I am aching, people, aching, for sage. I don't know what's come over me, but here I was, sitting in study hall, surfing around the net as one does in search of the web site that will disgust you so deeply with its content that you'll actually shut the laptop and get something done instead, and I thought "sage," and now it's crippling me. I want a leaf, just a leaf, to rub between my fingers and feel the tiny velvety hairs of. I want to brush its dusty sweetness from my hands to my hair and eat an acrid corner, and make a scroll of the rest of the leaf, and slice it into tiny rings, fry them in peppery olive oil and see them curl tighter, scatter them on cornmeal-crusted fish... I think this is how I get homesick. I was trying all throughout lunch to work out what it was that I wanted. I'd gotten as far as "not chocolate" when the fire alarm went off, and then there was all the confusion about whether or not I could go back to the dorm to get my books for English. But now I've got time to myself again, and I haven't had anything herbed in too long.
In the dream I've been having lately, I'm wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt. I'm standing barefoot at a counter covered with cheeses, slicing and wrapping them for people who are deliriously happy just because they're in a rough-floored wine shop and it's hot outside. I go home and the fridge is a comfort to open, not something I prepare for with an extra layer because I just can't take any more cold. I bring out butter, onions, squash, fresh sage... late summer food. And there is a cheese to crumble into this tumble of not-quite-autumn, though I can never quite remember its taste when I wake up. I think it's blue, but it could be something mild and unrich and smooth, like ricotta. I throw together a pie crust, no big deal, and there's a galette in the oven now that gives off such an essence of sage that I can't stand it. I flee the scent and the heat, walk outside in the sun for a while, pull baby carrots from the garden and rub off the dirt with a thumb before eating them whole. The sun is warm out there, not just fluorescently bright, and the dirt has a baked crust over its moist underneath. I go back inside, to the open windows and cooling oven, and sage.
It's too cold for anything to taste very bright, and crackers are eating my soul. Please, somebody tell me... when will it be summer?
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Jewish Interlude
I wrote this as homework for my food studies class, but I think I'll post it here because, for an oh-my-god-it's-due-in-fifteen-minutes-and-I-haven't-started kinda thing, I'm sort of proud of it. What I write here is obviously pretty blunt prose - I don't do much description (or editing, for that matter) on here. So this is a little bit different. I hope you enjoy it - it's something I really care about.
“Your love is better than wine… sustain me with raisins, revive me with apples, for I am faint with love” ~King Solomon, Song of Songs
It won’t be Passover for a while, but I was surfing around SassyRadish today and couldn’t resist posting this. Haroset is basically a paste made of fruit, nuts and other types of deliciousness, and it’s meant to represent the mortar which the Israelites used as slaves in Egypt. As with a lot of words associated with Jewish festivals, there are a lot of ways to spell this – Charoset, Harroseth, Charoses, etc., etc… think Chanukkah. But, if you dare fathom these kinds of numbers (and we are at a math and science school), try to believe me when I say how many more ways there are to make this stuff. Ashkenazi or Sephardi, German, Spanish, Russian… it’s like Thanksgiving stuffing. Everyone has their own way of making it, and the results rarely bear any resemblance to each other at all. I don’t think I’ve ever had it the same way twice. Apples, raisins, dates, figs… almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts… honey or sugar? Wine, or some other liquor? What spices? This is a totally customizable thing, but at the same time very traditional and meaningful, and probably my favourite part of Passover (a holiday that I’ll admit readily to hating most other aspects of). I like it apple-and-honey rich, and, as always, with lots and lots of toasted nuts and a little marsala, but the darker Sephardic versions leave me weak as well. It’s vying for the top spot on my list of Jewish nostalgia triggers, fighting an endless battle with almond macaroons, but while I am unreasonably picky about my macaroons and their every characteristic – not too soft, nor too sweet, they should be like nougat in texture and have grains of almond large enough to crush individually between tooth and tongue, and, for God’s sake, no coconut! – I will take my haroset in almost any of its forms. Eaten on matzo, a chunky pate of apples and raisins is a decent approximation of all that is good in the world. It’s not fatty or heavy, but it’s sweet and juicy and satisfying and oh, so changeable. Haroset is the capricious lover at a boring and otherwise unchanging family Pesach table. It won’t appear the same way twice, but it will almost always be fabulously sexy, and sometimes leave you weeping.
“Your love is better than wine… sustain me with raisins, revive me with apples, for I am faint with love” ~King Solomon, Song of Songs
It won’t be Passover for a while, but I was surfing around SassyRadish today and couldn’t resist posting this. Haroset is basically a paste made of fruit, nuts and other types of deliciousness, and it’s meant to represent the mortar which the Israelites used as slaves in Egypt. As with a lot of words associated with Jewish festivals, there are a lot of ways to spell this – Charoset, Harroseth, Charoses, etc., etc… think Chanukkah. But, if you dare fathom these kinds of numbers (and we are at a math and science school), try to believe me when I say how many more ways there are to make this stuff. Ashkenazi or Sephardi, German, Spanish, Russian… it’s like Thanksgiving stuffing. Everyone has their own way of making it, and the results rarely bear any resemblance to each other at all. I don’t think I’ve ever had it the same way twice. Apples, raisins, dates, figs… almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts… honey or sugar? Wine, or some other liquor? What spices? This is a totally customizable thing, but at the same time very traditional and meaningful, and probably my favourite part of Passover (a holiday that I’ll admit readily to hating most other aspects of). I like it apple-and-honey rich, and, as always, with lots and lots of toasted nuts and a little marsala, but the darker Sephardic versions leave me weak as well. It’s vying for the top spot on my list of Jewish nostalgia triggers, fighting an endless battle with almond macaroons, but while I am unreasonably picky about my macaroons and their every characteristic – not too soft, nor too sweet, they should be like nougat in texture and have grains of almond large enough to crush individually between tooth and tongue, and, for God’s sake, no coconut! – I will take my haroset in almost any of its forms. Eaten on matzo, a chunky pate of apples and raisins is a decent approximation of all that is good in the world. It’s not fatty or heavy, but it’s sweet and juicy and satisfying and oh, so changeable. Haroset is the capricious lover at a boring and otherwise unchanging family Pesach table. It won’t appear the same way twice, but it will almost always be fabulously sexy, and sometimes leave you weeping.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Men Go Crazy In Congregations, They Only Get Better One By One
I do adore Sting. My dad would always play a few CDs at home when I was very, very small, whenever he was in a good mood or... something. The Beatles #1 hits, a Nanci Griffith album, some Simon and Garfunkel, and Sting.
So she took her love for to gaze a while, upon the fields of barley/ in his arms she fell as her hair came down, among the fields of gold.
There are just a few things I don't think I will ever, ever get tired of. That album, Fields of Gold. The Lion King. Salmon roe. Russian dolls, Andy Warhol, marble notebooks, the mechanical pencils with the thick, thick leads that always lived on my daddy's drafting table (I'm fairly certain he's the only architect left in the world who has never heard of Google Sketchup), waffle weave shirts. A couple people (you should know who you are).
He who hesitates is last.
-Mae West
No shit, darling. I adore Mae West. So sexy, so clever, so unashamed of her body and unafraid to shock people. I want to be Mae West when I grow up. If I have to grow up. Though sometimes that sounds pretty attractive, because surely grownups don't deal with the shit I deal with in high school? Surely. Okay, I'm done being silly now.
In other news: Ugh, Monday. I have actually been quite productive this structured study period, so I'm taking the last half hour to write to you. I begged off of swim team today, feeling quite genuinely sick. We all are. My hands and lips are cracked and bleeding, all I want to do is snuggle into my blankets, but my room is freezing and too full of foods I don't really have an appetite for but will eat anyway and then feel sick because of. I want to bathe in warm olive oil. I want to see the sun. I want to eat fresh fish and ripe fruit and cake baked by someone other than me... I guess I want it to be summer, and I want this place not to be Aroostook County. Because the combination of winter and snow and wind and a tiny dorm full of a hundred-odd teenagers, many of whom kiss at least one other person rather a lot, and a crazy stressful school schedule turns out to be quite conducive to illness. Who knew? I want to lock myself in my room, but I'm too social and can't afford to miss maths. I'm going to be all right (You hear that, you bloody bastard?! I AM going to be all right! I am!). I have to be. Because there's a swim meet on Wednesday.
The meet on Saturday went quite well, considering that I hadn't been to one since seventh grade. I made a 33-second 50 yard freestyle, and we did all right in the relays as well. But it was such a long way. Longer than it takes me to get home, and that's a couple hundred miles. So, we left at about 9 am and got back well after midnight. I kicked my shoes off, took out my contacts and fell into bed without even brushing out my oh-so-chlorinated hair.
Woke up nice and late yesterday, had breakfast and proceeded to Do Nothing the rest of the day. I really kind of hate Sundays here, because everybody else is working and I don't have the ethic, and it was too cold to go down to the shop and I couldn't have used the kitchen anyway, because there were people in it - in MY kitchen! What the hell? Anyway, I just sort of felt sorry for my lonely little self like a lonely little loser yesterday, and then wasted structured talking with friends. Which is SO much more worth my time than stupid maths homework. Honestly.
Oh, but one fabulously hilarious thing did happen. I don't know if you'll appreciate it, not knowing the girl who said this, but anyway... the instrumental ensemble class met for a few minutes on Sunday afternoon to distribute music, etc, and as we were all coming out of the school, I, in my grip-less flats, slipped on the compacted snow and fell flat on my face. I've got this big bruise on my hip now. But I must have been swearing a bit as I got up - my usual routine is something like "Oh, shit, fuck, what the fucking hell, JESUS!" - and after I'd brushed myself off, this girl said to me "I thought Jewish people swore to Moses." I felt so much better after that. Falling on your ass, then laughing it off, is wonderful.
