This
regularly scheduled blog brought to you by bribes of cute pictures
and videos of Tard the GrumpyCat.
I
went out to dinner (and drinks) last night with some friends of mine
and I had to give my friend, Determine- to-Not-Be-Leftover-Christmas-Cake, props. We met a guy who
mentioned he was jobless and she jumped right in and offered that she
wrote resumes professionally. We all debated for a moment on whether
networking is a dirty word or not, then moved on after the new guy
said it definitely wasn't.
Ironically,
this is the topic that I've been interested in writing about for two
weeks. It's basically been consuming my free(more like stolen)time
and completely interrupted my advise-dispensing via interwebs.
I
never got the memo that you are supposed to do research at an
undergrad level if you have any hopes of doing grad-school. I'm so
freaking sick of school, I don't
care
whether I go to grad school but I also am not one to ruin present
opportunities if they can lead me to interesting future ones. I am
also naïve and think that I might actually be able to research
something which could assuage climate
change
and help my fellow humans in not dying.
Whatever.
In
the week before finals, I was invited to a bunch of fancy-pants
networking events. I was nervous. And anxious. For someone who's gone
on-stage in their underwear several times without caring, I was
surprised at how nervous I was. The prospect of being so far out of
my comfort zone, so far from what I knew, was terrifying. I realized,
very very suddenly, that if I did not mess up the evening, I could
actually find research to do over the summer and perhaps not starve
for 3 months(wheee!).
And
then I got there. And I realized all “networking” is...is just
being yourself. It helps a lot if you're a funny, outgoing and loud
individual. It helps if you are clever and know how to craft what you
say to be tailored to the person you're talking to. But mostly, you
want to find a person who actually wants to listen to the bullshit
you spew.
When
there are free-for-all networking events, the easiest way to actually
get anything done is TALKING to SOMONE. Make eye contact. Speak
engagingly with someone. A contact is a contact. You give people the
respect that they deserve but don't let that image of them on a
pedestal you have in your head stop you from being their colleague,
regardless if you're half (or a quarter) their age.
Even
if you wind up at an event where you have nothing to do with the
academia on hand, it's not impossible for it to be fruitful. If you
dig a bit in conversation, you might find some common ground which
could bring you a totally different direction that you hoped.
Then
FOLLOW. THE. FUCK. UP. Remind the contact who you are, a specific
point of interest (a joke they laughed really hard at, the 15 minute
discussion of mutant newts, whatever) and ask THANK THEM. Thank the
person who organized the event, and whoever invited you.
Because
of two such events, these are the things that I may be able to do
this summer:
*Go
to a National Park and study GeoScience in some of the country's most
beautiful places
*Research
(or be a lackey)
at one of the National Laboratories
*Maybe
something eeeeeeven cooler
Anyway,
I'm stoked. I also got buried under 17 feet of finals studying but
that's over now so happy sleep-full nights until next semester!
Hopefully.
And
in honor of this band continuing to be rad and putting out a new
album, here's Green Day's “Brain Stew.” Props to their
philanthropy, in case you didn't know about it.
This blog will return to its regularly scheduled posting in the very very near future. I swear. I just wanted to pop on and share a poem I wrote earlier in the semester.
Significant Figures
We are too
willing to round off,
leave imprecise
and afraid that
more information will lead us
to a less
accurate measurement.
For if we can
evaluate each other
beyond
darker/lighter/queerer skins
If we can detect
the intricacies of those details,
we feel
somehow
that we might
get the wrong answer.
Regardless of
the fact
that the
instructor told us to leave the extra numbers in,
I don't know holidays go for other people, but this past weekend brought into sharp relief a recurring problem in my holiday-going experience. After lengths of internal debate, I decided to go to ArtpitTown with PartnerPenguin to visit his very very old grandmother. This woman truly makes me wonder if you have to be mean to grow old, just purely to live through the stuff she has. She was born at the tail end of WWI in Germany, her father fought in the cavalry. Her family lived through the German Depression and got out of Germany to immigrate to America, in 1926. Just in time for the American Depression. Her mother almost got personally detained by Hitler because she sold her property to Jews. Grandma graduated High School in 1936 (having learned English in 10 years) and actually went to the same Big American Brand University that I go to. She was nurse for a while, then a middle school teacher. She is now a widow (but her husband taught at a University so her retirement is actually decent) and her best (only?) friend died of not taking care of herself last year. Her family lives on average 1000 miles away. She is constantly in pain because bodies that aren't well taken care of break down pretty badly.
So maybe that contributes.
But it seems that she was also heavy as a younger person (she barely weighs 95 lbs now) and this was a prevailing feature and downfall to her. She informed me many, many times this weekend that for years and years she only ate one meal a day. Never breakfast, never lunch, only dinner. Ok.... This in and of itself doesn't bother me, as it is not my body, nor my decision.
Where it begins to bother me is the judgment and flak I got from her every time I ate in her house. Every time I ate, and frequently in between, she commented about how heavy and/or ugly I am. She told me again and again that I should only eat one meal a day, if that. Since there was so much food in the house, there was no reason to eat out, but I couldn't eat the food in the house because I would get reprimanded.
Family is a tough situation to begin with. Someone else's family can be even more difficult. So I came up with some coping mechanisms that perhaps might help other people. You are Beautiful, inside and out
Most of the time, I have no trouble believing this about myself. Internally, I have worked tirelessly on maintaining a truly positive outlook and self-image. This can (at times like this weekend) take up all of my energy. A real smile, an honest one, is more beautiful than ten pounds of makeup. It becomes easier to do when in your heart you know that you are exactly the person you want to be, to the extent that you are capable. Externally, I am fortunate to have a wonderful Penguin who can remind me daily of the fact. I am a model and the photographer I work with has told me people have offered upwards of $3000 to make them look as sexy in a photograph as me. I know this sounds very vain, but sometimes in confrontation of negativity, vanity can save your sanity. Surround self with positive people
I think this was my main problem and continues to be because actually cutting toxic people out of your life is much harder said than done. Often, people who are most toxic to your mental health provide just enough fringe benefits (like housing, food, money) to think it's ok to put up with the abuse. The idea that you may be homeless or starve is pretty compelling. But it is also not worth staying in abusive situations. Since I moved out after high school, I have never had much, monetarily. But I am rich in friends, family (chosen and biological) and peers who are intellectually and emotionally stimulating in a positive manner. In the past year, I have been blessed with the support of wonderful people but the support has been somewhat necessary since I wouldn’t accept help from people who were prone to bring me down. Things will work out, it’s just scary.
