Haitus Interruptus

Hello Beautiful readers!!!

Sometimes commitments, like writing blogs, don't work out the way you think they will. They will either fix themselves or they won't. But as the Little Bear's Mom reminded me that I have an easy platform for describing the terribly interesting events in my life so...I'm back for a moment.

First, MC's who are covered in glitter and give away tickets to see Prince are pretty awesome.

Second. Due to some pretty convoluted circumstances and confidentiality clauses..Psych! I can't actually tell you what's going on in my life! Instead, I will give you a musical tour of my life's events and emotions, for the most part in the past month. As always, identities are preserved by ridiculous nicknames but if you want to know exactly what's going on, please message me.

About a month ago, I volunteered for an event showing pre-teen girls that science is awesome. I was really stoked about this event as it only happens once a year through my school. Needless to say, I was a bit annoyed (but concerned) when my Mum called me ten times between the start of the event and lunch. When I finally got a hold of her, I found that my Darling Brother had gotten himself into a good ol' snowboarding accident. Neither he nor I have ever skiied or snowboarded previously. I don't think I'll be picking up the habit.

These two videos describe my Darling Brother, if you don't know him or didn't know he existed.

 and 

Cool cool. So I can literally do NOTHING about this situation. I quickly reach this conclusion and drop the matter as much as I can without being a sociopath. I tell my Darling Brother to quickly start Physical Therapy and stop working until he's healed. Well, you know how good teenage boys are at listening to their sisters.

Leading up to Pi Day, I was busy as a bee planning my super spectacular Pi Day party. To those who knew about both, my party was put on the same level as the Math department's, which is a pretty large department. Partner Penguin was an amazing help, and brought the pies from the bakery to the venue. The party was a fantastic success. I would like to point out that Partner Penguin and I are Geeks in Love.

That evening, after being elated from a job well done, I got struck rather rudely by some bad news. The Miser died. The Miser and I have had a complicated relationship. Well, complicated is a polite word for it. But as of late, I regarded this man as a pretty solid father figure in my life. He had genuine love for me as a sort of daughter and always treated me as such.

Part of why this blog is in songs is because I don't have the words yet to describe who this man was in my life. Grief is not an emotion I am familiar with. It is not a process I understand within myself. The only person I've known who's died was my grandmother, who raised me for most of my life. While she died “young” at 75, she had been very gravely ill for many years and it was a relief and a blessing to me when she passed. This was different. The Miser's life habits were obviously not healthy, to anyone with an ounce of sense. But he was never sick, never in the hospital, never had anything very wrong with him. And then he just takes a nap one day and WHAM! Massive heart attack.

Without my consent, my body decided to have the immediate reaction of a Hunger Strike

The bright side of this is that I now fit into a size 8 dress and I'm going to try to keep it this way.

The downside, of course, was that I was dreadfully hungry. I eventually was able to eat again, but it's still not always as exciting as it used to be. :/

The very next week, I had two midterms. I took many breaks and perhaps did not do as well on them as I will on others, but that's ok. I went on a hike with the Kittenman (girls love his pussies). Since it was the end of the week, we decided to go on a road-trip. But instead of a road-trip, we wound up eating Indian food. It's ok, sometimes these things happen.

One night, I had a little Defying Gravity moment. By which I mean I saw Oz The Great and Powerful and relived my 16-year-old love for all things Oz. I abandoned all sads at the door and snuck in half a cheesesteak. I must now note that Hollywood has an astounding ability to make something I cared less than nothing about (The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald) into a movie that looks good enough for me to possibly pirate several months after it comes out in theatres.

Upon leaving the movie theatre, all my sads rushed back, with the angry vengeance of being abandoned for several hours. This resulted in my winding up at the Otter's house, wrapped up in a handmade quilt pretending to sleep for the night.

