Winter is icumen in, ludhe sing Goddamn!

I ordered Swiss Chalet tonight, thinking in vain that not being hungry would make it easier to study for my musicology exam tomorrow morning. I ate the whole damn thing with an extra side of Chalet sauce and after several hours of getting nowhere, I finally finished. I'm really not enjoying the subject of new musicology and it doesn't help much that one of my music history profs told a wonderful story last year (twice, actually) about how the fucking pioneer of new musicology called Tosca a "shabby little shocker" and never lived it down. I can't take him or anything about him seriously.

If I ever start a band, I'm calling it Shabby Little Shocker. I've got dibs on it.

It's easy enough for me to put together ideas for this one-page outline we're allowed to bring, but actually typing stuff on it is another story. Waking up for it is also going to suck, seeing as it's going to be tomorrow at fucking 9:00 in the morning. What fun that's going to be. The weather is going to be gross, too. Cold and rainy - the worst weather in the world. I'm not looking forward to it at all. On top of that, I have other things to do tomorrow before I go home. I have to pick up music for the next concert, mop the kitchen floor and clean the tub.

I should really stop writing and sleep.

The semester is almost over!

This is just another set of updates. Nothing particularly interesting, but read it anyway if you like.

Today, I tried wild rice. I had it with some green lentils, butter, and salt. I shouldn't have done it. It has more flavour, a nicer texture, and is just better overall than every other rice I've ever had. The only problem is that it is 10x as expensive, even if you go to Bulk Barn on students'/seniors' discount day. I guess I can still eat the other stuff; I'll just save the wild rice for special occasions. What a horrible idea this was. I guess I just wasn't expecting it to be this awesome. Holy shit. I'm so sad that I'm full now because I want to eat more.

I bought an electric razor and I haven't looked back. It doesn't provide the best possible shave, but for the lack of razor burn, I wouldn't ask for more. I can now shave more than once a week! Next summer is going to be great.

Blue cheese is starting to grow on me. No, I don't mean that blue cheese is growing on some part of my body. I'm starting to be able to tolerate the taste of it. I made a tortellini casserole with spinach and blue cheese sauce. I already like the taste of blue cheese in a sauce, because for some reason it's amazing in a sauce and horrible on its own. When eating the casserole, sometimes there was more of a blue cheese flavour than others, and it didn't absolutely gag me. Maybe it helped that I used a very mild blue cheese for this sauce. Ciel de Charleviox, if you're curious. I was even able to take a small bite of it while cooking without having to set my mouth on fire. I might not end up liking the stuff, but might become okay with it.

I have nothing more profound to say tonight, so I'll wrap this up. Goodnight, world.

The Feminism Fridge and Other Updates

First of all, I have a shiny, new wireless keyboard. It's the Logitech K360 in black, in case you give a shit. I no longer have to reach over to get to my laptop keyboard! My desk has a keyboard drawer, which until now I had been using for my pen tablet, pennies and cups. If I had lots of money I would have bought the solar-powered one, but I don't. It's hardly an investment anyway, seeing as two AA batteries will last for three years in this thing and the keyboard itself will probably last just as long as the solar-powered one would. It's a bit weird typing with it and having the tablet all the way to the right of the desk, but I'll get used to it soon enough.

Second, I had allergy testing a few days ago. I am no longer allergic to trees except for a mild allergy to birch, but I should really stay the hell away from horses and ragweed. I might get allergy shots, but I'd like to see an ENT before I do that.

If I may toot my own horn, I kicked this dude's ass in the first letter to the editor on this page. The editing they did to it is atrocious, but it looks half-decent in print. As you can see here, I write more than one sentence in each paragraph, but I guess that can look a little awkward when shoving it all into newspaper columns. I'll also add that it should be Margo Maine's "Body Wars," not what they wrote. Anyway, my feminist friends who came across it enjoyed it very much. One even put it on her fridge, where she and her roommate post feminism-related items. I must say, though, that the second letter is pretty damn awesome as well.

The comments on the original article are also awesome. I'm glad that everyone agrees, and I am happy to see that the majority of commenters are men.

So, yeah. Nothing else worth noting is really going on right now. Hopefully the weather won't suck too much this week. Goodnight, world.

On legislating biology

I've recently been thinking about how the IAAF is banning female athletes with abnormally high amounts of testosterone and forcing them to undergo hormone therapy or gonadectomy in order to compete again. I recognize that sports mean a lot to many people, but I don't care for sports at all myself and I'm a horrible athlete. However, I don't have to get any enjoyment out of athletics in order to see the problems with this.

Part of the reason I suck so hard at sports is that I'm mildly asthmatic, so when I run even short distances, I find myself out of breath. Tomorrow, however, I will have an epiphany and decide that my true calling is to be an Olympic runner. All the non-asthmatic competitors are going to have an unfair advantage over me, so to level the playing field, I propose that they each smoke a whole pack of cigarettes before every race.

