Knit one, purl two, ChaCha three!

Okay. So... I have a bit of news. The first thing is the most awesome thing that has happened to me since I joined the Journal. I've mentioned before how The Journal is a pirate ship and all the staff (crew members and deckhands) have pirate names given to them specifically by the Captain (our faculty supervisor). I finally got mine! Ready to hear it? Savor the moment... wait for it... Okay. My pirate name is TARGET! So now, at the University Journal (also known as the Jour'Nal and the Redden Black Pearl) I will never be known as Anna again... I will always be Target. New people coming in will hear references to someone named Anna and say, "who's that?" For some reason, I'm psyched for that.

Now for my next bit of news, which oddly enough started out as actual news. My first story of the reporting season was an assignment to do a profile on a company called "ChaCha." Which is sort of funny, because that's what Joe's grandkids call him. Long story. Anyway, it turns out that ChaCha is an organization that is sort of like Google Text. People text message questions to the ChaCha database from their mobile phones. Those questions are then sent out to ChaCha "guides," who look up the answers and send them back to the database. Then the database sends the answer back to the "Infoseeker's" mobile phone.

It turns out that ChaCha is always looking for guides, and they pay. Not well, but it's something to do while I'm doing nothing. Anyway... I was accepted, and have been answering queries like crazy and making a few bucks here and there. Obviously it won't do as a full-time job. But it will help for little odds and ends, and there is no set schedule, it's just when I log in and go.

The other thing that's going on is knitting. Lots of it. I'm rapidly becoming a complete knitting addict, for which I blame Alex, since my first knitting project was a scarf for her birthday. Since then, I can't stop! I don't really want to. It's fun, and I dream about the wild colors and kinds of yarn that I want to turn into something fantastic someday. So far, I've only managed to produce scarves. But they're very pretty scarves... Right now I'm working on a pretty blue and white one for my sister-in-law for Christmas. I'm also researching some pretty awesome stuff that I'm also going to be making for Christmas for a few people. But since Alex is one of those few people, and she reads this sometimes, I'm so not telling what it is. In the meantime, my mouth waters over yarn... colors... patterns... soft and pretty...

I took Tovie pictures today. But first, I gave him a bath. And combed him out. He didn't like it one little bit. But he's so gorgeous, especially when he's clean. You wouldn't know it under all that fluff, but he's actually fairly thin. He looked like a drowned rat when he was wet, and he's got so much hair on his tail that he couldn't even wag it when it was wet. It weighed too much... I've decided to give Tovie a nickname. "The Mouth." I do this for two reasons. Firstly, he doesn't shut up. He's got a chihuahua-like yap that wakes me up every morning. Secondly, he licks anyone and everything that gets in his way. I wouldn't mind that half so much if he didn't eat every piece of poop he came across... Other than that, he's a good dog. And he's scared of the goats, which I think is hilarious.

There's more stuff - obviously, since it's been a bit since I wrote last. But this is a pretty long blog already, so I'll compromise and tell you about the rest tomorrow. Until then...

Adieu! Au revoir!
--Anna Grace