i have found a new food blog that i absolutely love, so i just had to share - even knowing that i am probably the only person who reads this blog who is interested in food blogs...
it is called Tea & Cookies, and beyond being as much in love with food as i am, she is a fabulous writer, really worth checking out... here is one of her early posts that made me happy ... and here is one that is more recent ...
don't worry, i know that the interest here is less than the sqee-ness that i am feeling... but because of that squee-ness i had to share...
29 February 2008
26 February 2008
life and whatnot...
i seem to have been posting quite a bit of content from other sources recently and, well, that just seems lazy ... even though that is what most bloggers do, really ... so, in an effort, albeit a weak one, not to be lame... i am giving an update on my life... and stuff...
grad school - it's great! i love my classes, even when i don't want to go... theory is not sucking nearly as badly as i was afraid it might... i am actually really liking it *gasp*... i know, crazy, right?... poetics is often very theoretical, as well, but with a direct connection to the poetry we are reading, rather than text in general... and really my classes are made that much better by the rather brilliant people by whom they are populated - the comments of my classmates are something i look forward to as much, if not more than, whatever topic is under discussion for that day...
on a note related to grad school, i am also putting together my reading list... for those not from the world of literary academia, i compile a list of works encompassing at least three categories - in my case, time period, genre, and approach - read them and then next fall i will have to synthesize them in a reading list test, an oral exam given by the committee approving the list... i have decided to specialize in the medieval - probably not a surprise for those who know me - so along that line i have chosen to read medieval french lit, 19th and early 20th century fantasy, and cultural studies theory... my list is not yet complete and approved, but i am excited for it anyway...
work is not so bad... i enjoy the labs and love the internet time... though i suppose i would not be opposed to having the same internet time at home... i have applied for a teaching assistantship for next year, and, should i get it, my lab time will be significantly reduced... and i might get an office... how odd...
in the kitchen... well i haven't actually been in the kitchen that much recently... yesterday was the first time in ages i had cooked, and it was lovely... i suppose there is a combination of reasons for that... my kitchen style tends to be slow food for large groups, and while i am living with a large - relatively - group, the various dietary choices and restrictions of that diverse group make slow food somewhat difficult... most vegetarian and vegan food actually happens rather quickly... and slow food often involves meat of some kind... and timing has also been an issue - time to cook when i don't need to be doing other things has to be balanced with the time that other people want to use the kitchen... it is not a single-butt kitchen, but the flow does not work really well for more than two or three people... as a result, very little of my time has been spent in the kitchen as yet this year ... and that is sad, because i love food, making and eating it...
one of the things that has been taking away my kitchen time is fitness - largely, bellydancing and hula hooping - and i really love it... i am no where near the level of skill that i would like at either of them... but, i am gonna keep working on them both, even though this week is the last week of bellydancing class - no more security of having a teacher to tell me what to do... i am hula hooping a lot and i am finally starting to try some tricks - tricks which will need much more practice before they are made public... the result of all this jiggling is that i have finally started to lose the weight that i want off, though, again, only a start on a much bigger project...
so, overall, life is good... and now you know...
grad school - it's great! i love my classes, even when i don't want to go... theory is not sucking nearly as badly as i was afraid it might... i am actually really liking it *gasp*... i know, crazy, right?... poetics is often very theoretical, as well, but with a direct connection to the poetry we are reading, rather than text in general... and really my classes are made that much better by the rather brilliant people by whom they are populated - the comments of my classmates are something i look forward to as much, if not more than, whatever topic is under discussion for that day...
on a note related to grad school, i am also putting together my reading list... for those not from the world of literary academia, i compile a list of works encompassing at least three categories - in my case, time period, genre, and approach - read them and then next fall i will have to synthesize them in a reading list test, an oral exam given by the committee approving the list... i have decided to specialize in the medieval - probably not a surprise for those who know me - so along that line i have chosen to read medieval french lit, 19th and early 20th century fantasy, and cultural studies theory... my list is not yet complete and approved, but i am excited for it anyway...
work is not so bad... i enjoy the labs and love the internet time... though i suppose i would not be opposed to having the same internet time at home... i have applied for a teaching assistantship for next year, and, should i get it, my lab time will be significantly reduced... and i might get an office... how odd...
in the kitchen... well i haven't actually been in the kitchen that much recently... yesterday was the first time in ages i had cooked, and it was lovely... i suppose there is a combination of reasons for that... my kitchen style tends to be slow food for large groups, and while i am living with a large - relatively - group, the various dietary choices and restrictions of that diverse group make slow food somewhat difficult... most vegetarian and vegan food actually happens rather quickly... and slow food often involves meat of some kind... and timing has also been an issue - time to cook when i don't need to be doing other things has to be balanced with the time that other people want to use the kitchen... it is not a single-butt kitchen, but the flow does not work really well for more than two or three people... as a result, very little of my time has been spent in the kitchen as yet this year ... and that is sad, because i love food, making and eating it...one of the things that has been taking away my kitchen time is fitness - largely, bellydancing and hula hooping - and i really love it... i am no where near the level of skill that i would like at either of them... but, i am gonna keep working on them both, even though this week is the last week of bellydancing class - no more security of having a teacher to tell me what to do... i am hula hooping a lot and i am finally starting to try some tricks - tricks which will need much more practice before they are made public... the result of all this jiggling is that i have finally started to lose the weight that i want off, though, again, only a start on a much bigger project...
so, overall, life is good... and now you know...
21 February 2008
a poem
poetry speaks to me in a way that prose just can't, no matter how thrilling i find happily-ever-after ... it is on a level so much more elemental, visceral - proceeding from instinct rather than intellect ... and it frustrates me that i can't accurately explain what it is about certain poems that is so powerful to me, even knowing how rarely one can explain instinct...
anyway, a poem...