Dress in clothes that fit
This is a lesson I’ve been learning for the past couple years. Fashion is an art form and what fashion is dictated in mainstream media is not necessarily what type of art (or not art) you need to have on your body. I read once not to look at what fashion designers produce for what to wear, but what the designers wear themselves. It’s usually very simple and fits perfectly, accentuating the good bits and playing down the less pleasant parts. If you have trouble seeing your own outward beauty, get fitted PROPERLY for a good bra/pants/whatever. Go to a fancier store and get fitted or use a sewing measuring tape. If you know your own dimensions, it can help. If you’re a woman, it’s a bit unfortunate because sizing is completely inconsistent so just try everything on. Even if I’m being told I’m fugly, it doesn’t matter when I know I’m drop-dead-gorgeous.
Alone time
Take an appropriate amount of time to yourself and be ok acknowledging if you’re hurt. Being hurt by words of a family member can be a serious kind of pain and it’s ok to let yourself know pain is ok. You can evaluate statements and judge on your own time whether they’re based in truth and if they are, how to change them. A lot of mean comments are just other people sharing and projecting their pain or anger on you and don’t have anything to do with you.
_________________________________________
It's just so fitting.
On
a stupidly long train ride to the Land of the Nearly Dead
(PanterPenguin's Grandma) and realizing I haven't written a blog post
in effectively two weeks. I have decided to re-organize my blog in
terms of posting so after this one, I will have one blog-y post
(Tuesday) and one recipe post (Thursday), so if one interests you
over another (*cough*) you don't have to read both.
I
don't know what to write and PartnerPenguin is making me write
anyway. He is good like that. I was told that my posts are too rambly
and don't get to the point effectively or efficiently enough so now
I'm really self-conscious of writing at all.
The
problem is that I do too much so my brain doesn't much care to work
in a fashion which would make sense to do one task at a time since
it's usually doing 5. I feel this comes across. Also, according to
the Romanean, I topic-hop like Frogger so it's hard to follow me in
normal conversation sometimes.
Anyway,
probably the biggest thing that I've tried to change in the past two
weeks has been my study habits. I know it's stupid late in the
semester to be doing this, being that there are only two weeks left,
but I actually failed my last exam in my Physics class (I got a 60%)
so something has gone wrong. PartnerPenguin brought up recently an
article he'd read about this guy who took the classes for a Bachelor's in Computer Science, at MIT, in less than a year by
cleverly timed repetition of material. He would listen to the audio
book of his textbook at 10x normal speed before the lecture, then
read it again after lecture while doing the problem set.
So
I've been trying it. I skimmed the entire contents of the 4th
section of the course and as we've hit each topic in lecture, I've
been re-reading the book. I think that, combined with finally being
interested in the topics at hand might work. I really don't want to
fail Physics as it would complicate an already delicate situation in
my actually completing my degree.
Speaking
of topic-hopping....One of the cool advantages of working for a black
woman is that I get to learn about all different sorts of things
white people (or perhaps just myself?) don't know about. Like Cocoa Butter. WHY HAS NO ONE TOLD
ME ABOUT COCOA BUTTER?! I have very stupid skin (eczema, called
“Enk-ma” by PartnerPenguin) which sometimes gets so bad it cracks
and bleeds. Scented lotions (most of them) make my hand feel like
it's on fire, made of static electricity. The only thing that's ever
consistently worked has been Petroleum Jelly but that's super nasty
and you can't lay on the bed because you make huge, gross grease
stains.
And
here there was something all along that doesn't smell bad, that isn't
greasy and that doesn't make me want to chop my hand off.
What?
Seriously.
So
I ventured to“Wig Store” down the way which boasts that they
sell real human hair. As Mama Bear says, “It looks hoodlife from
the front but once you go inside, it's great.” It was like a dream
come true. The Cocoa Butter was only $5 and there was cheap but
adorable nail polish which I now am sporting for cutting bitches on
Black Friday. Maybe I spent too much time in there. Maybe. They have
hair accouterments out the wazoo which is great since I'm temporarily
growing out my hair. They do
have a lot of wigs. I thought it was funny that the only white
mannequins in the store were wearing the absurdly stupid wigs in pink
and green.
Needless
to say, this store will be visited more.
Ok,
so I may not have explained but I've recently re-discovered (again,
why didn't anyone tell me?) that I'm allergic to eggs. These things I
forget, eat cheap pumpkin pie for breakfast, then pass out. W00t..
So
PartnerPenguin decided to invent me a delicious recipe of eggless
pumpkin pie. It is NOT VEGAN, I'll just let you know. Also, pro-tip,
read the directions carefully when baking the pie crust, it's no good
if it's raw. Life lessons we learn too late.
Egg-less
Pumpkin Pie
1
16 oz. can Libby's Pumpkin purree (the kind that goes on sale around
this time of year. You can also cook your own pumpkin, which I detail
in this
post.)
500
grams (wtf? I didn't make it up) (about 2/3 of a 16 oz container)
Marscapone cheese. Warning: the only kind available is expensive. I'd
pay one way or another. :<
(In
a calibrated shot glass, it should all fit, cinnamon taking up most
of the room) 3 parts cinnamon, 1 part nutmeg, I part salt, 1 ½ parts
ginger.
½
c brown sugar
1/8
c molasses
1
pie crust. We bought one but I've heard it's not too hard to make
one. Make sure, if you're avoiding eggs to read the ingrediants.
In
a bowl: empty pumpkin can. Slowly (about 3 oz at a time) fold in the
cheese. Marscapone is rather more savory than most cheeses I've
eaten. It is also much thicker. Make sure it's mixed well and there
are no chunks.
About
half-way through the cheese folding, dump in the spices. Make sure
they get evenly distributed, no one likes an accidental cinnamon challenge. Finish folding in the cheese.
Fold
in the sweeteners. The key seemed to be not allowing anything to
clump.
Chill
the pie contents in fridge for a couple hours. Towards the end of
this time, follow instructions on box for cooking pie and get the
oven pre-heated for that. Cook as instructed. When pie crust is done,
put in the filling. I'm not really sure what to do about the
temperature awkwardness. Maybe throw it back in the oven for about 10
minutes to warm the filling.
So much and so little has happened since I last blogged to my ever faithful (hahahahaahaha) readers. More important than King of America getting re-elected or certain crucial state propositions passing, I turned 23. Halloween and birthdays are both great, and if I lived in New Jersey, they happened on the same day this year! Though that would have been awesome, I'm glad I don't live in New Jersey. (Seriously folks, if you can, do something to help Sandy victims. Their lives are full of suck right now. E.g. This: is my family's home.)
