Let the Record Show That I Was Innocent

I had a pretty good Sunday. I worked for a little bit, went to the English Tea with my mom, and went to the office Christmas Party. Then I came home and found that cardboard had already been put up in the place of the broken window, the blood had been cleaned up off the concrete, and Jenny and Debby were cleaning up the office.

Sensing that I had missed something important, I asked my roommates what was going on. The story, as best as I have been able to reconstruct it, is this:

Lynné and Andrea came to the apartment, and Lynné promptly locked her keys in the car. No problem, she's got an extra car key in the apartment, and the engine isn't running, she just needs to get inside. I'm at work, and forgot my cell phone, so she calls Jenny. Jenny was at her parent's putting up Christmas decorations, but she agrees to come down and let Lynné in from the cold.

While waiting for Jenny to arrive, Lynné decides that she would like to drink the soda that she has stashed in her purse. Being the graceful creature that she is, she managed to loose her balance while doing so, and put out a hand to steady herself. She was justifiably surprised when, instead of supporting her weight, her hand went straight through the window.

Now that we know she's going to be OK, we can laugh at the conversation Andrea had with the 911 operator while Lynné was busy applying pressure to her wrist. It went something like this:
"My friend just cut her wrist on a piece of glass."
*pause for operator's next question*
"Yes, it was an accident."

So, an ambulance arrives on the scene, and the paramedics put a super-heavy duty bandage on Lynné's arm. She declines to take the (expensive) ride to the hospital, and calls her parents, so they can take her to the ER instead. It is at this point, after the departure of the ambulance, when Andrea and Lynné are waiting for her parents in one of our downstairs neighbor's apartments, that Jenny and Patrick arrive.

They find a broken window, a pool of blood, and no Lynné. One quick phone call explains what's been going on, and that there is no need to call the police. So they came down to wait for the parents as well. Lynné parents came and took her to the hospital, where she got 8 stitches. While Jenny and Patrick set about cleaning up the mess.

So by the time I got home that evening, Lynné was back from the hospital, curled up on the sofa with many blankets, the glass was swept up, cardboard duct taped into the window frame, the blood cleaned up, and Jenny and Debby (at some point she was swapped for Patrick) were tidying up the office. I helped clean more, and we called it a night.

On Monday, I reported the broken window to the office (Lynné had strict orders not to do anything, and Jenny was at work) and they sent a man out to see about it. He did not have an extra window just sitting around in the back of his trunk, but he did put up some super-wide insulating tape to keep the air out. It still wasn't as good as a new window, but it made an appreciable difference in reducing the draft coming in around the edges of the cardboard. I asked if he could do anything about our heater (which wasn't working, just like our AC hadn't been working very well before that). He conceded that it wasn't working, and sent the guy who worked on heaters around about 15 minutes later. After about half an hour of mucking about with some sort of duct work that I refuse to learn anything about, he got the heater working, which made me very happy indeed.

We finally got the new window Wednesday morning, with very little fanfare.


Other than that, Jenny caught a cold which caused her to miss work for a couple of days, so that was bad as well. I assume that she's back to normal, because instead of sleeping on the couch all the time, she's back to never being here. I've been helping Lynné put hydrogen peroxide on her stitches every day when we change the band aide. It's not difficult, but she can't do it herself because she's only got one arm that works right. Also, it looks pretty gross, although it's better than it was Sunday night.

Classes are finally done (my last one was today), exams start on Saturday, which is the only night this week when I'm not closing.

I'm tired. It's been a long week, and it's still not quite done.

Le Sigh

We have reached that time of year when I start thinking "Why do I need this degree anyway? You can't do anything with a BA in German." That's followed by speculation about how far I could get if I filled up my car with gas and just started driving.

I'm ready for exams to by done. Does anyone have a time machine handy?

A Word of Advice

If anyone every proposes building any kind of professional sports stadium within ten miles of your home, or if the only road to said stadium will pass within ten miles of your home, gather up everyone you know, get down to the polls, and vote that sucker down. Trust me on this. You will not regret it.

