Lucky L

L turns 30 this year, on xmas. Since we started dating I've always tried to make a distinction between xmas and birthday presents and to acknowledge each event separately. Although I would love to throw him a giant party, we're at my inlaws for xmas and I figured that strippers and booze probably wouldn't go over so well. While I can't throw him fiesta to end all fiestas, I could get him a kick ass 30th birthday gift. Thanks to a lot of help from friends, brother-in laws, sister, dad, mom, female-best-man, I was able to pull off this:

Yup. That would be a brand new 24" diagonal monitor and a wii. Sandychile and I surprised L last Sat when we decided to do a "small" gift exchange.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible :)

Side Note: Tomorrow we leave for Phoenix to visit my mom and then NJ to stay with my in-laws. I will get to see the QuiltinFool in person and perhaps share a few tasty beverages while crafting together. On a Craft note, my second Cherie Amour (all in the same color yarn this time), is on the needles. I'm aiming to finish the whole things during my travels. I've also gifted many knitted items this year so I will post pics of the recipients.

Betty's final Bow

In honor of the beautiful Betty Page. Shake it baby, shake it. This is proof positive that you don't have to be coordinated to be one of the hottest women in the world. I know people are all over Marilyn as the pop-sanitized bombshell, but I think Betty has her beat any way. SFW

I want tassels on my silver sequined panties.

Another sign of aging...

When you have to pass on a type of alcohol and it's not because of a binge-trip on tequila. I mentioned a few months ago that I thought beer might be giving me headaches, and it looks like there's a clear connection. I cut down on my beer drinking about a year ago and now only really drink it as special occasion. Every time I've had beer in the last quarter (probably 5 or 6 times since Sept), I've developed pounding in my temple the night of and the morning/day after. Dark beers are definitely worse than light beers, but any beer can set it off.

Now, I like beer a whole lot, and I'll probably still drink it from time to time, but it's not going to be the end of the world to pull back even more. It'll save me $$, calories, and further me down the path to a certified wino. What I'm scared of is that doctors think that whatever it is in beer that gives people headaches is also in wine, and red wine more than white. I'm ok giving up beer, I would be a very sad IrishRed if this meant I was also becoming sensitive to wine

"Watch my butt!"

I love this crazy little man. The energy, the bald head, collection of bright nipple bearing unitards (men, never, ever, wear unitards.....please). I am a closet Tae Bo fan. I started the year it came out and I've been jumping around in my dorm/living room, kicking invisible ninjas for 10 years now. Especially now that dance is over for the quarter I have to find some way to resist the gravitational pull of the couch and counteract the latkes and holiday cookies. Gym is ok, but I can only be on a hamster machine for so long until I want to start throwing things at people. Which is why I Tae Bo. I sweat, Billy yells at me that I can kick hard higher, "every body action has a reaction", and "tighten your buns! watch my butt!" An hour later, I'm sweaty, haven't left my house, and can go right back to grading on the couch. For me, Tae Bo (and exercise videos in general) fit into the category of "my partner can never see me doing this". Mom or sister - no problem. L? No freakin' way. I'm happy to dance in front of hundreds, but I'm loathe to let L catch me flailing around to Billy and his unitard.

Another One BItes the Dust

If I believed in a deity/Higher Power or any sort, I'd think they were trying to tell me to put down the knitting and find another hobby. Prior to Thanksgiving I finished my Cherie Amour sweater and only had the seaming and blocking to finish: a perfect project for the 2.5 hour drive to SLO. Brining out my knitting in the car I got my first good long look at the fabric in the light of day (I normally knit at night in artificial light):


For those non-craft types, you may notice that the yarn changes from a brownish hued red to a purple-hued burgundy. Yeah, it's all supposed to be the brownish-red color. I ordered 5 balls of yarn and 2 were shipped in the wrong color. Thankfully, handpaintedyarns has been incredibly generous and understanding and are replacing all 5 skeins - but it's of another dye lot, so I cant just take out the purple stuff and add to the red I already have, I have to reknit the whole thing. At least I don't have to worry about what I'm going to knit over winter break. On the up side, I now have 5 balls of yarn I didn't expect to. I'm going to try to turn them into a shrug and a hat.

Hmm

There is something funky going on with my blog. The person hosting my template exceeded their bandwidth, sending my template into a chaos of "photobucket bandwidth exceeded" images. I've gone back to a basic blogger template but I still can't get rid of some of the bandwidth exceeded images (suggestions anyone?).

Nothing else right now, just busy and came home with a post-Thanksgiving cold. I'll work on the blog image issue when I feel better.

New Song Obsession

I like you so much better when you're naked.

Breakfast

I am one of those people who cannot skip breakfast. Every morning I look forward to warm coffee and my morning meal (in part to soften the blow of the coffee and in part b/c I'm always hungry when I wake up). Usually it's a variety of higher protein/fiber cereal, switched up during the winter with oatmeal (quick and steel cut, made with milk, nutmeg, vanilla and brown sugar,), or breakfast quinoa. My favorite breakfast however is:

When we first moved here, we were able to find generic Safeway Toaster Waffles for $3.00 for a box of 16. Of course the syrup was more expensive, but we also found Grade B maple syrup at TJ's for $8/bottle (you really couldn't taste the difference). My sugar loaded breakfast of 2 waffles, a ration sized portion of syrup (to stretch it out), and coffee fueled my first 2 quarters of graduate school. When we went away for winter break L thought I would go into withdrawl w/o my crispy, warm toaster waffles.

Like all food cravings of mine I cycled through the waffles after about 9 months and moved on to Kashi Go Lean, overall a much better choice for my health and glycemic levels. Two days ago, however, I found these on sale in the freezer section. Whole wheat, whole grain, 5 g Protein, 4 g dietary fiber, warm, crispy waffle goodness. Hell, they have more fiber and protein than Cheerios! I'm not on the same unstoppable waffle-crave I had 3 years ago, but I'm very happy to be waffle powered this morning.

Goats

California falls are usually warm, but this week we've had summer-like conditions. Over the weekend L and I traveled 30 miles up the coast to the Harley Goat Cheese Farm in Pescadero. They have tours where for $20 you get to meet and milk the goats. We opted for the cheese tasting and buying. You can tell I grew up in suburbia/urban areas because I get giddy around farm animals. If you are ever up in this area, I highly recommend stopping by downtown Pescadero for a loaf of unbeatable artichoke bread, stop by Harley for some goat cheese, and enjoy a wonderful artisan meal.