Well, since I'd started this blog to write about being thrifty and such, I might as well tell you one of the awesomest, cheapest (to me, at least) birthdays I've ever had.
First, my best friend, Good Panda, came up from the South on Friday. She's so awesome and came bearing candy!! She works doing manual stuff so she's super buff right now which is a little strange to get used to. PartnerPenguin picked her up, procuring peppermint pops. Then we all went to bed, because I party hardy.
I can officially be put down as the cruelest person in the world because I made my friends wake up at 7:30 on a weekend. We all met up and drove to distant lands to the Local National Park. I designed the drive so that we would watch the sun rise in a really perfect way. Win!!
We got to Local National Park, where I have a year-long pass to visit-thanks Dad! Local National Park was beautiful and empty because we got there so early. We walked the entire length of the park~3 mi round trip and I didn't pass out or be hurt or anything!! This is a milestone for me since I couldn't walk 100 ft in June, the last time I was hospitalized. I have walked without my cane for over a month. And most of the time, I'm doing really well.
My friends, however, maybe they're not so good at going outside and playing hiking. This might be because they are Math Grad students who all have Scholar's tans. But I had fun.
All this physical activity was followed by deliciously unhealthy Fast Food Restaurant. Oh for the love of milkshakes!!
Almost everyone then visited KittenMan's house who is so named because OMFGLOLBBQ HE HAS A KITTEN!! Her name is Azula, which is probably the only real name I'll use here because it's a great kitten name. We know she will grow up to rule the Fire Nation, but we play with her like any other kitten while she's still so small.
Then we all went home and took naps.
I finally figured out why I collect Math people like Pokemon. I figure if I catch them all, there is a decent chance one will create Pyschohistory and then we'll be set. Ignoring the fact that Physics isn't there yet and also that they'd need a social scientist to work tandem because they aren't, typically aware enough of how social sciences work....IT'LL HAPPEN, OK GUYS?! I just want reality to be like The Foundation series, but like the latter books where there are actually women; who are awesome.
I'm not really sure why I collect Math people, but I certainly do. One of them is the Romanean who suggested that it's because I like teaching them social skills. While that's certainly true for her.(;-P luv ya!)...I dunno about the rest. I guess because they're nice people and have an incestuously small friend pool so once you know one, you know most of them.
One thing I realized last year after talking to the teacher of my Math class was that he would have been a Senior in high school when I was a Freshman. In the time since graduating high school, he became a PhD candidate/student at Big American Brand University (which is fancy stuff) and...well...I'm two years younger and sitting in his class. This really bugged me when I figured it out.
But then I got to thinking more about it and the facts are thus: Since graduating high school, I have traveled to at least 10 states (not to mention moving 3000 miles from where I grew up), created art with an international artist, gotten a 4.0 GPA for 3 ½ years, met and stayed in contact with hundreds of people (quite a few of whom are my best friends), won tens of thousands of dollars in merit and performance based scholarships and maintained a stable relationship with the love of my life for 5 years. Oh yeah, and I also served my country(?)/community(?) by being an AmeriCorps Memeber on a 1700 hr term of service while self-supporting right after high-school. And last year I got admitted to Big American Brand University classified as an Independent financial status below the age of 24 and got Dean's Honor Roll first semester.
In summary, I'M AWESOME, that's what I'm doing with my life. I just need to remind myself of that sometimes. </rant>
_______________________________________________________________________
Um, food....I've been eating out a lot...Because Good Pandas don't grow on trees and when you get one, you need to feed her fancy-like.
Let's do an oldie-but-goodie that's diner tonight!
BBQ Chicken
This recipe requires finding cheap chicken at the store (I have been getting into thigh/leg sections after coming off only eating breasts for a year) and either: freezing them in individual plastic bags and taking out the air (works best but is most wasteful), or wrapping each piece in wax paper and putting them all in a freezer bag together.
2 pieces of Chicken, defrosted. Usually this means leaving the chicken in the fridge for a day or so till it's not frozen.
3-4 oz Trader Joe's Kansas City BBQ sauce. (If TJ's not available, I try to go for something without High Fructose Corn Syrup)
Before class in the morning: In a bag or a tupperware or something, put the chicken in. Cover with BBQ sauce and add about half as much water as BBQ sauce (if you put in 4 oz, use about 2 oz H20). Shake it up. Leave in fridge for the day.
After classes in the evening: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put chicken in a glass (or Corningware) container and cover with the rest of the marinade. Cover the dish with tin foil. (I call Aluminum foil “Tin foil,” deal with it.) Cook for about an hour and a half. If you don't have a meat thermometer (chicken should always be at least 160 deg when cooked) you can check if it's done by poking it with a fork and making sure the juices run clear. If it's red, leave in oven till juices are clear.
Make sure when you're playing with raw meat to wash everything well and try not to get it on too many surfaces. I almost died of Salmonella as a little kid, t'was not fun.
A touch of absurdity for your life, in case your face is stuck in a frown. This song goes out to The Gayest Man I've Ever Pretended to Have Sex with Under a Bed While Running Away From Getting Strangled.
As promised, I need to update y’all on the status of the internetting. So Freedompop.com has a pretty cool deal where you can get a certain, finite (500 mb) of internet for free, so long as you buy their little 4G adapter. Vonderbar. After I finally got the dang dongle, things were pretty swell. As long as I can find 4G, I get really fast service. There was a glitch though and my account was not connected to my device for the first week. As soon as they realized that I was basically able to infinitely watch youtube, they cut me off. One recurring problem is that they don’t have phone representatives to deal with glitches. A fresh-out-of-college type called me a couple of days ago letting me know everything was ok so I have internet for homework again. W00t!
On a quick note, I might be babysitting Einstein. I was walking with the Little Bear to the park and we passed a clothing donation box I’d never noticed before. She starts saying “SHOE! SHOE! shoe shoe shoe shoe!” I turned around looking for shoes. There were none, just the words “Clothes and Shoes.” Ok, well...it could have been a fluke.... So on the way back, I passed the same box and said “Little Bear, what does this say?” pointing to the word “Shoes”. She, very bashfully says “shoe. Shoe.” Have I mentioned she isn’t even 2?!
I had a couple really cool wins this week and only one fail. The first was making pickles (cucumber). Turns out there’s a season for that (who knew?) and it’s so easy I accidentally did it right. Feel free to comment or e-mail me if you want the recipe.