So, Thursday I was very nearly late to work because of the Cowboys game.* In order to more easily regulate the flow of traffic into the stadium, the Irving police department likes to do things like block off any road that does not lead to the stadium, such as all those by my apartment. Three hours before the game starts. During rush hour. While I'm trying to get to work.

Basically, once they've set up the traffic patterns for the game, the only highways I can get to from my apartment are west bound 183 and west bound 114. That is all well and good, except the highway that takes me to work is northeast of my apartment. There is a back way to work, which I had to take, which takes me ten miles out of my way down roads with a speed limit of 35 miles per hour.

My parents live just off the only road connecting their town to I-35W, where Texas Motor Speedway is. Anytime there's a race (a couple three times a year), we can't leave the house along that road. It's stop and go traffic all the way to the county line. Grr.

In conclusion, professional sporting arenas should be in the same place as federal prisons and hippy communes: not in my backyard.


-Yami



*First of all, what is an NFL game doing on a Thursday that's not Thanksgiving: does someone want to explain that to me?

Blarg

Blarg, I say, blarg. That's pretty much all I've had to say for the last, oh, two weeks.

More accurately, I've been saying "meh." I've dragged myself to class and to work, waiting to hear back from my doctor (who took Thanksgiving off because it was a National Holiday, or some such flimsy excuse), and people, seeing that I am as pale as a repeated victim of a vampire attack, keep asking me how I'm doing. So my answer has been "meh" because anything else would require way too much effort.

Moral of this story: blood is very important, do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

I finally have a diagnosis (anemia, Dr. Mom figured that one out, why did I need to see an MD again?) and the appropriate drugs (go go gadget iron supplement), so life is slightly improved here at the hovel.

The bug-killer guys have been dispatched by the apartment and will be here tomorrow to eradicate our pests with many chemicals which I probably would not want in my apartment if I had any say so in the matter.

I had my follow up meeting with the Registrar today. They conceded that my major does exist, and that I might have a degree. I am on track to graduate, and I do not need to do anything weird, such as take an inter-term class. Life is good, and I am now officially a degree candidate for a Baccalaureate of Arts in German and Comparative Literary Traditions with a Concentration in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. I am pretty sure that come May, no one else will have a degree that sounds anywhere near as impressive as mine. Heck, it even goes onto the second typed line. You should see it hand written: that's when it really gets imposing.

Now that I'm assured of my degree, I may get on with other important things, such as grad school applications. None of which I completed before Thanksgiving (as per my original plan) because there was no point in applying to a master's program if I wasn't going to have my bachelor's degree.

On the NaNo front, I am afraid that this year I am going to have to throw in the towel. I don't like quitting, and I really like winning, but this year it is just not to be. I am going to let my brain reset for a few days as I do school work (see below) and then finish Pearl Dust before I pick this year's project up again. I'm at a little past the 30k mark with 9 Revolutions, but the past week and a half or so I've been so sick I couldn't write. I couldn't do anything else for that matter.

I passed out at work last Friday, and went home early, which was an adventure in its own right. I ended up paying more for the pair of shoes I bought that day than I got paid that entire week. I may try to return them, if I can find the receipt.

Now that I'm feeling better, I find that tons of work has crept up on my while I was curled up in a ball on the sofa, waiting for the vampire to come finish me off. I have tests in French and Linguistics tomorrow, for which I am totally unprepared. I have not read a word of Kant, but since I'm doing quite well otherwise in Philosophy, I may sacrifice a level of my grade there in order to prepare properly for everything else. I have a paper due for History on the 4th, which is next Tuesday, for which I have done not one whit of research. Also on the 4th, I have a test in German Grammar, another thing for which I am not yet prepared, but I must do well on it in order to get any grade higher than a C for the class. [The vampire also apparently took my ability to remember the past participle of any irregular German verb, even the easy ones like haben and kommen.] If that weren't enough, I also have a review of an article for Linguistics due the week after that. There I have at least made the step of choosing my topic, but that's as far as I've gone. I'm pretty sure there is supposed to be additional work for Philosophy in there somewhere as well, but if Dr. R has forgotten, I am sure not going to remind him. If I live through all of that, then there are still final exams to contend with, and I'm done on the 19th.

