Olympic Update

I am not doing NEARLY as well as the downhill USA men's team when it comes to times. I think it's become fairly clear as we begin the third day of the Knit Olympics that I have seriously overjudged my knitting speed--esp. cold-finger speed during a blizzard. Until and unless I can finish a panel completely in four days I won't make it. And as you can see from the previous post pic of my starting point, and from the update pic here of where I stopped Saturday night...I'm not going to have much luck.

I have learned some things.
1) I love Brenda Dayne and Cast-On and highly recommend knitting to her.
2) I love that I knit Continental--it does help with speed.
3) I hate purling Continental and think I'm actually faster purling British...but then adding Continental for color changes
4) I actually have an allery to this yarn.

I love this yarn. I love it tons because my husband had to call all over the world to find enough for me to make the afghan--it's been discontinued. I especially love the bright green with which I am knitting Canada (oooooh Caaaaanadaaaaa...I considered learning the anthems to the countries as I knit...and rapidly tossed that iden when I glanced ahead to Africa. See more below).
So I love this yarn, but I hate knitting with it. It acually makes my fingers hurt--there's VM in it and it occasionally feels like it's cutting me...seriously. I am using more lotion than I ever thought possible. I am considering reskeining the yarn I balled, and soaking it in Eucalen just to make it (a) smell better and (b) not hurt my fingers so much.

And regarding Africa. I'm here to say that I may very well put that panel on hold. I may consider myself a winner if I merely BEGIN Africa. The rest of the world is quite nice and all, but Europe and Africa in particular are going to be such a bundle of bobbins...I'm not sure what kind of breakdown I'll have, but a breakdown is coming for sure.

So.
What have we learned?
First, I was stupid and crazy...not sure which order that comes in;
Second, that I don't like this yarn (it even causes a caustic eye allergy);
Third, that I may flip the third and fourth panels so that, by the 16th day, I can be ALMOST done
Fourth, that I need to get back to knitting. I don't want to miss the nutty people doing Louge. When is that?

Tra la la...