Happy/Sad

It's a few days after the election and I think my calves are no longer sore from all the jumping up and down in glee. Obama is our president-elect, Prop 4 (restricting abortion rights for minors in CA) was voted down, but unfortunately Prop 8 passed. From what I can tell there are some uncounted absentee ballots (mine? I voted no on 8) that have yet to be counted. Somewhere around 1-2 million, which could make a difference considering that prop 8 only won by less than half a million votes. In some ways I'm horrified this happened, but in others I'm not (any Californian's remember prop 20 or prop 13?) Although our legislature tends to be liberal, the propositions we pass can be incredibly discriminatory. I understand and admire the idea behind the proposition system (get the vote to the people, aim for something populist), but I think the system has failed. At this point, the propositions serve to allow special interest groups to "put to the voters" those acts of legislation they can't get passed in the legislature. They buy pass the legislative branch and then point to their "mandate". The problem is that voters, myself included, are idiots and not prepared in any way to make some of these decisions. Voters decide on the most persuasive commercial? We, as the busy working public, don't get all the information regarding the measures, how they will work with the system (and money) we have, and what things are projected to look like in the future. There are people with that knowledge, they are called my elected officials, who I, as a tax payer, pay a full time salary to so that they can spend their time getting themselves informed and making decisions. This is one of the reasons for a representative republic with an independent judiciary, to be more future-thinking than the unwashed masses who have a difficult time looking beyond their own insulated bubble and worries regarding whether to eat chicken or pasta for dinner (and how to afford that chicken or pasta). And, as I said, I completely include myself in this. I am working on a PhD and I am certainly not trained or informed enough to make some of these decisions; especially discriminatory decisions that undermine our independent judiciary and legislate unequal rights, or sell billions of dollars in bonds, or try to re-work the criminal justice system in a way that removes an individuals right to an independent and fair trial (prop 9). As much as I'd like to rule the world in a benign dictatorship, I don't. Running the state is not my job: I pay my representatives to do that. The propositions have the potential to allow for some really progressive legislation that the state government can't/won't pass to get through, but increasingly is seems like a venue for special interests groups (the prison industry, the religious right, energy companies hoping to make a $$ off of a pseudo-green revolution, environmentalists) to be able to push through laws. I'm not sure I'm willing to say it needs to go, but I'm close.

end rant.

In good news, I'm 1/2 done with my last Cherie Amour sweater and while L is living it up at a CfAO conference at Lake Arrowhead, my mom will be visiting for a few days.

holy tap dancing Christ on a pogo stick

WE WON!!!

Ok, we won the presidential race, but Props 8 and 4 are still up in the air (currently, 8 passing - boo!- and 4 is going down -yay!)

More tomorrow.

Go VOTE

That's pretty much it.

Vote for Obama, not because he rocks (which he does), and not because he will do everything he's promised, heal the world, and lead us all to hold hands round the world and sing kumbaya, but because he is the best hope we've had in my lifetime.

And if your in CA:
-Vote no on 8! Every consenting adult in this country should have to right to marry the consenting adult of their choice. It's not just a matter of equal rights, which of course it also is, but a matter of human decency. My love and commitment is no different from that of my friends in same-sex relationships. My ability to parent and raise a family is no different. My civil marriage license should also not be different. Besides, like Margaret Cho said, it's a crime against humanity to withhold from 2 gay men the right to register at Bed Bath and Beyond. And as far as the fear-mongerning regarding teaching gay marriage to the children: teaching that two people who love each other can decide to spend a life together and maybe raise a family does not equal showing gay porno in class.

-Vote no on 4: Prop 4 is an attempt to limit minor women's rights to obtain an abortion. This prop would require women under the age of 18 to get parental permission prior to being able to terminate a pregnancy. I firmly believe that a woman alone should have authority over her body and any decisions she may make regarding completing or terminating a pregnancy.

And if you're in Seattle or NYC, even more incentive: Babeland is giving away free penis sleeves or vibrating eggs with a I voted sticker! In one day you can collect your free krispy kreme, free starbucks, and free sex toys! I love democracy in action.

Oh boy, oh boy

Just when you think things can't get crazier and you're trying to finish grant drafts to send to your recommenders, you find out that the logicboard on you little-engine-that-could G4 ibook is kaput. Which means the ibook is kaput, unless I want to spend several hundred dollars for a new logicboard in an old laptop. And I don't, at least not when this is the final sign in a number of events that is telling me it was time to upgrade. Fortunately, our campus bookstore was closing out their white Macbooks and I was able to get a good deal on a new one.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this blog post is being typed on the keys of my new 2.1 GHz macbook. Luckily for me, the hard drive of my old computer was fine and I was able to transfer all of my files from my old system to my new one. I'm new to Leopard and having fun playing with the new features. This model (ok, like most these days) has a built in camera, so you bay be able to expect more photos of yours truly (at least more knitting stuff for the craftier readers of this blog).

The one thing that was lost was my totally legal (cough) version of MS Office 2004. I'm going to try the trial of iWork and NeoOffice over the next month of so and let you guys know how it goes. My complaints with each program so far: IWork requires exporting files to be Office compatible and that sounds like a pain in the ass. I've tried NeoOffice twice now and not been happy with it. In fact, disliked it so much I went back to Office (at the time it was slow, bulky and didn't have the features). For you Mac readers I'll post a review of the two products and you PC readers can return to your regularly scheduled program.

Also, if you have input, feel free to leave it in the comments.

It's been a good week.

In the last two days I found out that I:

1. will receive my TA sabbatical in Summer 2009 - this will pay me as if I was TAing but w/o the teaching duties. More importantly, it will allow me to pay my expenses here while I try to hop off on a research trip.

2. I have just been accepted into the UC Davis Tasting Histories Conference to give a talk about the World History Through Food class that I co-taught this summer. The World History seminar was brutal, but World History has give back to me in a way I never expected and will always be grateful for.

3. I managed to do 3 consecutive turns in ballet on each side (this has taken me 3 years to be able to do).

Wow, suddenly, life feels really, really good.

Huh

This is a pretty accurate representation of a student I met with today during office hours. They are taking their first "big university" classes after transferring here from a not so local community college. In addition to living a few towns down the 1 and not having a car, they're working 4 days a week to pay their bills and make ends meet. New place, new job, new school, first upper div take home midterm. The student actually came to me to talk about reading strategies because they were so overwhelmed with the reading (about 200 pgs a week, some easy, some of the I-spent-6-years-in-the-archive-and-I'm-going-to-recount-every-single-detail difficult), they felt lost. Tears welled up in their eyes as they told me they just couldn't keep track of the argument and kept falling asleep and I felt the total terrible frustration I see in grad students making the undergrad-grad transition in this jc-univ student's eyes. I reassured them that history is simultaneously fascinating and mind numbing, and that if you try to read 200 pages on the English Reformations in one sitting, you'll pass out by page 15, wake up 3 hours later, and feel more frustrated than before. We talked through some reading strategies, writing strategies, and some "get outside and find something you look forward to, even once a week" strategies (I showed them the rec center and the recreation catalog). I also told them to keep in touch with me (I'll have my eye on them), and that b/c this is their first big assignment, I'd be happy to go through their paper with them after I hand it back.

What struck me about this encounter is the realization that I really love helping my students - especially those who are willing to work with me. This student contributes to section, comes faithfully to lecture, and is really motivated to work - not necessarily to "get an A" but to do the best work they can. What has really struck me is the realization of how much I care about my students - I want to see them bright eyed, well-fed, and with a decent night's sleep. Despite my ranting and raving, it's more frustration and disappointment when they're lazy than outright dislike. I relish in the performance aspect of teaching, but the mentoring really drives me. I especially enjoy working with my first generation college and jr college transfer students. I've been thinking a lot about this in the last few months, and it is completely clear now that I am meant to be at a teaching institution. I enjoy the research and I'm looking forward to writing my diss (man, did I just write that?), but it's the pedagogy that really gets me fired up.

What's really given me a sense of calm is how much more clear it is to me that I am on the right path. Despite my complaining, I really made the right decision in coming to graduate school. And that's sort of comforting to realize.

Now that I'm comfortable having come here, let's see if I can get the grant money to do the research, write the diss, and leave...