I'm not actually going to have any epiphanies tomorrow.

Let me be the 1837563q03476rd person to say that this would be a horrible idea. Why should I force the other competitors to damage their bodies for my sake? The same goes for women who have high testosterone levels. There are so many scientific reasons against this new policy - women respond differently to testosterone, so having high testosterone means nothing for a woman whose body does not react to it; the normal amount of testosterone in high-performance female athletes is not known; hormone therapy and gonadectomy can potentially be dangerous; there are countless other medical anomalies such as large hands that give an athletic advantage that cannot be corrected; etc. That, and it's clearly sexist. Why not test men for abnormally high testosterone levels? Would that not give them an unfair advantage? The obvious answer is yes. Do I need to say that ten more times?

Wait a minute. The answer is no, for both male and female athletes. It's not an unfair advantage, just an advantage. Abnormal does not mean the same thing as unnatural. Anabolic steroids are unnatural. Intersex disorders are abnormal. I believe that those who have any sort of abnormality should never have to live in shame because of it, so if it ultimately becomes someone's greatest gift, leave it the hell alone.

That awkward moment when you find out your bra size is 30D when you've been wearing a 32B for three goddamn years

I had a very weird experience today. La Senza now carries bras with a 30 band size, and since 32 feels a bit loose on me, I thought I'd try on a 30C to see if it would fit me better. It didn't. It was too tight across the bust, meaning I needed to go up to a 30D. This had me a bit confused, because until that point I was convinced that I'd never reach a D cup in my entire life. I found the same bra in 30D and it fit perfectly. I just stood in the changeroom and stared at the mirror for a good 20 minutes. My boobs disappear if I put my shoulders back far enough. I can't hold up a pencil with them unless I slouch. There's no way in hell I should have to wear a D cup, but apparently I do. Once it sinks in a bit more I'll be back to buy more bras, since I now only have one that fits me properly.

I imagined that a 30D figure would look unnatural until today. When I heard "D cup," I thought of something more substantial than what I have. It seems I'm horribly mistaken. This is weird. It's a lot to think about. I was envious of people with D cup breasts. It seems so wrong that I have them as well, but that's the way it is. Once I get past that, I'll probably freak out about all the money I spent on bras that don't fit.

I wear a 30D. D for Dick All.

On the plus side, I won't have to worry about the good 32B bras being picked over by slutty preteens. They can have them.

I still maintain that they are too young to wear more than half the bras in that store.


That will be it for now. Goodnight, world.

Thanksgiving and such

I went home last weekend for the first time since the school year started for Thanksgiving. I made a sweet potato pie for the occasion, and believe me, it was awesome - the first pie I ever made, too. I always thought pie making would be difficult because my mom would never do it and she's the best baker I know, but the hardest part is the crust and I didn't have any difficulty with it. The trick, which I gleaned from all the pie crust recipes I looked up, is to underwork it just prior to chilling it so that you can't overwork it when you roll it.

I guess you could still manage to overwork it, but there's an easy solution to that: use a rolling pin, not a wrecking ball.

I'll post the recipe for those interested, because it was surprisingly difficult to find a sweet potato pie recipe that didn't seem disgustingly sweet. I found the one with the least sugar and modified it to my liking.

Filling:

2 cups of mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp of soft butter
2 tbsp of sour cream (or creme fraîche if you have it)
1/2 tsp of salt
Cinnamon to taste
Nutmeg to taste

The mashed sweet potatoes are pretty straightforward - wash, peel, cut, boil - and the amount you need depends on the size of the potatoes, so it's best to make a bit too much, set aside 2 cups and save the rest for dinner or a snack or something. Just stir it all together and put it in the fridge.

Crust:

1 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of cold butter
1/4 cup of ice water

Cut the butter into cubes and put it in the freezer for a few minutes. It has to be cold. If you don't have a pastry cutter, don't cut the butter into cubes - grate it with a cheese grater (the side with the bigger holes) and put it in the freezer for at least an hour and stir it into the flour. If you do have a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour down to pea size. Stir in a tablespoon of the water at a time until it just comes together. You might not use up all of the water.

Run your hands under cold water and work the dough into a disc shape. Like I said, underwork it. Put it in a bowl with saran wrap and refrigerate it for at least an hour, up to a day. When it's chilled, carefully dump it out onto a well-floured surface. You don't want so much flour that the dough will dry out, but you don't want to see the countertop, either. Flour the rolling pin as well. Cool off your hands, roll it into a 9-inch circle and carefully place it in a 9-inch pie pan. Press it down with your fingers until it fills up the pan - a bit of overlap is fine. Pour in the filling and bake at 350°F for an hour.

