It's all relative

During Calculus this morning, my second spindle sock began it's siren song from my book bag. Now I didn't pull it out and work on it during Implicit Derivatives, but I did think about it lust-fully. I want to finish this pair in the worst way. They are soft pink and so squishy and warm. I'm hard pressed to think of something more comforting (maybe my homemade turkey veg noodle soup, but anyway). So my mind wandered between "the derivative of y in relation to the derivative of x" and the lovely winding cables on my socks. The pattern is really pretty simple and easily memorizable after a few repeats, but even still I've ripped these suckers back more times than I care to count. They were all dumb mistakes like my gauge was too tight so I needed a bigger needle, and then I missed a row so one cable was shorter than the others. And I just can't live that. So I've been working on them for awhile even though it's a really fast sock. At any rate I really want to finish them so I can enjoy them before it gets too warm. And we have been warming up here, we're supposed to flood this weekend when all the snow melts. Anyway I'm sitting in class thinking over all the mistakes and I started to compare the sock mistakes to the stupid mistakes I make in Calculus and Organic chemsitry for that matter.
This semester I have a new study motto: Math and Science are just like the damn paino, keep practising! And today it occured to me that these are all similar to knitting. The more I work with yarn and needles the easier it becomes. Certain stich patterns are second nature, and I rely on the patterns much less. And the better I get at fixing mistakes the less they freak me out. This is so true with Math. I blew the first Calculus exam, but I could see all the dumb mistakes and it didn't bother as much as it would have a few semesters ago. And the more I work at it, the more comfortable I am with a pattern and the less I double check against the solution manual. So I guess my thought for the day is that everything in life is realted. Lessons learned in one area of your life can easily translate to another, and often times get you off that ledge (the math ledge). And for those of you wondering I did cozy up with the sock after class, and I feel better for it.