2-6 day project

Before classes started, there were a few things I wanted to do with my apartment. The TV was sitting on a part of a shoe-rack (pictured below and fake workbench) and it was partially obstructed by wire-shelving that just didn't look right. Anyway, I found a cheap TV stand that helped me make the space work, but I couldn't find any shelves that I liked. Classes were going to start on Tuesday and, last Friday, I decided I didn't like the various shelves at thrift stores, etc. So, with some vaguely remembered wood-working experience, I decided building a bookshelf would be a good project to take on for a couple days before I buried myself in books for the semester. I was glad at the chance to build something with my hands and design the shelves however I wanted. I also really thought it would only take 2 days, maybe 3.

So, after mentally planning the design as I looked at the Home Depot 2x4's, I bought 8 lengths of 2x4 (each 8ft long) and some MDF board as backing. Next, I decided to buy a handsaw: cheaper and less messy than a power-saw, but a poor choice.

This is my project at 3pm on Friday:

(Where else does one complete a messy project in an apartment than the kitchen? Plastic floors are easy to clean.)
You can already see some progress in the background, but the handsaw made for slow work. My handsaw skills were also less accurate then I would have liked, but I kept going (with extremely frequent breaks due to arm pain) and, after 62 cuts, I finished all the sawing at 6pm on Saturday:

...and began the next stage of construction:

Work was interrupted on Sunday by water seeping into my apartment. Tons of thawing snow that have formed 20ft icicles can be problematic. I had pots out to catch the water and my blinds fell out of the waterlogged drywall.
Returning to work late on Sunday and continuing through Monday, I used about 120 wood screws and had to think of some pretty ingenious ways of using the blue clamps to hold it all still while I drilled away. Eventually, I finished the frame and put the MDF backing on at 7pm on Monday:

 The shelves were finally finished! ...sort of:

[just under 4ft tall]
With some stain/varnish combo that took about 5 hours to apply (because of all the little cracks and weird problems of using basic 2x4's to make furniture), I completed my project and am much happier with my living space. Technically, with the stain/varnish, I didn't finish the project until late on Wednesday night (after classes started), but I'm still happy with it.

Living in South Bend, Pt 1

I suppose "Living in South Bend" could be the name of my blog if I was more inclined to regularly document my life instead of posting random musings, which have become increasingly literary. I don't post as much as I could because of a difficulty finding a balance between total literary permeation and the endless daily documentation of mundane events. So, here's a stab at letting people know what's actually going on with me.

Recently, another main reason for very few posts has been a busy schedule. From the end of August until about 6:30pm on Friday, December 17th, I had an increasingly busy schedule in a way I have never known until now. It's easy to say "I never knew what being busy really meant until..." but now I have a new frame of reference. Throughout college, I tried to juggle one or two jobs, classes, reading, and papers with other involvements and personal life, but now I have a personal life and a work life. The line between them is supposed to blur. When should I not be working toward my PhD? So far, my only good answer to that is "only when I just finished final papers," to permit for sanity.

I could talk a lot more about how my classes went last semester, and maybe I will, but right now I'm thinking about the snow outside. If you didn't know, I love snow, especially fresh or falling snow. One winter in Chicago, snow fell every 4 out of every 7 days. I loved it because the snow didn't get a chance to sit around and turn grey, then black. I've been told that we had unusually consistent snowfall so far this year in South Bend. Usually, people say, it snows often, but not for long periods of time. Sounds good to me, fresh snow all the time. On city-data.com it says that South Bend is ranked 18th on the list of 101 US cities with the most snowfall. There were no cities from Illinois on the list. I had to get used to driving, but then I had to get used to driving in the snow. It's sort of exhilarating and another reason why I'm enjoying all the snow. If I had named the blog centimes2pence2cents, I might make a tri-continent comparison of my life in terms of exposure to snow.