(Music credit "Spirit Sea" by Ged Flood since I found him through him not being properly credited in this video)

However, after another week's time, bicycling, gallavanting with the Portly Asian, reading more than is healthy for any person on an iPad Mini, and meditating, things started to get better.

Partner Penguin and I also got to spend some quality time together.

And of course, we had some food like this:

and now I'm mostly back to “normal.” Hahahahahahaha.

Who knows. Maybe I'll start writing regularly again.

Plantains

3 very ripe plantains

galic, chopped finely (I made the mistake of not caring and eating large chunks of fried garlic.)

dry chili flakes. If you're fancy you can probably make fresh.

Enough oil to cover your pan ¼ in. I used Avocado

Put oil in pan. Bring to smoke-point (so you know where that is) and immediately reduce heat by about half. After 30 good seconds at the lower heat, add the chili flakes and garlic. Sautee for 2-3 minutes.

Bring in the bananas!! Plantains are heartier than regular bananas, and yummier, in my opinion. Slice the plantains about ½ a knuckle thick. Place slices belly down on the pan, making sure nobody dogpiles (1 layer only). Flip every 3 or so minutes. Don't cover. Be very attentive that things don't burn.

When they are all delightfully crispy looking, put them on a plate with a paper towel and let cool. We ate them with chopsticks! Yum!

Tortillas all the way down. Or was it tortugas?

Well I'm on a writing binge (yes, it's just as gross as it sounds) so I figure I'll write a blog because... well you've missed me for a month, haven't you! I also realized that I need to write regularly because when faced with a REALLY important application, I've failed pretty hard. It's thanks to some amazing friends and family who aren't afraid to speak honestly to whoop my ass into writing something that may qualify me for AwesomeScholarhipofAwesomeness. We'll face the verdict of that some other time, hopefully.

I will re-asses when school starts what my posting schedule will be because I have two labs per week this semester. Yey chemistry!!!

In the meantime, it's the end-ish of winter break and due to some incredibly idiotic bureaucratic decisions at Craptastic Community College District, my financial aid is in in a horrible money jail with no bond. WHICH MEANS IT'S TIME FOR ENDLESS BURRITOS!!!! (warning, I am unabashedly White and this is not a traditional recipe, it's something I just made up.)

Endless Burritossss

• Tortillas, 10”. Can be corn or flour. I use flour because I don't do well with corn
• 1 can (14.5 oz) canned tomatoes. Try to find un-seasoned. A case of these is about $8 at Costco. (can use 2 medium fresh, more expensive though)
• Either 1 medium onion of ½ of a large onion, chopped finely
• 2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
• a bunch of olive oil
• 1 cup rice. I like brown rice since it takes longer to digest. I chose long-grain. There is a difference in cook-times with different rices, so this is less trivial than it seems.
• A bunch of water
• *1-2 serrano peppers. Jalapeño are also acceptable.
• ¾-1 cup dry beans, prepared and cooked. See some other blog of mine for bean cooking. Spices to cook with might include bay leaves, Better Than bullion, thyme. No oregano for this dish! Here it is! Towards the bottom of the page
• *MEHIIKAN CHEEEESE (Mexican cheese). We got the shredded, four cheese blend from Costco. Trader Joe's also sells a nice blend. Or you can visit your local Mexican grocery store.
• *Sour cream
• *guac, if you're into that.

*ingredients optional and based on financial availability. Guacamole you can get cheaply if you live somewhere that you can buy avocados or pick them off trees.

Rice first! First things first, make sure your pan/pot is about 10” in diameter and 2-3 inches thick. If you need to make the rice in a different pot, do that. Don't want overflow.

Make sure you've cried out all of your onion tears. On a medium heat, warm oil and put garlic and onion in pan. Translucify the onions. They shouldn't be full-on caramelized but they should be mostly there.

Add the matoes. Fold the tomatoes so they are evenly distributed with the onions. Then bring in the rice. Fold in the rice so it's evenly distributed because it will fall to the bottom and it won't matter. Cover the whole mixture with water, so that most everything is submerged. Bring to boil. Boil for 5-10 minutes, covered.

