Archive for Miscellanea
July 1, 2008 at 11:39 am · Filed under Miscellanea
It’s been 141 years since the Dominion of Canada first came into existence (although we didn’t achieve full independence from Britain until 1982.)
In honour of the day, here’s the link to a recipe for one the few distinctly Canadian foods: Nanaimo Bars. I made them a couple of days ago, and they’re very good, although I halved the recipe for the bottom layer and cut down on the milk and icing sugar in the second layer (to 1 tbsp and 1 cup, respectively.)
I haven’t been keeping up with my reviews lately, partly because of internet problems, but partly because I’ve been so busy the past few weeks. I may be behind with this blog, but along with the Nanaimo Bars, I tried what turned out to be the world’s best recipe for Coconut Cream Pie (along with a few alterations.)
I hope everyone’s having a great summer so far. I’m looking forward to catching up on everyone’s blogs this week!
May 31, 2008 at 8:41 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
I hate napping during the day. It makes me feel like I’ve been hit with the stupid stick, and I never feel fully awake afterwards. Here’s the conversation I had with my roommate when she came to wake me up, since it’s my night to cook:
HER (knocking): Are you awake?
ME (Neanderthal grunting): Huh?
HER: Are you awake? It’s almost 8:30.
ME: It’s Sunday morning.
HER: What?
ME (patiently explaining): It’s Sunday, I don’t have work.
HER: ….
ME (a little worried, and suddenly noticing that I’m in street clothes rather than pj’s): It’s Sunday morning. I don’t work on Sundays. It’s okay, I’m not late for work.
HER: It’s Saturday night.
I’m still groggy, but if I can stop stumbling around and walking into walls long enough to make chili, we’re having tacos tonight. Worth getting out of bed for, even when I have to make them myself.
May 4, 2008 at 3:29 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
Eva over at A Striped Armchair tagged me for this meme.
- My former roommate, who has 30% hearing loss in one ear and 70% in the other, always seems to hear better than I do (as does pretty much everyone I know.) Poor hearing is one of the main reasons I don’t like chatting on the phone; it’s also one reason I don’t like going out with friends at night, because between background noise and low lighting, I miss about three quarters of any conversation. I keep meaning to take a proper hearing test, but I haven’t got around to it yet.
- My favourite food in the world is kelewele, a Ghanaian snack food made from ripe plantain, sliced, mixed with ginger and hot pepper, and deep fried in oil. My father makes the best kelewele in the world, and I’d eat it for every meal if it wasn’t so unhealthy.
- I’ve tried several times to read Margaret Atwood’s books, specifically The Handmaid’s Tale, Bodily Harm, and Alias Grace, but I’ve always been terminally bored within the first ten pages. Also, she’s always being interviewed on CBC Radio One, and her voice annoys me. I feel kind of guilty that I haven’t read even one book by one of Canada’s most famous authors, but I just can’t like her.
- When I was three or four years old, my favourite ice cream was the bright blue bubblegum-flavoured kind, with the little pieces of chewing gum in it. My mum hated it, because while I’d chew some of the gum, the ice cream would melt all over everything.
- I never drink alcohol, because I don’t like the taste. When I tell people that, they invariably say, “Oh, you should try a —, you can’t even taste the alcohol in it!” So far, that sentence has always proved to be utterly wrong.
- I don’t watch TV unless I’m with someone who’s watching it, and even then I rarely watch an entire episode of anything, because I kind of hate mainstream television, and commercials aggravate me beyond reason, and sometimes throw me into momentary despair over the future of the human race. I do like sci-fi/fantasy shows and old British sitcoms, though.
If you feel like doing this, consider yourself tagged, and don’t forget to leave a link to your response in a comment!
April 6, 2008 at 12:32 am · Filed under Miscellanea
I just upgraded to WP 2.5. It seems pretty neat so far. The updated rich text editor works much, much better. Also there are some interesting new photo features, so to test them out, here’s a few of the photos I took this winter:
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Why dishwashing liquid is not a good substitute for dishwasher detergent
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March 23, 2008 at 3:43 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
I hope everyone is having a wonderful day, as I am. This morning my roommate and I made pretty Easter eggs. Later, my father, sister, and I went to Czehoski, a Polish/Czech restaurant downtown. I had something called French Toast Bread Pudding—yummy!
