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.

Good News, Everyone!

The NY Times ran an article this morning on the benefits, drawbacks, and myths surrounding coffee and coffee consumption. According to recent studies, and contrary to popular consensus, it seems coffee is not a diuretic at the normal strength (won't make you pee any faster than an equally amount of water, won't give you pancreatic cancer or heart disease, and, most importantly for us ladyfolk, has only a slight reduction in calcium absorption (that can be offset with milk), and no effect on calcium absorption. Of course, it will also make you rich, famous and beautiful - as any grad student can tell you- but, you already knew that. There does still seem to be a small temporary rise in blood pressure when caffeine is consumed, but that this does not necessarily correspond to the development of hypertension.

I generally stick to one, giant, 16-20 oz cup of coffee a day, with tea (caffeine or not, doesn't matter) in the afternoon and evening. I can get up without it, but why would I want to? I love the warm, bitter taste that warms me up and gets me going a little bit faster.

And in knitting news (non-knitters can stop reading here):

I finished my second blocking of Rogue and she looks a lot better. My camera died before I got pics, but after the 1st blocking the right side had dried wider than the left and the shape was all out of whack. After using warm water in to cold water with ice (sort of leaning towards felting), and a better blocking layout, I was able to scrunch some of my stitches back. This is the first sweater for which I actually swatched and watched the swatches, so I was really disappointed to see my final product do something so funky and different from my swatches (which got a bit tighter with blocking, not looser). I'm going to sew in the correct zipper tonight at my weekly crafting session with Beetlegirl, and then sew up the hem. Hopefully at that point Rogue will be a finished object.

The progress bars are a new addition to my blog and I'll have to keep up with them. I finished my 2nd Calorimetry this weekend (I love this pattern), and cast-on my "so called scarf" on Sunday. Both are made with Rio de la Plata yarns, which my local yarn shop will no longer be carrying and were selling at 40% off. I'm knitting the scarf with the idea of giving it to L, but in case he doesn't like it it will be a gift for my mom's husband. I'm still making progress on Tempting, and I think I'm just going to do neckline decreases rather then add the Tempting II yoke. I may also just add the ribbon but add it with a velcro fasten rather then a bow. I'm a little nervous about the fit at the top, but I guess I'll deal with it when I get there. I'm also being tempted with Tubey and Cherie Amour... Anyone else constantly looking for the next project when you've barely even started the one you're working on?

Weekend re-cap, complete with Molotov Cocktails

It was an eventful weekend here:
On Friday a group of us celebrated Switzerland's 717nd birthday with much revelry. The evening bbq really picked up when our host's bat-shit crazy neighbor started yelling at us and throwing water on our heads (she did something similar last year, so it was not entirely unexpected. Then there was yelling, swearing, sushing and the cops showing up. The policeman was actually quite reasonable, gave us a warning and offered to give us his number in case we were ever harassed by the neighbor again. He said he'd be more than happy to issue her a citation.

The party was full of beautiful people, wonderful food, and good company. As an extra bonus, my zuger kirschtorte turned out alright. As I expected, the flavor was excellent but the texture was a little off. My cake layer was dense b/c the eggs collapsed and the icing kept melting off the cake as it approached room temperature. For next time, I'm going to use an easier yellow cake recipe for the middle layer and a more stable (but hopefully equally tasty) buttercream.

Saturday, L and I celebrated (a month belatedly) our third anniversary. We trekked down to the Seymour Marine Lab, spent an hour or so soaking up rays on the beach, and followed it up with a tasty dinner of steak, Alaskan King Crab legs, and asparagus with homemade Hollandaise. Although my recipe is a closely guarded family secret, perhaps I'll post it at some point in the future.

Unfortunately, we learned Sunday that early on Sat. morning, two UCSC Researchers had been target with firebombs. In one case it destroyed the faculty member's car, in the second case the molotov cocktail, described as "on steroids" by the police, hit the driveway, ignited the door, and forced the family to evacuate out the second story window. As far as the police can tell, these researchers and their families were targeted because their research work involves experiments on animals such as rats and fruit flies. Aside from being a tragedy, the idea of attempting to kill human beings because of their work on fruit flies seems more than a little hypocritical. I understand the argument that the perps were perhaps trying merely to scare the families and do only property damage, but you don't hurl a flaming concoction of flammable and explosive material near someone's house and not realize that you might "accidentally" burn the thing down. You also don't do it at 5 am on a Sat morning unless you are purposely trying to catch everyone in bed.

