wELL...I have been catching up like cazy. I really need to shower, but there was no soap. A thing which has made it's way to the shower, yet I have not yet. Been reviewing Chemistry, eating delicious pancakes and eggs that Scott made for me this morning. (I think I have grown an addiction to Sriracha :/ and jasmine tea, but not together.) Chemistry final at 6 tonight. This year chilling with popcorn, festive dinner, scary movies, Scott and Sam, and handing out candy to the kids whose parents are douche bags and can't take them to the rich neighborhood for candy. The next holiday is gluttony day! And oh boy am I excited about it! I kinda wanted an all vegetarian fest, but my stepdad and brother would not be very happy about that. So I decided to let them bring a turkey. But I am making lentil croquettes instead of turkey for the three non turkey eaters. (Scott claims he won't eat turkey. but I bet he will) Breaded and baked lentil, flour, oatmeal ball things shaped like a loaf in other words. Gee croquettes really does sound much better! And baked apples with thyme, roasted roots, and stuffing with cranberries, walnuts (or pecans) and wild rice. Also the more traditional mashed potatoes and yams, and steamed green beans. My brother might make a cheesecake from scratch, and I want to bake a squash pie because I have so much squash puree hanging out in the freezer. If I get a pumpkin in the Thanksgiving box I might roast it and serve the roasted roots in the pumpkin! I'm going to try making a veggie gravy for everyone because I do not want to mess around with turkey drippings and I think my Mom's idea of gravy is the packet kind. The stuffing I want to make from crusty filone from work. I can grab a loaf of probably Pan Marino for the array also. I don't have a kitchen table. I have three plates. Every single pot/pan/roasting thing I own will probably get used. It will be a huge! amount of work. And I will love the outcome even if I fuck up and everything gets served cold. I do wish I had a table to serve it on at least but eh? It will work somehow. Most things will be cooked two days before and reheated in the oven. My biggest concern right now is getting everything timed right so it's all warm at dinner time. But I think I can, and it will be great! And I am super excited about making a vegetarian Thanksgiving feast.

Yep. It's as nasty as people say it is. Except I'm not dead. Just felt like dying for a couple days. The cough is hellish. The fever is nasty. And well at least it is a short lived illness. (except for this cough, which means I probably have pneumonia or something?) Missing a midterm tonight. Going to take it next Tuesday instead. Going to have one on Friday. I have no energy and should be studying right now instead of fucking lj and facebook retardation. I am going to attempt to eat some beans and rice for dinner because I feel lack of protein. Wel llack of all basic nutrients from well lack of food really. Argh. And in other news...well that's about it. Life isn't so shitty after all. Things are surviving. I cannot wait until I get my research proposal and can start doing it!

Chemistry: I wonder when I will hit the point when I find this stuff hard? I love Chemistry. It's so ridiculously common sense. It just...clicks right away. Granted I have a vast base knowledge built up, but you know those rumors about O Chem being sooo hard. I look over the syllabus and see half known material half new but not so frightening material.

Plant Pathology: So awesome. Who knew plant disease could be so much fun!!! *Squee* Cankers and galls are my favorite so far. Esp the cankers. Those guys are sooo coool. It's like a scab, but on a TREE! The mildews and blights and etc are kind of blah until you get to the microscopic workings of the fungi and see that it's pretty much the same as the fungi with larger fruiting bodies. Zoospores exploding out of the sporangium are really fun to watch! And it's interesting how the "female" structure penetrates the "male" structure in Oomycetes. Usually in biology we define the male/female by eggs and others (sperm-like meiotic cells). But it's usually male penetrating female in some form. So to find a counter is interesting.

Physics: Ooof. I fail. So badly. I cannot seem to wrap my brain around this type of thinking. Think Math story problems. Yeah that basically what Physics is. I get the basic function, but lack in the execution. With the easier problems I find that I enjoy it so much. It's like a detective game with numbers and equations. You have these, but want this. To get this you need this. With all the known you CAN get this. But how to break the problem apart is where my understanding fails. As in three pieces of the puzzle or two. I guess it will come with more exposure and practice. I hope anyways or I'm going to have to change my goal in life. Scott is proving an amazing help here. And he said it's fun!!! Oooo smart boys make me drool so much. Sexy physics brain. Too bad mine won't turn on :p I'm probably being harder on myself than I should. I just feel like I am reaching grasping in the dark. For the first time in my education experience I feel challenged. I don't know this, I have to LEARN. And it's not JUST memorizing fancy terms for common sense. It's not just what you would guess thinking about it long enough (which is my experience with biology/botany). It's work. It's wrapping your brain around a completely new way of thinking. A way I am not used to at all. Learn my logical brain, learn. Turn of that playful right side and get down to work.

