And I guess I should write stuff. Probably. Like resolutions. And stuff. Or do my one and a bit months overdue 25 before 25 of which I may meet half but this year I’m trying to be a bit more realistic. More age, more goals, apparently. I’m not going to review the 12 before 24 because I’m a wimp.
But first I’m going to talk about stuff because that’s kind of what this blog is about… me waffling on about my life and maybe some people possibly reading it and thinking I’m a bit cool. Maybe. Probably not, though.
I don’t think I wrote about Christmas other than the carol post… so yeah. It was nice. Dinner was lovely. I got loads of socks, which is rad, and also some well-chosen books. My Aunt and Uncle got me some lovely books: Moominpapa and the Sea, the Sherlock casebook, the Hyrule Historia, and a Moomins comic compilation. Also Brutus played in the paper and it was adorbs.
I was a bit sad because my brother wasn’t there – it’s weird when people start to make their own families. But that’s ok, because I think we’ll have Christmas together another year, and it will be the same as before.
Christmas dinner oh god
Christmas dinner was lovely. Mum didn’t even burn the parsnips this time (like almost every time). There’s something about a proper Christmas dinner that is essential to my being. I have to have one at least once a year if not more. More is better but you know… We also burnt these cool candles that had red wax coming from the inside but the outsides were green:
Christmas candles
Karen and Lucy came over on Boxing Day to have Christmas sarnies, or rather paninis, since Karen brought her panini press. I was overcome with sandwich love and hubris and made a really big sandwich:
This was clearly a mistake. Here it is, in all its glory:
Hubris-panini
As I ate it, it fell apart in moist, horribly, hubris-ey glory. Or hamartia. Or whatever.
all my hubris in panini form
I also hung out a lot with Brutus (and Artie, who is harder to photograph) who made this stunning face:
He really is the most charming cat.
So much money- almost $40
Also Dad’s gone to South Africa for.. a while. For months. So I’m living with mum to make sure everything is OK there – it’s difficult to live in a whole house on your own.
Anyways, I’ve spent several days (weeks) on this post so I’m just going to post it with an abrupt finish.
Basically, distractions in a nutshell. They’re butter. Delicious, delicious butter. Like toast with loads of butter. So good.
Can’t have toast without tea
I guess I’m faced with a bit of a dilemma. I’ve been able to focus using the Pomodoro system (25 minutes work, 5 minutes break) for the past few days. I think it’s a meta-issue though. I have a lot to do, so it’s hard to focus on a single task. Also, as I’ve been reading for my thesis, I came across this:
“Suddenly, the end of school is in sight, and the certainty of our well established routine is replaced by the uncertainty of what we are going to do next. There are few who do not feel at least a twinge of apprehension.” from Gould and White, 1986, Mental Maps
I suppose that’s really the meta-issue for me. I know what I would like to come next, but I’m worried that I won’t reach it. I’ve got so many goals and ideas that it’s difficult to reconcile them all. I sometimes wish I had more time. I spent all yesterday reading. I just sometimes don’t have the desire to do anything. That’s why I haven’t updated for so long. I get bogged down in negative thinking, and feel like I’m a failure. Feeling depressed can be feeling like a failure before I’ve even started anything.
eeeeehhhhhhh
Right?? RIGHT????
So I’m now 24. It’s ok. I guess. I don’t know. Mum came and picked me up on my birthday and we drove back home. It was pretty swell. We took some of my stuff to make moving slightly easier later. Moving in stages is way easier. We moved the rest of my stuff maybe a week and a half or two weeks ago, and now all that’s left is to clean up.
The highway
We stopped at services and got Starbucks because yeah free Starbucks on my birthday but wait no it’s not because it’s not a corporate location. Poop. But since it was my birthday I got a London fog anyways.
Also I took this lame tree pic
I chilled out at home with mum and the cats, because dad was lecturing. Then I got to open my gifts, which I didn’t really take any photos of. Mum and dad gave me some sweet skincare stuff, notebooks, pouches, fox-themed tights, and Coco Mademoiselle perfume in a cute travel aspirator. It’s white and gold. It’s p cool. I did actually take photos, since I did take it back to my apartment, rather than leaving it at my parents’ since I’m moving there anyway fairly soon (spoiler alert: I have). Also in the picture: a sweet Pylones pouch that they got me in New York.
Also Brutus played with the paper. It was adorable but I took only one pic because I suck.