As of now the FBI are taking over the case and we hope to hear more soon. In the meanwhile, other faculty who might be under threat are under full surveillance.

First Real Lecture

I gave my first real, official lecture on Wednesday. I've done art history type lectures and spoken in front of people before, but this was the first 60 min long one I've even tried to give. The topic was Coffeehouse cultures in the Early Modern Period, and covered the Ottoman Empire, Europe, and the European Colonies of the Americas. Overall, it went well and no one fell asleep, so I consider that to be an accomplishment.

On Wednesday I also learned that 2 people dropped the class and 3 people were considering dropping b/c I came off. It's actually some good feedback to get b/c I do tend to bring out the tough on my first day of class (things like you have to be here, you have to turn in typo free papers to get an A, the reading is your homework and you have to complete it and we will talk about it, and so on) and I know that I intimidate students b/c of my expectations. It probably isn't a bad thing to be a little more sensitive to the hand holding that comes with a lower division history class, and it is possible to establish your expectations w/o scaring students. At the same time, I feel more inclined to wear this as a badge of honor. Maybe I can design a little person stamp and stamp my backpack every time a kid drops, like the fighter pilots in WWI and WWII. I understand it's summer school and no one wants to do any real work, but come on people - if you're still getting college credit, and you're already doing about 1/2 the work of a regular quarter class, STFU, stop your bitching, open the book and spell check your damn papers. Or drop, and then I don't have to worry about you.

On the cooking front, my friend Hamster lent me his rice cooker for the summer. I made curry last night and decided to whip it out for some rice cooking. Unfortunately, I completely forgot all of the instructions he gave me, it's a Japanese machine, and I read Japanese about as well as I can read cuneiform. After pushing buttons and only succeeding in warming the water the rice was sitting in, I turned to the internet and found another person who inherited a Japanese rice cooker and pleaded desperately for translation help. Working between the input got on his model (different from mine), and the characters on the one I have, I finally figured it out. the internet, is there anything it can't do?

I'm also working on a recipe for a Switzerland's Birthday Party at a friend's house. It's called a Zuger Kirschtorte and is probably the most complicated cake I've ever tried to make and I'm actually on my 3rd attempt of the meringue layer (the first cooked too long, the second deflated, hopefully this one will be good. I'll try to grab some pics of the finished product at the fiesta and let you know how it all turns out.

Knitting Update - Or Not...

This was meant to be a knitting and photo heavy entry, but our camera had other ideas.

First, the FOs:
Pattern: Calorimetry, from www.knitty.com
Yarn: Manos of Uruguay, Violets
Needle: maybe 8s?

Wonderful Pattern, although I CO 90 sts and decreased the width. In the future I would CO 70 sts and decrease the width again. However, I wanted this to be a 1/2 hat for skiing, not a headband, so the wider width is ok. I will definitely make this pattern again, in fact I already bought yarn for a second (and maybe 3rd) one.



The WIPs:

Pattern: Irish Hiking Scarf
Yarn: Rowan Cashsoft DK in a bright pink, 1.75 skeins
Plan: to make the Irish Hiking Scarf long enough to just wrap around my neck twice and then fasten with snaps. I'm making this to match my ski jacket and don't want long tails hanging down into the jacket, so it's sort of a scarf/neckwarmer.

Not to Plan: the snaps won't work and there isn't enough room in between rows and sts to realistically put in buttons. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do. The options I have are putting in hooks to allow me to fasten the ends together, or unraveling the end and putting in button holes. I'm leaning towards the button holes.

Pattern: Rogue with Cardi conversion


The Problems:
1) When I blocked it the yarn relaxed and its much bigger than it was. Especially on the right side, which means I must have pinned it wrong, or something. I swatched and blocked and the swatches actually tightened up, but when I had the whole garment, it loosened. I've checked gauge throughout and was consistent, but the blocking messed it up rather then fixing the problems. The hood has also become huge. The bust fits, which is a freakin' miracle, but the bottom bells out in an uneaven, funny, and unflattering way. Maybe it has to do with the weight of the garment? Either way, I'm going to block it again and use warmer water this time. I'm also going to try to squish it back into shape and hope I can block it smaller.