For those wanting to use creme fraîche instead of sour cream but can't find it, you can make it easily. Just stir 1/4 cup of plain yoghourt (I like Astro Balkan style because it only has milk, cream and active bacterial culture - gelatin and powdered milk have no place in yoghourt) in 1 cup of whipping cream and leave it out at room temperature overnight to thicken. You'll have a lot more than you need, but you can whip the rest with a hand mixer with a bit of icing sugar and vanilla extract to make the perfect topping for the pie.

Man, that pie was good. My parents wouldn't even let me take the leftover pie back with me. My dad, who doesn't even like sweet potatoes, loved it. Seriously, give it a try. Or if you don't want to but know me personally, buy one from me or invite me to your next potluck.

For those in search of the perfect bowl of oatmeal

I'm in a generous mood, and since I have no money, I'll give my oatmeal recipe. I'll admit I just eyeball my ingredients except for the water and oats, so hopefully this will taste the same for anyone who tries it. This makes one serving.

1 cup of water
1/3 cup of rolled oats
2 tbsp of table cream (or 50/50 2% milk and whipping cream if you're like me and that just happens to be what's in your fridge, but you can probably substitute just milk if you want)
1 tbsp of honey
1 tbsp of brown sugar (heaping)
Cinnamon to taste

Boil the water in a small pot. Once the water is boiling, add the oats, turn down the heat to medium-high and stir often. Once the oatmeal looks about 3/4 done (thicker but still runny), add the cream and/or milk, brown sugar, honey and cinnamon. Keep stirring until desired thickness.

Best of all, it's pretty damn cheap. A pound of rolled oats is $1.20 at Bulk Barn and provides 15 servings, so add up all the other ingredients and it's just over a dime for a meal.

If you wanted to be supremely cheap, you could even get your honey and cream from the bins of honey and cream packets at the coffee shop.

I've been knitting a lot of socks lately. They're much easier than you'd think, and I even developed a way of casting on using the magic loop method that doesn't create an ugly ladder in the middle. I just wish I'd known already how horrible wood needles are before I bought my circular needle with bamboo needles. It makes the most disgusting noise, the ends are sharper than they need to be and there's way too much friction. I might put some mineral oil on it once my OSAP finally comes in, provided it won't stain the yarn. From now on it's either metal or plastic, but I'll save it in case I'm ever crazy enough to buy silk yarn.

And that's all for tonight.

What's going on now?

Since I last posted, I've started classes, I'm playing in wind ensemble, I've perfected the recipe for non-instant oatmeal, two of my tea seeds rotted and I figured out how to crochet a multitude of things as well as knit hats and socks. My next knitting project will be an ugly Christmas sweater.

I'm taking two musicology courses and I am not particularly thrilled with the subject. I like subjects where I am either right or wrong and can draw upon factual knowledge to prove I am right, not where I have to pull an answer out of my ass and draw upon something that came out of someone else's ass to prove that I might possibly be right but it's a bit of a grey area. It's very much philosophy-based, and while I can respect anyone who studies philosophy, I find it becomes less profound as the subject progresses because the publish-or-perish mindset that plagues the scholarly world has resulted in a lot of (at least seemingly) pointless hair-splitting. I can understand these ideas, even if it means taking a brief look at the Simple English version of the Wikipedia page, but why exactly do the most minute details of human experience have to have all these fancy Greek and Latin terms attached to them? Why do these negligible aspects of our lives have to be defined at all? If you're a philosopher, you might already know that I'm ranting about phenomenology. If you're not a philosopher, I dare you to look it up. It's difficult to understand the different aspects of it, but once you can put it in terms you understand, it seems so basic.

Before I forget again, I forgot to mention last time that I packed up my balcony garden and brought it home. It's probably withering away because of the temperature/my parents and brothers don't water it, but when I was home at the end of August, the plants were doing better because they get better sunlight in my south-facing backyard than my east-facing balcony. I still have the peppermint and the remaining tea plants under a fluorescent light behind my laptop. I might end up ordering new seeds and starting over, but this time I'll scarify them before they've been planted for three months.

And that's my life right now. Tomorrow I have classes all day and on Wednesday I'm going to look through the discontinued yarn at the craft store for yarns that I can incorporate into my ugly sweater.

Where have I been?

I had to cut my intergalactic journey short because my Heisenberg compensator blew a fuse. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find one with circuit breakers, even if you pay over three million credits for it. I was expecting not to come back until the next galactic cycle, but at least I got to see Jupiter before I had to turn around and go back.

It's even harder to find fuses for Heisenberg compensators. With the trouble you go to find a replacement and the cost of paying the mechanic, it's almost better just to buy a new one.

If you're wondering how I managed to get to Jupiter and back in two weeks, it actually took a day each way, but there was roughly a 7:1 time dilation because I was traveling so close to the universal constant. Micro deuterium uranium reactors are the way of the future in space travel, man.

