Category Archives: Personal Blog

Entries from my personal journal

Personal Blog

Pittsburgh updates

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It has been a fantastic week!

On Monday I drove up to Pittsburgh (accompanied by Scott, who kept me from losing my mind on the 7 hour drive)to go apartment scouting with my future roommates. It was quite an adventure. The first 3 places we saw were absolute dumps, and the landlord was crazy, so at first we were all rather worried. However, each place we saw afterwards got better and better, leading up to the last place we saw on the last day, which ended up being the best one (and the one we pounced on right away, because there were a lot of people looking at it).

So, I have a home in Pittsburgh now! Hooray! I will probably move up there sometime in mid-late July, no set dates yet. It only makes me more and more excited about starting at the ETC. Squeak!

The other wonderful thing that happened while I was up there: I found out I won one of the scholarships I applied for! Huzzah! A mere dent in a large tuition fee, but money is money and I feel special for having won.

Yay!

Personal Blog

Stir Fry Adventure

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Take heart, internet! I believe I have moved one step closer to perfection with my stir fry recipe, and will share it! The perfecting element came when Kyle told me about using green tea water to make rice. Brilliant!

Keep in mind that this stir fry, unlike so many stir fries, is delicious. It is one of only 3 ways I will willingly and ravenously devour vegetables (the other two being ratatouille and that yummy tomato avocado salad). Please make this stir fry and share it with the world. Now for the recipe…

Instructions ahead…

Personal Blog

O…M…G…

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Today at the farmer’s market the Honey Man was there! I AM SO HAPPY! Of course, many people at the farmer’s market sell honey, but this is the guy I normally buy from. See, lots of the local honey here is clover honey, the really dark, strong kind. But this guy also sells a really light honey that is super mild and delicious. I’m not sure what flowers the bees make it from, but I have yet to find another like it.

I had meant to buy one of his giant 5lb containers of honey to last me through the winter, but the last few markets in November he was not there. I was so sad. I tried finding lighter honeys at various stores, but none could compare. As the opening of the farmer’s market for the spring approached, I had secret fears that Honey Man’s bees had fled the planet on their bee ship, like so many bees have been doing as of late (they know something we don’t, I am convinced).

But today I am rewarded for my patience! Joyous day! Return of Honey Man! I got home and had the most delightful spoonful of splendor I have had since winter set in. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Personal Blog

Cellos

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The cello will be my downfall! At work, the school’s bell choir often practices in the foyer outside my office. This is all fine and well, but today they had a girl playing the cello with them. For some reason, the cello pulls and tugs at me and makes me want to cry the way no other sound does. It is tugging things loose.

You see, when I started taking this medicine, I stopped crying. I am guessing this is because my medicine is a selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, meaning that in addition to managing my pain threshold it has the bonus side-effect of also being an anti-depressant. Last year, when Nancy got sick, I started crying on a pretty regular basis. When she died I began crying pretty much every day. When I started on the medicine, it suddenly stopped, and it was rather jolting.

However, I don’t think I’m done grieving. It is similar to how the medicine works on my pain: I can still tell that something is not right, that the pain is still there just below the surface, I just can’t feel it. Similarly, I feel like my grief is still there, just below, being numbed out by neurotransmitters. And, just as drastic shifts in barometric pressure strip the numbing layer off my pain threshold, some things open up the emotional haze like a seam-ripper.

That brings us back to the cello. Still, it fascinates me how tone and sound can evoke such strong and specific emotional responses. Sound is a mystery to me, something I can’t grasp the way I can drawing and painting. It is always so sharp, too. My exposure to the cello is pretty low, I’d say (except when I was questing in the damned blood elf land with its damned blood elf music. I was teary-eyed through the whole zone!), so it always surprises me how strong I react to it. And it’s a very specific tone, too. The bass is too low and the other strings too high to make me weepy.

Baffling.

Personal Blog

NYC part 3

So Matt and I were going to go to the aquarium yesterday, but instead we just sat home and played video games all day long. This is fine by me, as this vacation wasn’t so much of a “see New York” trip as a “visit my friends” trip, where the friends just happened to live in New York. We did have the obligatory New York style pizza for lunch, however.