Then I'll be able to rest my brain, but not the rest of me, because I work retail and we are officially in the busy season.

So, until noon on the 19th, St. Joseph of Cupertino, pray for me.

Fun with Technology

I finally got around to downloading the latest version of Firefox. For those of you, who like me, are kind of late adapters, I recomend that you go ahead and download it. It has in-line spell checking. You have no idea how happy that makes me.

Also, I've passed the 20k mark for NaNo.

-Yami

Have You Ever Felt Like You Were Stuck in a Kafka Story?

So, like the title says, have you ever felt like you were stuck in a Kafka story? I had that feeling today. Right now I do not think anyone will be dying randomly a the end, but today did feel like the middle bit of one of his stories, where everything you thought you understood about the way the plot is going gets turned on its head.

I started the day by getting something in writing from Dr. D, the chairman of the Modern Languages Department, saying which courses that I have taken (or will take in the Spring) will count for which requirements for the Comparative Lit major. Thinking life was good, I went on down to the registrars office to review my degree plan.

I was told that I should be alright for German, just as soon as Dr. E tells them exactly what was being substituted for what. I've been nagging him for a week, and he still has not forwarded me that information. We worked it out last month, I just did not get a copy of it at the time, and I can not remember which of the classes I took we decided counted as the introduction to German lit, and which one was most like Lit Trad III.

I was told that my Medieval and Renaissance Studies concentration is good to go, because I already have everything in order for that, and am currently enrolled in the last class I need for it. For the Core, I am likewise in good shape, all I have to do is take a biology class next Spring (either Basic Ideas of Biology or Darwin) and I will be done just in time for graduation.

Then I said, that's great, but I want do double major with Comparative Lit Trad. Here's Dr. E's signature on the major change request, and here's the list of what classes I have/am/shall take(-n)(-ing) [select appropriate]. She looks at the list and says something to the effect of, "you want to major in what? I don't know if that is allowed."

It's new I say. It is in the latest bulletin, the one that I did the paper work two months ago in order to graduate under. I show her the page number. I show her the print out from the department website with all the pretty colors that Dr. M gave me to line out the requirements in a clearer fashion. I show her the list of courses from Dr. D and his signature. The Department head is on board with this, I remind her.

Yes, she says, but some things got into the bulletin that were not actually approved, and she thinks that this is one of them because she does not have the forms for the degree audit. We need to talk to the dean she says. The dean is naturally not in her office when the call is placed.

I'm told to take the major change form upstairs for the filing minions to deal with, and to go ahead and sign up for what ever classes the Modern Language Department thinks I need. I now have an appointment to see someone with the authority to make a decision on the 27th, and the assurances that I will be allowed to do any and all add/drops that I might need.

I leave, fighting the urge to shout "IF THE MAJOR HAS NOT BEEN APPROVED, WHY IS IT EVEN IN THE BOOK? DID NO ONE READ THE BULLETIN BEFORE IT WAS PUBLISHED? IF IT IS NOT OFFICIAL, WHY DID NO ONE TELL ANY OF THE PROFESSORS IN THE MODERN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT? WHY ARE THERE COURSES LISTED IN THE CATALOGUE BOTH THIS FALL AND NEXT SPRING WITH A CLT NUMBER IF IT DOES NOT EXIST? WHY CAN YOU NOT USE AN OUNCE OF COMMON SENSE AND TELL ME WHETHER OR NOT I AM GOING TO GRADUATE?" But I didn't shout anything, nor did I throw anything, I just said "Thank you for your time."

So, long story short, I still do not know if I have the number of credits I need to graduate, if I will have to take a class over Christmas break, or if I need to do a Directed Readings class, because according to the registrar, my proposed degree does not, in fact, exist.

On another note, my Philosophy mid term and Linguistics Presentations (both of which were last Wednesday) went pretty well. Dr. M finally finished grading our French mid-terms and I got an 87, which makes me pretty happy. Some days I am sure that Joseph of Cupertino has my back.