I hope you've figured out, and not based on the conclusion that the time dilation resulting from traveling to Jupiter and back in two days would be something completely different from 7:1 after your horribly time-wasting calculations, that I'm full of shit. I decided to go home (as in Whitby) for the last few weeks of the summer holiday and forgot my laptop charger, brought it back after my shift at the bar on Saturday, bought new knitting stuff when I got back and forgot all about my laptop until just now.

You've just caught a horrifying glimpse into my brain. How does it feel?

I've learned that the cable stitch is super easy, but I wish I'd known about slipping the first stitch before getting a third of the way through my scarf. I'll just sew along the sides when I'm done and hopefully that will cover it up. If it doesn't work, the sides are stockinettes and will curl inwards and cover it up anyway even though I did a garter stitch border. Oh well. I still like it. I'll have to get a crochet hook, double-pointed needles and a circular needle so I can make fancier things, and perhaps go back to Zellers and get crazy amounts of half-price yarn before the good stuff is all picked over.

So that's it. That's where I've been all this time. Now you know.

I bought a cardigan.

Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa is awesome. It literally means "In memory of my mother loquat syrup," but it's like swallowing a tablespoon of thick, liquefied Extra Strength Halls. It's a Chinese herbal cough syrup and it is the best cough syrup ever and I'm so glad the health food store in the mall carries it. I usually just take it by the tablespoon, but apparently you can mix it with hot water and drink it, which I think I will do before bed tonight. Hopefully I'll stop coughing soon.

So yeah, I bought a cardigan. It's yellow. Once every year or so I decide on an article of clothing that I have to buy and this year it was a yellow cardigan. In previous years it has been a white summer dress, an argyle sweater and a brown corduroy blazer. I've never given any thought as to why I do that, but I don't really care, either, as long as I don't decide on a beer shirt next year. Next paycheque, I'm going to go to the Suzy Shier outlet in Cambridge and get some pants for $10 a pair. That is going to be a good day.

I recently received a rather handsome OSAP estimate last Tuesday and gave my two-weeks' notice at Williams on Friday. I'm going to keep working at the gay bar for a bit of extra spending money. I am so glad to have a break from all this financial stress. Just imagine being able to afford to buy bread instead of sucking at making it! I'll still make yoghourt since it doesn't take much time to make and I'm picky about my yoghourt. If I can pull up the funds for a KitchenAid stand mixer, I might get back to bread making, since I can never seem to knead it fast enough by hand.

Wow. Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa is even better when dissolved in hot water. I can't believe I never thought to do that before. Thank you, Wikipedia! Holy shit. This is awesome. This is the best way to take the stuff. I kind of sound like Michael Wood when he drank the soma in The Story of India. Not that too many of you know what I mean by that. By that, I mean it's time for me to go to bed, and hopefully I won't be up all night coughing. Goodnight, world.

If I may say so myself

I make awesome food. I'm eating my second piece of a Kuchen I just made with fresh blueberries, cherries and raspberries. The decision to make one just came out of nowhere. I was sitting at my computer an hour and a half ago and decided I wanted a to make a Kuchen while blasting Wotan's Farewell out my laptop's speakers, so I did and the Kuchen is awesome.

Wagner approves. I'm sorry, were you expecting a picture of a Kuchen? Too bad. Wagner's creepy over-the-top-happy death mask it is.

Mind you, as thrilling as spontaneous Wagner baking sounds, this is nowhere near my best baking story. My best one happened in second year, back when I was slowly losing my sanity in a basement unit of a triplex. I was making some cookies and I had just put the first batch in the oven and was getting another one ready. As this was happening, my roommate walked by the kitchen and deeply inhaled while simultaneously performing a brief first arabesque.

I'm not a ballerina. At least, I haven't been since I was ten and I quit before having the pleasure of wearing pointe shoes.

What a beautiful story. It starts with baking cookies underground and ends in ballet. Now, here's the punchline - a second before my roommate walked by the kitchen, I farted. My roommate didn't make any indications that something was amiss, so as far as I'm aware, she didn't notice. Either way, this is both my best baking story and my best fart story.

Now that you're one step closer to achieving Nirvana, goodnight.

One-Handed Blogging

My left hand currently has a freezie sitting on it because I got a burn at work and it's the only form of ice I have in the house, so I'm writing this post with my right hand. Not that it's exciting news or anything, since it means I will have to wear a glove on that hand for my next shift if it doesn't heal by then. It has until Friday at 5 p.m. to heal adequately. And the gloves at work are dreadful, too...

Mind you, they used to give us those god-awful gloves with powder that is supposed to be an antiperspirant but actually forms a paste with your sweat. I was glad to see them go.

