Knit, Knitter, Knittest

Hello all! As many of you know, I’m an undergraduate student in psychology working on my honors thesis. As part of this thesis, I’m running a research study on aspects of yarn crafting (knitting, crochet, etc.), and I was hoping some of you lovely people would like to participate!

It’s an online survey, takes no personally identifying information, and should only take about fifteen minutes or so to complete. Here’s a link for anyone who’s interested (and please feel free to share it with your yarn-crafting friends!): https://ucachbs.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0UHV6e7K5LT4cAt

Hello friends!

I’m doing pretty well, actually.  I’ve exercised every day.  Planned all my meals.  Kept my room clean.  Done my readings for class.  Wrote lesson plans for the class I’m tutoring.  Organized my binder.  Talked to friends and strangers.  Showered regularly.  Washed my face and brushed my teeth twice a day.  Called my boyfriend every evening.  Made plans for the blog.  I even signed up for a personal trainer!  I’ve just overall been keeping everything shockingly structured so far.  I’ve even been going to bed by 11 every night, which for me, is highly unusual (but definitely not bad lol).

It’s weird, though.  I’m definitely proud that I’ve been able to keep everything together, but in a way, I don’t really feel like myself?  Maybe it’s because I’ve made such a drastic transition from doing pretty much nothing for pretty much the whole day to having every single hour meticulously structured to include everything in my schedule.  It’s not like I don’t include free time, either - there are a few hours built in where I can just do whatever I want.  But I’ve mostly been too tired to actually do anything with those hours.  Instead of hanging out with friends, playing video games, reading, getting coffee, knitting, or actually expressing myself in any way, I’ll just lay in bed with Youtube autoplay on until I fall asleep.  I am that tired.  I never expected taking care of myself to be so exhausting.

Earlier today there was a banquet for all the Honors kids.  An Honors alum came to speak, and she said something like “I would bet my right foot that ‘your people’ are right here in this room.”  She told us stories about how a friend she graduated with sent her a necklace in the mail that morning just ‘cuz and how she’d recently been in the wedding of a person who used to be her mentor.  

The problem for me there is... I really don’t feel like I’ve found my people.  I made a lot of friends my first year, but none of them really seem interested in me nowadays.  With two exceptions (only one of whom actually came from Honors), all of my friends now are people I was already friends with in high school.  I know I’m a pretty easy person to get along with, in general, but nobody seems to really resonate with me, not really even the high school friends - at least not in the ‘send me a necklace because they miss me’ or ‘make me a part of their wedding party’ sort of way.  I dunno.  I’m sure it was just a tactic to hype up the incoming Freshmen, but hearing that just really bummed me out.  Like I must have been doing something wrong for the last four years to not feel like a part of all these folks who are supposed to be “my people.”  I feel more like I’m not really their people, if that makes sense.

Ya know, I’m realizing that I don’t feel very “in the know” about a lot of things.  I’d love to get into exercise - like, the kind in a public place with other people present - but I feel so out of place not knowing what I’m exactly supposed to be doing or what all the machinery is for.