2) My i-cord didn't go up high enough so I have a gap between the border of the hood and the i-cord I attached to the garment. My options are to re-do both i-cords or to try to graft on to the top of each and then graft them to the hood. I've done it on the left with considerable success. Part of the joining isn't perfect, but I think it's good enough for me. I'll include pics soon I hope.

3) I installed the wrong zipper. I put in a pants zipper rather than a cardigan zipper. Which is just as well b/c I have all of this other work to do and I didn't do a great job anyway.

Pattern: Tempting, will have Tempting II neckline modifications
Status: I'm about 6" up the body. 2x2 ribbing is great for TV knitting, but rough on the wrists/shoulder. I'm not to the sleeves/neckline yet, but hopefully it won't be too bad...



I also have 2 new hanks of yarn that will become a Calorimetry and My So Called Scarf, but those are going to have to wait.
That's the state of the crafting nation, more when I fix the camera issues.

Summer at UC Ewok Village

I've been back for a while and have no excuses as to why I haven't been blogging, so I'll just jump right to the good stuff.

France was incredible. Nice is one of the most wonderful places I've ever visited and I was delightfully surprised by Marseilles. Now that I'm preparing my lectures for World History through Food, I'm discovering what a key role Marseilles or Massalia has played in the last 2500 or so years, and I'm even more impressed.





Lily and Erik's wedding was equally wonderful. Going from France to MT was a bit of a culture shock, but I think we adapted pretty well. It was wonderful to be part of a couple's public expression of their happiness with, love for, and commitment to each other. And, I've been inspired to start quilting again. It may be a while b/c of the knitting projects, but I was really blown away by Lily's work.



Speaking of knitting, Rogue is going to be the death of me. After installing (badly) the wrong zipper (it's for a cardigan and I bought a zipper that you can't open, sort of like on pants), I tried it on and its still too big. The bust actually fits fine, but the hips and waist are quite large. I think I'm smaller than I think I am, and I think that the ease is greater than I anticipated. I also think it expanded when I blocked it. My gauge is dead on, or was until I blocked it (I checked the whole time!). And the finishing needs work. I'll post pics tomorrow, still too down about the never-ending sweater that everyone and their mother swore was "easy", to do so today. My goal is to fix the finishing, hem, and then felt/block. (warm to hot water with a little poking, then into cold water, and then trying to block it smaller than it currently is).

Now I'm back in SC, prepping for lectures that begin next week and trying to stay warm. Seriously, our highs have been in the low 70s and it's cloudy and cold every morning. Not that I want it to be deathly hot or anything, but I figured that since its summer I'd be able to put away some of the sweatshirts and wear a few dresses. Not so much.

Finally, I have a new blogger template that I love, but it'll take me a while to migrate a couple of the elements from the old format over to this one.

17 hours and counting

L and I depart for France in less than 24 hours. Unfortunately Kinkos printed his poster badly and now he has to go back and have it redone. In Kellyland, I'm finally packed. I'm a totally obsessive packer and an obsessive overpacker. I know it's going to be warm and beautiful but I have to remind myself that I don't need 4 long shirts "just in case" - one will do just fine. So I packed, unpacked, tried on my clothes again, and repacked. The benefit of this system is that I managed to eliminate 30% of what I packed the first time, and I feel confident about my choices. The drawback is that I also feel like a total lunatic and wish I could have done it all in one fell swoop.

I've got the travel book, pocket dictionary, Harry Potter in French, and my knitting. My plan for the plane is to make some bedtime tea (bringing the bags with me, per reallytiny's suggestion), start to read in French and pass out. If that doesn't happen, I have a new novel, knitting projects, and whatever crappy movie they're playing. If I really wanted to guarantee instant slumber I'd drag some big tome of European Economic History along for the ride, but I think I'll save the bag space.

After France it's to NJ for 12 hours and then to Montana for my middle brother-in-law's wedding.

I'll try to blog occasionally and post pictures of my travels.

À bientôt!