My life has become so much easier now that I have my bike. My legs might just get as strong as they were in high school. I was able to leg press 395 lbs - pretty damn impressive for someone who weighs just over 100. It's too bad most hard physical tasks hardly involve the legs at all, and the few sports that involve the legs more than the arms require lots of running and I'm asthmatic. It's much more convenient than the bus and the lock I got for it is pretty badass. It's long enough to fit through both tires and the cable is braided and coated in a thick layer of nylon. It was $30 after tax (on sale) but I figured that's cheaper than buying a shitty lock and then having to buy a new bike and a better lock when it fails.


But seriously, the summer bus schedule is useless, and since the main streets keep closing down for festivals, the buses keep getting rerouted. And, of course, it's impossible to read the map they posted and the times they give on the signs conflict with each other. What fun! I'd rather ride my bike. It's much more reliable and it means that I don't have to get a cab home from work anymore. I should get a basket for it when I can afford it.

And I'm too tired to write more. But I will later! I promise!

Come see how pretty I look!

I finally got around to making a real layout/I played around with the templates and came up with something I like. I took the background picture myself. It's some foxgloves at Stanley Park in Vancouver (just in case someone thought I meant the Stanley Park in Kitchener). I would love a fancier camera than the one I have, but it's just not in the cards. That being said, the quality can only be so good when the maximum file size for backgrounds is 300 kilobytes. Still, it looks freaking awesome.

I'm getting closer to being able to make a decent loaf of bread. I found a different recipe and made modifications so that it wouldn't be too sweet or too dry. It tastes alright, but I can never seem to slash it correctly. It always ends up torn by the oven spring on one side with pretty slash marks on the top. I'm wondering if the water I'm brushing on them isn't cold enough or if the slashes are too short. Maybe I should actually take a trip to Home Depot and get a pack of razor blades (and cheesecloth while I'm at it) because my kitchen knives, while very sharp, are still not sharp enough for the task. Maybe the flour I'm using sucks, or I get too tired to knead in enough flour (although that's not the worst thing because too little flour is always better than too much). Maybe it's all of those factors. Trial and error, dammit.

I really miss waking up in the morning, doing something productive during the day, coming home in the evening and sleeping at night. I never thought I would. There is nothing worth doing after 11 pm aside from this job, which, although part time, is wearing me out. I hear friends of mine in other jobs and even coworkers who don't work in the kitchen complain of boredom. What a luxury it must be to complain of boredom and get paid for it! I'll take that over nine hours without even standing still for a second and waking up with legs and feet so sore I can barely balance on them. I am so ready to be done with that for good but I can't afford it yet.

It's late. Gross.

Back again!

I'll start this time with a bit of humour. I am totally serious when I say I will disown anyone gullible enough to buy this product:

http://www.amazon.com/review/RTADRUSXBGGWU/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RTADRUSXBGGWU

This is the better of its two reviews. The other is just as sarcastic (I hope) but this says it all. I get it, it isn't easy to find 18 pounds of obsidian that you can craft into a perfect, nicely polished sphere, but after an unsurprisingly brief search on eBay I was able to find decorative obsidian for much cheaper. Here's the thing, though - this is not sold as a decoration. The seller claims this ball of dried-up volcano jizz is supposed to protect you from harm just by sitting there - after all, 18 pounds is too heavy for a lot of people to throw at their enemies effectively.

Oh, no! I should stay away from these guys - the have the Obsidian Ball 04 Rainbow Crystal Black Volcanic Glass Protection Stone Healing Therapy Super Deluxe 18 Lbs. Spiritual Orb 8"! I'll spontaneously combust if I get too close!

I'm not the first to say that crystal healing is a load of crap. Scientific organizations have humoured practitioners with studies that have only ever concluded that it does nothing. Hell, even the Catholic church, which has built up a reputation over the last 2000-odd years for not making sense at the best of times, says not to partake in it because crystals have no intrinsic power.

Hint: They are correct about that.

While crystals do produce an electrical current when compressed, the few practical uses for that effect include record player needles and devices that measure pressure, force and acceleration - buying an expensive crystal, bathing it, leaving it out in the sun, sleeping with it, feeding it, talking to it and blowing your nose on it will only reassure you that you are fucking insane. It will not make all of your problems disappear, unless, of course, your only problems are that you have too much money and too much time on your hands.

TL;DR: Crystal healing is the Pet Rock of alternative medicine.

Back to earth...

By the way, I forgave the Catholic church for most of their infractions when I found out that a Catholic priest originally came up with the Big Bang. It's true. Look it up if you don't believe me. Step two: gay marriage.

It's looking like I'll have a second job on Saturdays busing tables at the gay bar. The shifts end later than at Williams, but knowing that it will only be on Saturday and not two random days of the week will help me prepare for it, I'll never have to work late on a weekday during the school year and since my roommate works there and has a car, she can drive me home. Besides that, the gay bar is a good time. There are few other places where you can have the valuable experience of hearing a DJ say, "First person to show me a Prince Albert wins a prize!"