March 10, 2008 at 10:04 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
I’ve made a little change to this blog. If you’re reading this on a feed reader, you won’t notice a difference, but on the site itself, you’ll see “Short Story Reviews” at the top of the far right sidebar.
I’m planning to read a lot of short story collections this year, and waiting until I’ve read the whole thing to review it just isn’t working for me, because unless I read it all in one sitting, I’ve usually forgotten the details of the early stories long before I’ve finished the book.
Short story reviews won’t show up with the main entries on the site, although they will through a feed reader. (Later, when I review the collection as a whole, I’ll link to all the individual story reviews in that post.)
February 24, 2008 at 2:17 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
It’s a beautiful, sunny winter day here in Toronto. A Sunday, which is my one free day. A perfect day to relax with a good book, and am I in the mood for any of the literally hundreds of unread books I own? No, I am not. Instead I’ll probably waste the day doing something pointless, like watching downloaded episodes of Farscape or McLeod’s Daughters. Or maybe I’ll go for a walk, clear away the cobwebs.
March Break is coming up for elementary and secondary school students, which may mean more work for me. That’s not a complaint—not only does more work mean more money, but I also love my job. I work for a tutoring centre where I teach English, Math, and French to kids and teenagers. My boss is awesome, the kids are great (and the little ones are cute as hell, even when they’re at their most trying), and the pay is much better than any other part-time job I could be doing. I’m really looking forward to March!
September 18, 2007 at 10:27 am · Filed under Books Etc, Miscellanea
So, second week back at school. Exciting, tiring, and somewhat demoralizing. Worst news first—I can’t take the African Lit course! I had to switch things around and it conflicted with another course. I was pretty upset at first, but now I’m kind of okay with it. Although I still cannot believe that I dropped a course in African Lit to take an intro to French Linguistics. Instead of great novels by African authors, I’ll be reading chapters from Structure du français moderne.
Actually, that’s not exactly true. I did go to the first class and snag a course syllabus, including the reading list, which I present for your edification:
- Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
- Tahar Ben Jelloun, The Sand Child
- Calixthe Beyala, Your Name Shall Be Tanga
- J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
- Naguib Mahfouz, Akhenaten
- Tayab Salih, Season of Migration to the North
- Ngugi wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat
- Amos Tutuola, The Palm-wine Drinkard
Some of those books don’t seem to be available from regular bookstores, even ordered online, so it’s nice that I can get them from the Women’s Bookstore (where the course copies have been ordered.)
I’m also getting a new roommate. I may have mentioned that my roommate of four years (who is the best roommate ever, and also one of my best friends) got an apartment with her boyfriend. In August, she packed up her clothes, books, beading supplied, and our cat, and moved into her new place. I was somewhat at a loss as to how to go about finding someone to replace her. I had to, not only for financial reasons, but because I live in a co-op, in a subsidized unit, and both bedrooms have to be occupied if I want to keep that subsidy.
Anyway, I wasn’t too keen on living with a stranger. Luckily, my best friend from childhood happened to be living at home and looking to move out, and she was tempted by the incredible rent. I haven’t really been in touch with her over the past five or six years, but she’s just the same. As I am reliably informed that I am also just the same, no doubt we shall get along as famously as ever. We even considered getting a cat, as mine has (as I mentioned) recently departed for a nice place near the lake, but I wasn’t too keen on the extra responsibility cats bring, and P felt that it would be a betrayal of her own cat, Sour Grapes (I love that name for a cat. If I ever have another cat, I’m going to call it Pork Chop.)
So, new job + new roommate + new school year = no time (or energy) for reading. Don’t you hate it when life gets in the way of your hobbies? I really need to finish my degree and try to get a job where I can read books for a living.
September 10, 2007 at 11:20 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
So many new and exciting things going on in my life right now—a new roommate moving in this month and five shiny new courses are at the top of list—and all I can think about is a punctuation mistake.
The plural of Miles is not Mile’s. Just sayin’.
Oh, how I sometimes wish I could edit the internet!
August 21, 2007 at 4:22 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
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