Frankenbra trial and the colors of fall

Frankenbra trial- general success!
I tried out my creation in class and it supported well, looked decent, and didn't fly off my body in the middle of a double pirouette - so i consider it to be a success. I do, however, need to take up the strap lengths a little bit more.

I actually had to write that last post about 3 times, each time toning down the urge to write freely about my boobs. I consider it a sign of maturity, an act of self restraint, and the realization that people who are friends but also colleagues and potential future employers, have access to this and actually may not want to Sad.

Related to the sports running around bit however (it's early, I'm trying...) is that I'm playing, for the third fall season, on the Astronomy Softball Team, "The Big Bangers". I never played in high school, I'm not particularly good, but you need to have a minimum of girls on the field to be allowed to play, so L signed me up. And then I signed up a chunk of the history department, most notably our all-star slugger, A.

In fairness to myself, I'm a lot better than I was. I hit reasonably well, I've finally figured out what I'm supposed to be doing on most of the plays I encounter in a game, and I catch the ball the majority of the time. Sometimes, however, I catch it with my shoulder instead of my glove:

Ah, the changing colors of fall....

Frankenbra

If you know me in person, you’ve no doubt heard me complain about the problem I face between being active and busty. Leotards are difficult to fit, the “built-in bra” for most “sports wear” is a laugh, and when I run I’m often compressed by 2-3 sports bras. Finding a high tech over the shoulder boulder holder that actually holds the boulders in place and prevents a landslide, is an on-going challenge. Fortunately, (and all the other ladies out there may also want to take a look), Champion is currently running their all sports bras $20 sale.

Although I’ve taken advantage of this, I’m a crafty grad student and cheap, and the thought of throwing out decent equipment, even if not working in its present form, makes me cringe. And as necessity is the mother of invention, I present my
Frankenbra:

Original (black unaltered version):


Alteration:


I cut out a substantial amount, so I decided to try twisting the straps to give a little more support.

Detail:

My hand sewing kind of sucks, but it's good practice.

Comparison between unaltered and altered:



This is more of a mock-up than the "real thing", which I will try to make a little more finished looking. I hand sewed all of the alterations b/c I wasn’t sure my sewing machine could handle the fabric. The plan is to see how it works and pay attention to weaknesses in my alterations. Once I figure that out, I’m going to change the black one as well. Already it fits better than it did even new. It took me about 1-2 hours to do all the sewing and I save myself some $$.

Houston, we have a problem

Ok, so the image may be overkill... What I actually have is one problem and one annoyance. If there are any computer-geeky types reading this blog, please leave help in the comments if you have suggestions. Problem: My ibook, which I only used plugged in b/c the battery is old and I'm too cheap to buy a new one, flashes every couple of minutes/seconds between the "charging" and battery icon (sometimes the light on the power cable also flashed orange to green and back again). I've tried a new power adaptor and the problem is persisting. After consulting the boards, I think I need a new DC-inboard (as does our IT guy here). Are these babies hard to install? Should I try it myself (at risk of breaking the darn thing), pay someone to do it, or make steak-and-a-blow job day arrive a little early this year and beg L to give me a hand? I haven't done anything hardware related on my laptop other then replace the RAM... Either way, somethings got to be done b/c I laptop is now on permanent sleep, and as anyone else in the history business knows, not being able to access you computer is like being stuck in you own special corner of hell. Fortunately my docs are backed up on the Univ's server and I had just emailed off the two big documents I was working on so I can reclaim them through gmail.

And now, the annoyance: I bought an older Belkin Ergoboard at our Surplus store, got the PCI:USB adapter, and my ibook, before it went to eternal slumber, can't/won't recognize the damn thing. Surprisingly, the internets have failed me and Belkin doesn't have anything resembling drivers. Suggestions?

Food for an Economic Meltdown

Between the Presidential debates, the start of the quarter and the melt down of our current banking/credit system - it's been a busy few weeks. I apologize for the delay in boot week, we'll be back to that attempt at regularly scheduled programming in a bit. I've got to say, I'm glad to be in grad school, I'm glad to not have had any money to lose in the stock market - or the housing market. Yeah, my IRA is looking a little sad, but I'm not even sure I ever thought retirement was a viable option anyway. After realizing that Social Security will be kaput by the time I'm of retirement age, and not trusting the stock market to be the magical "invisible hand" that solves all my future money problems, I just sort of accepted that L & I will work until we die. Maybe it's time to take a radical step backwards and start popping out babies - then we can revolve around and mooch off of our offspring until they get sick of us and kick us onto the next.

This crash is going to change things, but not enough. We're going to try to rehabilitate our clunking capitalist vision because we're too scared to try something different. Assuming the frozen credit markets loosen up in the next week or so, we'll recover to some level resembling stability (even a recessed/depressed stability). As long as we can keep people in jobs, we'll be ok. I just hop the voters in this country realize that it's the big-deficit, big-Defense, big-government Republican administrations that have gotten us into this mess.

Enough of the rants, onto the food...

This is a tasty, comforting, healthy recipe that is perfect for the crisp fall days we've been having around here. This recipe uses 1/3 whole wheat and 2/3 all purpose flour. If you use white whole wheat, you could easily do 1/2 of each. The sugar is much lover than other Pumpkin breads (I saw one recipe with the same proportions and 3 cups of sugar), and the bananas replace the oil and add some extra sweetness. The spice combination is a little different than your standard breads, but really good. This could easily be converted to a vegan recipe.

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar (packed)
2-4 mashed ripe bananas or 3/4 c. apple sauce (i prefer the bananas)
1/4 c. olive oil
2 eggs, 2 egg whites
2 c. pumpkin puree
2 c. all-purpose white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2.5 tsp cinnamon
3/4-1 tsp cloves
3/4 tsp coriander
(can also add 1-2 tsp ginger)
3/4 tsp salt (can be reduced to 1/4 tsp)
optional: 1 c. raisins, or dark chocolate chips, or nuts

1. In a large bowl beat together sugar, oil, pumpkin and eggs
2. In a medium bowl stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt. Mix will with a wire whisk. Fold dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just moistened (do this by hand(. Stir in any additions (raisins, nuts, chocolate).
3. Pour batter into 2, 9x5 greased loaf pans. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 350 F for 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Welcome Fall

Fall is my favorite season. I know there are non-Californians who will hotly contest my claims that we even have a fall - but this isn't their blog, it's mine and we do and I love it. The air does get crisper. The trees do turn colors (not like MA, but we're 3K miles away, so give me a break), and the light has a diffused beauty that you don't get at any other time in the year.

However, there's another reason why I love fall: it's boot season. Even since go-go boots made a comeback when I was in high school I haven't had less than 2 pairs in my closet. I love the way they can dress up a long skit, rock the school-girl short skirt, keep the wind off your legs, and be used as a more comfortable alternative to heels as a way of dressing up professional or going out wear. In honor of boot season, I'm doing boot week on the blog.

First, the all-purpose doc marten.
You can tell I'm a teenager of the 1990s because of my loyalty and love of the brand. They fit beautifully, last forever, and give a funky edgy I really like. My first pair were a 8-eye boots covered in flowers, the next pair were purple. I out grew my wingtip/saddle style shoes a year or so ago and this is my only pair left. That being said, I love them and if/when they die they'll be replaced immediately. The 1.5 inch heel means I can wear these with all of pants and not have hems dragging on the ground, and they're sturdy enough to hold up to our bouts of rain.

