List #13: The Beading Class list

The book that I have been taking my lists of completed projects from has reached its end. I went looking for the scraps of paper and the other book last night. I think most of 1997 is in the new book because I can't find any scraps about that year. Unfortunately, I can't find that book. You'll have to wait until I can really look. Instead, a short list of things that annoyed me last night (and the week before) at bead class.

1. I had collected my beads and was ready to start the project at 6:50. Class begins at 6:30 with the selecting of the beads.
2. At 7:25, the instructor sat down to show us what to do with our beads. Because she was still helping a woman select her beads.
3. She showed us how to make a loop in an eye pin. I waited 40 minutes for this?
4. At 7:35 the woman who couldn't select her own beads wanted more help choosing beads. When the instructor handed her some yellow beads, she said, "I don't like faceted beads." (I don't really either, but I've found if you mix in a very few, they look really good.)
5. When the instructor handed her some amber beads, she said, "these are too expensive." I was wishing I had a loaded gun.
6. For the next (last) two classes, we're getting kits. One stupid idiot can't choose three beads to string together and they institute kits? On the one hand, this is a fabulous solution for the whiner and we'll get started on time. On the other hand, I can choose a bead in less than 20 minutes!
7. I know she's not going to like the kit choices. I am guaranteeing you this.
8. When we did the fringe bracelet (I'm almost done! Really. I'll have two beaded projects to show on Saturday.)...When we did the fringe bracelet, another woman, who was mercifully absent last night, kept complaining that she couldn't do it. Couldn't choose beads (though she was trying to match a necklace she was wearing...an Afghan wedding necklace just so you know how pretentious she was). Couldn't pick up a needle. Couldn't string beads. Couldn't figure out where to come up. Couldn't figure out where to go back in. Every move she made was prefaced by how she couldn't do it. Gah.
9. Also, we had to listen to how rich her nieces and nephews were. Very, very rich!
10. This is the second week that I've left without finishing my project. The first one is really my doing--I chose to make several fringes where most people did one. But last night, well, see #2. Last semester, in the glory days when people could choose beads, I left with 4 finished projects. (The knotting class did take quite a bit of time even for those beading rockstars.)

More on Charity

Barbara is correct that the original SBQ may have been posed by a nonnative speaker, and I firmly believe in saving the grammar-bitchiness for people who have ostensibly been speaking English all of their lives. Singapore does use English as the language of government. Nevertheless, her English is better than my Malay, so we'll let it rest.

The real question is why do I hate charity stitchers. (I suddenly feel like I'm on Fox News.) I don't. I have no problem with them.

But I do have problems with people talking about their charity. To me, the point of charity is to help people quietly. Do your good deed, then move on. Now, I understand advertising the need for charity. But what you do about it is your business. Another example, beyond the blogging world: I'm not all that enamoured of my company's "holiday exchange" this year: we're supposed to send a list of the places that received our charitable dollars, which will be read aloud (the donations will be anonymous and, of course, the amounts won't be read). This too goes against my grain, except that pet projects will get "advertising." Still, what I do with my time and money is my bidness.

I find it incredibly ironic that people who are worried about how their stitched gifts are received by ungrateful relatives (see SBQ, October 26) would send their stitching to strangers. Do all the women stitching Habitat for Humanity samplers really think those things are so well-loved? That they'll hang in all these houses forever? I'm thinking those samplers are among the first things that come off the walls. In fact, I have a friend who works in a hospital, one where charity stitchers make layettes for the poor and sick infants. The poor mothers hate the layettes. To them, having homemade items isn't a symbol of caring; it's a symbol of being poor. They'd rather have store bought! It's such an irony.

Send your stitched goods wherever you want. Just don't be surprised when not everyone appreciates you.