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I recently picked up a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child's not-a-bit-brief treatise on French cuisine. My goal for the summer is to go through as much of the book as possible so I can start building up a good reportoire of dishes I can make. French cooking techniques are said to be quite helpful when branching out into other cuisines. What's going to dissapoint me the most about this whole experience is that I can't possibly have people over every time I'm going to cook, meaning I can't share with everyone every time, and that's truly the best part. So in lieu of providing you with a meal, I will provide you with photos, descriptions, and samples upon request for those that live close enough and ask soon enough! Without further adieu, here we go (have I used enough French words yet?
Potage Parmentier
Leeks, potatoes, salt, water, and a little butter to finish. It was so simple, but it was so satisfying.
Clafouti
Fresh cherries baked in a batter of eggs, milk, sugar, and flour. The end result is kind of like a pudding. I liked it but I think I can do better.
Coming Next: Quiche au Fromage de Gruyère, Haricots Verts à la Crème
To achieve nuclear fusion, you have to heat a plasma to an incredibly high temperature and then the nuclei of the atoms can fuse, release energy, and generate power. BUT, you can also use this heat that you generate as a "fusion torch", throw waste into it, and have it be broken down into its elemental components. You can then seperate the elements and use them as raw materials! The book described it as recycling with a capital R. Indeed it is. So we could pretty much generate unlimited power using the most plentiful element in the universe (hydrogen) with not even any thermal pollution, and recycle all of our waste at the same time. That's just ridiculously awesome.
Today in Japanese we learned the "explaining" mode of speaking, which I'm adding to my list of Japanese ineffeciencies (although I still like the language and I'm sure people have similar lists with English). She picked pairs in the class where one member of the pair was to make some comment and the other member of the pair was to respond to that comment with an "explanation" of sorts. Limpar calls on me and Aimee. Aimee turns to me and, while I believe touching my arm: "Hansamu desu neeeeee!!!"
The class then explodes in laughter and then all of a sudden one girl is like "Hey wait!! Stop laughing!!"
It made my day.
Love,
Sam
- Music:Dan Savage's sexy voice
You are Will Riker
| At times you are self-centered but you have many friends. You love many women, but the right woman could get you to settle down.  |
- Music:Crystal Castles - Tell Me What to Swallow
Attach to the decorated CD a notecard explaining why each song is important to you, why it made the difference at that point in your life or why it helps when you're upset, so on and so forth.
And now, this private CD that is essentially an intimate and deep piece of you....give it to someone you care about, maybe to someone that also knows me, and then we can get a trade going.
It'll be fun, I promise.
"It wiill amzae you to feeel yoour new eerction"
I'm so amzaed already.
A little while back the international programs office announced a photo contest for student's that studied abroad. I felt like i really grew into photography on the China/Japan trip, and I felt like i had made a lot of progress in terms of my eye for a good picture, so on and so forth, ever since Zachary more or less introduced me to the whole idea of photography as a hobby. So, suffice it to say I was quite excited about the opportunity to be able to actually submit something for someone to judge. They announced the winners today; they said about 60 photos were submitted, there were prizes for first, second, and third place, and they gave either six or eight honorable mentions, I wasn't in any of it. I know it's just a contest at school, and I know that my photos didn't really look like "study abroad" photos, for the most part there wasn't really anything foreign about them, and I think that's why i didn't get anything. Nonetheless, when I read the names and saw that I wasn't mentioned it felt like someone punched me in the stomach. It shouldn't matter to me; I know I only want to be recognized for something that I feel I've put a lot of work and effort and thought into, and dont' we all? I don't think I need to win a contest, or even be mentioned honorably to confirm that I should be doing something that I enjoy doing, something that makes me feel good and makes me notice beautiful things around me all the time. But, it still hurts a little.
I was looking over the photos that I sent in, and then looking over the photos I had WANTED to send in before consulting with my parents, I don't think it would have made a difference which ones I sent in, but just looking at them made me happy. I'm really proud of myself for taking those photos, I'm very happy to call them mine. And you know, if I would have placed, someone else wouldn't have. Maybe they feel just as strongly as I do, and maybe they feel gratified and maybe they need this and they deserve this? I wouldn't want to take that away from someone. So, congratulations to the two people that I know that won, Zachary and Amanda, you both deserve it, I'm consistently amazed by your artistic abilities. Zachary, make more art.
Here they are.