And God I love food studies. We sit. In a room. And talk about food. And food in modern culture. And food in history. And non-food... read this article and be outraged, okay? It is, as my teacher put it, a food hookah (makes me miss Turkey, actually) and the most completely stupid idea ever. People don't just crave flavours. If you're not full, you're still hungry, fool. And you will eat.
Oh, but speaking of Turkey-ish things! Interview tomorrow. Wish me luck, my dears. Send some good vibes north at about 6:30 Eastern time, would you? Tajikistan/ Egypt/ India, here I might come!
Okay, this is a stupid post, because I have nothing very exciting to tell you about that I can tell you about - yeah, you thought you knew everything. SORRY, babes. Anyway, I'm nearly done with my DC video and have a ukulele one in the making, too.
Okay, Jew question: there are lots of things I don't get about the Jesus Concept, but I think I'm fairly certain that people are always saying that he "died for everyone's sins" and stuff. If he died to atone for everybody's sins, why can't Christians just go around doing whatever the hell they like? If they've got to keep being sexually oppressive and intolerant and trying to convert people and stuff, what was the point of the Messiah dying? Hell, now I'm going to get a lot of angry comments from the religious right. Do you have any idea how many Christian family blogs there are out there? Sick.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
And She's Every Girl You've Seen In Every Movie
Yesterday, I had not one single class. It was a beautiful thing. My Wednesday mornings are completely empty this semester, but I had double chemistry scheduled for after lunch. Well. We all thought it was the snow, which was falling rather heavily and still hasn't quite made up it's mind to stop. But the teacher's cancelled for the rest of the week (hence my sitting in the lounge typing right now instead of measuring the molar density of hydrogen gas at standard pressure and temperature), so... guess not. And while I hope he'll be well and all, it is gorgeous to just lounge... after five weeks away, this is a nice way to ease back into homework.
So, I just had my first food studies class. We read a couple articles ahead and discussed food philosophy, and we have a collective blog. It's a very small class, but the people in it are pretty serious and lucid about food, and if you have no life and want to know how I write for classes, click here (I'm maoismdoesntwork). I'm excited about this class. Really excited. And thoughts of lobster ravioli and kokoreç (Turkish grilled sheep intestines) are now crowding out the geometric sequences and logarithms that belong in my head. So, I'm listening to Suzanne Vega and Carly Simon to remedy it. Yeah, that's clever, I know.
Have I told you about the Gatsby Ball? Before judging, just listen. Because, by all accounts that I trust (there aren't many, but they come from people with excellent taste in wine and music) it will kick ass. My English teacher puts it on every year, and it's part of her American Literature course. I'm in AP Composition and therefore required to go, but I would have anyway. You go as a character from the 1920s, dressed & researched etc. I was asked to be Jeeves to somebody's Bertie Wooster, but have opted instead to stick with the dress I'd already borrowed from a friend at home. Haven't yet worked out what sort of person I'll be, but I'm looking forward to next Saturday rather a lot. Because I am a geek, and I really do love ballroom dancing.
I'm not particularly looking forward to this Saturday, though. There's a swim meet about four hours' drive away. If I don't go I'm off the team, which means I'm no longer excused from fitness classes. And I love swimming. I just don't want to spend a day on a bus feeling chlorinated and getting stingy rashes all over my thighs and dealing with damp towels in the cold and strange pools and a bad-tempered coach who, I am convinced, wants my head. I hate it when people hate me.
Here's a picture from Washington. Goodbye.
So, I just had my first food studies class. We read a couple articles ahead and discussed food philosophy, and we have a collective blog. It's a very small class, but the people in it are pretty serious and lucid about food, and if you have no life and want to know how I write for classes, click here (I'm maoismdoesntwork). I'm excited about this class. Really excited. And thoughts of lobster ravioli and kokoreç (Turkish grilled sheep intestines) are now crowding out the geometric sequences and logarithms that belong in my head. So, I'm listening to Suzanne Vega and Carly Simon to remedy it. Yeah, that's clever, I know.
Have I told you about the Gatsby Ball? Before judging, just listen. Because, by all accounts that I trust (there aren't many, but they come from people with excellent taste in wine and music) it will kick ass. My English teacher puts it on every year, and it's part of her American Literature course. I'm in AP Composition and therefore required to go, but I would have anyway. You go as a character from the 1920s, dressed & researched etc. I was asked to be Jeeves to somebody's Bertie Wooster, but have opted instead to stick with the dress I'd already borrowed from a friend at home. Haven't yet worked out what sort of person I'll be, but I'm looking forward to next Saturday rather a lot. Because I am a geek, and I really do love ballroom dancing.
I'm not particularly looking forward to this Saturday, though. There's a swim meet about four hours' drive away. If I don't go I'm off the team, which means I'm no longer excused from fitness classes. And I love swimming. I just don't want to spend a day on a bus feeling chlorinated and getting stingy rashes all over my thighs and dealing with damp towels in the cold and strange pools and a bad-tempered coach who, I am convinced, wants my head. I hate it when people hate me.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
And The Talking Leads To Touching...
Aaahh, it's after lights-out, which means that there's a blanket block on all web sites EVER. But still internet, for some screwy reason. SO, I'm just usin' my mail programme to email-post some stuff... let's see if it works this time.
It is so good to be back. I feel amazing. Just being back with my friends, doing homework again... even the nasty lights-out policy. Oh, and the only reason I'm still awake and not comatose from swim team - which was really, really tough today, and my shoulders ache - is that I have no classes - count 'em - tomorrow until after lunch. Zero. Despite just having picked up food studies (finally got the O.K. on that... some fool in admin thought I'd have to reschedule my chem class, which I wasn't going to be allowed to do, but it turns out all that changes is math.... though it changes to 8:30. Shoot me. Anyway, today was the first day I have written in my new marble-notebook food journal, where I am to record everything I eat if I'm not too ashamed. It really makes me think about it, too. Can I really be bothered to get up and find the book? Do I honestly want to admit that I had milk and cookies for breakfast? Etc.). So. Life is sexy.
Speaking of sexy... I have the Quieter Poster Boys! I ordered them a while after I got the tip from my maytag model (bottom photo, he's looking fine), and we've shared them. They are beautiful. I'll post pictures of them on my walls tomorrow - it's dark now and my roommate, whom, I have concluded, is a mad evil genius scientist, is either sleeping or planning the world's end under her blankets. And I wouldn't want to disturb either of those things.
I have also just been introduced to Rilo Kiley, and they are amazing (I guess I'll embed that later, but for now just click, please). The minute I found them*, I realized that a load of my friends from the National Spelling Bee had been going on about them for ages too... the things I don't notice are always the most important.
I should probably throw you a picture... Sunday was my first night back and everyone was in the gym... I went a little nuts and black-and-white-grainy-low-exposure on you, and I'm sorry. But here:
What d'you reckon? Keepers?
More on DC when I finish the video... maybe tomorrow on all my goddamn free time! Although I should probably work on my lines for the play, instead. Or, um, a big research paper, or... math?
Okay, time to call it good. I'm getting eight hours tonight. Good night, my darlings!
Oh, and how about that State of the Union address!? Starting this year, no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love. Fantastic.
*Okay, the minute my friend down the hall came into my room during structured study with a list of songs for me to look up. Thanks, Emma!
Friday, January 21, 2011
Goodbye, Washington
Sorry for not-posting in so long. I'll give you the full story soon - it's been a crazy two weeks - but here's an interim video. Flight tomorrow morning: Baltimore --> Philadelphia --> Bangor, ME. If it's not too snowy. Then a night with my darlings, then school!
I think I got a little bit frostbitten walking around a freezing-cold (yet bleakly snowless) DC today because I didn't have to go into work.
Tonight I'm going to a pizza restaurant with ping pong tables. Life is beautiful.
I think I got a little bit frostbitten walking around a freezing-cold (yet bleakly snowless) DC today because I didn't have to go into work.
Tonight I'm going to a pizza restaurant with ping pong tables. Life is beautiful.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
'Tis The Day Before The Math Final
And all through the dorms, people are lazing about in pajamas and alternating between study and hanging and feeling wonderful because they're inside in pajamas and it's snowing and they have fairy lights in their rooms. At least, I am. No classes AT ALL today, so I didn't get up until 8:30 when I got hungry and went and stole some milk from the cafeteria. I'm half-packed, studying and actually feeling okay about most of this test. I took the chem test yesterday. It was all multiple choice, only an hour, and I think I passed. I brought my laptop in my backpack and, as we were all about to start the test, reached in and opened it and started playing Single Ladies. Everyone got it and laughed and it was all good fun... do you get it, too? Remember I told you about that time? And after the test, the teacher let us make liquid nitrogen ice cream (damn...that's my old url). So much fun.... it actually boils when you pour it into the cream, and there's so much vapour. The night before, I'd made myself roasted mushrooms and potatoes and creamed spinach. And that day I wore neon pink and black striped thigh highs, so I felt pretty good. Pictures coming soon. Oh, and today I have another shoot with my Maytag model - this time for a Lookbook contest where you style people to look like characters from a TV show. Needless to say, my tights are hot currency.
Well, I'm going to spend the next 3 hours (swim team after that....it's a pain but I sleep well) eating, taking pictures, studying, and finishing Siddhartha. Why, God, WHY must the math final be at 8:30 am? And be three hours long? Why? But I will survive.... my mother wants me to play that at her funeral.
