summer musings

so while summer seems a long way off (especially considering that we have been in the single digits for the last few days), i'm one of those people who plans things early. and actually its really not all that early since a lot of programs' deadlines are fast approaching.

options to consider:
1. study in china (intensive chinese)
2. get an internship in washington d.c.
3. do research with prof.

things of note:
1. applied to government sponsored program, probably won't receive
2. need to apply, chances of getting? i have no idea.
3. need to find out more about it - he's writing a book on leadership with a president emeritus and it probably would be interesting but...housing? stipend? living in the middle of nowhere for even longer?

hmm. hmm. what to do. especially since aside from more info on the third option, i wouldn't find out about the others until march...

excerpt from chinese cooking reading

"life is jiaozi; the years one spent in life are the wrapping, and the life experiences one has had are the fillings, which contains the entire spectrum of taste: sweet, sour, bitter, hot and all" - cui yongyuan

don't play with your food

super cute playing with food art

a compilation of finished product pics: http://www.baekdal.com/design/art/dont-play-with-food/

the artist herself's website abt the process: http://annathered.wordpress.com/

college reads: the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian

so a project of my college's committe on diversity and community is to try and get lots of campus to read the same book and their choice this year was sherman alexie's the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian which i thought was a very interesting book and was also a very quick read. it examines the crisis faced by a boy caught between the world of the reservation and the world beyond the reservation in a comical, yet serious, story. i've never read much about life on reservations before and the interactions between the indians and the whites in the surrounding area are very telling of the wrongs that have been done and continue to be done to indians in america. i'd also recommend alexie's poetry - at least what was read to us on opening night of this "event" was very good.

--

I wept and wept and wept because I knew that I was never going to drink and beacuse I was never going to kill myself and because I was going to have a better life out in the white world. I realized that I might be a lonely Indian boy, but I was not alone in my loneliness. There were millions of other Americans who had left their birthplaces in search of a dream.

I realized that sure I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball platers. And to the tribe of bookworms.
And the tribe of cartoonists
And the tribe of chronic masturbators.
And the tribe of teenage boys.
And the tribe of small-town kids.
And the tribe of Pacific Northwesterners.
And the tribe of tortilla chips and salsa lovers.
And the tribe of poverty.
And the tribe of funeral-goers.
And the tribe of beloved sons.
And the tribe of boys who really missed their best friends.
It was a huge realization.
And that's when I knew that I was going to be okay.

j-term

so its been awhile but finally back at school for j-term having survived both finals and the chaos that always accompanies holidays - now all that has to be done is to figure out what to do with loads of free time...maybe actually get around to reading some books =]

class should be fun - chinese cooking (still can't believe i made it in as a frosh) looks to be delicious and educational (woohoo reading packets) and useful

that's all for now. we shall see what else is gonna go on for the next month aside from the momentous occasion of the presidential inauguration. broomball? road trip? hibernation? tea? crosswords? relay for life? hmm.

because finals are currently consuming me, a small smackeral

iceland is melting!

an interesting talk about the literal and economic melting of iceland.

things i never knew about iceland:
1. you can look up their prime minister in the icelandic phone book
2. there are 300,000 people in iceland. that means that the phone book mentioned above is about the size of a regular city phone book. but it has the white pages and the yellow pages and everyone in the entire country.
3. it was in 2007 ranked number 1 on a list whose name i don't know but measured things like literacy rate, absence of poverty etc.
4. they are nowprobably going to switch to the euro, something that was strongly opposed before the economic crisis
5. they make lots of money from fish.
6. four men used to run the major banks in iceland, now four women do.
7. people in iceland can detect even the slightest foreign accent in the icelandic of people who aren't truly from iceland