( Here they are... )
This past weekend actually turned out surprisingly well. I had been trying to make it as full as possible, and no plans ended up falling through so I was largely successful.
Let's start with Friday. I did the usual morning class routine, then ran to catch a 5:05 train to Chicago to see David after my class got out at 3:50. Fortunately (perhaps) the trains were all running late, so at 5:10 I got on a 4:45-ish train that was just getting there. Upon arriving in Chicago, I successfully navigated my way to the red line on State Street. I've always been really bad at getting around in Chicago, so I was quite pleased with myself when I arrived at the Fullerton stop with no problems. Now, for the people that don't know (of which there are probably many) David is a guy that I met through Kelsey, who I knew in China. I didn't know anyone gay that was my age, so she gave me his screen name and we started talking, and have pretty much been talking online ever since I was in 8th grade. We had met once before in Iowa when I was visiting Kelsey, and haven't seen each other since then. That was about four and a half years ago. So, it was quite exciting to see him after all this time. He looked just like the David I remember, but more like an adult. It's strange how people retain this essence in their appearance as they grow up. After he met me, we took a 15 minute walk to his apartment that's located quite close to the Lincoln Park DePaul campus. His apartment is quite nice, and I finally got to meet Peter, his boyfriend of several years. We debated for a little bit about what to eat, and eventually decided on pizza, which was ordered and eaten while we watched "Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything". It was about three drag queens that travel by car across the country to Hollywood to enter a drag queen competition. They get stuck in a small town in Nebraska, where "they are changed by the town, and the town is changed by them" or so said the movie synopsis. It was quite funny, but quite ridiculous. After the movie we went to a Hookah bar, the same one that I went to with Zachary a little under a year ago before we saw "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind". This time, however, we actually got to sit in one of the cushiony little curtained off rooms. We tried a new flavor that the waitress recommended, the Nelson Mandela. I think it was passion fruit, papaya, and...blackberry? It was delicious, and usually I don't care that much for the flavors, I just enjoy the activity.
David had to be somewhere at 7 the next morning, so I left after that and got on an 11:40 train after taking a wonderful and relaxing walk down the Chicago river to Union Station. Chicago amazes me with its architectural beauty every time I go down there, I can never seem to get enough of it. All in all, it was a great night and wonderful, as it should be, to reconnect with an old friend.
On Saturday I awoke to find that my parents had left to look at cars, and TVs. I was not invited. My parents don't know me, haha. They picked me up eventually and we went to Whole Foods for some samples and grocery shopping; it seems to have become a weekly event, which is fine by me as I don't get to do that much with my parents. After that, I needed to go running but it was both cold and moderately rainy outside. The thought of running on the treadmill again was just unappealing, so I put on some heavier clothes and ran outside. I've been managing about 3.5 miles lately, where I run about 1.5 of them. It's quite good for me, I think, but I really need to quit smoking so I can push it even further, I feel like it's causing me to hit a plateau. I did weights after the run, and then showered and went to pick up Vince. We made T-shirts that say 怎麽辦 (What do I do?) on them, and both wore them in class on Monday. 傅老師 got a kick out of it.
On Sunday I woke up moderately early and did some homework before going to see Lauren at Panera around six. We studied, had coffee ,and met up with Tiffany and then at around seven went to Jimmy's house to play Clue, Trivial Pursuit, and Cranium. I sucked majorly at trivial pursuit and clue (Trivial Pursuit for obvious reasons and Clue because I wasn't quite getting the hang of the strategy until the end). For cranium we split into Team Gay (Lauren and I) and Team Straight (Jimmy and Tiffany). I'm happy to say the gays kicked ass. That game can actually be a lot of fun, until you have to hum a song you've never heard in your life. I had to go home after that to take care of Zack (my parents were staying at my Grandmother's in Skokie), and I managed to convince Jimmy and Lauren to come and stay the night. We played some more games, I made some food, and we watched the Simpsons Movie and then the most recent Futurama movie until what must have been 5 or 6 in the morning. Fortunately, Aimee texted me to let me know that Japanese was cancelled in the morning so I got to sleep a little longer.
Well, it's week 10. Time to kick it into gear.
I suppose I'm just going to post something so that I can get pack into the habit of posting regularly. I get jealous of reading everyone else's interesting journals and having nothing posted myself. I doubt I need to fill anyone in on everything that's happened since my last post; you wouldn't have time to read it anyways.