I am so excited to get home. I can't wait to see my friends and spend time with them while they're not at school, and cook and watch films and then go to England, and then D.C!!! Aaah! And I just found out I'm going to Colorado for a few days this summer... more on that later, but I've never been that far west and I really want to see the mountains.
Flashdance....
Well, I'm going to spend the next 3 hours (swim team after that....it's a pain but I sleep well) eating, taking pictures, studying, and finishing Siddhartha. Why, God, WHY must the math final be at 8:30 am? And be three hours long? Why? But I will survive.... my mother wants me to play that at her funeral.
I am so excited to get home. I can't wait to see my friends and spend time with them while they're not at school, and cook and watch films and then go to England, and then D.C!!! Aaah! And I just found out I'm going to Colorado for a few days this summer... more on that later, but I've never been that far west and I really want to see the mountains.
Flashdance....
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
...And Back
And, my god, it feels good. Everyone's quite stressed, what with finals coming up and a whole week of (unproductive) break right behind us, but I am just so happy to be back with my friends that it's almost okay. I had a rather mixed week at home. On the one hand, it was brilliant to see my friends (and Brokeback Mountain. Awestruck) and go to school - I stayed in the art room this time so there was no awkward biology-crashing, and my teachers seemed happy to see me and everyone who didn't know I was coming to visit treated me like I was back from the dead. I also ate excellently and feel very pretty as a result - I love the way my back looks when I've gained a little weight. However, there was a lot of fighting going on as well, and if a breast cancer scare (false alarm, thank god) can't unify my family and get us to stop bickering for ten minutes, I don't really know what can. But, yeah. If you have breasts and are thirty-ish or older you should go get a mammogram. Now. Did you know that one in eight women in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer?
I just joined the swim team. Yesterday was the first practice, I hadn't done butterfly since eighth grade, and I am sore. I know that sounds like a completely idiotic thing to do right before midterm exams, but I slept so incredibly well last night that, if this is anything to go by, it might actually help my grades in the next couple weeks. This school doesn't technically have any sports teams, so for things likefootball soccer we just play with the local school, with which we share the academic building, but for some reason we can't do that for the swim team. So I and the only other MSSM girl have cajoled two other girls from our school into swimming, so that we have a relay team. Otherwise we couldn't compete. I used to hate swim meets and I am sure they're no different now, but we have a nice pool here and being on the team exempts me from fitness classes - which would conflict with the practice schedule anyway! So, I'm quite well-satisfied with that and hope to fulfill one of the boys' predictions that I'll have six-pack by the end of the season.
That's really all that's going on... I have to finish the rough draft of my midterm English essay - about satire in Huck Finn - and study like hell for a chem test that looks about as friendly as my sister after she gets caught taking other peoples' Christmas presents out of my room and decides that the best course of action is to scream, slam doors and cry loudly enough to render us all deaf for several hours....but that's another story.
I got a few lovely birthday presents. The primary one was, of course, a contribution to my new lens, but I also got a couple lovely books and some beautiful new tights.
Okay. Sites That Are Blocked At School (Mostly For "Pornography") That Shouldn't Be:
Some of Smitten Kitchen. Like, this one. This is a food blog! What the hell, people?!
Stockings HQ
UK Tights
My Favourite Underwear Blog (However, this is absolutely fine for us to look at, apparently! Jesus, people, find some real porn to block)
And loads more, but I don't want to incriminate myself by going on all these sites to get the links in one day.
Okay, so here are those recipes I said I'd post. In both cases, I used yoghurt and milk instead of buttermilk.
Chocolate cake (in this one I used Green&Black's ginger chocolate)
Ginger-apple-upside-down cake
Night! I'm high on Fawlty Towers.
I just joined the swim team. Yesterday was the first practice, I hadn't done butterfly since eighth grade, and I am sore. I know that sounds like a completely idiotic thing to do right before midterm exams, but I slept so incredibly well last night that, if this is anything to go by, it might actually help my grades in the next couple weeks. This school doesn't technically have any sports teams, so for things like
That's really all that's going on... I have to finish the rough draft of my midterm English essay - about satire in Huck Finn - and study like hell for a chem test that looks about as friendly as my sister after she gets caught taking other peoples' Christmas presents out of my room and decides that the best course of action is to scream, slam doors and cry loudly enough to render us all deaf for several hours....but that's another story.
I got a few lovely birthday presents. The primary one was, of course, a contribution to my new lens, but I also got a couple lovely books and some beautiful new tights.
Okay. Sites That Are Blocked At School (Mostly For "Pornography") That Shouldn't Be:
Some of Smitten Kitchen. Like, this one. This is a food blog! What the hell, people?!
Stockings HQ
UK Tights
My Favourite Underwear Blog (However, this is absolutely fine for us to look at, apparently! Jesus, people, find some real porn to block)
And loads more, but I don't want to incriminate myself by going on all these sites to get the links in one day.
Okay, so here are those recipes I said I'd post. In both cases, I used yoghurt and milk instead of buttermilk.
Chocolate cake (in this one I used Green&Black's ginger chocolate)
Ginger-apple-upside-down cake
Night! I'm high on Fawlty Towers.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
All-Nighter, Just Because
I'm going to feel like total shit tomorrow. But I have been watching videos and listening to music and chatting with friends since about nine, and it's now about half one, so why stop? I promised you pictures. Here are some goddamn pictures. I went and did it. I found my bag, and found my wallet (can't call it a purse in this country 'cause they think you mean bag) and found my credit/debit whatever the hell it is card in the wallet (my wallet's ridiculous. It's faux leopard fur and purple leather. Some people sent it to me for my bat mitzvah. I love it) in among all the shit that's in there. Okay, just for the hell of it, while we're waiting for my order of 20GB of photo space to process (the stuff I do for you! You'd better buy my memoirs when they don't come out) let's give people a chance to understand the female psyche by going through my goddamn purse/wallet/money thing:
Front pocket. We've got some cool money in here. A ten-dollar New Zealand note my mum brought back from, um, New Zealand. Their money is pretty ridiculous. It's got see-through bits. Yep, plural, multiple see-through little windows in it, because why the fuck not? (I'm going to end up blocked at school for weighted phrases and then I'll be really fucked)
Then we've got some Turkish ten-Lira notes. They're pretty and pink and have Atatürk on one side and some scientist and equations on the other. No windows, but still pretty nice. Especially compared to American money. Ugliest stuff in the world, I ask you, why?
There's also, let's see.... a blister-pack of Advil that's got three blisters punched out and one remaining. And two stray quarters.
Moving backwards to the Pocket With The Zip.
Shit, I had no idea this was where all my money was. I assumed it was in some dark recess of my camera case. We've got about sixty dollars cash (for food, see. I have to buy food), a tube of lip balm that claims to be nourishing and organic and, incidentally, is also made in New Zealand, and lots and lots of coins. These coins add up to: Five Lira and forty Kuruş (5.40 TL), sixty-two US cents and twenty-one pence. How exciting! Oh, and a broken rubbery earpiece bit from a set of Skullcandies.
All right, I've shoved all that back in there and zipped it back up. Now there's this big back pocket with all these slits for credit cards, though I don't know anyone who's got enough of any sort of card to fill them all up. What I have is a crumpled up receipt for some groceries at the one shop that's any sort of feasible distance from my school, my key card to get into the dorms (I was so pleased to find that a week or two ago - I'd been knocking for ages), a University of Maine library card that the English teacher passed out to us all, two Aerie awards cards that make me buy lots of underwear for slightly lower ridiculous prices on occasion, an AFS Turkey business card with their Ankara address, and ooh! Look, it's another receipt. It's for a half-gallon of semi-skimmed milk. How exciting! I remember buying that milk! I had to smack someone to stop him paying for it. Moving on....some dollar bills, some more coins....a Canadian cent. I think we're up to five currencies, aren't we?
In those actual slitty things where all those other cards should have been are a few card-shaped-ish things, too. There's a ride ticket from the fair. There's a student Müze Kart letting me into any public Turkish museum for free until Temmuz (July) 2011, and a card 'proving' that I'm a student at Ankara Üniversitesi. There's my old student ID from my old school, and my actual credit-debit-card thing.
Just one more pocket now.
It looks like these are mostly just folded up bits of paper from Turkey. A ticket for something, a receipt for something else. A couple emergency addresses/phone numbers, my International Student insurance card, and a sort of customs declaration thing. My wallet's not very feminine at all, is it? I mean, there's expired lip balm. But then there's just...shit. I guess the bra cards count for something,
So, only two nights ago, I was introduced to Torchwood. I know. I KNOW! I'm English, for god's sake. And I love the Doctor, but Captain Jack is something else. I'm not ashamed to tell you that he's replaced Kapadokia as my desktop image.
Now, there was champagne involved in this weekend, which is the Only Reason some of these might be a bit blurry. Let's start with my birthday cakes. Yeah, plural. One was a triple-layer chocolate ginger cake with ginger whipped cream and ginger ganache, and the other was (and still is - I had the most marvelous breakfast) a gingerbread apple upside down cake. I can't decide which I liked better. Both recipes were from Smitten Kitchen, my favourite food and photo blog of all time, but I'll post them separately, with my desperately-bereft-of-buttermilk adaptations, next post. I'm getting better at keeping next-post promises, aren't I?
Oh, Christ, this is shaping up to be a really long post and somebody's going to murder me tomorrow for being so tired. So I'll stop here - cake's all that really matters anyway, right?