Michelangelo, I am not

We're back in session in our little city on the hill, so things are busy but good. I have a lot of repeat students this quarter - all smart and good looking - and really like English history. Which is good, because it's ostensibly what I'm going to become and expert in. The desk is working out well, I still haven't gotten myself to the library, but I've got time.

Today, dear friends, I thought I would share with you my craptastic sketches from my research trip. These are al of wood cuts that would have cost me $8 a piece to have copied b/c of the way in which they were bound. My mom is an artist and it's clear from these that I have inherited not a single drop of her skill. Behold my glory:

This was my first, Holy Cankles Batman! Proportion? Who needs proportion! In fairness, most of the proportion on these is pretty bad... but I've butchered an already not so great piece of art. Oh yeah, this is from "a song on the confessionad dying words of William Stevenson" (murdered his parents).


Ho, ho! check out the tits on Jesus! This is a woodcut from the "Wanton Wife of Bath". I think she's looking at Eve through the gates of heaven, but Eve sort of looks like Alien Mr. Burns


These are David and Bathsheba


I love this one, "Pridu's Fall: Or a warning to all English woman". This, apparently is what you give birth to if you are vain and prideful.


This one is probably my best, and the most obvious.


I was hoping my sketching would get better as I went along (it didn't), but I learned an important lesson: Cameras rock, and next time, take graph paper.

New Year, New Work Space

Work space (office, desk, cube, table) is at a premium in our dept. Grad students dont' get offices or cubes, and my major beef is that we don't even get a dedicated desk to work at and call our own. We do get a bookshelf (sort of a laugh when you do history and all you do is read books), and will soon be getting lockers. Our department is divided between sympathetic and unsympathetic, and I won't go into it any further than that.

The major problem for me is that I don't work well in large open public spaces (our current computer lab) b/c I just want to talk to everyone, and I work best when I can "nest" a little bit. I am a visual person and need to be able to set up my materials (notes, timelines, books, etc), work, leave them, and then come back a few hours/days later. The current semi-nomadic situation means I carry all my stuff around on my back (I can't even count the number of times people have said, "wow, that's a really big, heavy looking backpack", or called me a turtle) and I lose a lot of my workflow b/c I'm always putting stuff out and then putting it back into my pack. For the past 3 years I've worked mainly on my love seat (it has a serious Irishred butt divot), strewing my work all over our living room and kitchen table - much to the delight of L you can be sure. But this situation - for ergonomic reasons as much as marital harmony - cannot be maintained.

In full disclosure, we have a 2 bedroom place and set the downstairs up as an office. But the space was atrociously set up, the furniture didn't fit, and the windows are shaky single paned 30+ year old "barriers" against our chilly winters. Now, this isn't rural Maine, but most CA architecture built in the 70s was built with the "it's CA, it's warm 365 days a year" attitude. Which was cold enough in LA, and considering we're in the 40s and 30s here at night in the winter, pretty cold here too. Oh yeah, and the heater (which is located upstairs) doesn't effectively push hot air downstairs (heat rises bit), making it a pretty chilly work space. Plus, I get lonely when i work from home - no one to talk to or use to procrastinate.

That being said, I'll also cop to being a wuss and recognize that it was purely my laziness, cheapness, and SoCal whimpyness that had me avoiding our office like the plague. It's not as much the space as me being unwilling to do to the space what needed to be done.

So, my birthday came around, I had some extra cash and i decided to build myself a home office. Here's the old space:


Here's the new:



It still looks a little chaotic b/c of the cables, but by getting rid of the big L-shaped desk I cleared up a lot of room. I also redid the bookshelf to make room for those hundreds of books coming my way (as soon as I get my tochus to the library). My new desk has all kinds of fancy things like drawers, a sliding place for my laptop and a keyboard tray! (these are all elements the couch and coffee table lacked). I also shelled out a whopping $25 for a beautiful, adjustable office chair and $5 for an ergonomic keyboard. If you live near me, I highly recommend going to our university's surplus store: lots of really great stuff for not very much moolah.

I'm currently very happy, let's see how it works.

State of the IrishRed

Well, I made it through another year. I'm 29 (turned on the 13th, but I was at the shore w/ no internet) and very happy about it.
I'm glad to be in my late 20s and looking forward to my 30s. I'm calmer about things now, a lot of the little shit that used to get to me just doesn't anymore. I'm more comfortable in my skin, and I'm enjoying the first signs of "get-off-my-law" syndrome. I'm going grey, but I have been since I was 15, so that's not a shock. I've got a couple of more wrinkles around my eyes, but I think they make my smile brighter and make me look like my mother (who is absolutely beautiful and I've aspired to looking like for years). There's a real beauty that emerges in women in their thirties and forties when they really come into their own - I'm actually looking forward to it.

Academically I'm still in fingers-in-ears-singing/aversion mode, but I'm feeling really good about this year. I'm glad I basically took the summer off from thinking about my dissertation work because now I'm excited about getting back into it. I've learned that I need breaks. I took a year off between high school and college, and 3 years off between college and grad school. As much pressure as I feel to push myself straight through I do better work, gain perspective, and am a friendlier person when I really step back from my work. (Note to those about to QE: take the following quarter "off". Teach a class, take a break, get a tan, plant a garden, but give yourself the mental break from your specific project. It'll give you more energy, excitement, and perspective when you come back. Not to mention that it makes you sane again, to the pleasure of your friends and family.) I'm heading into grant mode this fall but I feel ready for it.

Personally the big thing I've been struggling with is my tendency to dominate conversations. Our social group is made up of extroverts and introverts and I find that the extroverts love to talk and talk loudly to each other, often at the exclusion of introverts. I've become quite close to 2 other introverts this year and I'm beginning to realize that even though I may have a great time getting really excited and talking really fast to one of my other extrovert buddies, if we're at a dinner table with other people its really boring for them. When I get going, it's like being drunk. I get very excited and totally wrapped up in the conversation, and completely lose myself. I'm learning that I can still do that, but not when I'm in a physical setting that everyone else becomes and audience. At larger parties w/ plenty of space, this is easier: I get to flit about and talk to a wide variety of people. The chattier of us have our play time, and then we finish and find others to talk to. In smaller settings (6+ sitting around a table, or in a ring of chairs), it's much harder. b/c the extroverts yell at each other very fast and excitedly, and everyone else just gets drowned out. So I'm trying to figure out how to hold back and engage others in conversation. I'm not really good at it, but I'm trying.

In our travels over the last few weeks we got a lot of "baby-time". My dad and his wife are fostering an 11-month old baby girl and while in SD I had my first real, concentrated, 48+ hours with a little girl. None of the people here I see regularly have children, and when I see those who do have kids it's in a professional or work place environment and the little ones are absent. Very few of my friends from college are married, much less with children, and L and I are the eldest in both of our families. Some of his high school friends are reproducing, but they live on the other side of the country. So anyway, I had the opportunity to spend 2-3 days with a very sweet little girl. I enjoyed the time I spent with her, but I've discovered that the more time I spend with kids, and the more the reality of the responsibilities of having kids sets in, the more I am confirmed in my stance that I/we are not ready to start a family. In addition to the purely personal reasons of having a diss to research, write, finish, and then get a job - and the purely logistical reasons of having pretty crappy grad health care, no clothes/dish washer (hey, i know it's selfish but it's a minimum for me with a family, doing my own laundry is enough of a pain in the ass), living on 2 grad student incomes, and facing at least one and probably several moves in the somewhat near future - there's the selfish relationship issue too: I'm happy being a partner, I'm not ready to be a mom. We've spent almost 8 years together as adults in a relationship, and work very well together as individuals who have fostered a respectful and loving partnership. I'm not ready to give up the freedom that comes with that to begin a family and an entirely new phase of my life. I'm not scared of it as I used to be, but i also know I'm not yet ready for it. There's some comfort in honesty of that realization, (and it gives me more ammo against the parental pressure).