Edit: I just realized why it's so complicated for me to get my head on straight with Physics. You have to use the right/left side equally for this type of thinking. You have to visualize the scenario in order to break it apart into chunks. Than you analyze the chunks to find the equations and do the detective Math work. I'm used to Math (which is purely analyzing numbers) and I'm used to art (which is all visualization) but putting the two together in perfect harmony (proportions in art) I am terrible at! So it makes sense I am not go great at this, but how to get better so that my understanding of the universe is ultimately enhanced....???? I have reached a new understanding and appreciation for science at this precise moment.

Olympus E-420. 40mm-150mm telephoto lens, 35mm macro, and standard 14-42mm. With tripod and cables. Should come in the mail soon. $425. Reading "Understanding Exposure" Bryan Peterson. EXCELLENT book! Bravo. Refreshed what I knew and gave me some pointers at how to take a correct meter reading in some tricky situations. Now I want that camera to arrive in the mail so I can play. So much research. Time to play! Will update when I have breathing room again.

Balkan Beat Box

+

Gogol Bordello


=

J.U.F. (Jewish Ukrainishe Freundschaft)


And I do not know how to feel about it. Both of their sounds come through. Some of the craziest fusion I have heard. But it makes sense...somehow. Eugene Hutz recycles some lyrics/phrases in some interesting ways. Tell me what you think? (P.S. I think I have a crush on Hutz's sexy handlebar mustache...) http://farm1.static.flickr.com/18/70054686_5ae56faca4.jpg

6 more days. Today - working, buying textbooks while there are still used ones available. ~ Tomorrow - family and the three people in Portland I want to visit with the most. ~ Thursday - Iron Mountain berry picking!!!!!!! ~ Friday - Calming my nerves. Saturday - work ~ Sunday - WORK (heavy fast paced craze work) ~ Monday - the term starts and I have no life again or time for anything. Except the Gogol concert...which I am making time for even though I will have school at 11 the next morning. Eh? Not that bad, all things considered.

What have I achieved that I wanted to this summer? I only got to go camping once. =( I got to the lava cave. I made it to the East Coast. I went out a lot into the Cascades and over to the beach and now I know those areas very well. I got a new couch/bed to replace to ones Zip pissed all over. And plastic to cover them with so that if that bastard does it again they are not ruined. I ate. Oh lordy did I have some great food this summer. The best being Ethiopian in South Dakota though. I am still craving split lentil covered in bebere sauce. Hmmm...I think I might have to go to that place when I'm in Portland tomorrow. If I have the freaking time. I got a few credits crammed in. I organized my next two years as far as school goes. I took the preliminary steps to getting research and am awaiting details on the project. The only thing I really wanted to do that wasn't done is organizing the kitchen better. Maybe I will tackle that on Friday but I really want a day of complete peace. I have no days off this term. None. As in everyday I have something relating to school or work. Last year I had one day off a week. That was ok. This term I have two light days (as in one class only). So I will miss this 5 day free time. Oh and I neglected my creating art for the most part... except the random installations I create while out in nature.

And now the Summer officially comes to a halt on my birthday. That of the most special occasions when the day equals the night. And I grow another year wiser. Reflect on the past craze that is known as life and say goodbye to the waning sun and hello to the waxing moon. I await your return soon my fiery demon in the sky. I will tantalize your mistress while you are away ;) Another season passed, another reason grasped. Another path has lapsed. Another road has been grasped. And now I close this with a clasp.

I have two weeks of freedom left. I am meeting with a research adviser today. This will make or break my plans for next year. I am nervous and have no idea how to dress. I think I'm just going to wear normal clothes and go in there and be real. I could try and impress the guy, and it might work. But it could also backfire in my face. No keeping it simple and plain is best.