That night I made stirfry for dinner and Carleton came over. We finished off the evening with a rousing game of Dominos. My family and family-friends are rigorous Dominos players in the game of Mexican Wild Train. It’s a very fun game with easy-to-explain rules, so I often spread it around where I can. I’m wondering why I haven’t introduced it to basketball yet.

Anyway, I also played a round earlier in the week, and it must be New York luck, or something, because I nearly won every hand! Last night’s game, however, Matt beat me just barely in the last hand. Beginner’s luck trumps New York luck.

Now to get ready to go to the airport and go home, where I will round off my spring break with WoW and laundry. See you Louisville folk soon!

Personal Blog

NYC part 2

Yesterday was rainy and cold, so potential zoo plans were cancelled. We did make it to the Met, which is good since it’s one of those places I felt I should go visit eventually. First, though, we had hot dogs at Gray’s Papaya, and I must say they were the most delicious hot dogs I’d ever had. I am not a big hot dog person, either, and maybe only eat them once in a blue moon. I am ruined on hot dogs!

Anyway, the Met: we focused on European Painting, Ancient Near Eastern art, and the arms and armory section. They had this unfinished Durer painting that was AMAZING. I love it when I get to see process stuff, especially from people who are badasses. Anyway, I found it very interesting that he completely finished the drapery and hair on the portrait (like, down to the crazy little individual strands of hair highlight) before touching the hands and face. The hands and face had a few places of glaze over them, but for the most part you could totally see his ridiculously detailed Albrecht Durer style preparatory sketch. I found it interesting that he appeared to be starting to paint the lips on the face before anything else. It was super cool, and it made the whole trip to the Met worthwhile.

After our museum trip and an obligatory “Lisa is on vacation” nap, we went down to Little Korea for dinner. I met back up with Carleton, and I got to meet up with Yale too! Yay Yale! We ate at this dumpling place that was DELICIOUS, and wandered about a Korean market store afterwards. We were waiting for Ian to get done with work so he could come join us too. We tried a Korean icecream place, but it was not my style. It was more of slightly tart yogurt with fruit toppings mixed on. Fine in its own right, but not satisfying to my desire for icecream.

When Ian showed up (yay Ian!) we went to Lindy’s for cheesecake, and spent a good part of the evening sitting and chatting. I am glad my two sets of friends got along, that’s something I always worry about a little when friends collide.

Anyway, it was fantastic to see Ian and Yale, and it was a lovely evening of New York galavanting. Coming home tomorrow!

Personal Blog

NYC

The best part about working in a school is that you still get school breaks off in addition to your two-weeks vacation. Woo! For my spring break, after two solid days of WoW and Easter family times, I came up to New York to visit many friends.

First I visited Carleton, which was very fun and involved a lot of eating and computer nerd talk. I also obtained the Gameboy Advance version of Final Fantasy VI as a visiting present, yay! Carleton taught me some clever Java tricks and helped me with some questions my Java tutee had that I didn’t know the answer to.

I spent a lot of the past two days asleep. I know some people would fuss at me for this (won’tmentionanynames*cough*Will*cough*), but Carleton was totally fine with me nodding off for hours at a time, both because he understands my nappy nature and the effects of this disease. I can’t help it that I need to sleep so much, I just can’t, and I think maybe my body relaxed for a spell, which means it tends to shut down. Regardless, I had the nappiest of times, and it was refreshing in the end.

Right now I’m staying with Matt, another friend of mine who I hadn’t seen since summerstock at BTF. Tomorrow we are going on a touristy sort of run, and hitting a zoo and the Met for free, since Matt is a member there. Hooray free stuff! I’m also hoping to see Ian and Yale while I’m up here in the City.

More updates later!

Personal Blog

High Fructose Corn Syrup

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There has been lots of talk of late among the Tuesday Night Ballers about high fructose corn syrup. As those of you who live in the United States know (or maybe do not know), high fructose corn syrup is really bad for you, and can cause all manner of heart and liver problems. This is why they don’t let them use it in many other countries. However, because it is so cheap to make, in the US one will be hard pressed to find a beverage that does not contain this sugar substitute.

But worry not! At the grocery store tonight, Scott and I decided to peruse the labels of a variety of drinks, so that we could compile for your convenience a list of non-high fructose corn syrup beverages! And so I give you our list:

Passover Coke
Red Bull
Northland 100% cran-raspberry juice.

…Enjoy!