Second win: Pumpkin Soup Secondary Success. So I posted a pretty yummy recipe for pumpkin soup last week. One of the annoying things about soup is that it just sits there. I got bored pretty quickly and it just so happened that PartnerPenguin made Chicky with Beer Can Up It’s Butt and dirty rice (mushrooms, chicken liver and brown rice this time...not the good version, I’ll post that some other time) for dinner because the mushrooms were turning. Next day, I threw in a helping of rice/mushrooms, shredded a handful and a half of chicken and added it to the pumpkin soup. I also added a teaspoon of some crazy concentrated ginger stuff ( It’s called “Ginger Juice" by the Ginger People I’m sure some straight up ginger or even ginger powder would work) and some Cock Sauce (it’s red chili paste, it has a rooster and the label is in a language which is not English). It was so filling and delicious!! Cock Sauce saves meals!
Third win: Ok, a bit of back story is that winter’s coming and it’s going to be flippin’ cold. PartnerPenguin and I were debating whether to get an electric blanket but Professor Lightyear suggested that I should do the calculations on rates before we bought something which used that much electricity. Good call!!
Our bill is for both gas and electricity. In my physics class, we learned about the Joule as the standard measurment of energy. They measure gas in Therms (a British unit of measurement which, like every other Imperial measurement makes 0 sense) and electricity in Kilowatt Hours, neither of which appear to be related. But if you simply multiply the amount of Therms by (number Therms)*(105,480,400 J/1 Therm) and the Kwh by (number Kwh)*(3.6 x10^6 J/1kwh), you can easily bring them to be the same units. They are freaking huge numbers though, so I see why they put the other units in. Anyway, I added them up to get the total, then I set a ratio where on one side I had gas usage over the total and the other side I had (x/100). I found that the gas usage was 93.61% of the total usage. This meant Electricity was 6.39%. Ok. So I set up the same ratio with the gas price over the total. I found that while gas was used a helluva lot more, electricity cost 30% of the total bill. 7% usage for 30% of the total price. WHAAAAT??!
Ok, so I'm sorry for everyone who thinks that's trivial but I've never thought of it before. Actually seeing that electricity is hella expensive just..made it so much more real. So...we're looking into other options for heating besides an electric blanket. We'll see how it works.
My biggest fail of the week: I bought a $20 toaster to fix my $2 bread mistake. We didn't previously have a toaster so when PartnerPenguin saw a yardsale in the little lot up the street, I went to check it out. Ususally the stuff in that lot is...um...soiled... so my hopes weren't high. It turns out these people were just getting rid of stuff. The aforementinoed toaster was the fanciest toaster I've ever seen. The seller wanted $25 and I thought that toasters shouldn't cost more than $10. The seller admitted that he had paid $130 at Sur La Table for it. While I dileberated, some guy came up and bought a spoon. It wouldn't have been so obvious why he wanted just one spoon if he hadn't DROPPED HIS DRUGS on the ground. After that, I just felt bad for them so I talked him down to $20 and got the thing. Albeit expensive, it does have a "a bit more" button and a "lift and look" button. Unfortunately, it does not fix the fact that CHEAP BREAD STILL SUCKS. Putting my stale-ass cheap bread in got it toasty but not actually any more tasty.
One day, I will have enough money to buy decent bread again. :womp:
1-2 cloves garlic, depending on if you love garlic 1 medium onion 1 big leek or 2 small leeks (They look like green fans on white clubs. Kinda heavy) 4ish carrots 4-5 medium potatoes, peeled or well scrubbed if you like their skins 2 tsp Better Than Bullion, dissolved in 2 c water 2-4 bay leaves, depending how big they are .....I should really write down the names of my spices when I buy them... I think it was something like Italian Seasoning and Thyme. I wouldn't reccommend Oregano for this. Something savory, maybe some Rosemary but not too much.
Mince garlic. The smaller the better, this way you don't bite into it. Cut up onion. Cool trick if you have really dull knife: stick onion in freezer for ~5 minutes. It lessens the amount you cry. You can sautee these two if you so desire.
Cut carrots into lengths about 2 knuckles long. Cut potatoes into thin slices, about 1/3 the width of your finger, if you can. They cook faster if they're thin. They're also easier to mash, should you choose. Clean the leek well, they tend to store dirt in weird places. Cut the white part with a width of about 1/2 to a full width of your finger. You can throw out the green part, it doesn't taste very good.
Ok, two cooking options. You can dump everything in a crock pot on low (including the spices) for like...hours. Or you can put everything in a pot and simmer it for a couple hours. I did the crock-pot so I'm not sure how long for the pot option. I think it's in the 2-3 hour arena.
After it's all yummy and cooked, you can either eat it as is or mash it up in either a food processor or with a masher. If it's mashed and cooled (when you put it away) you can stir in about a tablespoon of cream per 2 cups and eat cold. That way of serving it is called Vichyssoise. Super rich that way though. It's pretty good hot or cold, unlike Katy Perry's former lover, I'm sure.
This song is dedicated to a friend of mine who got me a card once that had a picture of a rock, and a star and on the inside said "party like one." Win.
So last week, I learned why every single babysitter/nanny/caregiver site requires you to be current in your First Aid and CPR. If you aren't, do it. Immediately.
The Bear family (who are also friends, on top of being employers) invited us to a fancy museum not last Saturday but the one before. Little Bear found the birds more amusing than the art (they were black but secretly had red wings) and I noticed as she ran that her little nose was running. Great, work on Monday would...not be pleasant if it turned into a full-blown cold.
Sure enough I get a text from Mama Bear on Sunday that Monday would consist of endless wiping of baby snoozles (her word for snot). Woo. Hoo. But I was feeling pretty healthy, taking my vitimins and stuff so I was up to the challenge.
Monday brought probably one of the strangest/scariest babysitting days of my life. It turns out that "lethargy" in babies means that they lie on the ground next to their favorite toy and flail their arms at it because they don't have enough energy to stand up and play with it. I picked her up and had her nap on my lap with her head angled so she could breathe easier. Soon after she woke up, her parents came home and I reported the odd behaviors. I looked up her other symptoms such as rapid breathing (>50 breaths per minute) on the internet and it said to call 911 immediately. Mama Bear called, dubious because so often the internet is wrong. 911 people said to stay put and they were sending an ambulance immediately, it really did warrent the call.
I drove the family's car to the hospital where I waited with them in the ER and gave the doctors all of the information about that morning since I'd been with her the whole time. Oma Bear (Little Bear's grandmother) came to help and I went home.