I am a little nervous about this year entirely. I have some pretty heavy classes. Honestly it's the Physics that worries me the most. And I'm not even sure why. I took a Physics class in 9th grade and went to it drunk almost every time. This class was in the morning mind you. I passed it with flying colors and seemed to not have an issue with it. This is high school though, so I am guessing the fancy footwork will be much more fancy in these classes. It's not so much the Math I worry about, it's the abstract concepts of how to set up the Math. I know how tricky OSU is. I swear they train their teachers in the art of developing trick questions. And from Scott's last Physics class, I have anxiety. I have a different teacher, AND a lower course series. It's not the one designed for engineers. But I do remember this one instance where his teacher gave him a problem that she started solving wrong and then was like oh wait that's right...I put a twist on what should have been a simple straight forward problem. She managed to trick herself in her own question! That's just fucked up. She also refused to make her t's look less like plus signs. Which is INCREDIBLY fucked up considering it is PHYSICS. Where you have lots of equations involving time and addition. I'm sure I will do fine at least until the Spring when the pressure will be on. I am taking a heavy course load because I want next year to be light for research. And Spring is when I have to cram some classes in because they are only offered in Spring. Bastards. Who would ever think Botany and Spring go together so well!!!! (Ok sarcasm doesn't transfer through in this media) Anyways. I should get ready instead of wasting time on fucking facbook, myspace, and livejournal. Sometimes, it makes me gag how retardly hip to the young kids media forums I am. Ugghh. I had an awesoem time last night making food for two special people and myself. And I had an awesome time at work by myself for most of the day. I like Sunday's b/c there is no one there. So I blared the music loud (it was Gogol) and starting dancing while forming and whistling to the radical gypsy gems. I'm such a dork, but it made my work FUN.

And as the upperdog leisurely sighing...the local cultures are dying and dying..the programmed robots are buying and buying...and a psycho load of freaks they are still trying trying!



All your sanity and wits they will all vanish I promise...it's just a matter of time!

Start Wearing Purple


Dogs were barking, Monkeys clapping! *Clap Clap* Bears were dancing, and the girls were getting LOOSE! Cops were lurking...



I wanna walk this EARTH like it is mine!



One month. Eugene. I will be there my darling Gypsy Wonderlust King!

I have been revived with kitchen joy. I was in a slump for a little bit there, but as I suspected that produce box has really helped. For the last few weeks I have been inspired to cook by fear of rotting food. I hate wasting food more than anything. There are so many that go unfed and malnourished because produce is too expensive. So when I know a vegetable is going to go bad I want to use it up fast. As you may know it is basil, tomato, pepper season. I roasted some tomatoes and peppers to freeze. I love having delicious stores of food in the freezer waiting for those long unhappy winter months where the price of produce waxes and sunshine wanes. Yes I am a squirrel. It is my spirit animal and at this time of year I feel a great kinship to the creatures. Basil I have also been freezing. Last year I tried freezing pesto. That went ok, but this year I am trying the leaves. Covered in oil so they don't collect so much of that freezer burn. I have been introduced to lobster mushrooms through the Wednesday markets. I am addicted to farmer's markets now. I love walking through them. Seeing the booths covered in Fall harvest. The vendors are SO nice! I walk up to a strange looking item, ask what it is and they tell me to try it. I have tried ground cherries. Which look like tomatillos but are sweet. They are a nightshade (like eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos) and the flavor lies between a tomato and cherry. Very strange fruit thing. Very strange. I have also tried green plums this way. Scott decided he liked them a lot yesterday so we got a pint. These tiny little purple peppers were hanging on at this one booth. I walk over and inquire about them and am told oh just take some and try them. I'm not even sure how to sell them but they are super spicy. He gave me a name, but I forgot. So now I have these little purple hot peppers waiting for something. Anyways. Farmers markets are sooo much better than a supermarket and right now they are full of great things. It is becoming purple season. The purple things are just starting to be harvested. The peppers are the first sign. Did you know that peppers are all green at first, and the yellows/red/oranges come after the green. So all green peppers will turn another color. Even jalapenos! The purples are a special gene, but also turn this color after being green. I think the reds turn yellow or orange as more sugar is produced. Which is why they are sweeter than the greens. So, the other joys that have come from my kitchen are a wonderful Irish soup with cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. A Shepard's pie with seitan that was inspired by my Bakery Angel. We cook together and I said I have some carrots and potatoes that need to be used. Her response, OH let's make Shepard's pie! I made this pasta with a garlic white wine sauce the other day. We ate it with lobster mushrooms sauteed with other vegetables. It was very delightful! I have a cardamom pear sauce in the fridge waiting to be eaten this morning. I haven't tried more than a bite. Yesterday, I also made a tomato, mozzarella, cucumber salad that I was enjoying with spelt berries. High in protein those are and popping texture when you bite in...with a light nutty flavor. Oh and I also roasted some beets with garlic and then mixed the garlic into the beets. I have done this with onion but never garlic. But I have pressed raw garlic onto beets to add to my salad. That does away the need for dressing let me tell you! Firey garlic yummyness. So I cooked away a storm yesterday because I just got the new box. It's also fruit season and I should go berry picking and freeze some of those. I want to go back to Iron Mountain with some tubs and see what wild berries I can ID and get. I know I saw thimble and salal. And I think, but am not sure about salmon berries...I'm not very good at these. The Salal and thimble are easy to ID though. I bet they would make good smoothies. Maybe I will try making some more jelly? Oh I bet that would be interesting with Salal. I had bad luck the last time, but I didn't use pectin I tried for the old fashioned way and only one can came out gelled. The rest made ok sauce for pancakes though! So that's the squirrely news from the kitchen.