Physically, I'm still doing better than I every have been. i exercise more, eat better, and I think I might actually be drinking less and more healthily too. I'm doing better in ballet than I have ever been, I can run faster and longer, and I now actually like zucchini. We've got my shoulder figured out and my knees haven't given me much problem in the past few years. I'm still blind as a bat, but that's not going to change any. I've also realized that both of my parents are dealing with hearing loss, so I know now to have my ears checked consistently as I get into my 50s.

In the last year I:
-Prepared for, and took, my qualifying exam
-Ran in my second race and hit my time
-Knit my first unsuccessful sweater, my first successful sweater, and my first experience with knitting plush
-Traveled to France and Montana
-Lost 10 lbs (ok, since I'm back from vacation it's more like 8, but close enough!)
-expanded my dorkdom by learning to play, and actually enjoying, Magic

In the next year I want to:
-Improve my running time
-Win some grant moolah
-Do my research trip in the UK
-Learn to listen more and better (a on-going struggle for an extrovert like me)
-Continue to realize what gets my hackles up and how to self-soothe when it happens
-Pay more attention to my functioning in large groups (try not to dominate conversations, engage more quiet people, look for ways to keep conversations going with everyone)
-knit as much as my wrists will let me
-be in the Spring dance show

And now, if you've lasted this long, some pics from our travels:

Ms. Heidi - Heidi - Ho, (who looks a bit like Beth from the Oblongs), and Bob, one of my new FO



San Diego with L and SandyChile. Wild Animal Park.

Wine tasting at Orfila

Garden, Jersey style (my in-laws mini-farm):


K&L at the Shore

Ok, here's a bad thing about the H

Won't photo copy folios - scans are $8 a page! $8!!
crap.

Brief notes from the Huntington

- The Huntington has the most beautiful gardens in the planet. If you are ever in LA, you must come here. (Art will be addressed tomorrow).
-Archives where you use visual material and can't make digital photos of stuff are a real pain. My writs are getting a work out from all of the transcription as I try to save duplication $$ for the really important stuff.
-Laptops rule
-Typing on laptops sucks
-If you're short, bring platform wedges. These desks are made for giants and the wedges and platforms allow you to sit comfortably.
-Trader Joe's continues to be a gift from above. I highly recommend the par baked rolls with Mozzarella, basil, tomato, and the Italian Turkey breast lunch meat. Mmmm, saving $$ for duplication services is actually tasty.
-I actually have very fond memories of Pasadena and LA. I really would not mind, and would even look forward to moving back here. Pasadena is really beautiful. (granted, the Rose Bowl doesn't compare to West Cliff, but you can't have it all at a somewhat affordable price).
-If I could do all of my diss research here I would be a very happy camper. The Huntington is absolutely beautiful, the staff are incredibly friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable, and they go out of their way to take care of you.

that's all, saving wrists....

We are Motorhead and We Play Fucking Rock N' Roll

I attended my first bona fide metal concert on Sunday. The Metal Masters tour had its last stop in the Bay Area so L, 3 other sexy rockin' grads (2 philosophy, 1 psych) and I piled into the car and headed north for the concert. Testament started the set, followed by Motorhead, Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath with Dio instead of Ozzy), and finally, Judas Priest. Some observations from my experience:

1. the people watching at metal shows is better than a D&D convention in Las Vegas. The tats, the t-shirts, the hair... I so wish I had my camera. As a bonus, one of the motorhead groupies totally looked like the girl clown groupies from the Dr. Rockso video.

2. This is the only place in the entire world where men have to wait in a 30 min line to use the loo and the women's is basically empty. Not a single line in site!

3. Lemmy. I get it. If he shows up at the door, L will be ushered off with kisses and wishes of good luck (and maybe some condoms and penicillin). So fucking badass.

4. Metal rocks, but metal is old. At least the masters, that is. I felt pretty young at this concert. Not as young as the 2 10 years olds in the row in front of us, but I bet the majority of the performers, and a good chunk of the audience, are on the verge of the Medicaid years.

5. Aside from looking like he raided Liza Minelli's sequin-studded closet, Dio was out of this world. That little man has some serious pipes on him. I had no idea who Heaven & Hell were until they started playing, and I was really impressed.


6. How anyone thought Rob Halford was anything but into other bald men in leather, is beyond me. That being said, awesome fucking guitar and drums. However, although my BIL will rake me across the coals for this one, Rob Halford's singing voice drove me nuts. That and he needs to stop singing into the floor. i know it's all about being dark, evil, hardcore, and on and on, but I got tired of looking at the top of his head, and it kills the energy of what would be an otherwise outstanding performance when the lead singer refuses to look at his audience.


7. The disconnect between these rocker's hardcore, onstage personas, and their chipper, proper English accents took some getting used to.

I had a great time, and as a ringing endorsement, I'd happily go see any of them again.

(In non-metal related news: My drive to LA went smoothly and I am comfortably settled into my friend's parent's house in lovely San Marino. Tomorrow I begin my dissertation research! Or something like it...)

Must be the 'stache

I was at a friend's house for dinner last night and the topic came up: which famous celebrity would you leave your partner for, and which famous person would they leave you for. For me: Jon Stewart. He's funny, intelligent, and has great hair. Brad Pitt might be a close second, I likey the bod and I likey the scruff that cleans up nicely. I guessed that L's picks would be one of the two women he's talked about in the past, Angelina Jolie (pre-skinny baby machine), or Selma Hyack. Two standard, gorgeous women I would probably also leave him for if they offered to take me away.

This morning, I asked him:

Me - "L, if there was one celebrity who, should they show up at our door and say 'come away with me', you would - who would it be?"

L - "Lemmy from Motorhead. I'd join his rock band and toured until I died atop a pile of 18 year old groupies."

Not what I expected, but that response is full of a whole lot of awesome.

Biceps and Babies

Oddly enough, these do actually go together. (image from: http://physioguy.com/3-biceps.html)

Of the many things I complain about on this blog, I've probably complained a couple of times about my right shoulder. I injured it while swing dancing with my ex-boyfriend back in the summer of 2000. It was right before we broke up; we were going swing dancing and had gotten into an argument over whether I did the move he wanted me to or not (I tend to date men who don't : follow the swing rule "the follow is always right", which ends up with a number of swing-related spats). Anyway, there was some tension while we were dancing (and not the good kind) when he jerked my follow arm up into the air, causing shooting pain in my shoulder. It ached for a while, but then the pain went away, beginning a 8 year cycle of lots of pain followed by periods of no pain, failed physical therapy, and an definite inability to diagnose what the hell was wrong anyway.

This summer it got so bad I woke up 3-4 times a night. I was losing sleep and miserable. So, I finally made another apt to see a specialist. The apt was yesterday and fortunately/unfortunately was during a no-pain swing. However, we think we were able to figure it out: it seems that I have tendonitis in the tendon coming out from the top of the bicep. This is a condition aggravated by typing at a computer and carrying heavy loads in my backpack - both of those actions have in turn caused me to hunch my shoulders and raise my scapula, which is making the entire thing worse. Are we surprised? No.