I was really unsure about whether or not to share this story because I have felt really guilty since it happened that I didn't call 911 earlier. Then I talked with an advisor-figure who said that it is a matter of experience. I had never seen a child in respiratory distress, neither had her parents, so we did not know what was going on. I thought maybe I could find some support on the internet of other baby-sitters/nannys who have gone through similar experiences, but there don't seem to be many blogs dedicated to such things. I am thoroughly grateful that there are sites dedicated to diagnosing symptoms though, so we could figure out before the pediatrician called that calling 911 was necessary. I think upon feeling badly; I hadn't considered that if the internet wasn't there, it actually might have been another hour till 911 was called. So the internet is the hero of the story again.
I would like to state that there are even fewer blogs dedicated to people working in childcare (not teaching though) who actually have as awesome a job as me. I realised this when the Bear came home from the hospital and I got to sit for her yesterday. Even after being in a metal cage for 3 days, she is still very playful and now loves her bears even more. Probably the happiest part of my job is tickling her for minutes on end and her giggling. The lack of positive blogs is sad, I think, because a lot of little kids and their parents are awesome people.
Needless to say, my week generally went to crap after that. But some really powerfully positive events changed that around by Friday. One of my good friends, The Romanean, gave me this book:
I spent time with friends. I just took time to myself and then on Sunday, PartnerPenguin and I did something ritzy! We used a Fluff-n-Fold service at the local laundromat (which is called a "washouse" if you live in my neighborhood). If you don't know what that is, it's when you give other people your laundry and they do it for you. It's pretty expensive but it saved us about 5 hours. It turns out that just taking one big stressor out of your life allows you to get a lot done.
I paid this stress-saver forward to Mama Bear and did her laundry for her yesterday. Paying it forward is always the way to spread stress-reduction to those whom you are close to. So do something nice for someone close to you, you never know how much that might relieve the stress on their plate!!
*One medium, head-sized pumpkin (we found the perfect size for $2.22)
*Either cloves, nutmeg or ginger. All three might taste too much like pie
*Broth (As always, I used 1 tsp Better Than Bullion to 1 cup water) edit: I forgot to mention that it's 1 c broth per every 2 ish cups pumpkin. If your pumpkin looks mushy or like play-doh, ADD WATER!!
Open pumpkin. Take out seeds and you can bake those for a yummy treat. Cut up pumkin to fist size bits or a little bigger, leave skin on. Bake at 450, uncovered in oven until you can smuush the flesh easily with a fork. Let cool a bit, then take off the flesh into a bowl. Either in a blender or with a masher, combine the broth and the spices. Maybe if you feel ambitous, heat it all together in a pot.
Yes, today's post is late; I have a perfectly valid excuse if you want to ask me so-please-don't-drop-my-grade-by-a-letter.
One of the really really cool things about PartnerPenguin working for a startup (zextme.com, formerly zebedoo.com) is that I get to find out about a lot of really cool and weird startups. This occasionally leads to cool things. I feel that promoting startups keeps up morale because of the omnipresent threat of failure. Here are some startups and old fogies who could be really helpful to being a college student or just navigating the internet for useful things instead of junk.
www.freedompop.com
Probably one of the best ideas/startups I've found recently has been freedompop.com. They solved my big problem of not having internet at home. Basically, you order a (refundable) special usb dongle (heehee) which has 4G network connection capacity. From there, it works like a data plan and the first 500 mb are free. 500mb is enough to do homework on Pearson's website (flash heavy) and check e-mails and all the wonderful comments from my readers (*_*). After that, they have a pay as you go plan which starts at $10/mo for the next threshold which is 1 GB of internet.
PartnerPenguin just ran a speed check and it's faster than the global average and 1/3 as fast as the fancy internet at his work (so pretty damn fast). It does run by similar rules to a cell phone in terms of working better near windows because 4G sattelite/cell tower signal. The only problem I've encountered so far was that I had the dongle sent to a different address than the billing address and it bounced and got delivered to the billing address. That defeated the purpose a bit since I'm afraid someone will steal my mail. But their customer service department has been pretty good so far. Will keep updates if I have a problem.
https://pantre.me/
This company is a refrigerator which they stock with (really yummy) healthy food which is all microwavable. They stock the fridge once a day and on sushi day they donate the leftovers (after a certain time) to local kids who need food. All of their food is better than Lean Cuisine at about the same price, and they have a first time user special offer of $5 off the total order. PartnerPenguin and I got 3 full meals for $8.
http://www.transitunlimited.org
I don't know if this is a startup but it's a really handy wiki I recently found. I really like that they put obscure transit juxtaposed with the main transit agencies so you can find out if there is a shuttle between the places where you want to go and how often it runs. I would love if there were more Eastern Cities on there so I'm going to see if I can help edit at least one city in and I call upon my East Coast friends who might have time to edit and share this potentially amazing and time-saving resource.
www.chegg.com
Not the newest site but definitely useful if your school's library doesn't have a rental aspect to their bookstore. Renting or buying textbooks can be a difficult toss-up because what if you need the information in the future? I've rented books mostly for General Ed's where the information was great and informative but I didn't really think that I would need the reference. It's always a good idea to keep your syllabi and maybe write down the ISBNs of the books so that you can get them from a library in the future. I've actually never used this site because I've only used my school's rentals but just make sure you read your whole rental agreement before you ship.
www.wolframalpha.com
The way to know the gods truly do smile upon us. This site is spectacular for most things math. I haven't used it for any other subjects but I think it knows about a lot of things, particularly science-y. It is really useful to see if the answer you got is correct though it doesn't always have a step-by-step explanation. It knows ALLL the math. It's pretty flippin' sweet.
www.amazon.com
I have a friend who worked for Amazon when they were "all a bunch of pot smokin' hippies on roller skates" and is still bitter they sold out. But Amazon has become quite an amazing resource for...just about anything. Of course, they have books but they also have a rather decent amount of food and gear for just about anything you want. If you have a safe mailing address and don't need something immediately, it is almost always cheaper to find a place to get it online. I know there are other places extant on the interwebs but I've had my credit card stolen so I don't generally give the number to places where I have a shadow of a doubt about their legit-ness. Amazon is pretty solid about that type of thing so it's cool.
www.khanacademy.org/
Hats off to Sal. Sal (and The Conductor) got me through PreCalculus. This site has little lesson plans on just about every topic I needed in Math and I think they have a pretty decent breadth of other stuff too. What I really really like about this site is that the "lessons" are very specific, short and well written. Sal, the narrator of the math ones, is very down to earth so at the beginning of the video you feel like he's just talking to you about nothing. And by the end, you know what the delta-epsilon definition of a limit is and you wonder how it got into your brain. Even if you're not in school, this can be a decent tool for learning small bits of knowledge on an as-needed basis.
www.pandora.com
The only reason I would want more than 500mb of internet. I am a strange sort of person who works 5097823640237 times better when I have music in the background. Not talking, just music. I love music like a drug and I need my fix. Pandora was one of my favorite internet discoveries ever. IF you've never used it, (after you make a free account) you just type the name of an artist or a song and it has an algorithm to find similar music. One trick my boss taught me is that you can't hit "like" too many times because it messes up the algorithm. If you have the free version, you get ads like broadcast radio but they tend to be the same ads over and over. (They really think I want a Veraggio ring.) The paid version, no ads, is only $4/mo but even that I can't afford so I just tune out for those 30 seconds. Considering I listen to broadcast radio the rest of the time, (upwards of 2 minutes of straight ads) it's not too bad. I've found some amazing new artists and some great gems which I wouldn't have ever happened upon and I love it a lot.