Front pocket. We've got some cool money in here. A ten-dollar New Zealand note my mum brought back from, um, New Zealand. Their money is pretty ridiculous. It's got see-through bits. Yep, plural, multiple see-through little windows in it, because why the fuck not? (I'm going to end up blocked at school for weighted phrases and then I'll be really fucked)
Then we've got some Turkish ten-Lira notes. They're pretty and pink and have Atatürk on one side and some scientist and equations on the other. No windows, but still pretty nice. Especially compared to American money. Ugliest stuff in the world, I ask you, why?
There's also, let's see.... a blister-pack of Advil that's got three blisters punched out and one remaining. And two stray quarters.
Moving backwards to the Pocket With The Zip.
Shit, I had no idea this was where all my money was. I assumed it was in some dark recess of my camera case. We've got about sixty dollars cash (for food, see. I have to buy food), a tube of lip balm that claims to be nourishing and organic and, incidentally, is also made in New Zealand, and lots and lots of coins. These coins add up to: Five Lira and forty Kuruş (5.40 TL), sixty-two US cents and twenty-one pence. How exciting! Oh, and a broken rubbery earpiece bit from a set of Skullcandies.
All right, I've shoved all that back in there and zipped it back up. Now there's this big back pocket with all these slits for credit cards, though I don't know anyone who's got enough of any sort of card to fill them all up. What I have is a crumpled up receipt for some groceries at the one shop that's any sort of feasible distance from my school, my key card to get into the dorms (I was so pleased to find that a week or two ago - I'd been knocking for ages), a University of Maine library card that the English teacher passed out to us all, two Aerie awards cards that make me buy lots of underwear for slightly lower ridiculous prices on occasion, an AFS Turkey business card with their Ankara address, and ooh! Look, it's another receipt. It's for a half-gallon of semi-skimmed milk. How exciting! I remember buying that milk! I had to smack someone to stop him paying for it. Moving on....some dollar bills, some more coins....a Canadian cent. I think we're up to five currencies, aren't we?
In those actual slitty things where all those other cards should have been are a few card-shaped-ish things, too. There's a ride ticket from the fair. There's a student Müze Kart letting me into any public Turkish museum for free until Temmuz (July) 2011, and a card 'proving' that I'm a student at Ankara Üniversitesi. There's my old student ID from my old school, and my actual credit-debit-card thing.
Just one more pocket now.
It looks like these are mostly just folded up bits of paper from Turkey. A ticket for something, a receipt for something else. A couple emergency addresses/phone numbers, my International Student insurance card, and a sort of customs declaration thing. My wallet's not very feminine at all, is it? I mean, there's expired lip balm. But then there's just...shit. I guess the bra cards count for something,
This one's on my wall in the dorm. Robert Indiana is just fantastic. And I am going to meet him! Maybe. I'll tell you about that later.
So, only two nights ago, I was introduced to Torchwood. I know. I KNOW! I'm English, for god's sake. And I love the Doctor, but Captain Jack is something else. I'm not ashamed to tell you that he's replaced Kapadokia as my desktop image.
Now, there was champagne involved in this weekend, which is the Only Reason some of these might be a bit blurry. Let's start with my birthday cakes. Yeah, plural. One was a triple-layer chocolate ginger cake with ginger whipped cream and ginger ganache, and the other was (and still is - I had the most marvelous breakfast) a gingerbread apple upside down cake. I can't decide which I liked better. Both recipes were from Smitten Kitchen, my favourite food and photo blog of all time, but I'll post them separately, with my desperately-bereft-of-buttermilk adaptations, next post. I'm getting better at keeping next-post promises, aren't I?
So, not beautiful pictures, but you get the idea. And what wonderful ideas they were...
These were actually the night before. But whatever.
Oh, Christ, this is shaping up to be a really long post and somebody's going to murder me tomorrow for being so tired. So I'll stop here - cake's all that really matters anyway, right?
Sunday, November 21, 2010
It's None Of It True
Now, I don't mean to go all sentimental photo-montage on you, but a friend of mine, one who talked me out of all my money convinced me to get my camera and all ensuing tchotchkes, made this and it's really too good not to show you.
In other news, I'm home after an uncommonly pleasant bus ride. I woke up at sixish, with far more ease than almost everyone else in the school, mostly due to the fact that I hadn't gone to a midnight-ish showing of Harry Potter the night before (I passed most of my birthday evening wandering about outside and looking in at the boys' windows - there is some frightful pornography to be seen on those walls). Anyway, I came outside for breakfast and there was a thin layer of snow on the ground and more falling. It was absolutely magical, and even in the groggy, cold, flip flop-clad state I was in I was delighted. Boarding the buses was fun - I was the last on - and I found the usual company for my route enhanced by an addition with whom I listened to several issues (is that the right term for a podcast?) of The Bugle before dozing on the shoulder of a lovely boy whose taste in music rivals those of even my friends here. He approved of the above video. All through this is was snowing rather thickly and the bus was cold, but when I woke up we were 'south' and it was ridiculously sunny again.
I'll skip the part where I drag my father underwear shopping and go right to the food. I swear, my next post will be nothing but pictures of what I'm eating. I have been reduced to tears by real food that I didn't cook. Last night, we had greens and Brussels sprouts with ginger and roast chicken and parsnips and garlic and potatoes and beets and carrots. It's not the meat that I really miss, oddly enough - I could go vegetarian after having been at school this long - but it was all gorgeous. I made fairy cakes, but went to bed before dessert. Five weeks without a break is too long, though I don't imagine the scotch and soda helped. In any case, I was out at seven-thirty, back up at nine and then asleep for the next twelve hours. Then to a friend's house for a stunning breakfast of eggs, sausage and biscuits, and home with some other friends to make two cakes - count 'em - watch Torchwood and eat roast lamb with rice and lentils and open a few birthday presents. I'm going to school tomorrow, just to hang out in the art room and catch up with whomever is cool enough to drift in there, so I've got to go to bed now. Studying for finals starts tomorrow. Just remind me.
(Oh, what a lot of tags!)
In other news, I'm home after an uncommonly pleasant bus ride. I woke up at sixish, with far more ease than almost everyone else in the school, mostly due to the fact that I hadn't gone to a midnight-ish showing of Harry Potter the night before (I passed most of my birthday evening wandering about outside and looking in at the boys' windows - there is some frightful pornography to be seen on those walls). Anyway, I came outside for breakfast and there was a thin layer of snow on the ground and more falling. It was absolutely magical, and even in the groggy, cold, flip flop-clad state I was in I was delighted. Boarding the buses was fun - I was the last on - and I found the usual company for my route enhanced by an addition with whom I listened to several issues (is that the right term for a podcast?) of The Bugle before dozing on the shoulder of a lovely boy whose taste in music rivals those of even my friends here. He approved of the above video. All through this is was snowing rather thickly and the bus was cold, but when I woke up we were 'south' and it was ridiculously sunny again.
I'll skip the part where I drag my father underwear shopping and go right to the food. I swear, my next post will be nothing but pictures of what I'm eating. I have been reduced to tears by real food that I didn't cook. Last night, we had greens and Brussels sprouts with ginger and roast chicken and parsnips and garlic and potatoes and beets and carrots. It's not the meat that I really miss, oddly enough - I could go vegetarian after having been at school this long - but it was all gorgeous. I made fairy cakes, but went to bed before dessert. Five weeks without a break is too long, though I don't imagine the scotch and soda helped. In any case, I was out at seven-thirty, back up at nine and then asleep for the next twelve hours. Then to a friend's house for a stunning breakfast of eggs, sausage and biscuits, and home with some other friends to make two cakes - count 'em - watch Torchwood and eat roast lamb with rice and lentils and open a few birthday presents. I'm going to school tomorrow, just to hang out in the art room and catch up with whomever is cool enough to drift in there, so I've got to go to bed now. Studying for finals starts tomorrow. Just remind me.
(Oh, what a lot of tags!)
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wake Me Up When It's Over
There's just no hope for me. You'll never predict me.... I'm just femme fatale all through, you'll never know what's going through my head, you won't hear from me in weeks and then, suddenly, I'll be calling you again, writing to you, because I need you... (Okay, maybe I do want to be Liza Minelli. What you gonna do 'bout it?)
Not true. I was actually thinking earlier about what an ironically disappointingly uncomplicated person I am. But suddenly I want to talk about it. Or I just want to talk. Yes, dear, to you. Doesn't that make you feel wonderful? No, I'm not just another politician who wants to make your life easier, your tax money go better places, your kids more successful and more likely to kick the *censored* out of the Chinese kids on the future economic playground on which they'll play. I just want to talk to you.
Hah. Actually, I have no idea why I suddenly feel like writing again, but I want to write about food. I was just watching NYTimes thanksgiving recipe videos, and they made me hungry, of course, in such a happy way. I can't wait to get home. I can't wait to sit on my friends' couches and talk with their families and eat and drink and feel great. I can't wait to fight with my family, because it makes me feel so much less alone. I love living here - it's basically college on training wheels, living in the dorms here - but I am looking forward to a week of being someone's baby again.
But watch me - in an hour I'll have changed my mind. I just did, after all... food does strange things to me. I'm really emotionally attached to it. I wrote this a couple days ago:
Not true. I was actually thinking earlier about what an ironically disappointingly uncomplicated person I am. But suddenly I want to talk about it. Or I just want to talk. Yes, dear, to you. Doesn't that make you feel wonderful? No, I'm not just another politician who wants to make your life easier, your tax money go better places, your kids more successful and more likely to kick the *censored* out of the Chinese kids on the future economic playground on which they'll play. I just want to talk to you.