The good news: he understands I'm a student with somewhat crappy insurance and gave me exercise to do at home w/o physical therapy, and the availability to come in a make an apt to try a cortizone injection in the tendon sheath should the pain get too bad. In the meantime, while in a pain-free cycle I'm to do exercises, stretch, strengthen, and ice, ice, ice. Advil for 5 days if pain kicks up and then switch to Tylenol. considering I was terrified I had a rotator cuff tear (even though I didn't have the weakness associated with one), having to get an MRI and having to get surgery, this is the best news I've heard in weeks. We finally think we've figured out what it is and I have a way of dealing with the problem.

And now, the babies...

Via facebook, I just found out the same ex-boyfriend and his wife of 2 years are expecting their first child. It's not a surprise, he's always wanted a gaggle of kids, but it's the first ex of mine to reproduce. I'm happy for him, and I feel a little odd about it. I guess sit sort of reminds you of the grad school bubble when people you were close to have moved on to the "next phases" in life. At the same time, I sincerely hope that he and his cute redheaded wife have lots of cute little red headed babies and spread more Irish into the world.

Oh yeah, and we ordered a camera, it'll be here Friday or Tuesday. Hooray!

Rogue, rogue, rogue

Ok, I know I'm anal, but I'm still not happy with the sweater. The top, boobs up, is actually alright, but I hate the bottom half. It's too big (4" ease on me is too much) and too short. The placement of the pockets means they start right under my bust and give me a strange waist/tummy pooch.

My first thought was to frog the whole thing and start over. Then I posted on revelry and got the wonderful suggestion of cutting and grafting. As scary as cutting the bottom half off and re-knitting it is, it's less scary than starting the whole thing over. I'm not ready to do it yet, but I think it's what I'm going to do. i've put too much time, energy and money to have this sweater turn out as something I don't like and don't wear. The whole point of knitting your own clothes is so they fit, right?

Live and learn.

Oh, and in good news, dh and I finally decided on a new camera. if they have it at Costco (not just costco.com) I'll have pics tonight!

And in other good news, my final Food Class ended really well. i got to walk the students through Sweetness and Power and we had a pretty good discussion. i've discovered that they really seem to benefit from dissecting a book and an argument (well, especially when they haven't read it... hence the "walking/dragging through"), and the potluck was wonderful! Not surprisingly, foodie kids can cook.

Summer School rocks

And I though the papers I got during the year were bad...
I have my first plagiarized paper (a google book source and wikipedia, easily found via googling phrases), and one paper whose author is very passionate about food, eating, and everything being wonderful, but thinks that Jews are referred to as "The Jewish".
Oy vey!

By the Numbers

Every now and then, numbers give you a reality check. This can be found in stepping on the scale, searching for an affordable place to live, and in my case, looking at our monthly food bill. Taking into account that prices are rising, I knew we'd been spending more. What I didn't take into account was how much my enjoyment of cooking things from scratch was also sending money right out of our pockets. I started cooking in grad school as a substitution for eating out. I figured I could, and can, make tasty food for less than we would spend at a restaurant. The added entertainment of cooking and sharing was just that - my entertainment expenditure. However, just because a home cooked meal is less than it would be at a restaurant, that doesn't mean its cheap. It seems I've gone overboard, and although we hardly having caviar at every meal, I'm cooking too much.

So I'm on a cooking/grocery shopping diet. We're going to try to eat cheap ($5-10 a meal) Monday through Thursday and I'm going to save the gourmet for the weekends. I am also realizing that I've been going overboard when I cook for people (read: scientists) because I want to impress them with my mad cooking skills (read: b/c as a historian I'm not sure I can impress them with much else. As I was reminded recently when overhearing a conversation: "you're an engineer, there's not much you can do with a degree in philosophy, it's like a degree in histo... (realized I was there) ).

The numbers reminded me I'm a grad student, as much as I like to pretend I'm not.

3rd FO this week!

I finished Rogue! Now i need to find someone with a camera...
This sweater took me a long time. I learned a lot, but I'm glad to be done. The finishing was a real pain in the ass. I think I'm going for sweaters with minimal finishing next time. I like it, but I'm not sure if I would make it again. If I do, I'll go smaller, use a different yarn and a smaller needle size in order to make a tighter knit.
Pics will come as soon as I can.

Espresso Brownies

Last holiday season, i asked my dad for a cooking magazine subscription as a Chanukkah gift. I was expecting Cook's Illustrated ( a staple in his household), but received instead Saveur. I wasn't crazy about the mag at first - lost of words, not as many recipes or techniques - but over the last 8 months I have really fallen in love with the publication. The articles, which tend to focus on a specific ingredient such as butter or ricotta, are well written and inspiring. The recipes are often complicated but always look good. So far I've been inspired to venture out into the worlds of butters I never knew about, (love Kerrygold salted, definitely like Plugra for buttercream frostings), and have flagged way more recipes than I've been able to try.

The most recent spread has a special section on Brownies. Now, I love and am deeply loyal to Hershey's Best Brownies recipe. They aren't really caky or fudgy but buttery, chocolatey, and melt in your mouth flaky in a way brownies usually aren't. But, inspired by the article and 3 recipes included, I've decided to try them all. The major tip I learned from the article is the difference between using solid baking (high quality of course) chocolate versus chocolate powder: because baking/melting chocolate is combined with fats, it will give a smooth taste to baked goods but the level and intensity of chocolate is not adjustable. Cocoa powder, in which the fats and have been removed, will give a deeper, darker cocoa taste because you can substitute some of your flour with cocoa powder as a way to up the chocolate intensity. If you are a real chocoholic like myself and love the bitter taste of dark chocolate, I highly recommend Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder. It's a blend of Dutch and regular processed powders and I like it better then Schraffen-Berger and many of the other really expensive kinds out there. Penzy's Dutch processed is very tasty, but much lighter in flavor and better for a "milk chocolate" rather than a dark chocolate taste. Ghiradelli is also good, but in my opinion over-rated and over priced for what it is. Between regular Nestle and regular Hershey's powders, I've found the Hershey gives a better flavor, the Nestle is a bit bland and fades rather quickly.

I made this recipe with 2 adjustments: 1) brewed strong coffee from espresso roast beans rather than use instant espresso - and 2) I used melted salted butter rather than oil. B/c of the espresso beans it's a little expensive to make, but it make a very elegant brownie that was a luxurious treat while camping and would make and elegant dessert. Note: don't leave out the salt in this recipe, it's important for balancing the sweet/bitter tastes.

Krystal's Espresso Brownies from Saveur September 2008
Brownies:
1/2 c. oil (I used melted butter instead)
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup strongly brewed coffee or 1/4 hot water and 2.5 Tbl instant espresso powder
1 cup (about 4 oz) chocolate covered espresso beans
1 cup superfine sugar (regular worked just fine)
1/2 c flour
1/3 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

1 8x8 pan
parchment paper

1. grease pan and line bottom with parchment paper. Grease parchment.
2. Heat oven to 325 F
3. Make coffee or dissolve instant expresso powder, let cool. Combine with melted butter (also cooled a bit) or oil, and eggs. Whisk together and set aside.
4. Coarsely chop espresso beans in a food processor.
5. Combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Whisk. Stir in wet ingredients until just combined. Stir in espresso beans.
6. Pour into pan, spread evenly, try not to eat all of the batter before cooking, and bake 45-50 min. Let cool slightly.