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No Recipe this week, e-mail or comment me and I'll write you one!
I have reached that juncture, the one I was afraid of the whole time. I thought it was just because my kitchen was making me gag but removing the trashcan mold and chicken fat (what? why? I don't know) seems to have solved that problem. Though, I still think my diet of breakfast sausage, peanut butter and jelly and samosas will return my tummy to normal soon enough. I hope.
No, that wasn't what I meant.
There is always this point in the semester where I realize I may or may not make it through. Not physically (though last year I questioned that sometimes), just, will I make it.
I took my second Physics midterm this morning. I was really proud of myself because I had studied a lot more, I had read the textbook thoroughly. I wrote what seemed sensible on my "cheat" sheet.
And then I got my ass handed to me. I've taken some decent whoopings; doing midterms at Big American Brand University in their hoity-toity Math department. Even though those were rougher than a blanket of pushpins, I still aced them. But this.....this was priceless.
I should point out that I'm not being a drama queen in this particular instance. If I fail this class, I cannot continue with my major. Physics is so integral to Geology (I'm obviously not Geophysics, but it's still important) that if I fail the class, I cannot continue in the immediate future. I guess that hit me like a piano full of bricks because for the first time I can clearly see a potential failure after 4 1/2 years worth of college. Well, second failure. The first failure was realizing that my initial path of Theatre would not get me anywhere. That hurt too.
It made me do some serious thinking today while The Little Bear threw tantrums and weeble-wobbles at me. What enabled me to get through those math classes? Mah Nishtana this class? Conceptually, it's not any harder. In fact, it's easier.
A few things did, all of which I obviously need to implement the hell out of if I wish to get my degree.
*Strong Learning Community*
One of the first things I did in my PreCalc class last year was find an additional class that taught me how to learn Math at Big American Brand University. This was taught by The conductor, an incredibly focused, pertinent and mildly intimidating man in a vest and a fedora. Perhaps it was tough love, but that man certainly was/is dedicated to his teaching. He would also say things like "Yeah...[some attractive actor] is ok but he's no Antonio Banderrrez." and "Math math math math!" (which literally startled me so badly I jumped and screamed).
He created a co-operative learning environment the likes of which I have never encountered. My classmates, despite being 5 years younger than me, worked together with me as a team pulling upwards of 20 hours a week studying together. The friends I made in that learning space are still some of my most inspiring and foundational friends.
PartnerPenguin and I were talking about it and Craptastic Colleges (please correct me if I'm wrong) have literally no student services. I have been tutoring this guy in trig because the tutors can only spend 15 minutes with a single student. The tutoring room used to be the Math Lab but now it's all Science studies and they don't know trig. It falls upon the students to gather and more importantly if it's a poorly taught class to somehow devine what they are supposed to be learning and teach themselves.
This is not the same as Big American Brand Uni, which isn't a whole lot better, but at least they decisively only teach theory in class and it is explicitly understood that you need to learn everything on your own. Here it is a weird in between where you're supposed to learn on your own but you can ask questions but they kinda get nowhere. Mostly, it seems, because that's where they expect their students to go. (Average grad rate for both schools I'm attending is 16%, average transfer is 8%)
*Clear, Concise and Do-able Planning/Time Management*
Time is finite. Figure out what to do with it.
Agenda planners are often helpful, I imagine smartphones could be too. One of my favorite techniques when I'm overwhelmed is to write out everything (EVERYTHING includes food, prep and eating time) that needs to be done in a 1-2 day period. Write next to it the approximate time you think it will take. I often overestimate, completely, by anywhere between 30 min to an hour, esp with Math or Science homework.
On a separate piece of paper, break down your day from henceforth. I write intervals of an hour at most, usually 30 minutes. Every 20-30 minutes I mandate a small break and every 2 hours or so a real break, usually including food. It is also necessary for me to schedule in walks since that's part of my physical deal but walks are one of the easiest ways to reduce stress and get a little exercise. Usually after 2 days of intensive planning like this, I get a general rhythm that I can work with for about a week, at least.
I also throw myself mini-dance-party breaks with songs like the two here.
Another thing we do is we set a duck alarm to tell us it's time for bed. When things are stressful, it's probably being compounded by lack of sleep and hygiene. So take a shower and go to bed.
*Acceptance of Simplicity*
While talking with someone recently, I thought about how sometimes meals just need to be cooked properly before you add the fancy seasoning. The basics need to be met. They do not always need to be surpassed. But they always need to be met and in my worldview they always need to be met in a manner that provides a strong foundation whether or not seasonings (or upper divs) are added later, when you're more comfortable. *Clear communication with Partner/Friends/Family of What You're Going Through*
You can't get support if no one knows what's going on. I try to have as much in person interactions with my friends as I can. This means for me riding on buses for a long time but that's ok. Friends are worth it. I picked up Pyschology Today at the store and it confirmed that. In-person friends and strong interpersonal connections help you live better.
Sometimes you may not be coherent and may just need to blurb and blab and have someone ask you what that was all about in the future.
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This recipe was made for Mama and Papa Bear (parents of The Little Bear) in appreciation of letting us borrow their laundry facilities.
Lentil Curry-ish Dish
1 clove garlic, diced
oil
most of 1 onion
Juilliened tomatoes (probably should have used canned diced ones, preferably from Indian food market or just un-seasoned if you don't have one of those)
about a cup of lentils
MDH Chana Dal Masala (brand I bought at an Indian Grocery store, I don't know the differences) I know Patak's is also a good brand, no MSG. PartnerPenguin is allergic to MSG and in general, it's not great for you.
In on pot: boil water. Add lentils, let simmer on low heat for about as long as it takes to watch a movie. Maybe a movie and a couple episodes of Gravity Falls (God I love that show).
You might want to wait at least an hour before doing this step because the lentils take a long time to cook.
In a pan: Warm oil. Add garlic and onions. Caramelize (make transparent but not quite brown) onions, garlic should just smell good but make sure you don't burn it.