For those of you who have to look up what a Prince Albert is, don't go right to Google Images if you're squeamish.

As for the garden, it's been quite underwhelming lately. The marigold seedlings I had all died, the lettuce bolted and I cut back the stalk and it's already starting to regrow, the strawberries are still producing, the tomato plant has past its peak, the carrots are stunted but they taste fine, the sunflowers have buds on them, the herbs are doing fine, I have a fair amount of dried chamomile saved up (and lots of seeds), and the tea is taking its time to germinate as expected.

And that's it. Time for bed.

Maybe I should post more frequently or something.

Between the last time I posted and now, my marigold seeds started sprouting. The tea seeds are taking their time and the lettuce is now at a point that I can eat it. I take off a leaf every day for sandwiches. I've eaten quite a few of the strawberries and many more of the cherry tomatoes, and dried a fair amount of chamomile flowers. I'm already thinking about what I want to plant next year. I may not know where I exactly I'll be living, but it will have some outdoor space to plant some food and it will not be a basement.

I checked out my audience statistics a while ago and I've had three pageviews from Russia. Who are these Russians/this Russian who has viewed my page three times?

Just checked again and found one from Germany and one from Argentina.

It's certainly not a bad thing, just unexpected. I think I'll leave it alone for a while and see what happens. Or maybe I won't leave it alone for a while, since I don't anticipate becoming less curious any time soon and I'll still be able to see what happens if I don't leave it alone.

I'm in the midst of knitting a scarf. It's the second thing I've ever knitted and it's looking awesome. The first thing was a coaster that gets narrower towards the top because I was actually knitting it tightly enough for the last 9/17 of it.

This does mean that I counted the rows and reduced the fraction.

The ends are going to be a checkered stockinette pattern and the middle is whatever stockinette-based pattern I feel like. It's looking awesome so far - knitting is very mechanical in nature and I just so happen to be mechanically oriented. One of these days I'm going to get some different kinds of needles and learn how to knit things that are not scarves or made with just knit and purl stitches. I figure if I'm going to have a hobby, why not have one that results in a cheap article of clothing?

I'm probably using the wrong-sized needles. I bought them from a store that was closing down and the biggest ones I could find as a pair were 4.5mm.

I suppose I'll end it there. I'll have more to say at a better time of day. Goodnight, world.

No Marigolds, Gromit!

Yes, the title means the marigolds still haven't germinated. I'd like them to bloom before the summer is over... Everything else is flourishing, though, and I've started drying the chamomile in a pasta strainer.

I'd be at work right now if I felt any better. I'm not quite sure what happened myself because I felt fine until the first hour at work. I started to feel weak and thought it was just because I was hungry, but when I went for my break, my stomach hurt and I couldn't keep my dinner down. I do feel a bit better now - not 100%, but since I prepare meals at work it's probably for the best that I went home in case it is contagious.

I'm starting to use Opera (the browser) and I think I'll keep it. It runs pretty fast compared to the other ones I've used, which would include MSIE, Firefox, Chrome and Netscape.

Wow, when did I last use Netscape? Almost a decade ago, if not a bit more than that. Do people still use Netscape? Wikipedia says it was discontinued in 2008. I wonder if the latest version still plays the meteor animation while the page is loading.


I still find myself going to Firefox every so often, mainly because it is still technically my main browser and when other applications use the internet, they open Firefox. Not a huge deal. I still need it because a handful of sites don't work so well in Opera, but not enough to bother me. Not that anyone is really interested in which browser I use.

I went to check my referring sites on the Blogger dashboard just for shits. Turns out this blog made its way to Stumbleupon somehow. I signed up a few minutes ago to try to find it, but I couldn't. Weird.

Another thing I've started using is Wish. Basically, you make a wish list and earn rewards based on your activity. I've already been rewarded with this. The funny thing is even though I like it, I didn't really want it badly, I just wished for it as a favour to the person who added it. Out of the three people who wished for it, she was the only one who didn't get it, which I found weird because one of the ways in which you can get rewards is by having someone who follows you wish for something you added. Stupid Paypal wouldn't let me transfer the rebate to my bank account because it was too low, but I was able to put it towards one of my boyfriend's birthday presents.

I'm not saying what it is because I know he reads this and it will ruin the surprise.

I should probably be in bed, but I am so used to being up later than this that I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. Hopefully I'll get enough OSAP this year that I'll be able to sort-of quit/only work a few 4-hour shifts when I'm needed and not until close. That would be great.

Over the last few days...

I've been meaning to post more. I've been going back and forth between Waterloo and Whitby over the last week and a bit and I just haven't got around to it. I will predictably start with the garden.