Frosting
1 cup superfine sugar (again, regular was just fine)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 Tbl. butter
1/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt

In the last 15 minutes of baking, begin frosting.
1. in a 1 qt saucepan, melt butter, milk, vanilla, and salt. When it begins to get hot and approach boiling, stir in sugar. Continue to stir/whisk until sugar has dissolved (VERY IMPORTANT!). Sir in cocoa powder.
2. Pour over cooled brownies and let cool completely. (in the fridge works well.

Knitting Frenzy!

Assuming all goes well tonight or tomorrow, i will have 3 FOs this week! On Tuesday I finished Tempting with a cable neckline modification I found on Ravelry. On Wednesday I finished "My so called scarf" for L. I still have to block both projects, but the knitting and finishing on both is done. I also sewed in the first side of my zipper for Rogue and hope to finish the second side either today or tomorrow. After that, all I have to do is sew up the hem and I'm done! Now I need more projects... I've been drooling after Knitty's Cherie Amour and will probably order the yarn for the by the end of the week. I'm looking at a red colorway at handpaintedyarn.com (likely the homespun merino rather than the merino bulky - better colors). I'm also considering getting into some stash-busting plush patterns. I have a bunch of odds and ends I really need to use up. I'm currently looking at Bob, Nautie, and have fallen head over heels in love with hansigurumi patterns. However, considering I've never knit a toy before, I think I'm going to start with something a little less complex, such as Bob.

Camping was excellent. If you live in Northern California and are willing to sit in the car for a little while, Lake Alpine is absolutely beautiful. The lake itself is good-sized with ample room for swimming and boating. On Sat we did the Bull Run Hike -7 miles round trip to a lake. The terrain was varied and beautiful and the warm rain that fell on the way back kept us nice and cool. There was some stress as we realized we hadn't put the rain flap on our tent and despite the cooling effects of the rain during the hike we really didn't want to sleep in puddles. Fortunately when we got back things were a bit damp, but generally alright. The weekend offered a good opportunity to get to know some of the kids at Stanford and Berkeley. I'd love to do something like this either between departments at UCSC or between history depts in the Bay Area.

I'm nearing the end of my class and looking forward to it. This week's lectures - wine and opium - went better than last week's, but I'm still looking forward to returning to nation-state based chronologies in the fall. Because I'm planning on doing research in summer of 2009, I'm not sure when my next opportunity to teach will be. Whenever it is, I think I'll stick to a more traditional class and teach by myself. I need to be a little more grounded in teaching a basic class from start to finish, and next time I won't try to cover so much ground. That being said, I think this class has a lot of potential. That being said, it also needs work. Over the next year I'm going to crash the UC Davis Food in World History conference this fall(spring? not sure), and look at other people's syllabi for suggestions.

Bon Voyage

I'll be hiking and sleeping in the semi-wilderness this weekend with a bunch of astro grads and post-docs from UCSC, Cal, and Stanford.

Upon return, I'm going to try to keep the woe-is-me posts to a minimum. More crafting, baking, and maybe even some foxy ladies.

Until then, good luck and good travels to kungfuramone, who leaves for Paris tomorrow.

For locals who read my blog, especially So Cal natives, I finally found an excellent taco place: Los Pericos on Water St. Best carne asada I've been able to find here, everything is cooked and made fresh, and I had the most flavorful burrito I've had in 3 years. I can't believe it took me this long to find this place.

Body Work

My car's having problems. Or maybe, I'm having car problems. Either way, it's a pain in my ass. About 50% of the time I go to start my car, it won't start. It revs, but the ignition won't catch. 3 weeks ago, we figured it was the battery, which was old and dead, and replaced it for way more than I wish car batteries cost. The car started several times in a row and I congratulated myself on diagnosing and fixing the problem. Last week, ignition won't catch. I took it to the mechanic on Tuesday, the tightened down the battery connections and it started for them every time. Nothing checked out as being odd, other than the loose battery cables, and there were no problems. Picked it up this morning, let it set 3 hours - won't start. I called the mechanic and I'm going to take it back in... once I can actually get it running that is.

The other body that's going into the shop is mine. I injured my right shoulder about 8 years ago and have been dealign with on and off pain ever since. Normally it hurts for a while (especially when I have to sit on planes or watch movies - it's something about the body position), and then goes away, and I forget about it. I had another pain cycle this summer that was bad enough I decided it was time to see another doctor. You see, I've had this looked at by 3 people and tried PT already, but no one can figure out what's actually wrong. PT cost me $$ and didn't do a damn thing. Lately I've been hoping the magical shoulder fairy will come and solve the problem, but after several nights of waking up due to pain, I don't think that fairy is coming. I'm going to see someone at the end of August and I'm betting that I'll be headed for an MRI. I'm not scared of the procedure, and considering we haven't been able to see what the problem is for 8 years I'm probably overdue for one, I'm scared of the cost.

Whether it's an estimate from a mechanic for your car, or a physician for a medical treatment, it always hits the pocket book hard. With the mechanic, you know you have to do the work to get the car running. With medical stuff, it's the battle between you and the insurance companies that can either screw you with a red hot poker or a red hot poker with extra spikes - either way you're getting screwed.

Fortunately as a positive end to this long and painful week I'm going camping with a bunch of astro grad students. I'm making a new espresso brownie recipe, going to commune with nature, try not to get sunburned, and drink a good amount of Shaw. The brownies have chopped up chocolate covered espresso beans in them. If they're good, i'll post the recipe when I get back.

Oh, and my images are back!

This is hard

I have a new and ever growing respect for world historians. Writing about world history for other world historians or graduate+ students is actually a lot of fun. We generally have one or two fields we know well and have the skill sets to work comparatively, trans-regionally/nationally, etc., etc. Teaching world history, heck, lecturing in world history to undergrads many of whom have no-to-very-little basis for the historical narrative we're creating is really - freakin' - hard.

It's very hard to do transregional work if the students don't know any of the histories of the regions. If you take the time to dig into the political-economic histories of each region, you lose the world picture - but if you don't, you lose your students to broad generalizations as important political-economic histories become mushed into "Europe" or "South East Asia". World history is in some ways trying to deconstruct a canonical story of European domination that students either 1) "know', but only in a very general sense, or 2) have grown up almost without. I feel stuck between being boring b/c I'm being to general and being boring because I'm too specific.

I'm also realizing how much of this is more easily done in writing than in speaking/lecturing. In written work, you can take a paragraph to get through "necessary" background or context, or better yet, assume your reader is relatively well-informed, or will at least take it upon themselves to inform themselves. You don't have the luxury when lecturing. And you really don't have that luxury when trying to put together a substantive lecture on wide range of space and time.

Even more, I'm learning about how little I know when I try to teach this to other people. I feel so out of place outside of Europe and so ashamed for only knowing European languages. I can't treat the rest of the world on par with what I can do with European history. I can pick up and read an early modern recipe in English - I can't do that with old recipes in Chinese or from any non-European, lets be honest, non-modern language sources. I can talk about the different use of spices in England, Germany, Italy, France... but all I can really say about China is that there was a heavy trade in cloves, but our sources are scant and merely speculative - which is what every freakin' article I read on the subject said. The more and more cautious historians are with their own conclusions, the harder it is to rely on their work. I understand why they are cautious and that you can spend 30 years trying to sort through sources to confirm that the use of a specific character in Chinese port records probably represents shipments of cloves, but that you can't be 100% certain b/c the sources aren't 100&, but they are very suggestive... But in lecture, unless its your own research, this all comes off as several minutes of context (the sources, speculative work) before getting to the actually important statement (about the clove trade in China), followed by dismissal of "so they dont' really know" and "why should I care". I can always just plow ahead and say things like, "we know there was a vibrant clove trade in China between 1000-1400", in which 30 pages of an article is compressed to one, 10 second sentence.