For the rest of my birthday, we went and saw Thor: Whatever the Heck the Subtitle Is This Time. I thought it was pretty good. It wasn’t until the day after that I had birthday food, which was sushi, my eternal and gluttonous love. Sushi for me is about the textural experience, rather than the tastes alone. That’s why I like things like the “dragon” style rolls with the avocado on top.
Birthday food
Birthday face
It was also mum’s birthday the week after which was nice. I like that mum and I have birthdays close together. It also snowed a lot. The worst thing about snow is probably the day after when no one does a really good job of clearing their sidewalks. I mean I get it, but still. At least put some bloody salt down.
Gulleys of ice and dog piss
Acceptable sidewalk clearance. And giant bank
Wet boots were kind of a thing
Lots of snow
Also my mum’s friend Catherine gave me this sweet Vladivostok book bag. She brought it all the way from Russia for me.
SNOW
It’s so windy and cold sometimes, and right now I’ve misplaced my tuque which is tragic and sad but I don’t expect any sympathy. Also I want/need cooler sunglasses. One day. One day.
Avoiding snow blindness and coldhead
Since this post has turned into “I’m so overwhelmed that I’m going to talk about the weather” post, I should mention that there was a huge ice storm here this weekend, leaving my best friend without power until Christmas Eve (from Saturday night), and ice everywhere. Good times. There were a load of branches down at my parents’ so I helped dad move them around into stacks, but we can’t really do much until there’s a bit more of a thaw.
Iced over tree
A bit later
Tree in Toronto
I went to a really nice Christmas potluck on Saturday, and I did mashed potatoes and the gravy. I love making gravy. It’s kind of a thing for me. A lot of people think it’s difficult but it really isn’t. You just need the juices from the meat you’ve just cooked, some kind of wine/vermouth/port/etc that’s preferably cheap or going sour/vinegarey, salt, pepper, and flour. The first thing to add is the alcohol, followed by salt and pepper to taste, and then thicken it with flour. However, you should add the flour to some water first and make a sort of paste with it before whisking it in to the gravy. Oh damn, it’s a recipe. I didn’t even notice that I did that.
After the potluck, I took a taxi over to meet Kate (and her new boyfriend!). We hung out for a bit at our friend’s and had some cocktails before we went to Guvernment, where one of our friends had an in, so we bypassed the line and got to leave our coats in an office (coat check was also full!). We had a really great time dancing almost all night… well from 12am to about 3:30/4:00am. Then Kate, Kate’s boyfriend, and I left to go home, since Kate had to work anyways. It was raining really hard and every surface was a weird icy slush. We couldn’t get a taxi to save our lives, so we headed north, and no one would take us to Kate’s (basically Kate lives north of Bloor, which is I guess a “no go” zone for a cabbie on a Saturday which is bullshit and illegal, to use strong language). We finally had one driver come who said $30, no meter, and I protested briefly before my cold, wet feet won over and we piled in, annoyedly. I took a video for evidence though, and will report him.
Taxi price wat
PROFITEERING CABBIE AUGH
Luckily Peaches had the cash to cover our journey
As we approached Kate’s house, we realised the power was out on her part of the street. I luckily had a small torch on my keys, and lit the way. The apartment was still fairly warm, so slept. Her power didn’t come back on until Tuesday evening. I felt really bad for her, but luckily her boyfriend was lovely and let her stay at his place so she didn’t freeze to death while sleeping.
I came back to my parents’ in the afternoon, since their street hadn’t been cleared in the morning. I took the opportunity to buy some tea (Ginseng Oolong, which is severely underrated, and also can be resteeped about a thousand times) and get a manicure, because my nails have been awful, and probably will still be awful until I grow them out a tiny bit. It’s difficult to reconcile having nice nails with jiu jitsu…
manicure activate!
In any case I made it onto the train with minutes to spare, so it was fine. No dramatic rush… well I did, and then I realised the train wasn’t even at the platform yet. So I waited. Snacklessly. I was a bit hungry, but I didn’t have anything with me. I forgot that I had half of a cookie-pie from this place I went with mum, Hotti Biscotti. They have tasty food. And a funny sign. I don’t know. I like them, even if their name is a bit much.
Cookie pie ($2.50)
Some of their other sweets (biscotti not pictured)
Their insane Oprah sign with Oprah-dotted i’s
One last thing I wanted to post about: my new dark lip thing I have sort of going on because I kind of like how it looks and I want to be cool maybe possibly ok.
