Monday, October 24, 2011

SPSS: Stupid Package for Stupid Students

Okay, this is not what SPSS actually stands for but for the purpose of the now, let's just go with it.
SPSS actually stands for Statistical Package for Social Sciences which, in my opinion, sounds pretty lame. And with my new experience in SPSS, it IS pretty lame. It's this weird program for analyzing data and, according to my teacher- Dr Rebecca Lee (who incidentally insists we call her DOCTOR LEE because she's got a goddamn PhD in who knows what. Oh, and she's very VERY white)-SPSS is actually very useful for analyzing data.
That is, of course, if you're going into the social sciences and dedicating your life to research.
Which I am not.
Basically, you open the program, make your codebook (where you program codes for each of your variables so that you can type in your data later and make sure you can extrapolate meaning from incomplete data:
You'll understand what I'm talking about once you watch this)
And the reason the data is incomplete can be answered with 4 words:
The dumb fuck pile.
We did a test run of the survey for which we are currently analyzing data and well, we got some normal looking answers....
and some completely ridiculous answers. Allow me to illustrate.
Our survey begins with some pretty normal questions: the participant's age, ethnicity, neighbourhood, university of choice, etc...
Now, most people would just say "to hell with it, it'll only take me five minutes. I'll dash off my answers and book it." However, some people decided "Well I don't give a shit. I'm gonna be spontaneous and ridiculous because I'm SO ORIGINAL."
Yeah that's right. I just dissed the dumb fuck pile people.
So, to get to the point, somebody for their age wrote 40 years old.
We're in CEGEP. The oldest person I know is 22. (for all you non Montrealers out there, CEGEP is like grades 12 and 13. A sort of in-between High School and University). Next, for gender, said person wrote "Neither" and finally, for ethnicity, the same person put:
NIGGAH.
I kid you not. We were slightly shocked, horrified, yet amused at the same time. Needless to say, that survey is NOT being used. There were about 6 out of 30 surveys that were slightly less ridiculous and they all went into what we now call the Dumb Fuck Pile.
But anywaffles, a funny thing happened. I was halfway finished the codebook for our actual project when I asked DR LEE how to code a question and she tells me
"You're supposed to be copying (she said COPYING) the example codebook in the textbook and then entering the given data"
It was 5:30. Class ended at 6.  I spent most of the period actually using my brain...and those 20 minutes I spent copying a codebook and colums of numbers basically turned me into a zombie.
Everyone left that class with a permanent eyes-glazed-over expression.
Not to mention it was possibly the most boring thing I've ever done on a computer and that's saying something because copying data into tables when doing HTML is pretty boring.
So I'm going to go and continue to zombify myself by watching NCIS reruns and crocheting and eating chocolate.
Tomorrow I need to go rowing.
yeah...

Ta!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Boom boom clap...Kill me

I know I know. I'm 17 and listening to Hoedown Throwdown by Hannah Montana.
I can't help it.
It's stuck in my head :'(
The thing about Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus is that no matter how bad the songs are....they're ridiculously addictive. And I'm watching this:
...instead of doing my french homework that's due tomorrow morning. >.<
By the by, watch this video if you want to see the dance done properly. These ladies are amazing dancers! Kudos.
Besides, it's all Charlie McDonnell's fault. If he wasn't so damn cute and all...wow, I sound terrifyingly freaky. But here he is in all his silly dancing glory:
Being from the internet, he does not "exercise evah".
So uh...great. The song is still stuck in my head....and I still haven't done my french presentation.
Whoopdeedoo.
I think I'm a master procrastinator. Is it bad that I'm slightly proud of myself for that?
Don't answer that.
Oh hush you.
But you know, mastering the art of procrastination takes either some prodigious skill or some serious "I don't give a shit" attitude.
Or both. I'm kind of hovering somewhere in the middle.
Boom boom clap..boom de clap de clap
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
Okay, bye internet!
Hello powerpoint. You're going to be my new bestfriend :)

Oh, and as much as I would like to have something to show you today, I don't.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

Wait...I think I'm losing here.
Gaby STILL 0
Procrastination 1 MILLION (I can hear it...laughing at me....slow, evil sounding chuckles....mwehehe..he..he.hehee...)

Ta...

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Decontamination!

So yes... here I am. At my desk. 6 hours after writing the previous post about hats!
I love hats. I love making hats. Making hats is fun.
I sound like a weirdo now.
Alrighty then.
A few months ago I made myself that black fuzzy hat in the post titled "Hats!"
A fried of mine said "Oooooohh!...Make me a hat?"
And make her a hat I did. And then her sister asked for a hat. This was about 6 months ago.
I made the hat yesterday. Gaby 0, Procrastination 1.
And so began my little business as hat maker. Although it's less of a business and more of a give-hats-to-my-friends-who-ask-for-them-and-possibly-charge-them-for-the-yarn. But, as I previously said, I don't usually buy yarn to make hats. I use yarn that I've either stolen from my friends, my sister (who is a knitter, incidentally. I will forever claim that we are not related) and from my mother's ancient, (and I mean ANCIENT) stash of wool, which includes actual 30 year old handspun wool.
It didn't smell so good, to tell you the truth. Had a sort of...musty, wool-a-l'ancienne rather pungent scent. Then, I found teeny tiny worms in the wool and we had to decontaminate it with mothballs.
Yuck.
So I'm guessing you really didn't want to know that. And those of you in western civ potentially reading this are not paying any attention to your professor at the moment because you're desperately hoping for more tales about nasty bugsies.
Sorry to disappoint.
Anywhozzles, here's the other hat I promised I would post:



