern is a bit obscured, but you can take my word for it that gives the impression of being woven, and that it's pretty cool. It was based on a pattern in Knit Scarves, and was meant to be knit in Colinette Prism. Just before Christmas (and the "enough with the yarn" resolution) I acquired some of that to make myself one of these, so that might happen pretty soon. For this scarf I used all four skeins of whatever the yarn was, and by that I mean ALL of the yarn. I was really concerned during the bind-off, and it was dicey, but all's well that ends well. I alternated skeins because they looked very different in the balls, but I'm not really sure it was necessary and it was exceedingly annoying.

I've also been knitting a secret project (didn't we just do this for Christmas?) and I HAVE been working on my grandmother's second sock. It's now 2 repeats down, 4.5 to go, plus the heel. It'll be done before long, now that I'm working on it again. It's not really that difficult, I think I just have a mental block about picking it up. You know why? It's because the pattern starts each DPN with purl stitches, and I HATE that. I'd even say I abhor it. It results in laddering, and it's awkard, and I detest it. So there. And yes, I have toyed with the idea of moving the stitches around so that the purls weren't on the ends, but then I'd have yarnovers on the ends on some rows, and purls are surely the lesser of those two particular evils.