On the NaNo front, I am storming right along at 14,404 words, not nearly as far behind as I have been in previous years (in fact, I'm on target and hopping to hit 16,667 tonight). Aerisith is no were near the mark to keep on pace for 50k, but she has passed 5,000 and is so thrilled about having written this much of one story that I can not help but be happy for her. Keep cheering us both on, because the writing is going well.

-Yami

Degrees of Insanity

My class ring arrived yesterday, nearly a month before I expected it. It still feels weird to have it on my finger, but I'm pretty happy. Also, after much running around to Drs. E, M, and D, it looks as though I will be able to double major and still graduate in May*. If that is the case, then I will receive a Bachelor's of Arts in German and Comparative Literary Traditions with a Concentration in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. This will net me a very impressive sounding transcript, and prepare me for a short and intellectually fulfilling life living underneath the Ponte San Angelo. (See photo at left.)

All that could change of course if I ever manage to sell a book. The Conclusion to Pearl Dust has been placed on the back burner for now, with the idea that I will polish it up in December and fob it off onto a few gullible wonderful friends who have agreed to beta-read for me. National Novel Writing Month has begun again, and with that I have started a new project. 9 Revolutions starts a few months after the end of Pearl Dust with a few old characters and a bunch of new faces. So far I'm having fun with it. At the end of day two, the old word count is 5,081, which means that I am a little over a day ahead. Hopefully I'll be able to use the weekend to turn that lead into an even bigger lead. I know from experience that I'll need every word that I can get when the inevitable week two slump hits.

-Yami






*Hopefully the Registrar aggrees with the Modern Language Department in that respect.

Funny How This Works

The strange thing about UD is that even though the place is crawling with doctors, there's only one MD, and her office closes as 4. So when I catch the highly-contagious creeping-crud from my lovely roommates the day of my History Exam, I have to make an appointment to see her tomorrow.

Ugg. :P

Well Done, Maintance Guys

In what may be a record for efficiency in this apartment complex, the broken window has been repaired.

On my way to class at about 11:30 this morning, I stopped by the office and told them about the window, and was told that someone would be out either today or tomorrow. When I came back for lunch at two, the window was still broken. I went to talk to Dr. M about the possibility of double majoring, and then to my last class. When I walked in 15 minutes ago, the window was fixed.

This is a good thing. Especially since the weather has gone from hot, humid, and miserable (yesterday) to chilly, windy, rainy, and miserable (today). The change in weather means two things. 1.)Summer is finally over. 2.)I need to go to my parents' house and get the rest of my jackets and sweaters out of storage. :)

In other news, 9 days left by my count until NaNoWriMo starts. That also marks the third anniversary of this little blog.

-Yami

My Brain Is Melting

Like the title says, my brain is melting. I can feel it dribbling out my ears, unless that's just sweat. It can be hard to tell the difference between brains and sweat some days, today being one of them.

The reason that I feel like I'm melting is of course the fact that the air conditioner in my hovel is having a tough run of it. The reason our* poor, overworked AC can not handle my crazy demand that the temperature in my apartment be lower than the temperature in my body, is that one of the windows is broken.

We did not break this window. In fact, we can not even pinpoint the time in which said breakage occurred or what caused it. I have my suspicions though. Read on, and marvel at my deductive reasoning.

On Monday or Tuesday of last week, we noticed that it was getting really hot in the apartment. We chalked it up to time to replace the air filter, a not unreasonable idea, since it has been about five months since we moved in and replaced the filter. The first day or two we were here it was almost unbearably hot in the apartment, but then, at a suggestion from Aerisith's dad, the filter was replaced, and lo, we had cool air. Now, five months later, we figured it was the same situation. Aerisith and I waited until Thursday to go buy a new filter, because there was the very real possibility of our being evicted through no fault of out own, and we were not about to do anything like maintenance if we were just going to be tossed out into the street. So on Thursday the outstanding rent was paid, we received assurances that we would not be evicted, and then we had the air filter replaced.