So much of world history is putting together a relatively familiar body of knowledge in a new way, or revisiting an old debate with new evidence. The other half is just writing the history (of say the clove trade in China 1000-1400), in the first place. In which your contribution is that there was a trade and now you've written about it. But all of this is very difficult to distill to undergrads in a meaningful way that follows a logical progression - without putting them all to sleep or doing the "it's a Small World/World's Fair" version of history.

Lessons learned today:
-1/2 the class walks out during the break between your lectures. Problem: 1/2 the class leaves. Advantage: you get to have a good discussion with the ones who actually care
-I need to be even better organized and clear in my lectures. I need to introduce a concept, define terms, and then get into the narrative. I've been trying, but what I'm doing still isn't good enough.
-I'm much better with European History then with world history. And I'm better with Central and South American history than I am with Central and Eastern Asian history.
-trying to take a view of the world history from one perspective is much easier than trying to synthesize many perspectives into one world history.
-the Spice trade is really cool, and medieval cooking is really cool, and I don't think I successfully conveyed either of those today.
-I'm looking forward to TAing for English History in the fall. Kings, Queens, and an island... it all sounds so easy...

Template Problems

As you can probably tell, there's some sort of problem with the template - the images have completely disappeared. I'm waiting to hear back from the designer. Hopefully they will be fixed soon, or I'll switch (again).

French Bread

Nothing compares to the bread in France. Hot, fresh baguettes really are worth all the hype and if they didn't get as hard as baseball bats w/in a few hours, i would have packed an entire suitcase full to bring home with me. In response to numerous conversations as to what makes bread in certain areas taste better than in others - it's the water! the flour! the yeast! - I decided to bring some French yeast back with me and conduct some experiments here. I've been using three French bread recipes with limited success: the baguette recipe from French Women Don't Get Fat, Foodiefarmgirl's reprinted 4-hour baguette, and a "Crusty French Bread" recipe that came with my Williams Sonoma baguette pan. Of the 3 of them, I like Foodiefarmgirl's ad the William Sonoma recipe the best, and have made the Williams Sonoma recipe most often. My plan was to make 2 loaves, each with a different yeast, but otherwise the same ingredients, rising time, etc, and then compare the two breads.

Yeast: Red Star (American), and Vahine (French)
Flour: King Arthur all-purpose white flour
Water: I seriously considered also using bottled evian water for the real French thing, but then common sense kicked in and I stuck with my Britta filtered water
Salt: Morton's

Red Star Batch
-Yeast: The yeast sat in 110 F water for about 10 min and had a strong yeasty smell with a frothy head, but only about 3 mm thick.
-Kneading: After the initial fermentation and mixing/kneading with no additional flour (kitchenaid, 10 min on med-low), the dough looked like a solid baseball. It was denser and heavier than any other time I've made the recipe. I have no idea what caused it to be this way and decided that the kitchenaid was the root of the evil that could hopefully be expelled via hand kneading. After about 7 min or kneading it softened up a bit and gained some elasticity. i thought about abandoning at this point, but then laziness kicked in and I decided to stick with what I had
-Rising: The dough doubled in bulk, but was still only 1/2 to 2/3 of the size of the Vahine yeast. However, the textures of the dough after the 2nd rise were more similar
-Baking: My Red Star loaf was small and denser but baked nicely.
-End result: about 20% smaller than the Vahine loaf, denser and less chewy, but overall more flavorful. The balance of yeast and salt just tasted better. The crust looked smooth and shiny and was a little dry but still chewy.

Vahine Batch
-yeast: The yeast sat in 110 F water for about 15 min. After 10 min it looked milky but not very frothy. After 15 min it was 1/2 froth and 1/2 liquid. This yeast has a wonderful sweet, lactose like smell
-Kneading: This kneaded up (7 min in kitchenaid on med/low) like all of my other batches. It was very sticky and required adding and additional 100g of flour (recipe allows for this based on texture). Nervous about my kitchaid's kneading techniques, I took this dough out after 7 min and hand kneaded it for 7 -10 in until ti was a beautiful shiny elasticy dough.
-Rising: this yeast rose like many of my other attempts at this (previously done with Red Star yeast). Good risings, great doubling, wonderful smell - sweeter than the Red Star
-Baking: my loaf ended up larger than than the Red Star and I was able to slash into it beautifully. At this point, I was sure the Vahine would blow the Red Star out of the water.
-End result: a stretchier dough with a few holes but not that much less dense than the red star loaf. The crust ended up looking less smooth and even than the Red Star. The taste was good, but a bit bland. I might add more salt to see if that brings out the flavor. I had a harder time tasting the yeast flavor. however, that might be because I am not used to this yeast. Fellow taste-tester who grew up in France with Vahine yeast said she could taste it prominently.

Final Take:
I think the Vahine would be a great yeast for challah. i think the Red Star could have used a longer "prepping" time to get frothier and that that may make a difference prior to the fermentation. The Vahine was wonderful to work with, but I wasn't as crazy of the final flavor. It's possible that adding another 1/4 tsp of salt would help bring out some of the flavor in the yeast. In the final analysis, neither tasted like, or had the texture of, the French bread you get in France. Which leads me to believe that I may need to experiment with different flours and possibly recipes. I'm currently on the look out for a good bread recipe that starts with a starter to give it the stronger yeast flavor. Texture wise, I'm looking for something that will give a good crust and lots of holes inside the actual loaf.

In round 2 I will bring out another French yeast and see how the tastes between the two French versions compare. In round 3, I will go for a recipe with a biga or starter, and round 4 will be either a brioche or a challah.

Mr. Hi de hi de ho

the San Jose Jazz Festival 2008 is here, and opening on the Mainstage on Friday night was one of my all time favourite swing bands: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Their biggest radio hit was "You and Me and the Bottle Makes 3," and they are just as good today as they were when I last saw them 9 years ago. (yikes, college was 9 years ago). They're getting ready to put out their 7th studio album and tested a few songs they've been playing on the road. They are a band that is very tight and together, and just puts on an impeccable performance. It's not all that often that you see a live band, outside, sound as good if not better than the mixed studio recordings. L and I danced for 75-80% of the songs, despite the limited space near the stage. We haven't been swing dancing in a very long time and I forget how good he is. Our vocabulary is a little limited b/c of the lack of other dancers to learn from, but we've still got a great tension and synch with each other well. There really is no feeling in the world like the one you get when you're working on several, fast, successive turns and your partner can stop you on a dime and take you into a dip, lean, or other flourish. I got to the concert tired and a little grumpy, weighed down by a migraine and a dose of Maxalt that hadn't kicked in. I left feeling more energized and full of joy than I have in a long time. Now that there is no D&D on Wednesday night, my not so secret hope is that I can grab L and Beetlegirl and we can cut a rug down at the Palomar. I've missed swing dancing, but I had forgotten how wonderful it really makes me feel until Friday night.