End of the Quarter

Today I turned in all of my grading and evaluations for Spring 2008. I am done with Imperial Russia, and all of Russia for a while (although the prof wants me to TA for Soviet History in the fall). The grades fell along the patterns of Russian society: a small elite, no middle class, and a large peasantry. We had 7 As, 12 B's, 12 C's, 2 F's, 2 passes and an incomplete. I guess weh have a slightly bigger "middle class", but these are the least inflated grades I've ever given. Sad, isn't it? But there is something about Russian history that really sifts the student's work into easily definable categories of A, B, C, and lower (there were many of them too, especially on the midterms).

In happier, crafting news: I finished Knitting Rogue! She's blocking over night and I'll be able to start the seaming tomorrow. I noticed that one sleeve is an inch or two longer and an inch wider than the other, but I'm hoping to block them to the same length. I'm too lazy to go back and re-do one of the sleeves. I'm ok with an imperfect first sweater.

Since then I've cast on for Tempting (I'm using Valley Farms merino/alpaca blend called Lenox in a blue) and will also cast on for Calorimetry (Manos of Uraguay in a variegated purple). I plan to take Calorimetry and the Irish Hiking Scarf along on my upcoming trip as they are both easy, small projects.

Speaking of which, L and I leave for France on Monday! We'll be in Nice with Sandychile for a week, then onto Marseilles, and then to Montana for my BIL and Lily's July 5th wedding. I'll try to post from Franc,e but seeing as how I hardly post from here, we'll see if it happens.

So my goal for the summer is to post once or twice a week. My other goal for the summer is to run more regularly and I've already started that, so blogging more regularly is my second task.

Overall, it's been a really tough but good year. I look back and I'm sort of amazed at what I've done in the past 9 months (read a ton, 1st conference presentation, organized a conference, QE'd, and didn't go crazy or eat the town of SC completely out of its chocolate supply). I'm looking forward to vacation with my SO to a place that doesn't involve in-laws or family (at least not our own), and I get to co-teach a course. Of course I have to start on my dissertation... but one step at a time.

Good things - Bad things

Bad: having so much laundry you run out of socks and underwear
Good: having a flexible schedule that allow you to go to the community laundry and wash said socks and underwear
Bad: the community change machine's "out of service when lit" light is glowing
Worse: you don't have any bills to change for quarters anyway
Better: ATM and laundry by 7-11 is less than a mile a way
Better: scary manager at the laundry by local 7-11 is not there to watch you use their "customers only" change machine"
Good: quarters + laundry machines = clean clothes
Not so good: hang drying intimates in chilly SC
Bad: only having your not so dry underwear to put on at 6:45 am
Good-ish: I was too tired to notice


And now for some student revelations:
"Russia is not the United States of America, nor is it located in the same continent or hemisphere as America but it shares something else with America, social movements."
then I learned how the Decemberists relate to Howard Stern's support of the Snapple company.

A-B-D

As of yesterday at 4:30, I joined the ranks of ABD (All But Dissertation) PhD Candidates. I actually had a lot of fun in my exam and received very valuable feedback from my committee. Everyone got along well and many of my examiners' fields overlapped in some really interesting ways.

After the exam I had a pretty large get together back at my place. Many thanks for all of those who came out to have fun and drink with me, especially on a Wednesday night late in the quarter. Much wine was drunk and good food was eaten. Amazingly, I don't have even the hint of a hangover this morning. Perhaps grad school is getting my liver back into fighting shape.

For now, as much as I'd like to go for a long walk, sit on the beach, knit, or generally waste time, I actually have a book to read and teach at 4. So, back to Russia, more from me later.

Almost There

I have about 5 hours until I leave for my exam. Despite spending Monday night waking up and answering questions in my head, I slept fine last night and I'm not all that stressed. The cookies for my committee are baked and I bought snacks and wine yesterday. All I have to do now is read through my statements again, refresh my memory of name-title-thesis, and I'll be set. My plan is to sneak a run in around 11 as a final de-stresser.

For my slug readers, I'll see you tonight at 8!

Oh, and I realized I forgot to tell you, L passed his exams last week.

Monday always comes too soon

This may be because I have to get up for 8am lecture, but I have the feeling it's a pretty universal complaint.