Hah. Actually, I have no idea why I suddenly feel like writing again, but I want to write about food. I was just watching NYTimes thanksgiving recipe videos, and they made me hungry, of course, in such a happy way. I can't wait to get home. I can't wait to sit on my friends' couches and talk with their families and eat and drink and feel great. I can't wait to fight with my family, because it makes me feel so much less alone. I love living here - it's basically college on training wheels, living in the dorms here - but I am looking forward to a week of being someone's baby again.
But watch me - in an hour I'll have changed my mind. I just did, after all... food does strange things to me. I'm really emotionally attached to it. I wrote this a couple days ago:
I haven't been writing recently, I suppose because I just didn't want to, and because I've had plenty to think about that I can't write about. I'm also sick of my mother reading this and calling me up and asking me what's going on. And I feel like a bitch for saying that, but it's true - I don't need my family to know when I'm upset or sick of all this. They're nearly three hundred miles away. It can't do any of us any good and I'd rather they didn't get upset.
I guess I've also had other people to talk to recently. Internet, you're cool but you don't give much back. I have friends here, with whom I can actually have a conversation that's not a glitchy facebook chat or a text message. Again, the internet's great but it's just not good enough. I want to lie on my bed at home with my friends at home, and talk to them and tell them everything I can't tell people here, just because we all live together and it would all get out. I can't wait for this week to be over. Friday's my birthday - there are so many November birthdays here - and then we go home for a week. I won't have to remind myself to eat. I will fight with my family and be happy because it'll be normal, and I won't have to feel guilty about withholding information from people and I won't have to be a diplomat quite so much. I just want to go back to what's familiar and be loved in a totally un-novel fashion.
And I have been too tired. I can't make myself go to sleep and I always get up way too early and get nothing done. I haven't felt well lately - watch this space, a concerned relative is about to call me and call the staff and tell them to check my room for blades (they'd find a big chopping knife, actually, and I'd be screwed if they took that away, because they've opened up the kitchen) - and I've hardly got the drive to be sociable any more, let alone care about schoolwork. I just do it.
I've also noticed my heart going crazy every time I eat chocolate.
Angst.... it's not my line of business, but it's viral here. Anyway, I am going to forget about things for a little bit starting tomorrow. I'm going to go home, if that's what it still is, and cook in a kitchen that's not full of people who can't cook and seem to independently support America's entire cake-mix industry. I'm going to read Siddhartha just because a friend threw me a copy, and I'm not going to get dressed with anyone in particular in mind for a whole week - I might not even get dressed at all. I'm almost ready to leave - my sheets are washed, I know what I'm taking back with me and my fridge is almost empty.
I've probably mentioned how much Norah Jones I'm listening to at the moment. I decided to take some pictures and set them to Wake Me Up, though I don't know why. Actually, I really don't like it when people do that, but I don't care today. And if you've been reading me for any length of time you'll recognize some of these pictures, so maybe they'll be a little less meaningless.
Anyway, today's my birthday. It's eight and I just sat up in bed. I only have one and a half classes today, most of the school is going to see the new Harry Potter film this evening, after a big dinner they're putting onjust for me for the holiday, and I've also got play practice. Hello, 16.
Anyway, today's my birthday. It's eight and I just sat up in bed. I only have one and a half classes today, most of the school is going to see the new Harry Potter film this evening, after a big dinner they're putting on
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Another Week, Another Package
...Except the package had a dozen eggs in it. And, carefully bubble-wrapped as they were by my dear and loving parents, only six made it. It was a bit of a mess. But worth it, because there were also apples, bread, goats' cheese, a little jar of homemade chocolate sauce, nuts and carrots. I am a very happy girl today, and not just because of that.
Here we have these things called 1/3 reports. As in, every one-third of a semester. The first of these reports is coming out this week, and I can't belive that a sixth of the year has already gone by. I know approximately how I'm doing - I think I have Bs in chemistry and tech, and my average in maths is hovering in the mid-seventies. I got back that big English essay, which turned out to be an A of some kind, and so I'm hoping that that will reflect my average in the class. I feel like my grades are slowly getting better - there were just a couple of rough first tests. İnşallah.
I also have a double bed now! In that the bunk beds that I formerly occupied are now side-by-side on the floor. I'm going to get a big pad to keep the mattresses together, but I slept on it like this last night and it wasn't even much of a problem. This photo of my room shows you just what a distracted cleaner I am, but there you go. Now that that big swath of wall under the turkish scarf is free, I'm going to fill it up with some posters - I've got a nice black-and-white world map, and a Banksy print in the mail.
And last night, I dyed my neighbor's hair for him. Bright red. He looks absolutely amazing, and it was loads of fun. Oh, and I've started reading The Kite Runner, which is an abfab book, people (I'm aware that I'm probably the last person on earth to figure that out). I'd read Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and enjoyed it immensely, but I think this one is even better.
I can't write more because I need to get to the local shop for flour, milk and sugar before dinner, and have a massive amount of studying to do, but wish me luck with those reports.
Hoş çakal!
Here we have these things called 1/3 reports. As in, every one-third of a semester. The first of these reports is coming out this week, and I can't belive that a sixth of the year has already gone by. I know approximately how I'm doing - I think I have Bs in chemistry and tech, and my average in maths is hovering in the mid-seventies. I got back that big English essay, which turned out to be an A of some kind, and so I'm hoping that that will reflect my average in the class. I feel like my grades are slowly getting better - there were just a couple of rough first tests. İnşallah.
I also have a double bed now! In that the bunk beds that I formerly occupied are now side-by-side on the floor. I'm going to get a big pad to keep the mattresses together, but I slept on it like this last night and it wasn't even much of a problem. This photo of my room shows you just what a distracted cleaner I am, but there you go. Now that that big swath of wall under the turkish scarf is free, I'm going to fill it up with some posters - I've got a nice black-and-white world map, and a Banksy print in the mail.
And last night, I dyed my neighbor's hair for him. Bright red. He looks absolutely amazing, and it was loads of fun. Oh, and I've started reading The Kite Runner, which is an abfab book, people (I'm aware that I'm probably the last person on earth to figure that out). I'd read Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and enjoyed it immensely, but I think this one is even better.
I can't write more because I need to get to the local shop for flour, milk and sugar before dinner, and have a massive amount of studying to do, but wish me luck with those reports.
Hoş çakal!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Grindstone: Modern Education
Oh, well. All extended weekends must pass. My bus was the first home, at about half past five, and there was no seven-to-nine structured study as people were trickling in all evening. I hung around in the lower lounge with people and, among other things, read someone's anti-feminism post-modernist short story and was offered $20 by one of the guys. To feel my breasts. People, take pity on me in the asylum I live in, and … oh, I don't know… go watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes this weekend. That'll make me happy. It's what I plan to do, after a whole lot of nonvolunteer work that the school organizes for us to do.
But, really, it's nice to be back. It was great to see my friends at home, to visit my old school (It feels so weird to write that), where I sat in on a French class and realized that I still have all the vocabulary, but can't conjugate in anything but Turkish, and to sleep in my own bed, and be woken up by my little brother at ungodly hours – before one p.m.! – but I'm glad to be back on a routine. The weather's really cooling off here, but I was able to watch a bit of the football soccer game (I confused a lot of people this evening when I told them about it in british terms) that the local school was playing tonight. Boys' team. A couple friends are on their team (that's what we have to do if we want to play sports), and 'we' were actually winning when I left to eat some of the glorious bread and cheese and vegetables I dragged back with me. There were many jokes made on the bus about gardens being shifted, and they developed into a (rather speculative) discussion about when plants stop photosynthesizing. We are geeks and we are happy. (I am all about the brackets tonight, aren't I?)
There are a few other people here who are into photography, which is nice. I can't lie around in plain view without somebody instigating an impromptu shoot, and I'm running out of space on my hard drive! (Who cares?)
Oh, and, if nothing goes amiss, I'm going to the Common Ground Fair this weekend! It's been said that if a bomb were dropped on the Common Ground Fair, Maine's surviving hippie population would be countable on one hand. This is completely undesirable, as they happen to make it a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining place to be – from their no-refined-sugar-within-the-gates policy to the totally delicious deep fried shiitake mushrooms, falafel and gyro (who'd have thought?), to these ridiculous displays of hundreds upon hundreds of varieties of dried beans, barrels-full through which you are allowed to run your dusty hands for as long as you should please… I get very excited about the beans. There's no disgusting typical fair food or people, and there are all sorts of lovely animals and – my god – activists. I'll admit, my primary motive in signing up for the trip this weekend is so that I can go to all the political booths, from the Amnestly International people to the Trade With Cuba people to the My Body Is Not Public Property You Freaking Right-Wing Conservative Bastard And I'll Have Abortions Whenever The Hell I Want To people and sign their petitions and buy about forty pins and badges to stick all over my backpack… oh, wait, I don't use one of those any more. I shall have to find something else to stick pins into…
So, there's really not much more to report. Oh, wait, sweatshirts: L. gave me his, you know about that. Well, his girlfriend, my lovely down-the-hall neighbor, had another lovely hoodie that belonged to her maybe not-so-lovely ex back home, and, though I'm not quite sure how, it's become… well, mine. And I love it! It's blue and warm and soft and utterly delicious. That I'm coveting sweaters surely means that summer must be over in my mind, and I'm loath to bid such an eventful season farewell, but I am looking forward to the rest of school. This time last year, I couldn't imagine myself doing that with much of anything other than resignation – to wasted time and unfriendly people, alleviated, admittedly, by my wonderful darlings at home and a couple good classes. But to actually be excited about this year is, well, exciting. I'm enjoying myself here. I know, right? Maths homework, which I'm taking a break from right now, is actually quite fun in a therapeutic/numbing sort of way, and I have to ring up my dad in a bit to get him to scan and email a baby picture of me – some secret project the English teacher has lined up, and I forgot to get one while I was home. But there's always a buzz of sorts in the dorm and the academic building, as they so grandly call it, and I do love that.