Drain lentils, put in pan on simmering (low) heat. You may have to add some fresh water. Add tomatoes and about a tablespoon of the seasoning. You can add more or less, depending on your threshold for spicy. Simmer for about 10 more minutes. Or if you're PartnerPenguin, you simmer them all together for an hour because the lentils weren't done before adding. This option would incorporate the flavor of the onions more. As long as the lentils are cooked, these two steps shouldn't make too much difference.
I might add Sirache if I liked spicy. I'd probably serve over brown rice. (Brown rice is a 1:1.5 ratio rice to water. Boil for 2-5 minutes then let simmer for 40, covered.)
Basically, it really boils down to read everything you sign. Except maybe on websites' terms of service because you'll realize that there are clauses such as the one in one of Game Stop's Terms of Service where they actually say the soul of the undersigned belongs to the company.
It's probably a combination of the fact that I worked over-full time years before my peers and the fact that I was horribly taken advantage of during that first job that it makes me super pissed off when my friends/family have decent(ish) jobs who take advantage of them. We are fortunate (so very very fortunate) to live in a country where fair working conditions are legally mandated. I think this rant is mostly aimed at my peers, those people in my graduating class (Oh EIGHT!) who are going out into the workforce for possibly the first time in their lives.
This is the way it works, that I've seen: a business (usually a large business with either over 100 employees or fewer, but more apathetic ones) will hire a fresh new face who is jolly and out of college and in a metric butt-ton of debt. They will hand the new hire stacks, literally, of paperwork and give a strict time limit for finishing them because they are paying for training and paperwork should only take fifteen minutes. The new hire is then pressured into signing everything without reading or digesting what contract they have just entered into. But everything seemed reasonable so it's all good. Besides, if you don't sign today, there are fifteen other people who will take the job so today has been a waste if you don't. (I have only had one job where they actually quizzed me on my contract, I liked that job a good deal.)
Work starts. All seems pretty great. The pay is good enough, maybe the work is tedious, maybe the work is frustrating.
Then the bosses ask once in a while for the new hire to stay a little overtime. The money for overtime is fantastic and the new hire is barely able to eat meat every week so of course they take it. Then overtime becomes regular. Then more time is added and there are threats that if the new hire doesn't take the hours, they will be fired. Subtle threats, to be sure, but extant.
This situation I recently found out has been happening to a friend of mine. She has been working 12 hour days of manual labor regularly with just one lunch break and four 15 minute breaks. She is so destitute that she has been thanking her luck for some extra cash.She is so exhausted that she was even perturbed at my outrage at how illegal that is.
Ok, first off, that's not legal. Unless you are in Hollywood, regularly working 12 hours in a 24 hour period is actually not kosher. Businesses use a power disparity and assume that their workers don't know their rights to allow for this to happen. Even if overtime is allowable in the contract (which is usually is, at one and half times regular pay), there it is absolutely, completely unacceptable to threaten someone's job if they do not agree to work optional hours. Especially not an additional 4 hours.
Another thing with the timing. By law, once you work over five and half (or six? I think it's six but it winds up being five and a half) you are supposed to have a 30 minute lunch. If you work up to 12, you certainly have to have a second meal, I forgot to look at the lower bound of that threshold. There is a Federal Law which states that you must have a ten minute break every 2 hours. If you work a 12 hour day, you should have a total of an hour of meals and three 10-15 minute breaks.
*This is just a separate issue but your bathrooms should also be useable. It's unsafe if they're not and CVS will soon be hearing my wrath because I had to change a toddler in their bathroom which was not fit for anyone to use, even meth addicts.*
Ok, but jobs can suck. (I'm really glad mine doesn't, if you're reading this!!) The next step is actually sometimes harder than enduring subtle threats and heavy lifting. The companies which exploit their workers in this manner know that they are so exhausted that they can't do anything about it. But if one can overcome this fatigue, it's really difficult who to turn to. Even harder is speaking the right language. Before going to anyone, have as much hard evidence as you can. Then you may get somewhere with your HR, Corporate or a department of government who deals with unemployment and employee fairness. But as I learned with my health saga, if you have hard evidence and someone backing you up, you will get a lot farther.
Some advice I learned today: If a girl is with a guy for four months and has never met his friends, she is not his girlfriend.
And here is an artist with a sense of humor about his music. I loved the original song since I first heard it but this I find this a signature of someone who takes imitation to truly be a form of flattery.
I can't decide which is my favorite part, the full chorus or the awesome rock guitar solo.
My friend, The Beard, told me that by the end of my posts that he was left sad and hungry so I'm going to try to change the former.
In truth, I've had some pretty amazing things happen in the past week. Sometimes I must remind myself that if I truly need something, the world will make it happen. I don't mean this in any kind of material or monetary sense. Most of the time in my case it comes in the form of community, healing and friendship.
My journey this week has mostly been about my being a woman. Genetically I am female but the concept of being a woman, especially post-puberty has always been a strange one for me. I was fortunate to grow up in a pretty egalitarian Jewish school so there has always been a spiritual aspect of womanhood. Even this was a little confusing since I could read Torah and lead services but there were still jerks who refused to show me how to wrap t'fillin the Sphardic way because I was a girl.
I've always been good at almost every subject in school so I never thought to discriminate what is and isn't a good field for "girls" because I'd thought it was just based on merit. I never had any particular problems in Theatre during my years studying that because it is also a very egalitarian field with a great acceptance of the odd.
And then I get a hair up my ass to study science. Geology in particular is such a new field (relatively) that, at least at the Great American University where I attended last year, over half the department are women. Again, I think this aspect is pure luck.
But I'm learning more and more that in other STEM majors this is not at all the case. I went to a conference this weekend of women in STEM majors celebrating not being robots who sacrifice their gender identity to be in male dominated fields but figuring out how to change the archetypes and actually bring women in science, not just around it. The specifics of the conference were to provide support and encouragement to go for higher degrees such as masters and PhD's but the impact went far beyond that. We did a team-building exercise where we built a prosthetic hand (would highly recommend this if you're in the corporate sector because there's an actual product at the end) for victims of land-mine accidents. We worked with a cosmic healer and also a woman who basically says "fuck you" to anyone in opposition to her and gets shit done. I should mention that by "gets shit done" I mean she heads one of the most successful Biotech Grad Departments in California, which probably means the country.