Nothing big, new, or exciting, just a quiet weekend at home prepping for my exam. What you do get today is two reviews:

#1 Happy Feet
Although I agree with Kingfuramone that a pack of screaming children can be some of the most effective birth control out there, nothing makes me way to tie up my fallopian tube more than watching a horrible kids movie, and envision it playing on constant loop in my house. I don't think I have ever turned off a movie part way through. I even stuck it out for all of Heavy Metal (despite being way too sober for much of it), but I couldn't do Happy Feet. At heart, I love penguins and I love tap dancing. What I can't stand is badly done animation (seriously, some video games have better texture than this film), American-Idol style big ensemble numbers, and racialized penguins (Puffins were Latinos and the Emperor Penguins were African-American - of course, nearly all of these "typical accents" were voiced by white actors). The overall messages: "even if you don't fit in, you're still a good person!", "corporations and governments are bad, they're destroying our environment", and "religion is a bunch of hooey", are generally those I can get behind. But they're pretty badly done and seriously dumbed down. I know it's a kids movie, but children aren't morons. Finally, it's very strange watching birds singing about how they're all "looking for somebody to love" is a way that's sort of sexual (for parents) and heavily glossed (for kids).

#2 The Gourmet Slow Cooker
When most people think slow cooker they think burritos, stew, meatballs, and quick easy to prepare family meals. This my friends, is not your traditional slow cooker cookbook. The recipes in here are "gown-up". They're aimed at dinner party, or nice dinners for adults rather than making a lot of "kid-friendly" food (I don't have kids so I have no idea if kids would like these dishes, although I'd assume yes because they're tasty, filled with fresh foods, and most of the time "kid-friendly" in my house was what mom cooked, and I turned out ok). As with most slow cookers, you can do most of the recipes in 2 different ways: chop everything, toss in cooker and go, or saute/brown everything and do more upfront cooking. They turn out well either way. However, the upfront cooking really does add another level of flavor to most of the foods. The book is divided into 6 countries: USA, France, Greece, Italy, India, Mexico and has a variety of dessert, main dish, and side dish meals. I've made two of the French dishes and absolutely love them. Although I had about an hour of prep time (I also cut up a whole chicken for the recipe), I was able to get at least 4, if not 5 dinners for Luke and I out of the pot. And, like most slow cooker recipes, they freeze beautifully. So, even though I spent an hour cooking, it really works out to 15 min per meal over the long run.

L's Turn

I'm not the only one QEing this quarter. Kungfuramone passed his exams yesterday (the 12th), and today L goes before his committee. In History, we do a lot of writing, submit a dossier to our committee and then get asked questions on what we've submitted and where we stand historiographically. We are responsible for positioning ourselves "in the field" (aka proving that you've read a whole lot of stuff that will technically establish your expertise in your field and hence your ability to teach the kiddies), producing syllabi, and putting together a dissertation proposal. The entire process is closed.

In Engineering, the focus is mainly on the dissertation proposal and on the research you've actually been doing for the last few years. L has to do a one hour presentation, which is open to the public. Following a Q&A, the committee kicks everyone out of the room and hones in on the candidate. I'm looking forward to sitting in support during Luke's presentation and wish we had a public part to our exams. I think it's helpful to find out what other people are actually doing and support your colleagues.

Besides from the "good-partner" type stuff I can do to help him prep (which so far has included keeping us fed and doing the kitchen cleaning last night), I'm contributing a bit of my best: baking. We are "expected" to bring food to our committee and I'm supporting L by doing my part and making brownies. I know it's SC, but they're totally sober brownies. In fact, in true grad fashion, there's about 3 T of very strong coffee in the frosting.

First, the brownies. Noncouplable will recognize this recipe from last year's bake off, with a few changes. Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa powder is a wonderful, wonderful product that I saw in North Carolina in 05, but didn't' see here until this past weekend. The inclusion of this very dark cocoa powder is the main change.

I use Hershey's "Best Brownie" recipe (small batch size). This produces an excellent, moist, fudgy, brownie. I generally double the recipe and bake in two pans (combining into one 9x13 pan results in overcooking).

I top these brownies with a mocha frosting while they are still a bit warm. It allows the frosting to melt a bit and then solidfy into a nice glaze. (This is a modification of a Hershey recipe)
Hershey's Best Brownie
Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts(optional) (I did not add these)
CREAMY BROWNIE FROSTING(recipe follows) (I did not use the frosting)
as per Jessica's alterations, I also added about 2 tbsp of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup and about 1/3 cup of semisweet chocolate chips
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 9-inch square baking pan.