This solved the problem of it being to hot in the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. The living room/dining room remained unbearable, and here in the office, my wrists have adhered themselves to my laptop and I don't think I could get up from my desk without hurting myself. Today after church, I was sitting on the sofa eating lunch and watching a DVD from the ole' collection when I heard the blinds buzzing. I thought it was probably just a wasp stuck in the blinds** and figured I would do something about it later. I finished eating, and the noise was still going on, so I decided that later was then, and rolled up a newspaper in preparation for swatting a non-existent bug.

For, when I rolled up the blind to see what was making the noise, I found that the only wasp on the windowsill was long dead, and a piece of glass about the size of my palm was laying there as if it belonged. I looked up, trying to find a source for my potential weapon of opportunity, and found that it had come from the top right window pane. Another piece of equal size was sticking out, held in place only by the weatherstripping. In fact, further investigation showed that the only thing holding the entire pane in place was the sealant around the edges.

The original break in the glass is a mostly round area about half an inch in diameter. Long cracks branch off of it in several directions, so that in addition to the piece already on the windowsill and it's buddy that looked like it was about to fall, the window was divided into two large panels, and then three smaller ones in the top right corner.

I pulled the hanging piece down so I wouldn't have to worry about it falling and shattering into a million tiny pieces in the dinning room.*** Then I tapped up a trash bag to cover the hole temporarily. When Aerisith got home to provide some reinforcements for my hovel-improvement schemes, we set about making a more substantial fix. Tin foil (to try and reflect a little of the sun light and keep the place cool) and a trash bag (to further seal up the window against some rain that is allegedly in the five-day forecast, and to try to keep out precious cool air from getting out) were duct taped into place over and around the break.

When the apartment office opens again Monday morning, Aerisith and I will be there to demand that a repair man be sent to fix this damage that we did not cause.

As for what did cause it, my personal guess is an air rifle. A small, not very dense, high-velocity projectile, which was still not a big enough incident for any of us to notice immediately is to blame here. Of course, since there is no pellet inside our apartment to prove my theory, and I don't feel like crawling around the circus maximus looking for one, I can not prove this one way or the other. The fact that it could have happened any time in the past week does not help any.

Not looking forward to dealing with the landlord,
Yami





*N.B. I am not suffering from MPD, thanks for asking. The reason I'm switching back and forth between the singular and plural first-person pronouns in the body of this post is because I have two roommates. They share in different degrees my level of involvement in this little caper, because they are around the apartment in different degrees. In fact, I'm pretty sure that one of them doesn't know about the window yet, because she's rarely here and neither Aerisith nor I have told her yet.
**Because until the painters came, we had several wasps nest on the exterior of our building. It was therefore not unlikely that one might have followed us inside and then gotten stuck in the blinds in a desperate bid for freedom.
***Something particularly to be avoided, in addition to all the obvious reasons for not wanting broken glass in the dinning room, because one of my roommates has a phobia of broken glass.

This Space Still for Rent

Something I like about my job: the look on people's* faces when they see their diamonds for the first time after they comes back to us from the jeweler. Nothing like the look on a woman's face when I get to tell her that yes, her fiancee really did get that ring for her.

Something I hate about my job: when every person in the store is running as fast as they can serving people, both registers are going full tilt, we have a back log of people waiting to check out, me trying to simultaneously ring something up and tell a co-worker how to fix the randomly not working receipt printer, and people getting antsy because all they want is their ring cleaned and why can't one of you do it for me real fast. Here's a hint for everyone out there: at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, no one wants to do anything for you for free.

I've got other complaints, but that is one of the bigger ones.

Much has passed since my last post, dear reader.

Charity week came and went. The theme was Bond, James Bond** and the slogan was "the World Has Not Enough". I gave away some of my hard-earned cash monies, and got to watch Father Maguire bust out of jail (twice). Not everyone can use "Soldiers for Christ!" as their battle cry and get away with it. Fewer still can also use "Gondor Lives!" as their declaration of victory after escaping. Needless to say, good times were had by all.