"All this talking all the time and the air fills up, up, up
Until there's nothing left to breathe
And you think you feel most everything
And we know that our hearts are just made out of strings
To be pulled, strings to be pulled
So you think you've figured out everything
But we know that our minds are just made out of strings
To be pulled, strings to be pulled"

But what is life without these strings? What purpose does life hold if we guard our strings so tightly and let no one near them? Each pull creates a new experience to draw new breathe, new insight, new energy on. All this talk all the time and the air fills up. And then where is the space to pull? Where is the space to dance on the pathways of life? The talk is pointless. The banter is bullshit. The action is where life begins. And ends, or recycles rather. As life does not end. It exchanges form. It exchanges function. Predator becomes prey when the carcass rots away.

I hate how texting has screwed up the way people communicate through written language. By texting I do not just mean through cell phones, but through instant messaging and e-mailing even. Anything that is meant to be a quick means of communicating through written word. What ever happened to complete sentences with full on periods, commas, and question marks? What about the wonderful semi colon and colon? Hell even placing an apostrophe is too much work for some people! It's not that I am a grammar nazi. I hate grammar in fact, as you know because you read my journal that is oh so full of errors. But I hate how texting has changed written communication so drastically also. There is a nice fine line in between the two, where I reside peacefully. And I really like it here. But that peace is being shattered. It does offend me when a sentence is ended with no period. When no markers for the separation of thoughts are used it makes it makes it rather hard to decipher meaning and intent. It also just plain makes you look dumb. The shorthand spellings might be amusing at first...and sure I have used them once or twice when I have committed the heinous act of texting while driving...but all the time people? Really? See the ... is used for style. The ;, :, run on and incomplete sentence and even SOMETIMES shorthand spelling can all be used for style. I am not a grammar nazi, the rules can be broken. But when we set these things as the norm and use them ALL the time, it obliterates the style behind it. When most people think through is spelled thru because they see it on every fast food restaurant sign, it destroys my hope for humanity. When I proof read a classmate's paper and see shorthand text spellings, and horribly organized sentences, and obvious awkward word choices...well...I just don't know how to feel. But it makes me cringe inside a little bit. If I can see a grammatical error leap out at me, then wow it must be really bad. So please for the love of communication and the English language (as fucked up and complicated and ugly as it may be) stop texting like morons. Take half a second and train yourself to write at least half way decent again American teenagers, young adults, and 40 year olds that want to be hip. End rant.

I get to see Yellowstone tomorrow. My two planes were NOT the incredibly scary small ones, but medium acceptable ones! Last night, after driving across California, we stayed the night in Reno and did not go to the strip or gamble because I was afraid of the evil energy effecting my otherwise great time. Stopped at some random grocery store, in California, that had pepper spray at the checkout counter (like with the gum and candy and shit). This morning woke up, got on the road and drove across Nevada and most of Idaho. Nevada is desolate and ugly and why any human being would inhabit that place I have no idea. But they do...and they swarm in these corners that have water like ants on sugar. And there are casinos everywhere and gambling machines in every gas station corner mart thing. Creepy! Idaho at least had plants. And green. And water. And smells better except for the patches of cow. Large ag smell wafting over the highway is no good. I am at a hotel in Idaho Falls, about an hour or so away from Yellowstone. Going to cross the Rocky Mountains tomorrow. And that's about all. YAY!

