I made these!

I have a bit more free-time here than I typically do in the States, which has enabled me to be a bit more crafty than normal. Yesterday, my friend Goenpo and his family came over and we constructed the bookshelf you see below for my desk. See, I like big desks, and the one I have is simply too small. A big desk is important, especially since I need to have big thoughts, huge thoughts, potentially earth-shattering thoughts for my dissertation and need room for them to sit for months at a time before being again encountered. That is how a dissertation is written btw.
The shelves were simple and rough, but I really enjoyed making them, carpentry is a nice break if you don't have to do it all the time. Anyways here is the thought-machine:


I also have recently begun to learn knitting, inspired by one of my friends in Portland, he showed me that knitting isn't just for the ladies, and is in fact one of the sexiest things a dude can do (ladies, can I get an amen?). My first project was a hat I made for Rachel's birthday, it finished a couple months late (I started about a month late...) and isn't exactly "well-made" but she humors me from time to time by wearing it. My second project were these fingerless mittens, which I'm actually fairly proud of:


The glasses are connected because they were the only thing I had for a stitch holder. I've been using patterns from the internet, which is a bit difficult because I have only found 1 size of circular needles out here, and its quite small. So everything is a bit makeshift, just the way I like it.