Everything lately seems to be a rough time for me, but I'm convinced that I'm doing it to myself. So these are my goals. When I look back at this next year, I want to see them done.
- Pick a major, and be happy with it.
-Stop procrastinating.
-Expand my abilities in photography and put myself outside of my comfort zone.
-Be able to carry on a conversation in Chinese so as to actually be able to maintain a friendship with a Chinese person.
-Quit smoking.
-Get into a regular, and not flakey, pattern of working out.
-Learn to be single.
Bye for now.
- Music:Cut Copy - Unforgettable Season
"Adjectival verbs can occur in yes-no questions formed by 吗/嗎 ma or the verb-not-verb structure."
Alright, I haven't posted anything except pictures on Facebook, so some of you....okay like one or two of you, probably don't know what's going on in China. Well....suffice it to say i have more than 20 hours of class a week, homework, and a crap load of stuff to go out and do and experience! so I haven't really felt like sitting down and writing, although I miss everyone and everything in the US terribly. I'll try and post something soon, i'm only in China till october 24th, then I leave for Japan. I hope everyone's having a good time either back in the US or studying abroad in Japan/wherever. Well, all of you are in Japan.
I was thinking about it.... maybe we just don't have anything to prove, and know there are better things to spend money on?
Apparently most estimates for the cost of the opening ceremonies were around $100 million. Money well spent? I think maybe it was. I think people don't really respect China or Chinese people. They tend to think that its just some country where all their crap is made, and on top of that they think the stuff is of poor quality. Maybe the spectacle that was the opening ceremonies will get them some deserved respect. On the other hand, maybe spending that $100 million on something that would more directly benefit the PRC would get them even more respect. I don't really know.
The world is not composed of one thing, it is a collection, a conglomeration of things that can never be explained by only one way of thinking and one way of seeing. The world is interdisciplinary, and that’s how your education should be constructed.
Guacamole: self explanatory and delicious.
Soup: with ham, bacon, bits of sausage, jalapeno, and cilantro. I must be forgetting something, it was too good to be so few things.
Tostadas: with refried black beans, lettuce, shredded chicken, queso fresco, and mexican hot sauce as topping. They were amazing.
And to top it off, she put together a dessert of vanilla ice cream with burnt caramel sauce, also delicious.
I'm glad I know people that know how to make authentic food from where they're from, be it Japanese, Greek, or Mexican, or anything else. The food tonight made me realize how I seem to not take advantage of all the Mexican culture that's so accessible to me.
I think I need to put together an all-swedish dinner party to return the favor. Get ready for your invitation.
-Lamentations 3:22-23
And then everything made sense.
Auto Response from samwise240
So the days since my last post have been pretty great, to be honest. This is probably the best end of the year I've had in a long time. So, since the last post:
-I saw Sweeney Todd for the first time, it was amazing, basically. which is why I saw it again with Zachary, and it was just as good the second time.
-I went to a new Hookah bar (Mr. Sheesha's, pretty close to the brunswick zone on aurora and ogden). The atmosphere was better, but it was more expensive and it was super crowded. I really need to watch myself with trying not to go too often, but now that Zachary has said he wants to try it, i need to go again.
-I got good stuff for christmas, which included: The knife i've been coveting for quite some time now (a calphalon katana 5" santoku...i'm a nerd), a bamboo rolling mat for sushi, a wok (from china..but what isn't from china...), sweaters and a polo from old navy....and i forget what else...I think i should take the hint that they all want me to keep cooking....especially Lauren, who rocked my world at secret santa with two cookbooks that are both actually really good. They have pictures, which is essential.
-I bought myself a camera. I went to best buy with three brands in my head: sony, nikon, and canon. I've heard nothing but good things about canons and nikons, so of course I came home with the sony, haha. It's pretty good though. It's a great size, and it was a good price for the specifications. I couldn't justify getting the canon that was $350 when i just wasn't sure how often I was going to use it. And the only reason I was even looking at cameras in such a price range was because i had a pretty sizeable gift card from Debbie. So if you see me from now on, remind me to take pictures.
Those are pretty much the highlights, everything is just going so great I don't even know what to say. I'm a really lucky guy, basically, for a lot of reasons.
- Location:Room, Aurora, Illinois
- Music:Zachary's 80s CD
Fresh start!
anyways, sorry that took so long, but...enjoy them....chuck...since you were the one that asked!