The tea plant came in the day after I made my last post. All five seeds are planted and hopefully they will all have germinated by September. Apparently, it takes at least a month and I have to keep them moist. Not having to pay for tea in three years will be amazing. Speaking of tea, I forgot to take some oolong from home before I left...

I now have more strawberry fruits, blossoms and buds than I care to count. I won't even bother counting the tomatoes. The chamomile is also blooming like crazy and I have enough fresh herbs to last a while. The sunflowers are getting big, but the marigolds don't seem to want to germinate - apparently, putting plastic wrap over the pot will prevent the soil from drying out too much as long as you remove it once they sprout. Perhaps I'll try that.

As for other things, take a guess as to what this is.

If you guessed a blueberry and cherry Kuchen, you're right! I made one last night. Here is a picture of it from farther away. It looks much more appealing from that distance.

I didn't get a picture of it before it ended up half-eaten because it looked and smelled so damn good. Tasted just as good, too. I got the recipe from this book here:

Isn't that cover ridiculous? Closeup on the photo of the authors:

Oh my. Now, this picture was taken from my camera phone, so it doesn't quite capture how ridiculous this is. But seriously, look at that hair! Look at that shirt! (Or pillowcase?) Look at those necklaces! I can't even identify the era this book was written by their clothes. I just can't bring myself to believe that was ever in style. I can imagine those ladies looking at it all these years later and saying, "What were we thinking?" Perhaps they still dress that way. That is scary to think about.

My curiosity got the better of me and I looked them up on Google images. They don't. Existential crisis averted.

Just before I left to go back to Waterloo, there was one small piece left. I had three pieces myself. I brought back with me my mom's like-new pastry cutter that she used just once when I was a baby (if I was even born then). The next thing I use it for will be buttermilk biscuits, which I will have with my breakfast over the next few days.

If you have not yet figured it out, I like baking and making fun of out-of-style outfits on cookbook covers. I'm pretty good at both.

And that's it for tonight. I am tired.

Took me long enough.

This time, I'm writing at a reasonable hour. I stay up late because my job keeps me up at night and I just can't rearrange my sleep schedule a few times a week. Hopefully the new Walmart going in down the street will give me a call so I can change that. I miss being able to wake up in the morning without feeling gross.

So, what's new...

Of course, my mind goes right to the balcony garden, but I can't help myself. I love it and I'll hate the winter even more this year.

The tea plant seeds have yet to arrive. They must be stuck in customs. Until they finally do, I'll keep checking every the mail box day. I want to plant them, dammit!

I thought I'd only be growing food, but on Thursday I caved and bought some flower seeds to bring in the bees. I planted dwarf varieties of marigolds and sunflowers. Today, three of the sunflowers poked their little heads out of the soil - so much for seven days to germinate! Sunflowers are my favourite flower and it will break my heart to have to thin them in a few weeks, but I suppose that's better than letting the roots get tangled.

The chamomile is starting to flower like crazy. I'm going to have so much tea by the time the summer is over. I'll have to buy a small window screen to dry the flowers on. Since I cut strawberry runner, the mother plant has blossomed like crazy, and even the baby has two buds of its own. I counted 24 strawberries - fruits, blossoms or buds - in total so far. I can't wait to eat them.

I had to thin the lettuce a week ago from three plants to two, so I put the whole plant I tore out on a sandwich. It will be a while before I can eat any more of it, but it was satisfying. I still have yet to figure out how to make a decent loaf of bread, but I'll get there. Eventually. The recipe I keep using and modifying calls for a tablespoon of yeast for one loaf, which I think is way too much. Once I figure it all out, I'm going to make a sourdough starter and start using that instead.

Aside from food and plants, I've been asked to substitute with the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra for their concert on Friday. It's opera excerpts and it just so happens to include one of my favourite scenes in all opera - the Te Deum from Tosca.

Cornell MacNeil (RIP) was the best Scarpia ever. You can't even look at him - that's how you know he did it right.

Seriously, I'm excited. This makes up for that horrible production of Tosca that I saw in Rome with my high school. Never again will I regret being sober at an opera quite so much as I did when it was finally over. They say that if a theatre is about to fail financially, putting on Tosca will save it - not that one. I went to look it up later only to find that it shut down and now houses one of those "Occupy" movements that seem to have gone out of style now.

How bad was it? Well, the singers were good, and the set was decently decorated, but even the condensed version of Tosca was too ambitious for this theatre, which was better suited to the more economical genre of opera seria (a type of Baroque opera that was popular when the theatre was built). By that, I mean the theatre was too small. The pit could not comfortably fit a full-sized orchestra inside it, so they just used a bunch of keyboards. Just imagine how hilarious a timpani roll sounds on a keyboard! It was enough to ruin it.

The moral of the story: when you go to see an opera, call the theatre before you buy the tickets to make sure they are using a real orchestra. Not that you should have to...