Okay, I have to look what I've said in the face now and go enjoy my maths homework. Hoş çakal!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
'Home?'
School doesn't feel like summer camp any more. I'm home for the weekend, but I keep catching myself saying 'when I get home...' and 'I need to take such-and-such home.' I haven't really lived here in this house since pre-Turkey, and I suppose it can only be taken as a good sign. But it makes me a tiny bit sad. I have to think about where things are in the kitchen, and what colour the floors are, and things like that now.
Of course I'm eating myself into a stupor - in preparation for another month in a town whose only shop doesn't have butter - and it's great. Greens, eggs, yogurt, meat, bread... stuff that's just better here, as well as special, coastal things. I think we're having mussels at some point tomorrow, and my dad's melons have gotten so ripe and juicy and beautiful that I died this morning... okay, afternoon... when I got out of bed and came downstairs to find something to eat.
I am also finally over being sick, which is wonderful. I took Friday off as well as Wednesday, which is a shame because I have to make up for that huge chemistry test next Wednesday morning. All my friends here have school tomorrow, so I shall study insanely. By Friday evening I felt better and did some hanging, and a few of us decided to watch Some Like It Hot. We made cookies and locked ourselves in one of the rooms on my wing, and, ah... bras were put on stuffed panda bears, for a start. And when Marilyn Monroe is all over Tony Curtis on a 23-inch screen and there are blankets all over the place and you're as tired as we were, strange things happen. We also burned pieces of broken furniture and, for some reason, used-up Korean math papers, on the camp fire they sometimes set up on Friday nights. Midnight lights-out annoyed the hell out of me, but I was glad later because we all got up at 6:30-ish to get on one of three 7:15-ish buses to go home... four hours for me, and then another in the car. However: I acquired a really, really nice sweatshirt on the bus (thank you, L!)
(I figured out that my camera has two different black-and-white settings - genius amateur that I am, the manual is still on my to-read list) and then a few more clothes with my currently-extremely-popular-with-me mama before going home. I tore the Gap men's section up looking for just the right cardigan, and also (my host mother in Turkey will be pleased to know) found, finally, some brown mascara that didn't cost a year of college (My god, they give you a lot of free crap when you buy makeup. I now have all these removing things and sticks of black eyeliner and colourful powders I get the feeling are intended for eyelids and lord knows what else that I'll never, ever use. Okay, I lie, I will use them, for photo shoots, I'm just amazed what these companies will do to sell you a tiny tube of sticky supposed-sexiness. So actually, that's kind of cool). That made me happy.
Oh, and then there were these. How many articles of clothing do you see in this picture? This kind of thing - clothes so loud they keep me up at night - sets me squealing.
Saturday evening, I was back with the kids and it felt good. There are apparently some really fun new international students at my old school. I'm going to try getting permission to visit on Tuesday, just so I can hang out more and be berated by all my old teachers for not deciding to go to art school or something and heading up north. I'm going to bake some cakes to bring back with me, and also need to restock on essentials such as chocolate, chocolate covered almonds, chocolate dipped pretzels, hot chocolate, chocolate caramels and toothpaste.
Well, on Tuesday it's backhome to school, and I have miles of essay to wrestle before I sleep, so, iyi geceler, take care of yourself, world, and I will talk to you whenever the hell I next get around to it. Not that you're not the center of my universe, dear reader. It's just that my math teacher doesn't love you as much as I do.
Of course I'm eating myself into a stupor - in preparation for another month in a town whose only shop doesn't have butter - and it's great. Greens, eggs, yogurt, meat, bread... stuff that's just better here, as well as special, coastal things. I think we're having mussels at some point tomorrow, and my dad's melons have gotten so ripe and juicy and beautiful that I died this morning... okay, afternoon... when I got out of bed and came downstairs to find something to eat.
I am also finally over being sick, which is wonderful. I took Friday off as well as Wednesday, which is a shame because I have to make up for that huge chemistry test next Wednesday morning. All my friends here have school tomorrow, so I shall study insanely. By Friday evening I felt better and did some hanging, and a few of us decided to watch Some Like It Hot. We made cookies and locked ourselves in one of the rooms on my wing, and, ah... bras were put on stuffed panda bears, for a start. And when Marilyn Monroe is all over Tony Curtis on a 23-inch screen and there are blankets all over the place and you're as tired as we were, strange things happen. We also burned pieces of broken furniture and, for some reason, used-up Korean math papers, on the camp fire they sometimes set up on Friday nights. Midnight lights-out annoyed the hell out of me, but I was glad later because we all got up at 6:30-ish to get on one of three 7:15-ish buses to go home... four hours for me, and then another in the car. However: I acquired a really, really nice sweatshirt on the bus (thank you, L!)
(I took this before stealing his sweater. He's now said I can keep it (I hope it looks as good on me (wow, parentheses withing parentheses inside more parentheses... I'm treating this sentence like algebra)), because he's cool, and yeah, I know he's reading this).
Oh, and then there were these. How many articles of clothing do you see in this picture? This kind of thing - clothes so loud they keep me up at night - sets me squealing.
Saturday evening, I was back with the kids and it felt good. There are apparently some really fun new international students at my old school. I'm going to try getting permission to visit on Tuesday, just so I can hang out more and be berated by all my old teachers for not deciding to go to art school or something and heading up north. I'm going to bake some cakes to bring back with me, and also need to restock on essentials such as chocolate, chocolate covered almonds, chocolate dipped pretzels, hot chocolate, chocolate caramels and toothpaste.
Well, on Tuesday it's back
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Cake and Other Nice Things
All right. Remember the package? The one with the Nutella? Or just scroll down. One day later - yesterday - my parents sent another one. Smaller. Heavier. Two slabs of brownie, one on top of the other. Goddamn, I am getting popular here.
That wasn't even the best thing about yesterday. Actually, yesterday was horrible, but some cool stuff happened. The horrible was that I was 'home' sick. Didn't go to any classes, not even chemistry. And there was a chem test scheduled for today. I took my blankets and books down to the lower lounge again and dozed on the sofas because they are more comfortable than my bed, and people came and went and chatted and I got far too little done. But the cool thing was that we had Student Senate elections - there were five spots open and the eleven-or-so of us running given speeches the night before (mine was about the diplomatic importance of Turkish in student government), and I'm in! The others elected were all boys. I'm rather excited.
So, today my benevolent chemistry teacher let me off and said I can take that exam tomorrow. I came home with the honest intention of studying for it... and saw this. And, come on, why did my mama send me poppy seeds if not to have me bake beautiful cakes with them? I'll study... um, after I'm done blogging! But I feel obliged to share this recipe with you, wonderful as it is. I'll tell you that it's well worth a few points off a chem grade. And about twenty other people agree with me. So make it if you get a chance, okay?
1 cup poppy seeds
1 cup of milk
1 cup (8 oz., 2 sticks or 16 tablespoons) soft unsalted butter
2 cups of plain flour
2 cups of sugar
3 eggs, separated
2 teaspoons of vanilla (I used a little less because I'm a low-budget student. Ha.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease a cake pan. The recipe said to use a tube pan, but mine was an 8" X 11" Pyrex baking dish, and that fit beautifully.
Put your poppy seeds and milk in a small saucepan, bring them to the boil and then take them off the heat to cool (they should be more or less room-temperature, because you don't want them to melt the butter later).
Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric beater (handheld in my case...I miss my KitchenAid!) until light and fluffy and transcendently deliciously fatteningly good.
Mix in the egg yolks and vanilla, followed by the poppy seed mixture, and beat the hell out of them until everything but the seeds is pretty homogeneous.
Slowly add the flour, salt and baking powder, folding them in gently.
Clean your beaters and get a nice, clean bowl to whisk your egg whites in (if anything greasy touches egg whites, they won't whip. In case you didn't know. I really hope one of the delinquents I live with is reading this and figuring out some chemical reason for this). Aaaaanywaay... whip the egg whites until stiff, but not dry. They should hold peaks.
Trying not to deflate them too much, gently fold the whites into the rest of the batter. Then scrape the batter into the pan and bake for about 1 hour (I'm not actually sure how long mine went for, because I had to run to English and had a friend take it out for me. But about an hour. And it was perfect).
Share it with your friends and remark upon how incredibly jewish this cake tastes. It's one of those smells that makes me think of German bakeries and Fiddler on the Roof and good things like that.
Yeah, on the topic of jewishishness. The astronomy teacher here is pretty religious, and he's been trying, through emails, to get me to go to a lot of services at what has to be the most northerly synagogue in New England. Anyway, he asked me to come round to his classroom yesterday and introduce myself, which I did, and God. I didn't feel like I was in The County at all. I've never felt so liked for the necklace I was wearing... But it's kind of cool to know that there's one more person here to throw a little Yiddish around with.
And I'm still trying to get over how great people are here. A load of us got locked out of study hall today and I had way too many books sliding around in my arms, and a guy on crutches took my laptop for me. Insisted! My god...
Oh, and last night, due to sickness and such, I went to the Residential office (it's just in the dorm lobby) to ask the cool Brit Lit guy who also makes sure that nobody kills anyone around here for some painkillers. The exchange went something like this:
Me: Hey, please could I have a couple of ibuprofen?