I think the story that touched me most was one woman who got her acceptance letter for her PhD the same day she discovered she was pregnant. She said that she had to teach the department the laws because they didn't know what maternity leave was. I think this is sad in a couple ways, beyond the obvious that they think women in their department aren't allowed to have a family. It also saddens me that they probably don't have paternity leave either which unfairly puts a lot more burden on new fathers who have to work and then go home and be sleep deprived because you never get a rest with a new baby. So, in general, these policies make it stupidly hard to have a family, increasing the problem that smart people can or don't like (for one reason or another) procreating. The modern concept of family is hard enough to ponder but it's impossible if you know there will not be sufficient support from...anywhere.
But overall, this conference was beautiful. Being in a room full of people who non-judgementally support you as a human being and support your academic endeavors is one of the best feelings in the whole world. Even just being in a room with one person who supports you in all ways is special. I hope that you can experience this feeling very soon if you're not alreay.
___________________________________________________________ BBQ Beans with Mac N Cheese (portion for one person, two days) I will literally eat this repeatedly until I get sick of it, which is pretty uncommon for me.
Bean part: 1/4 c. dry beans. Use Pinto, Red, Anasazi or even White. But Pinto and Anasazi are best. 1-2 Bay leaves 1/2-1 tsp Better Than Bullion Trader Joe's BBQ Sauce
To cook beans (I think I've written this before, so pardon me): Wash, sort. Soak overnight. Maybe put an asprin in to reduce bean-fart gas. Make sure you cover the beans with like, 2 inches of water when you soak, they grow up so fast.
When nice and plump in morning, rinse with running water then put in crock pot with the bay leaves and Better Than Bullion (you might want to dissolve this separately with some hot water. Cover the beans with a couple inches of water and leave on low while you go to your classes (6 hrs, ish). Beans should be pretty much falling apart or at least tender when you fish them out.
When you go to heat up the beans in a pan, add in the BBQ sauce from TJ's and enjoy!
To cook mac'n'cheese:
1/4 cup dry pasta if it's small, closer to 1/2 c if it's big pasta
about 1/3 of a knuckle wide slice of butter
a couple splashes of milk
maaaaybe a teaspoon of flour, but add only what you need. Boil water for pasta. As that comes to boil, grate a hunk of cheese. I find a sharp or stinky cheese works well, anything from cheddar to parm to things with dark moldybits. Anyway, just make sure the cheese is small and thin, easy to melt. Maybe about a handful of cheese or two at the end. When water boils, throw in pasta, about 1/4 cup or less.
Once pasta is cooked, drain it and leave in colander for a quick minute. Cut about 1/2 TBSP butter and melt in the pot. Pour in about 2 TBSP at most milk. It should be on medium or low heat, do not boil. Add in cheese slowly, making a melty mess. You should add more butter and milk if it looks too chunky. Finally, if you've put in too much milk, sprinkle (very lightly) a little flour so that it thickens to the consistency of sticking to back of spoon.
Incorporate your pasta and YUM!!!!
This song is from my best friend Good Panda. I thought it fitting around the High Holy Days.
*Ramen is cheap. I found out recently that if you look at the price of Ramen, it is actually nearly $10/lb. 3 packages, 1 oz each are $1, but there are 16 oz in a pound.The most fanciest beans at the market on bulk are never more than $4/lb, most normal beans are $2/lb. (I don't know if I've mentioned it but I always go into the bulk section with a 1 cup dry measuring cup so I always get exactly 1/4 lb of beans.) You'd be hard pressed to find rice more than $2/lb. In fact, you should almost ALWAYS be able to find meat for less than $10/lb and meat is the grand prize. This actually pissed me off when I figured this out because usually the first thing people refer to about poor college students is that they live on nothing but Ramen. This means that as a society, we're completely skewed on what things are actually worth and what "food" can be. Ramen is so completely lacking of almost any nutritional value combined with using MSG for flavoring (I use Better Than Bullion if I do make it) it's like...negative food. Then I just felt really really bad that 1.) college kids think that's the only way to eat cheaply and 2.) how unable to learn they must be because they're not getting proper nutrition because they think they can't afford it.
*You have to go to college to get a good job. I was talking with a receptionist lately and she was saying that from a marketing standpoint, colleges are pure genius. They have convinced a whole society that you need a degree which will put you at a minimum of $20,000 debt in order to get a "good" (something where you might eventually be able to pay back your debt) job. I feel like this has hit very close to home for me. I had to take a break this past weekend because the pace of the past year has just caught up to me and I could not keep running. Whenever I get ten minutes to think in a row, it makes me seriously question my ever-lasting toil at a degree which may or may not be futile. I've been accused, by a professor, of running towards money by turning my back on Theatre and going to the Sciences. Please respond on this point as I still haven't made up my mind how I feel about this comment.
Truths Reality Told Me
*You will never get an ounce of work done once you start playing Minecraft.* Why do you think this blog was 3 days late? (It was also Rosh Hashana this weekend.)
*Sleep/rest and drink is the best way to battle sick Last week I fought two colds from both The Little Bear and PartnerPenguin. By the end of the week I gave up trying to be productive and just drank tons of tea and did as little as possible, save math homework (which for some reason is fun to me). I didn't even judge myself for falling asleep reading my Physics textbook. Sometimes, you need to give yourself a break. I feel a lot better now.
*Obama on radio So it turns out our President promotes himself on the radio. But not like, advertisements. Nope, just talked with the talkshow host and they continued to play snippets of it on the local R&B station which plays in the sketch-as-all-get-out-24-hour laundromat where I go. I thought it was even better that the DJ's who played back clip urged their listeners to vote. I didn't have a local R&B station last election. It's good to be in this area sometimes. <3
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Recipe this week not inspired by "A Man A Can A Plan" but might as well have been.
Chicky with Beer Can Up Its Butt
1 whole chicken (We found one at Trader Joes for $6)
1 mediocre beer in can. We used Simpler Times from Trader Joes.
A bunch of butter and a bunch of paprika (not necessary, just added because
PartnerPenguin is, at times, hopelessly Hungarian)
*Drink half the beer. Preheat oven to 350
*Take out gross bits from inside of chicky. Perhaps make Dirty Rice with it later.
*Bring butter to room temperuature, wash your hands. Take butter in 1/2 tbsp is amounts and slather over the skin of chicky. Sprikle on paprika. Go in other room if you are me and this grosses you out.
*Place half-full beer can in a glass pan deep enough to hold the chicky when she eventually falls over drunk. Place chicky on can so it fits in the cavity.
*Bake chicken in oven for maybe an hour. Thigh should pretty much fall off. You can cover it with tin foil if you want it to cook faster, I think. We just let it sit and it cooked and was one of the best things ever.
Also, I may be allergic to carrots. Worth more investigating.
Video on this one not worth watching, but song=^__^