One of these days I'll get around to taking pictures of the balcony garden. In the mean time, have a wonderful day, everyone!

The next day...

Is it just me or has Toronto been a trainwreck in the last few days? I'm glad I haven't been there for either of them. As a side note, I had a dream I lived in an apartment that was attached to the Eaton Center the other night.

As I type, some homemade ginger muffins are in the oven. They smell divine and I can't wait to eat one.

Anyway, I picked up my free box of John Frieda Precision Foam Hair Colour in medium golden blonde at Shoppers. It that was the lightest blonde they had. It turned out to be a coppery colour in the end, but I actually like it. My hair is really thick and strong and always takes longer to colour than it says on the box, which may be the reason it turned out darker than I expected. The box said 20 minutes, but I had it in for almost an hour. I probably could have kept it in longer, but I was worried about overprocessing it.

No exciting updates today on the garden front, but if I feel like it and have time before work, I might just post some pictures of it. I'm pretty proud of it so far.

There is a walking path near my apartment that I like to take whenever I can, and I did on the way home from picking up the box. It is covered by trees and has a lot of wild rhubarb. When it matures I'll pick some and make a pie. There are lots of trilliums, but the flowers were already wilted when I discovered them - kind of abates the barely existing temptation of being all badass and picking one.

Anyone curious about how I came across my free samples that I mentioned yesterday, I found them with the help of a site called Munchkin Sandwich. Click on your country in the sidebar and knock yourself out. I expect this to be a means of cutting down on my living expenses, which is important when you're a dirt poor university student like myself.

My muffin was delicious, by the way. Who needs coherency when you have a good muffin?

Anyway, it is quite late and I really need to try to go to bed earlier than, say, an hour and a half from now - not so easy to do when you sometimes work this late. But since that will be delayed by the fact that I now have a cat on my lap, I might as well write a bit more before heading off. My apologies if it is dreadfully boring, but nothing exciting has really happened in my life recently.

I'm in the midst of finding a second/replacement job. My only complaints about my current job are that I don't get enough hours and the late nights are really doing me in. There will be a new Walmart going in at a nearby plaza in the next few weeks, and I'm hopeful that I will get in there.

And now that the cat is finished with laying down on my lap, I can get to bed. Goodnight, world! Catch you later.

Here, have an introduction.

Today, I jumped on the blog bandwagon. I put no thought whatsoever into what the blog would be about, what it should be called or what I hope to achieve with it - for now, it's just a little plaything. It's kind of like that chemistry set you had as a kid - never mind the instructions, just mix things together and see what you get. You might get the cure for cancer and not realize it. You might get a highly potent fart bomb. Maybe you'll just make a bunch of pretty colours - after all, those sets are child proof.

So here's the inevitable "about me." I have played the flute for the last ten years and I like it enough that I'm going to make a career of it, so I'm about to enter my last year of university for music. As soon as I can afford to take the course, I'm going to start a flute repair business. I originally wanted to perform, but over the years I have come to realize that I tend to do well with mechanical stuff and there will always be more flute players breaking their expensive instruments than there will be opportunities to perform. That, and the expensive dental work that I've been putting off to get my degree would cause a miserable interruption to a performance career.

Enough of that boring crap. My life story can come later.

Lately, I've started to become interested in gardening, particularly when the end result is edible. I'm growing lettuce, carrots, strawberries, peppermint, chamomile, basil, Thai basil and rosemary on my balcony. Once I have a backyard of my own, I'll turn it into a self-sufficient, small-scale farm. I'll barely have a grocery bill - meat, milk and tropical fruit only. Suck on that, agribusiness.

As an amusing side note, I had a dream once that some scientist invented a pill that would make it so that mankind would never have to eat again. (Those "fruitarian" types who only eat what falls off the tree would be thrilled.) As soon as it came out on the market, food production was banned worldwide, but I grew an illegal vegetable garden anyway. I was approached by a government agent who was about to arrest me just before I woke up.

My most recent addition to the balcony garden has been the two strawberry plants. The great thing about that is I only bought one, but it had a well-established runner on it. Both are doing well. The harvest won't be any time soon because I'm trying to keep the runner attached for as long as possible, but it's worth it to have a second plant. I'm not stopping there, though - I ordered tea plant seeds online last night. I'm excited not to have to buy tea ever again... in two to three years. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

As for my boring rainy day today, I spent the entire day looking up free samples. I ordered a USB fan, laundry detergent, Breathe Right strips, acrylic paint, nail polish, shampoo and calcium supplements. I only paid $5 shipping for the USB fan. A few weeks ago I ordered a voucher for a free hair colour kit, a razor and some skin cream. So far, just the hair colour has come in, and I'll be heading out tomorrow to pick it up. I'm thinking blonde.

So that's it. More when I feel like it. Maybe never! Maybe tomorrow. But not today, that's certain.