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.
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Monday, 12 November 2012
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.
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.
Monday, 29 October 2012
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.
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.
Friday, 19 October 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, 9 October 2012
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.
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.
Friday, 28 September 2012
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.
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.
Monday, 24 September 2012
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)