Amber fucking rules! I'm glad to have such a captivating book to travel with! I am nervous as all hell. I want to go and I don't. No I want to more...I will miss the ZAkinMEOW and Scott terribly. Za knows I am going. I told her and she has been super all over me which I don't mind one bit. This cat has super sensory awareness. She knows English. Anyways off to prepare

Wait for it, they'll show the lyrics.

Left until I go on my second vacation for the summer! Scott claims the first one wasn't a real vacation because I didn't take time off work. We scheduled our Eastern Oregon endeavor to not clash. But I say because we did lame touristy things and had someone feed our cats it counted :P This time around I am taking two weekends off. It will feel weird going back to work after that. I am meeting my uncle in Oakland, CA where we will proceed to drive across the country in his little white car that I really hope he took in for a check up first. I think/hope/want really badly to stop at Yellowstone and aside from that we are taking the long haul with little stops, excluding a leg cramping aversion stop. I will be spending a week and a few days in Boston/Maine with my aunt and siblings, except my older sister =(, and my old friends. I will be flying back. I have to take a tiny little puddle jumper planelette to PDX (I don't know why he didn't just get the ticket out of Portland, I told him Eugene, Seattle, or Portland) and I am terrified of next Wednesday for this reason. On the way back, I of course, have to stop in Chicago (for 4 hours)...but at least not Chicago-Ohara, my most hated airport of ALL time. I will miss my cats and Scott terribly.

In other news: I am going to talk to my adviser about internships today. And then I will be trying to make a solid course plan for the rest of my undergrad career. YAY! So close so close so close! I need to go hiking before I leave...but where oh where shall I go? Coast or mountains? OR even the waterfalls would be nice....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss

I know it's a long article, but a VERY interesting one. Here's my review:

Page 1, eh skip it review of Julia & Julia. ~ Page 2, if you like Julia Child read it. ~ Page 3, an INCREDIBLY interesting comparison of prime time Food Network and Monday night football ~ Page 4, the shift of eating with the help of TV (skip it). ~ Page 5, time spent cooking...at the end gets into processed foods and WW2. ~ Page 6, ALSO very interesting!!! Brings up the cooking food made us evolve theory...(if you read nothing else read "the cooking animal" please!) ~ Page 7, first is cooking animal continued second half is processed foods again and time spent cooking. ~ Page 8, how do we change it and can we? Or read the whole thing if it interests you as much as it does me.

< ( Or at least read these quotes I took from the article )

I have decided to do an internship next summer as I will probably not be able to take any summer classes. They don't offer the few that will be left after this year. I am looking into it early so I should be able to find a sweet paid one doing something I love! This of course means I will have to say goodbye to the bakery which will make me sad. Unless it's a part-time internship, but I would rather have a full time one. I have this year a a few more classes left...and then...???? I know I should get a Master's from OSU but I really want out of this town and I can do that in the 'Couve if I move to Portland for a second first. I am assuming I will be so sick of school by then that working for a bit will sound nice. I am well on my way to this goal of mine. I will actually be happy with school this year. I will be in at least one small class, for plant related stuff. And I will be in two large classes for Fall/Winter...Physics and O. Chem!!!! But then just Physics in Spring..but maybe I'll take care of Biochem then if it's offered and do full Botany classes next year...but I think I have to wait until Fall again for the first one in the series. I am super super excited about O Chem. I have a natural knack for chemistry in general, but fuck stoichiometry...carbon is where it's at! Useful chemistry in other words. And I am super excited about the various plant classes. Epp! I was looking around the net at various jobs I could get with just the bachelors and I found a few really cool sounding ones in the Portland area. The best part about my potential future jobs is I will have to travel to on site locations and be in the great outdoors for the actual work part. I am thinking about getting into ecology/conservation type stuff. I love genetics, it is so interesting...but I could not morally handle the work I would be paid for. Gene splicing and gene mapping are super nifty things though. That would be postdoc work also...that's not as far as I want to go yet...YET. I know I could but..one step at a time. I will enjoy getting done with this udergrad shit though. Worst part...it's all uphill focus on what I want to focus on after that. Now to decide what I will love doing the rest of my life and go obtain it...

After 30's years with a bachelors I could potentially be at 100 thousand a year. Right away it's 30,000. And I don't have massive loans that will gain interest. Just what was actually spent that I want to pay back in full to my family...regardless of our deal about straight A's.

Yet somehow it's all me just being crazyyyyy isn't it? DROP IT ALREADY! You have to continue poking.