Same hat. Different models.
Ooooooh! Sneaky ;)
This is the hat I made for my friend's sister, who is also my friend but all this talk of friends is making me want to sink into the depths of facebook and never surface so I think I'll just get on to the pattern.
Very simple, very similar to my other hat.
Oh, and sorry for the horrible quality of the photos. I took them with my phone's camera and despite that fact that it takes great pictures for a cameraphone, the quality is still really really bad. Not to mention they both just went through photoshop for some slight light editing so that you can actually see what colors the hat it.
Alright. Moving on.

Materials: (oh, and I'm also playing around with the HTML instead of clicking "bold" because that's too easy XD) GO html course!
Worsted weight yarn (color A)
Sport weight yarn (if you want to follow the exact same pattern, the blue is slightly thinner than the cream)(color B)
Size 5 crochet hook (google what size that is in international sizing. I'm too lazy.)

Abbreviations (have you ever wondered why the word "Abbreviate" is so damn long? I haven't)
Sl st: slip stitch
dc: double crochet
sc: single crochet
ch: chain
trc: triple (or treble, if you will) crochet

Instructions:
1. Chain 6 with color A. Sl st into first ch to form a ring.
2. 12 dc into center of ring. Join with a sl st. (round 1)
3. 2 dc into each dc. Join with a sl st. (round 2)
4. 1 dc into first dc. *2 dc into next dc, 1 dc into next dc*. Repeat from *. Join with a sl st. (round 3)
5. 1 dc into first 2 dc. *2 dc into next dc, 1 dc into next 2 dc*. Repeat from *. Join with a sl st. (round 4)
6. 1 dc into first 3 dc. *2 dc into next dc, 1 dc into next 3 dc*. Repeat from *. Join with a sl st. (round 5)
7. By this point, if you're using the proper thickness of yarn, the top should be looking fairly big. If it still looks obsenely small, continue increasing (2 dc into 1, 1 dc into next 4 dc) etc...Don't do more than 6 increase rounds.
8. 1 dc into each dc. Repeat round until hat is 1 1/2 inches shorter than desired length (so keep trying it on).
9. When hat is 1 1/2 inches shorter than desired length, switch to color B.
10. With color B, 1 dc into each dc. (to get the spiky looking pattern, don't crochet into the little loops on top, chain into the space between double crochets.)
11. 1 sc into each dc (this time, chain into the two little loops of each dc).
12. Switch back to color A and 1 sc into each sc. Tie off, and thread yarn through inside of hat.

And there you go! A beeaautiful hat that's actually warm and cozy enough for these crazy Montreal winters!

For the flower:
1. ch 6 in Color A, keeping a 6 inch tail. Join with a sl st to form ring.
2. 9 sc into ring.
3. Switch to color B.* Ch 3, 3 trc into first sc, sl st into next sc*. Repeat for remaining sc. You should have about 7 or 8 petals.
4. Thread tail from color A through hat, tying flower securely onto hat (you can figure this out. If not, ask your sister or mom to do it).

So, there you have it. This hat took me about 2 hours to make, but once you get the hang of it, you can whip one up in no time.
Now, I have to go finish my best friend's birthday present. Let's just hope the final product is WOW worthy.

Ta!

Hats!!

I recently discovered that making crocheted hats is ridiculously easy and ridiculously fun. However, I'm writing this in the computer lab at my school and I left the hat I just finished in my locker which is four floors down and I'm too lazy to go get it.
Oh wait, I just found one that I made last year in my bag XD
So yes, I am aware that it looks like a misshapen bladder or something but it's really very comfortable and looks like a cute lil' beanie.
Don't ever let me say that again.
On second thought, this is going to take a lot longer than expected seeing as my phone is refusing to send me photos and the internet is really really REALLY slow because everyone here is using it since the majority of people don't have class right now (yay Activity Period!).Oh wait, it's uploading! AWESOME!
So.
Here we go:
So clearly the thing I made is that black fuzzy cap on top of her head (this is a friend of mine who reads my block during western civ XD) It's a very simple pattern.