Him: What's the complaint?
Me: Aaaaaaahhh... (I was thinking, okay? I happened to have a lot of complaints)
Him: Okay, I've lived here long enough to know what that means (reaches for medication box as other staffmembers go crazy laughing).
I'm not easily embarrassed. It was cool.
Still very tired from being thusly hasta, so I'll go be responsible now. Ish.
That wasn't even the best thing about yesterday. Actually, yesterday was horrible, but some cool stuff happened. The horrible was that I was 'home' sick. Didn't go to any classes, not even chemistry. And there was a chem test scheduled for today. I took my blankets and books down to the lower lounge again and dozed on the sofas because they are more comfortable than my bed, and people came and went and chatted and I got far too little done. But the cool thing was that we had Student Senate elections - there were five spots open and the eleven-or-so of us running given speeches the night before (mine was about the diplomatic importance of Turkish in student government), and I'm in! The others elected were all boys. I'm rather excited.
So, today my benevolent chemistry teacher let me off and said I can take that exam tomorrow. I came home with the honest intention of studying for it... and saw this. And, come on, why did my mama send me poppy seeds if not to have me bake beautiful cakes with them? I'll study... um, after I'm done blogging! But I feel obliged to share this recipe with you, wonderful as it is. I'll tell you that it's well worth a few points off a chem grade. And about twenty other people agree with me. So make it if you get a chance, okay?
1 cup poppy seeds
1 cup of milk
1 cup (8 oz., 2 sticks or 16 tablespoons) soft unsalted butter
2 cups of plain flour
2 cups of sugar
3 eggs, separated
2 teaspoons of vanilla (I used a little less because I'm a low-budget student. Ha.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease a cake pan. The recipe said to use a tube pan, but mine was an 8" X 11" Pyrex baking dish, and that fit beautifully.
Put your poppy seeds and milk in a small saucepan, bring them to the boil and then take them off the heat to cool (they should be more or less room-temperature, because you don't want them to melt the butter later).
Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric beater (handheld in my case...I miss my KitchenAid!) until light and fluffy and transcendently deliciously fatteningly good.
Mix in the egg yolks and vanilla, followed by the poppy seed mixture, and beat the hell out of them until everything but the seeds is pretty homogeneous.
Slowly add the flour, salt and baking powder, folding them in gently.
Clean your beaters and get a nice, clean bowl to whisk your egg whites in (if anything greasy touches egg whites, they won't whip. In case you didn't know. I really hope one of the delinquents I live with is reading this and figuring out some chemical reason for this). Aaaaanywaay... whip the egg whites until stiff, but not dry. They should hold peaks.
Trying not to deflate them too much, gently fold the whites into the rest of the batter. Then scrape the batter into the pan and bake for about 1 hour (I'm not actually sure how long mine went for, because I had to run to English and had a friend take it out for me. But about an hour. And it was perfect).
Share it with your friends and remark upon how incredibly jewish this cake tastes. It's one of those smells that makes me think of German bakeries and Fiddler on the Roof and good things like that.
Yeah, on the topic of jewishishness. The astronomy teacher here is pretty religious, and he's been trying, through emails, to get me to go to a lot of services at what has to be the most northerly synagogue in New England. Anyway, he asked me to come round to his classroom yesterday and introduce myself, which I did, and God. I didn't feel like I was in The County at all. I've never felt so liked for the necklace I was wearing... But it's kind of cool to know that there's one more person here to throw a little Yiddish around with.
And I'm still trying to get over how great people are here. A load of us got locked out of study hall today and I had way too many books sliding around in my arms, and a guy on crutches took my laptop for me. Insisted! My god...
Oh, and last night, due to sickness and such, I went to the Residential office (it's just in the dorm lobby) to ask the cool Brit Lit guy who also makes sure that nobody kills anyone around here for some painkillers. The exchange went something like this:
Me: Hey, please could I have a couple of ibuprofen?
Him: What's the complaint?
Me: Aaaaaaahhh... (I was thinking, okay? I happened to have a lot of complaints)
Him: Okay, I've lived here long enough to know what that means (reaches for medication box as other staffmembers go crazy laughing).
I'm not easily embarrassed. It was cool.
Still very tired from being thusly hasta, so I'll go be responsible now. Ish.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Illness and a Surprise
Nice to meet you, Tuesday. Leave me alone.
I've been sick... running a low fever on and off since Sunday night. There's something going around and hitting a lot of people badly enough to make them miserable but too gently to keep them in bed. That and the rain are turning the dorms into something of an energy sink. It's really not nice out, and I am not looking forward to biking tomorrow. I went walking around campus today after classes, and twenty minutes wiped me, I'm just so tired. Yesterday evening I slept on one of the lounge sofas for almost an hour. I actually got myself a blanket - shameless. I overslept this morning despite that, though it didn't matter because I get up at least two hours before I need to be anywhere. Hung out in the kitchen, made turkish çay tea, ate the last of the gorgeous (I feel justified in saying this, yes) quiches I made on Sunday and chatted with one of the guys who gets to clean our kitchen instead of the cafeteria's. A lot of the Beatles and Gilbert and Sullivan on the laptop. And that extremely tame kick has sort of been today's highlight, so far. The weekend was quiet but very nice, and I still didn't get all my homework finished. I did, however, get to watch Casablanca and V for Vendetta. Both were excellent and the latter was new for me. Almost the best film I've seen.
I'm failing maths. Have I mentioned that before? I'm one grade-point from being moved down, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. The teacher for the non-accelerated course is meant to be fantastic, but if I can I want to stay on the faster course. It's not particularly difficult material - I understand what's taught in class - but the one test we've taken so far was just evil. I couldn't finish because there was so much of it, and it was horribly difficult, somehow. I think a lot of people had trouble with it, though, and that's normal.
I'm not sure what to attach to this one in terms of pictures -- I'm sort of writing to put off editing an essay. I hate what I've got so far, and I've got to fix it when all I really want to do is hide it in some folder and forget about it and never read it again.
Some books I'd ordered came over the weekend, too. My list, as soon as I'm done with Emma and Catch 22, goes:
The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe
Thunder From The East: Portrait of a Rising Asia
Three Cups of Tea
I can't wait to get to them. I'm actually finding a lot more time for reading here than I used to. I just hang around the lounge and throw myself over furniture and alternate homework, chatting and reading. I love it and I'm off to do some of it now before structured study.
Okay, actually, I went out in the middle of writing this, and I've got a package! I haven't excavated in full yet, but the day just got a lot better. Spelt bread, butter, gouda and manchego cheese, some really delicious apples, dried tomatoes, mushrooms and beef, Nutella, crackers, cocoa powder and a note from my parents. I am so glad I did not eat dinner.
With that I leave you to toil before the books of wisdom -- feeling just a little bit better.
I've been sick... running a low fever on and off since Sunday night. There's something going around and hitting a lot of people badly enough to make them miserable but too gently to keep them in bed. That and the rain are turning the dorms into something of an energy sink. It's really not nice out, and I am not looking forward to biking tomorrow. I went walking around campus today after classes, and twenty minutes wiped me, I'm just so tired. Yesterday evening I slept on one of the lounge sofas for almost an hour. I actually got myself a blanket - shameless. I overslept this morning despite that, though it didn't matter because I get up at least two hours before I need to be anywhere. Hung out in the kitchen, made turkish çay tea, ate the last of the gorgeous (I feel justified in saying this, yes) quiches I made on Sunday and chatted with one of the guys who gets to clean our kitchen instead of the cafeteria's. A lot of the Beatles and Gilbert and Sullivan on the laptop. And that extremely tame kick has sort of been today's highlight, so far. The weekend was quiet but very nice, and I still didn't get all my homework finished. I did, however, get to watch Casablanca and V for Vendetta. Both were excellent and the latter was new for me. Almost the best film I've seen.
I'm failing maths. Have I mentioned that before? I'm one grade-point from being moved down, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. The teacher for the non-accelerated course is meant to be fantastic, but if I can I want to stay on the faster course. It's not particularly difficult material - I understand what's taught in class - but the one test we've taken so far was just evil. I couldn't finish because there was so much of it, and it was horribly difficult, somehow. I think a lot of people had trouble with it, though, and that's normal.
I'm not sure what to attach to this one in terms of pictures -- I'm sort of writing to put off editing an essay. I hate what I've got so far, and I've got to fix it when all I really want to do is hide it in some folder and forget about it and never read it again.
Some books I'd ordered came over the weekend, too. My list, as soon as I'm done with Emma and Catch 22, goes:
The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe
Thunder From The East: Portrait of a Rising Asia
Three Cups of Tea
I can't wait to get to them. I'm actually finding a lot more time for reading here than I used to. I just hang around the lounge and throw myself over furniture and alternate homework, chatting and reading. I love it and I'm off to do some of it now before structured study.
Okay, actually, I went out in the middle of writing this, and I've got a package! I haven't excavated in full yet, but the day just got a lot better. Spelt bread, butter, gouda and manchego cheese, some really delicious apples, dried tomatoes, mushrooms and beef, Nutella, crackers, cocoa powder and a note from my parents. I am so glad I did not eat dinner.
With that I leave you to toil before the books of wisdom -- feeling just a little bit better.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Back to the MSSM
Sorry, but the Beatles are the best.
I am back. And not projecting from the future. No, Turkish-speaking-Bacon-eating bloggirl is back online, and how*. Let me work backwards for a bit here.