The Dream
I dream an inescapable dream
in which I take away from the country
the bridges and roads, the fences, the strung wires,
ourselves, all we have built and dug and hollowed out,
our flocks and herds, our droves of machines.
I restore then the wide-branching trees.
I see growing over the land and shading it
the great trunks and crowns of the first forest.
I am aware of the rattling of their branches,
the lichened channels of their bark, the saps
of the ground flowing upward to their darkness.
Like the afterimage of a light that only by not
looking can be seen, I glimpse the country that was.
All its beings belong wholly to it. They florish
in dying as being born. It is the life of its deaths.
I must end, always, by replacing
our beginnings there, ourselves and our blades,
the flowing of history, putting back what i took away,
trying always with the same pain of foreknowlwdge
to build all that we have built, but destroy nothing.
My hands weakening, I feel on all sides blindness
growing in the land on its peering bulbous stalks.
I see that my mind is not good enough.
I see that I am eager to own the earth and own men.
I find in my mouth a bitter taste of money,
a gaping syllable I can neither swallow nor spit out.
I see all that we have ruined in order to have, all
that was owned for a life time to be destroyed forever.
Where are the sleeps that escape such dreams?
~Wendell Berry, 1968
i wonder if this is how god feels looking down on creation, sometimes...
anyway, a poem...
The Dream
I dream an inescapable dream
in which I take away from the country
the bridges and roads, the fences, the strung wires,
ourselves, all we have built and dug and hollowed out,
our flocks and herds, our droves of machines.
I restore then the wide-branching trees.
I see growing over the land and shading it
the great trunks and crowns of the first forest.
I am aware of the rattling of their branches,
the lichened channels of their bark, the saps
of the ground flowing upward to their darkness.
Like the afterimage of a light that only by not
looking can be seen, I glimpse the country that was.
All its beings belong wholly to it. They florish
in dying as being born. It is the life of its deaths.
I must end, always, by replacing
our beginnings there, ourselves and our blades,
the flowing of history, putting back what i took away,
trying always with the same pain of foreknowlwdge
to build all that we have built, but destroy nothing.
My hands weakening, I feel on all sides blindness
growing in the land on its peering bulbous stalks.
I see that my mind is not good enough.
I see that I am eager to own the earth and own men.
I find in my mouth a bitter taste of money,
a gaping syllable I can neither swallow nor spit out.
I see all that we have ruined in order to have, all
that was owned for a life time to be destroyed forever.
Where are the sleeps that escape such dreams?
~Wendell Berry, 1968
i wonder if this is how god feels looking down on creation, sometimes...
14 February 2008
february...
as readers and fellow flock members know, february and i have a mutual distrust and hatred for each other - i try my best to endure and the longest month of the year does its best to defeat me... as an antidote to the dismay imparted by this interminable month i have complied a list of moments...
happiness is...
...cooking with my grandmother
...the perfect glass of pinot grigio
...medieval french poetry
...blood oranges
...a hot cup of tea on a cold day that i don't have to be out in
...shopping with my sister
...summer stars in the high desert
...slow food
...my mountains
...the sound of the ocean
...dancing until i can barely move
...hula-hooping
...soup and sourdough
...happily ever after
...the sound of the rain
...late night conversations
...green growy things
...visiting someplace i have never been before
...heirloom roses
...ripe, summer peaches
...other peoples stories
...red carnations
...old, character-filled houses
...cooking for the people i love
...a list as fleeting and incomplete as happiness itself...
happiness is...
...cooking with my grandmother
...the perfect glass of pinot grigio
...medieval french poetry
...blood oranges
...a hot cup of tea on a cold day that i don't have to be out in
...shopping with my sister
...summer stars in the high desert
...slow food
...my mountains
...the sound of the ocean
...dancing until i can barely move
...hula-hooping
...soup and sourdough
...happily ever after
...the sound of the rain
...late night conversations
...green growy things
...visiting someplace i have never been before
...heirloom roses
...ripe, summer peaches
...other peoples stories
...red carnations
...old, character-filled houses
...cooking for the people i love
...a list as fleeting and incomplete as happiness itself...
13 February 2008
Breaking News AlertThe New York Times
Tuesday, February 12, 2008 -- 5:55 PM ET
-----
Senate Votes to Broaden Government's Spying Powers
By a vote of 68 to 29, the Senate gave final approval to a
bill that expands the government's spying powers and gives
legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in
President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program.
Read more here...
09 February 2008
economic stimulus at the expense of reading...
i have to admit, i haven't really paid attention to the economic stimulus package that has been in the news so much in the past few weeks - other than to think election year bulls**t... however today while i was reading my blogs i had to sit up and take notice...
apparently the only way to stimulate the economy is to make sure that the future of at-risk kids is even harder, because they can't read... he probably thinks what's the point, they aren't going to have time to read anyway - what with flipping burgers and shooting up their neighborhoods - no point in cultvating skills that would help them improve themselves and thus the country and the economy... arg! this administration makes me so mad...
269 days left... if another republican is elected i think i might move to europe... or canada...
apparently the only way to stimulate the economy is to make sure that the future of at-risk kids is even harder, because they can't read... he probably thinks what's the point, they aren't going to have time to read anyway - what with flipping burgers and shooting up their neighborhoods - no point in cultvating skills that would help them improve themselves and thus the country and the economy... arg! this administration makes me so mad...
269 days left... if another republican is elected i think i might move to europe... or canada...
06 February 2008
02 February 2008
for my fellow labbies...
and anyone else who may work in a tech support related job...
medieval tech support...
medieval tech support...
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