Then Mikhail Gorbachev was the McDurmott lecturer this year. I was able to attend the question and answer session in the gym, but not the main talk (there were only 150 student tickets). He used a few prepared remarks to butter up the audience, answered the questions he was asked tangentially, and had a pretty scathing opinion about US foreign policy. All in all, exactly what one would expect from the last Soviet Premier.

One of my roommate's checks for rent bounced and we very nearly got evicted this week. A little guilt and much stress later and the offender payed the amount of the bounced check plus half a month of accumulated late fees and we were not all kicked to the curb. That is one adventure I never, ever want to have again.

I am changing my major, or more accurately I'm adding to it. I still have some meetings with one or two assorted professors, and some signatures to collect to make the registrar happy, but if all goes according to plan I will be double majoring German/Comparative Literary Traditions with a Concentration in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. This is an impressive sounding degree that will enable me, after graduation, to spend a short and intellectually fulfilling life living in a cardboard box under the Ponte Sisto.

-Yami




*Usually women. Let's face it we all know who really likes the diamonds.
**It's 2007, so the theme was 007, get it?

Back in the Sadle

That would be a much better title if I liked to ride horses at all.

Anyway, it seems that my attention span for any new project lasts about a week. My little foray into photo blogging did serve its intended purpose and jump me back into the habit of writing daily. Pearl Dust* is very nearly complete, I'm something like three chapters from the end. Then it's time to clean it up and get copies to the various friends who offered to beta read for me. After that, I don't know. I'm thinking of trying to get it published. *knocks on wood*

Today's edition of the University News included a Rome report. I wish I was back there. On that note I bring you this picture from Piazza Novona. The photo was taken sometime around dusk, I think around March or April of '06, by me.









*the novel I started for NaNo last year

If I Were to Become a Stand-up Comedian, This Is the Kind of Material I Would Want

That is in fact, a sale at a dollar store. I witnessed this in a suburb of Houston, about three years ago. Jenny, Sasha, and Rose saw it as well, and they to will be happy to tell you about it, Les Miserables (we had come down to Houston to see it), and the black maze of Texas death. Those were harrowing times, dear readers, harrowing times, made all the worse by the fact that the windows of Jenny's car would not reliably roll back up once they were rolled down.

Double Header

For the 4th or July I went and spent the day with family and friends. Since I stayed for fireworks, I didn't get home until late, hence the lack of a photo yesterday. Today I have two to make up for it.

This is from my first, and so far only, attempt to use the fireworks setting on my digital camera. I think the woobly line effect is kind of cool looking, but a google image search turns up well over two million pictures of fireworks that do not look like something went horribly wrong at the silly string factory. That makes me think that maybe my fire-picture-taking-fu could use a little work. I don't think I'm really going to bother with it. This picture is not actually of the 4th of July anyway. It's of the opening party for the World Cup on Strasse der 17 Juni last year in Berlin.
I was happy to be in the States on the 4th this year. Last year, I was overseas at this time. It is such the strange feeling, because outside of this country no one cares. I don't know why that should seem so odd to me, I mean it's not their national holiday, why should people in other countries care? Americans living abroad typically go out of their way to make a party, but for the locals it's just another day.
The picture above was taken on 10-day, and shows the American Embassy in Prague. Especially given how long I was away from home, it was always comforting to find the embassy and know that home wasn't so very far away after all.

This is just to say

This is just to say that the new Transformers movie is all kinds of awsome.
This 4th of July, remember this lesson on inalianable rights, as taught by a giant robot/semi-truck: "Freedom is the right of all sentiant beings."

Poke Poke

I'm making yet another attempt to resucitate this blog. We'll see how far I get this time. I havn't been writing as much as I want to lately, here or on anything else, and I aim to fix that. My plan is to post a different picture everyday and a paragraph or two about it. For now, I have more than enough pictures saved on my harddrive to be getting on with, but soon I'll find my camera and take some new ones.