I know it’s called “black cherry” but it should be called “induces major smugness and feathers like a mofo”
probably not
Anyways I’ve just realised it’s Christmas Day and I should go to sleep. >_>
So Caren and our advisor came to Mwanza yesterday. Our advisor has already left back to Dar in order to go to Lilongwe to see our other colleague there. I was pretty excited to see them. I think it’s actually the fifth time I’ve been to the airport, not including trips out to Igombe… Before I met them I decided enough was enough and I needed some sandals that were easy to slip on and off. So I bought some Masai sandals and learned how bad I am at bargaining (Caren has promised to help). I ended up paying 23,000tsh($14.70) so I saved only 2,000tsh ($1.28) off of the outrageous 25,000tsh($15.98) he asked for initially. It’s as if the market men know somehow that I’m really really terrible at bargaining and exploit it. I tried my best, countering with ten, then twelve, then fourteen, then fifteen, then seventeen, then twenty… It didn’t work. I should have just left but I decided to grab them anyways:
And I wore my fabulous new Masai sandals
We ended up meeting a local professor at Tilapia for dinner, which was, as usual, very nice, though the service there is always a bit squiffy. My chai masala (7000tsh!/$4.47) took far too long for them to make – everyone else had finished their tea and coffee. I understand it takes a little extra time to heat the milk and add spice, but at the same time, it shouldn’t take that much longer… I had the vegetable jalfrezi again, which had extra paneer this time, which was extra delicious. It came in a little holy candle pot affair:
Holy pot
We also breakfasted at the Tilapia. I love breakfast. I especially love the types of breakfasts we have in the West. I don’t know what it is. I’m just a breakfast person. I ate so much breakfast. It was ridiculous. I had bacon, sausages, a Spanish omelette, toast, a “croissant” (croissant-shaped roll more like), fruit, baked beans, rice krispies… so much breakfast. All for me. It was amaaazing.
Breakfast Kingdom
After breakfast, our advisor showed us the room, the photos of which I am posting here mostly for the benefit of my mum.
That’s right mum, you don’t need to pack a kettle
It was a really nice room. Huge in fact.
Giant comfy looking bed
And the view was phenomenal:
Window view (bars are de rigueur for Tanzania.)
Outdoors view
Caren and I are now lurking at our (well my) usual spot: Gold Crest cafe. I’ve had an iced rooibos (my new crack), a cup of black tea, and black forest gateau. So creamy. I would almost rather have the swiss roll from Victoria Fast Food, but it’s too much work to walk all the way back there, plus they don’t have wifi (#thirdworldproblems). It’s all pretty good. Today was a Sunday food day. No fast day for me.
Lurking. Charmingly.
Also I’m planning to take her to the roof to see the sunset, since she hasn’t done it yet. I will probably take more photos, even though I must have about thirty or forty of that one sunset view. It’s just so nice. I love the sunset.
In totally weird and unrelated news, Caren brought me some things from my parents: a copy of Animal Crossing: New Leaf because I’m an obsessive child in an adult body, and the book that has all the fish timings (can’t always check online!)
So I already started but I wish my hair was more funky:
I just want funkier hair damn it! *stew, fester*
I also have been busy spending money on house stuff rather than saving the down payment (10,000 bells/$?) to actually have a proper house rather than a tent.
The tent (and a town map!)
In any case, I’m really excited and am probably addicted too soon. I’ve always loved Animal Crossing, ever since it was the only thing I wanted for my 11th or 12th birthday. The first one was amazing since it had these NES games you could play – very nostalgic. That’s why I like the 3DS – you can even have these NES games and even the GBA games from childhood right there on one system, without having to carry a lot with you. It’s really perfect. I guess right now I’m the major nostalgia market for these video game manufacturers, but in a way, I don’t really care, since everything seems quite well.
Nostalgia! Moomin style!
I also Skyped with mum and dad, and since the Internet is better here, I did turn on the video at the end. I’m pretty happy actually to see them, since I haven’t for almost two months. Also, I’m happy that my brother and Michelle are taking him out for a belated Father’s Day. And my mum showed me Brutus, my beloved Brutus Mc Bruts etc etc (the pet name is too long and embarrassing..):
Brutus plus our reactions to mum waving his paw (Mum blurred out since she said she just woke up <_<)
Anyways, my laptop battery is almost dead, so I have to wrap this up..