Materials:
Worsted Weight Yarn
Size 5 or 4.5 crochet hook

Abbreviations
Hdc: half double crochet
Sl st: Slip stitch

Instructions:
1. Chain 6 and join with a sl ch in first ch to form a loop
2. Hdc 8 st into the center of ring. Join with a sl st.
3. 2 hdc into each hdc from previous round. Join with a sl st.
4. 1 hdc into first hdc, *2 hdc in next hdc, 1 hdc in next hdc*. Repeat from *. Join with a sl st.
5. 1 hdc into first 2 hdc. *2 hdc in next hdc, 1 hdc in next 2 hdc*. Repeat from *. Join with a sl st.
6. 1 hdc into first 3 hdc. *2 hdc in next hdc, 1 hdc in next 3 hdc*. Repeat from *. Join with a sl st.
7. 1 hdc into first 4 hdc. *2 hdc in next hdc, 1 hdc in next 4 hdc*. Repeat from *. Join with a sl st.
8. 1 hdc into first 5 hdc. *2 hdc into next hdc, 1 hdc into next 5 hdc*. Repeat from *. Join with a sl st.
9. 1 hdc into each hdc (repeat for next few rows until your hat is as long as you want it to be. And there you have it! The perfect recipe for a custom beanie. On the plus side, you can use this pattern for practically any material you want. Try it in wool, acrylic...acrylic...or acrylic. There are lots of different kinds of acrylic so you're pretty much keeping your options open anyway. The best way to make this hat is to not buy the yarn. Steal it from a store, your friends (especially those who knit. Be nice to your friends who crochet), use scraps, a smallish ball of a previously larger ball. I guess what I'm saying is that its not really worth paying 6 dollars for a ball of yarn to make this hat. Besides, the best projects are made of scraps. You know why? Because you get to keep them. And because I'm writing this on my android (android> iPhone), my thumbs are starting to hurt. You'll see the other hat in a few hours. Ta!


Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Going Bananas

Finally keeping up with my own blog. Normally I would write about two posts per year but let's shake things up some, shall we?

Being a crafty type person, I am not limited to FIMO. I also love beading. And I use to bead ALOT. The kind of boring single strand glass seed bead beading that no one found interesting. Then I discovered The Bead Emporium (sadly, now gone and replaced with a shoe store that sells shoes with the giant soles designed to keep your back from breaking or whatnot. I just said whatnot.) Then I discovered B.E.A.D It... then Chaton Beads! So many bead stores in the span of two or three blocks! What bliss!
So after many days of wracking my brains and sleepless nights (really not true at all), I finally decided, to hell with it. I'm going out to buy beads.
And buy beads I did. I now have 4 tackle boxes full of various beads. It's really quite insane if you think about it.
So I'm trying not to.
Anyways, despite telling myself that I will like all of my designs, I always seem to feel the need to run them by my sister. Now, I love my sister, she's great and all...but she never seems to like what I make. And normally, I should think "well, okay, she's got a really insane style and I don't like the same kind of jewelry as her and who the frig is she to tell me that my jewelry isn't nice anyway? Huh? Yeah, that's right."
Naturally, this does not happen and I have wasted precious time trying to appease her.
Oh my I am such a doormat.
So yeah...I made this necklace the other day.
It's made of turquoise ceramic beads, silver caps and white glass seed beads. (excuse the graininess, Photoshop tends to make my photos lose a bit of their quality. And the beads are turquoise. Not greenish as they appear here. Wow, I should probably take a new photo shouldn't I...) and it's about 22inches...I think.
The earrings probably won't be included in the set (not to mention the silver beads at the bottom of the head pins keep falling off...)
The necklace IS on sale, but I'm not sure for how much yet. So I'm basically rambling on about things that I know nothing about despite the fact that they're, you know, things I should know about.
Alrighty, I have class soon and I want to watch some BONES re-runs. Who's excited for season 7?
THAT'S RIGHT. I AM!! :)

Ta!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Crafts for ...Darn, I can't think of anything clever that rhymes...

Well...I've had this blog for quite some time. I haven't posted anything in about a year because unfortunately, I forgot that I had a blog at all. Sweet. So, to shake things up a bit I'm going to turn this into an artsyfartsy super fun blog.
Yeah...no. But it'll be interesting...and hopefully entertaining. So here's to my first of (hopefully) many posts (that'll actually get views!)
I love crafting (yay for verbing words. ooh look, i did it again!) and I'm hoping that my crafts will get a bit more exposure if I plaster them ALL OVER THE INTERNET which is basically what I'm doing. So, first things first:
..
Uh...
Wait, not sure what I should post first...
Beaded stuff....or funky...
beaded or funky beaded or funky beaded or funky
FUNKY WINS.
So, here is an assortment of charms, made out of FIMO (which is a polymer clay and completely awesome) and yes. Shaped like cheesecake.
Booyeah.
Materials included first and foremost: FIMO
What a surprise. Second, an array of head pins and earring hooks.
And finally, a DASH of sheer creativity. Et voila! Cheesecake earrings! Which I have actually distributed among my friends, however: IF you wish to purchase a pair, I charge $8.00 per charm, OR $15 dollars a matched pair (which means that you need to buy two of the same or I charge you a dollar extra for messing up my ordering system! Kidding...but I still charge $16.00 for two charms that don't match.)
Drop me a line here!
I also have an account on deviantart where I am still The Fungi-Portal.
http://fungi-portal.deviantart.com/

Ta!