Day 1:
The Egyptian Museum in Berlin has, amongst other cool things, a collection of papyrus. This particular one is relativly recent, for starters it was written on this side of the AD/BC break, sometime in the 7th Century. It is writien in coptic, and is a record of a debate between St. Cyril and a group of pagan philosophers about the sole existance of the Christian God.

Yet Another Crazy Adventure

Well, I learned something new tonight. Apparently, the big red thing in the cabinet full of duct-work above the stove is a fire extinguisher full of vinegar. If it is set off -- by say, me resting my head against the corner of the vent/hood thing so I can see the pot of pasta that my crazy roommate put on the back burner more comfortably -- there's a loud *POP* and a bunch of vinegar flavored steam as a non-existent grease fire is extinguished.

The campus safety guy didn't know that thing was up there either, until I told him. Their advice was to put in a work order, which I did. The thing is, it's FRIDAY NIGHT. That means, that the earliest anyone can come work on it will be Monday, and then there will be a wait for them to get in the appropriate part. In the mean time, Genesis and I have to clean up a vinegar covered stove. The good news is, we don't have to worry about ants on the stove for a long time now. The bad news is, I think the fire extinguisher may have tripped the circuit breaker in the stove, because now the oven clock is out, and I have no idea how to reset that one.
This is a close up of the stove, and our (ruined) dinner, complete with vinegar-puddles.
This is the culprit, lurking in my cabinetry.
















And this is the whole deal, you'll note the newly non-functioning oven-light.

The Die Is Cast

Well there have been a few major developments here at the apartment this past week.

The first is that I had my interview to be an RA next year. I should know before Spring Break (so before next Friday) if I got the possition or not. I'm nervious, my application looked good, and I had good references, but I was a little shakey at the begining of my interview. The last part of it was not a problem, but the first two or three questions I gave crap answers for, so I don't know. *knocks on wood*

The other big news is that Jenny is done with her THESIS! She printed it off this morning as I was heading to me first class. She'll have turned the thing in before I see her again this afternoon, and returned her library books as well. This morning she made a show of removing all the sticky notes from her references, because she doesn't need them anymore.

Later,
Yami, who will try to post more frequently.

News from the Test Kitchen

I return after a month long posting hiatus to tell the world about my dinner.

I approach cooking the same way I would approach mad science (or alchemy even, cooking makes about that much sense to me), that is I dive right in and worry about the instructions later. The kitchen is not supposed to have any order to it, I say, otherwise one would not conduct mad science there. I usually prepare dinner by making ramen by starting with some basic ingredient (say, chicken) and adding additional elements (spices if you will) to the dish until I get board or turn the frying pan into gold. Sometimes this works well and I get yummy goodness. Sometimes it works, but ends up nothing like I had originally intended, such as the week before last when I made something akin to funnel cake out of fry bread dough. Sometimes I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and call it a success because I did not have to call the fire department or poison control.

Tonight's experiment resulted in yummy goodness, I am happy to report. Here's the recipe for Pineapple Honey Curry Chicken Salad, such as I can remember it.

1.)Marinate one chicken breast per person with honey, cilantro, and mild curry. Cut the chicken into chunks so it will absorb more of the marinade per bite, and also cook faster.
2.)When you get to hungry to let it sit any longer, open a can of pineapple and pour enough out enough of the juice to cover the bottom of your frying pan. Turn on the heat (I've got an electric stove, and use five out of a possible ten).
3.)When the juice is hot, add the chicken and the marinade to the pan. Fry it until the chicken is cooked through, adding more juice as necessary. Once I decide its done, I usually continue to cook it until all the remaining liquid has boiled off, since it makes cleaning the pan a lot easier.
4.)Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside while you get the rest of the ingredients together.
5.)In a mixing bowl, add a bag of salad (the leafy kind with that weird purple lettuce and baby spinach thrown in, iceberg lettuce need not apply), feta cheese (the kind I used had Mediterranean spices added, according to the container, as near as I can tell this means little chopped up bits of olive), pecans, and the chicken.
6.)Mix it all up well, and eat it. Have the pineapple from the can you opened earlier for desert. End of story.