knitting episode 3

Sometimes I wonder if I will be able to knit when I’m really really old. I’m looking forward to old age when nobody can get me to do anything other than knitting. Ha ha. And it would be really sad to find out when I’m at a glorious 65 that my hands are too shaky or my eyes are too unfocused.

Anyhow, knitting episode 3…

I was primary 6, and had a music teacher Mdm Lim. She’s fifty and a knitter too. After our PSLE, we had too much time and she started to bring knitting into the classroom to get us girls started. Everybody tried, but most didn’t succeed. I introduced this teacher to the yarn shop from which my mom bought my 1st pair of knitting needles and she became its regular customer. When I was much older, I bumped into her once at the shop but she no longer remembers me.

Life got too interesting in Secondary school and for 3 years I stopped knitting altogether. Those were dark days. Would like to say I mixed with bad company… or that the other kids mixed with me, the bad company. Haha. Either way nobody around me was a knitter and it wasn’t cool to knit.

Junior College, I started attending lectures. Sometimes the lecturers were going too slow, sometimes their voices were just a boring monotone. In any case, I found myself dozing off everytime I hit the 10th minute. Couldn’t help it. Attention span was too short. Results started to tell a tale and it was simply too embarrassing to carry on like that. Amidst all the agony, inspiration struck. Knitting in lectures saved my future. It got me through the grueling 2 years, passed me my “A” levels and brought me steadily through University and Honors year in philosophy.

Without knitting all those rubbish that I eventually tore out, I couldn’t have read through all those long long philosophical papers on capital punishment, definition of ren, yi, li, Utilitarianism and books and books of references.

Everyday now, knitting serves as my tranquilizer. I carry a project around as an antidote to waiting and traveling “hypertension”. When I’m waiting for a shoot I knit, when I’m on the plane for hours, I knit. When I’m at the bus-stop, I knit. I’m exerting great self-control not to knit at traffic lights.

Heh heh… I should petition for my company to allow me to knit while waiting for the computer to start up and shut down.

Good night.