I came home this weekend because I of that eye appointment/fair, and I missed school yesterday. Thank god I didn't have math class, because that would set me too far back for words. No, but it'll be tough enough catching up with Chemistry. Chemistry! I have a science class that I like. Someone is messing with cosmic cogs and levers at the moment, and I am liking, you know, math and science. Earth-shaking. Oh, actually, I saw my math teacher Anyway, I get home late Thursday night and on Friday I hung out with a couple friends, made blueberry peach cake, watched The West Wing and totally failed to take enough pictures of the beautiful town I live in and never really appreciated before. Stayed up until about 2 a.m. making pie crust and talking to someone back at school - it sounds like I'm missing a wild weekend. This morning I baked that pie (blueberry) and took it over to the fairground to enter. My old school's jazzband plays for the harness races every year, but considering the torrential nature of this morning, the horses were kept home and the band played their set uninterrupted. The bad director, whom I'd been a little scared to face after leaving him so suddenly - if temporarily - second trombone-less to come to this school, saw me and went and dedicated a song to me, with a cheery 'wishing her good luck at school up north'. The man's either trying to guilt me into tears or okay with my leaving. Either way, it was great to see my friends play, and after helping them break down we spent a couple hours doing Fair Things. This means we spent a couple hours alternately cooing at cows and piglets and llamas, and eating. How we ate. I again forgot my camera, but I'm kind of glad because I do not want to remember what I've eaten today. It was wonderful. Smoked ribs, sticky buns, incredibly high-qual sausages, lobster roll, lime fizz. Then I brought home my pie (came third this year - very happy)
and ate some of that. It was a little runny, which will be why it didn't take first, but all parties pronounced it yummy and that was fun. This evening I didn't eat dinner, understandably, except for some cake my parent brought home from a neighbor's wedding. I still have to do battle with chem, though. And if you're thinking 'my god, this girl's a food slut,' you're only kind of right. Because the food at school is frankly Not Good. There's a kitchen in the dorm, and I cook myself stuff every day, but it's hard to find time to eat as much...it took my performance today to convince my mother that I'm not developing anorexia. This state of affairs, combined with biking class (we got through the most gorgeous rolling fields and toxic clouds of ozone) and maybe, maybe, my new tendency to NOT eat ten pieces of baklava every day, makes this weekend a total non-problem. I'm actually feeling rather svelte.
I've tried LARPing (Live Action Role Playing, for those of you who, like me, don't know *censored* about that particular facet of 'geek culture'). It's a huge deal, played with swords and spears and various other weaponry composed of plastic piping, foam and duct tape. I hate sig figs because they made me fail a quiz, but I feel like I did all right on a chemistry test on Wednesday. I love my AP composition class to death, and the teacher is starting a photography club! I'm starting to save for a new lens...one that, um, zooms? And I've taken hundreds of photos already... god knows my classmates' antics are worthy of being recorded. I also just heard that I got into the a cappella group, which practices for four hours every weekend. I auditioned Wednesday and didn't think it went very well, but I'm really excited to have gotten in.
Oh, god, what else.... have I made it completely clear that I love it there? The classes are extremely demanding and I'm doing three to four hours of homework every evening, but the other students are fantastic, the teachers actually care and there's not this feeling of just going through the motions. Last weekend there was a dance where people actually danced, and this week it was horribly hot. This hurricane was preceded by the most awful, stagnant heat, and inland Maine is like the midwest anyway - there's no medium, it's either stifling or bitterly cold. I feel a little boxed in there without being able to smell the sea, and I'm sure winter will be hard... but I'll worry about that when it happens.
And now that I'm back to dull old Maine again, lots of my friends are flinging themselves across the planet. AFS is heart-wrenching for those left behind.
Well, I have to go be excited to go back to school. Or, rather, do maths homework. Both. I actually can't wait. I missed my friends here like mad, and it's been fantastic to see them this weekend, but I'm ready to go home now, for another two weeks.
And there are other ukulele people! One girl has an electric one...and I'm playing ukulele in the band! Marilyn, move over.
And I do apologise for this post: haphazard even by my standards. But there is no way I'm reading it over. Just don't care that much about sentence structure tonight.
Herkesi sizi seviyorum!
*blame Lorna Lilly for that particularly contagious bit of the '50s
I came home this weekend because I of that eye appointment/fair, and I missed school yesterday. Thank god I didn't have math class, because that would set me too far back for words. No, but it'll be tough enough catching up with Chemistry. Chemistry! I have a science class that I like. Someone is messing with cosmic cogs and levers at the moment, and I am liking, you know, math and science. Earth-shaking. Oh, actually, I saw my math teacher Anyway, I get home late Thursday night and on Friday I hung out with a couple friends, made blueberry peach cake, watched The West Wing and totally failed to take enough pictures of the beautiful town I live in and never really appreciated before. Stayed up until about 2 a.m. making pie crust and talking to someone back at school - it sounds like I'm missing a wild weekend. This morning I baked that pie (blueberry) and took it over to the fairground to enter. My old school's jazzband plays for the harness races every year, but considering the torrential nature of this morning, the horses were kept home and the band played their set uninterrupted. The bad director, whom I'd been a little scared to face after leaving him so suddenly - if temporarily - second trombone-less to come to this school, saw me and went and dedicated a song to me, with a cheery 'wishing her good luck at school up north'. The man's either trying to guilt me into tears or okay with my leaving. Either way, it was great to see my friends play, and after helping them break down we spent a couple hours doing Fair Things. This means we spent a couple hours alternately cooing at cows and piglets and llamas, and eating. How we ate. I again forgot my camera, but I'm kind of glad because I do not want to remember what I've eaten today. It was wonderful. Smoked ribs, sticky buns, incredibly high-qual sausages, lobster roll, lime fizz. Then I brought home my pie (came third this year - very happy)
and ate some of that. It was a little runny, which will be why it didn't take first, but all parties pronounced it yummy and that was fun. This evening I didn't eat dinner, understandably, except for some cake my parent brought home from a neighbor's wedding. I still have to do battle with chem, though. And if you're thinking 'my god, this girl's a food slut,' you're only kind of right. Because the food at school is frankly Not Good. There's a kitchen in the dorm, and I cook myself stuff every day, but it's hard to find time to eat as much...it took my performance today to convince my mother that I'm not developing anorexia. This state of affairs, combined with biking class (we got through the most gorgeous rolling fields and toxic clouds of ozone) and maybe, maybe, my new tendency to NOT eat ten pieces of baklava every day, makes this weekend a total non-problem. I'm actually feeling rather svelte.I've tried LARPing (Live Action Role Playing, for those of you who, like me, don't know *censored* about that particular facet of 'geek culture'). It's a huge deal, played with swords and spears and various other weaponry composed of plastic piping, foam and duct tape. I hate sig figs because they made me fail a quiz, but I feel like I did all right on a chemistry test on Wednesday. I love my AP composition class to death, and the teacher is starting a photography club! I'm starting to save for a new lens...one that, um, zooms? And I've taken hundreds of photos already... god knows my classmates' antics are worthy of being recorded. I also just heard that I got into the a cappella group, which practices for four hours every weekend. I auditioned Wednesday and didn't think it went very well, but I'm really excited to have gotten in.
Oh, god, what else.... have I made it completely clear that I love it there? The classes are extremely demanding and I'm doing three to four hours of homework every evening, but the other students are fantastic, the teachers actually care and there's not this feeling of just going through the motions. Last weekend there was a dance where people actually danced, and this week it was horribly hot. This hurricane was preceded by the most awful, stagnant heat, and inland Maine is like the midwest anyway - there's no medium, it's either stifling or bitterly cold. I feel a little boxed in there without being able to smell the sea, and I'm sure winter will be hard... but I'll worry about that when it happens.
And now that I'm back to dull old Maine again, lots of my friends are flinging themselves across the planet. AFS is heart-wrenching for those left behind.
Well, I have to go be excited to go back to school. Or, rather, do maths homework. Both. I actually can't wait. I missed my friends here like mad, and it's been fantastic to see them this weekend, but I'm ready to go home now, for another two weeks.
And there are other ukulele people! One girl has an electric one...and I'm playing ukulele in the band! Marilyn, move over.
And I do apologise for this post: haphazard even by my standards. But there is no way I'm reading it over. Just don't care that much about sentence structure tonight.
Herkesi sizi seviyorum!
*blame Lorna Lilly for that particularly contagious bit of the '50s
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Son Gün Evde (Last Day At Home)
Ahh... my last day at home was lovely. I spent it with a very good friend, and we finished packing, went to the beach, watched A Bit Of Fry And Laurie on YouTube (sweet, unblocked YouTube) and loaded up the car. After she left, I and my parents made a lovely dinner: grilled salmon, chard with bacon and a gorgeous mushroom risotto, stirred to perfection by yours truly. Carrot cake left over from the Celebrity Spelling Bee fundraiser the night before - remind me to tell y'all* about that later - was dessert, along with a big bowl of grapes, and followed by a lovely deep bath.
Yes, those are my darling pink converse, pictured here on the shore of Turkey's Salt Lake. They get around, and now I am wearing them up on the Canadian border.
Guys, look up a certain individual named Dan Savage. Just do it.
That's about all. Enjoy September.
*I am missing my friend from Georgia.
Yes, those are my darling pink converse, pictured here on the shore of Turkey's Salt Lake. They get around, and now I am wearing them up on the Canadian border.
Guys, look up a certain individual named Dan Savage. Just do it.
That's about all. Enjoy September.
On and on
Say that you remember
On and on
Dancing in September
On and on
Never was a cloudy day...
*I am missing my friend from Georgia.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
İstanbul, The Drug (Alternatively, Give Me A Bag Of Hot Chestnuts And I'm Yours Forever)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)