Reduce heat and let simmer, checking and stirring about every 10 minutes. Water is your friend and it tends to disappear so make sure there's plenty of it till close to the end. The more the rice cooks up, the more you will have to stir to maintain even distribution because rice clumps. White rice usually cooks in 20 minutes, brown in 40.

Rice and beans: 

NOW THE PEPPER.

Yep. I'd never actually used a hot pepper before I randomly decided to buy two serranos. Different peppers have varying amounts of optimal wrinkly so ask your friendly grocer what means what. Serrano are more spicy than Jalapeños.

Things I learned too late:

• scrape out the white part and the seeds unless you really like spice. 
  • If a pepper tastes like bread, you will be in pain within a matter of minutes, have glass of milk or horchata nearby.
• DON'T TOUCH YOUR FACE. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T DO IT. And if you did, DON'T WASH IT AND SPREAD THE OIL CLOSER TO YOUR EYES. Just let it burn. It hurts like a son of a gun but it's not worth getting in your eye. Believe me.

Best to do all of this without touching your face at all and wash your hands thoroughly about 5 times before touching your face.

I chopped up the pepper to the smallest pieces my knife could manage. Then I folded them into the rice mixture. I think two serrano peppers turned out to be too spicy but only by like..half a pepper's worth. You'll notice that I didn't include cilantro. This is because I hate cilantro. But if you're one of the people who likes it, go ahead and chop some up at this point and add it!! It's probably good at this point to transfer the rice to a pot or something so you can use the pan to actually make the burritos.

Tortilla-friends

We had a house-mate for a while who subsisted on quesodillas. He would put the tortilla directly on the gas burner and cheese would drop on the little thing that catches stuff around the burner. Though this pissed me off to no end, it was very informative in terms of how puffy a tortilla should be before adding anything to it. The gist is that you want a few bubbles puffing up, then flip and there should be bubbles.

Be kind to your house-mates and use a pan. Apply tortilla directly to pan on medium-low heat. If things start burning, lower the heat. It will work, just takes longer.

Let tortilla bubble on one side, flip. Bubble one second side and put on a plate.

add rice

add beans 

add cheese

fold this way

fold that way

Or maybe fold your own way because mine turned out trapezoids instead of mostly round.

Put some oil, enough to kinda cover the pan but not too much that you'll deep fry, in the pan. Place burrito, folded up side down.
 I would suggest keeping the heat pretty low on this part so nothing burns because it tends to. Play it by ear and check every 4ish minutes to see if it looks toasty. Then flip.

THEN EAT YOUR BURRITO!! ¡MUY DELISIOSO! Add sour cream and guac as you see fit.

I made a bunch (hence the large amount of ingrediants), let them cool and then wrapped them in tin foil and froze them. My guess would be let thaw then micro and maybe toasty-up on stove if possible for re-heating. I can also see an oven working out ok, but it'll probably take an hour from frozen.

This song, particularly his face throughout, is my new favorite song.

W(net)=F(acetime)*D(irectfollowupatwahtever)Cos(t)

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This regularly scheduled blog brought to you by bribes of cute pictures and videos of Tard the Grumpy Cat.

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.

Study-Break

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,

for precision

they will come in handy later.

Or at least enough to show your work.

Yet somehow we always think it better to exclude

the details.

Ignore the stories.

And sit an order of magnitude away from those

who could be our closest friends.

An Attack of Self-Esteem

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.

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It's just so fitting.

Punk'in Pie Time

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 4^th 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.

But it's deleeeecious!!

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 Guess what movie I wanna see this weekend?!

My mom is currently in the hospital so I'm not going to try to blog until she's out. Here are some amusing things to be amusing.

Off topic: my Freedom Pop has better service on the bus than it does my house. Lol.