2. Stir together butter, sugar and vanilla in bowl. Add eggs; beat well with spoon. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; gradually add to egg mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in nuts, if desired. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.

3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Prepare CREAMY BROWNIE FROSTING; spread over brownies. Cut into squares. About 16 brownies.


Kelly's Mocha Brownie Frosting

Ingredients:
3 T butter, softened
1T honey
3T cocoa powder
1tsp-1T vanilla
1-3T coffee (or milk, for a straight chocolate frosting)
1-2 cups powdered sugar

1. Beat butter with honey. Add cocoa powder and vanilla and beat well.
2. Slowly bead in powdered sugar, alternating with coffee or milk. Add sugar to desired consistency and taste.
3. Spread over brownies when then are still slightly warm


It's also good on peanut butter cookies....

New Blog Added

Today I want to do some shameless family-promotion. In addition to being a fellow historian (BA, Russian History), my future sister-in-law, Lily, is becoming a professional quilter. In September 2007 she followed her creative intuition and returned to her childhood home of Big Timber, MT to take over the local quilt store, Little Timber Quilts. Lily an incredibly talented quilter with a keen eye for color (did I mention she's also a painter?). For the crafty type readers of this blog, Little Timber Quilts and Candy has just established itself on the web and includes a new online fabric store. Lily is also keeping a bi-weekly blog with project and personal updates. Even for the non-crafty types I highly recommend checking out her recent posts, and in particular her introduction to her fuzzy family members.

So Much New

I like change. Or, at least, reorganization. I've updated the color scheme of this blog, we'll see how I like it. I'm not crazy about it yet so we'll see if it sticks. I have also made considerable progress on Rogue and figured that my "On the Needles" section needed to be refreshed. My progress is in large part due to some wonderful Wednesday night crafting evenings with Beetlegirl while the boys (and a girl) get their D&D on. I've also been working on an irish Hiking Scarf to match my new ski jacket. Obviously, it'll be for next season. I've made some good progress, although it's been a bit stalled by my work on Rogue and a gift I'm also knitting (another Irish Hiking Scarf) as the case may be.

I can't seem to be able to add a second small picture pagelet to blogger, so I'll have to post my other WIPs here:



This is the jacket I'm trying to match:


My current scarf is more than a little long and tends to make me look pregnant:


And come on, when you can make padded ski overalls look this good, you have to be rocking a slim and streamlined scarf.

Holy Crap, I'm Back

I turned in my QE dossier last Friday, did conference organization duties on Sunday, and am not catching up on all the Russian history I've missed while doing the previously mentioned tasks. The advantage is that I can sum up Russian History in a few words. It sucked, all the time, just about everywhere. Yeah, there are a few more details, and maybe the soldiers progressed from rags tied to their feet to old leather tied to their feet, but we're talking about pretty miserable conditions for a lot of people for many, many years. Fortunately, filling in the details is no biggie.

My QE is in about a week and a half and, like kungfuramone, I'm not too worried about the whole thing. The Sith Lord greeted my yesterday morning by saying, "if you're not completely worried, you're doing it wrong." I stared at him with the deer in headlight look for about 20 seconds before realizing,and then telling him, that I wasn't actually worried and I thought that meant I was doing it right. I know my shit, I'm fast on my feet, and being afraid of talking is an anathema to my very existence (even in French, and even when it comes out part spanish, part French and part German!) Hell, Sith has asked me "can I talk now?" (more than once in fact, sigh).

I actually see this as an opportunity to meet with four people I respect and talk about my and my work. It's every actor's dream: I'm the center of attention with my own private audience. Hell, I'd sing a solo if I could. What it comes down to is:
1) I know my material
2) I know the weakness of my material/arguments and am prepared to address them, maybe even upfront them and try to throw everyone off :)
3) I love to talk
4) I get to make even more cookies for my committee
and, most importantly,
5) I'm not going to fail. and If I've really been deluding myself into thinking I can actually do this historian thing and they revel to me that I'm dead wrong, that's ok. I take my MA, I go teach high school. I go back to Cornerstone and get my old (well-paid, well-benefited) job back. I teach kindergarten and fingerpaint the rest of my life away.

My point is, this is not a test of whether or not I can hack it. I know I can. So at that point I feel comfortable deciding to sit back, relax, and look forward to the fireworks.