Stupid Computer
My computer, as they are known to sometimes do, has screwed up. For some unknown reason, my computer has decided that no one, including me, has permission to open the latest version of the research proposal that I have been working on for the last several days.
I’ve lost about a day’s worth of work assuming that the computer doesn’t decide to get it’s act together and let me in sometime soon. This isn’t the end of the world, obviously. It does however make me very, very annoyed. I have a super busy week coming up (at least the early part) even without this, so I’m thoroughly unimpressed. In fact, I’m so annoyed with Macspiffy (yes, it’s a mac, and I tend to think it’s spiffy, therefore MacSpiffy) that I’ve been “not talking to it” for the last few minutes. I’ve relented because I like the internet more than I’m mad at the computer.
I’m reasonably certain that it is gone, because Hubby did his communing with electronics thing, and got no results. If he can’t get it to work, then no one that I know is going to get it to work, short of paying money which I’m not willing to do. Now I get to waste a whole day redoing that part of the proposal. And I can guarantee that I won’t be as happy with the redone version of it, as I was with the original.
After
I’ve just finished reading After by Francine Prose. It’s a young adult novel that my sister loaned to me. I find that I still really enjoy alot of young adult novels. The Giver by Lois Lowry is still one of my favourite pieces of dystopia, and I’m a huge fan of many series aimed originally at children/teens such as Emily of New Moon, and of course Harry Potter.
I can’t say that I loved this book though. It wasn’t bad, but some parts of it seemed completely improbable to me. The book is about highschool turning into a prison. It’s really about the step by step oppression of a group of people, and how no one stops it when it’s supposedly done for that group’s own safety. The book is set immediately after a school shooting at a nearby school. Ok to that point I can follow it.
However, the administrator who is oppressing them is a one dimensionally evil character who seems to have no reason for what he does. And the parents of the studen’ts seem to have been brainwashed through emails from the school. I understand that some people can be very persuasive, but this administrator was sending children away for an unknown length of time, and they’re parents weren’t objecting. I just couldn’t believe that; and it tinged the rest of the story for me. Once there’s one thing that I can’t accept, it’s much harder to get into the book.
Having said that, I did enjoy many aspects of the book. It was a frightening insight into what it might be like to be part of a group who’s rights are eroded, step-by-step, for their own “safety”. I read the book in one sitting in an afternoon the other day, and spent the evening Googling Stalin and Hitler and reading about real life situations of oppression.
I’m not sure that I would recommend this book to anyone, but I wouldn’t try to talk someone out of reading it either (not that I ever do). It certainly made me think.
The Week of Feeling Unwanted
This post may be a bit whiny, as it truly hasn’t been a good week. None of these things are a big deal on their own, but they did add up to me feeling a bit as though nobody wanted me (except Hubby of course, who has done a very good job of making me feel better.)
It started out with my parents heading home. Mom in particular really didn’t want to leave, so I cerntainly wasn’t feeling rejected per se, but I did go from being super busy with houseguests, to not having anyone around. Then my sis got sick, and moved some plans from Tuesday to Thursday, again no big deal, and she was sick, but the change happened Tuesday morning which kind of threw me off.
This was followed up by some school related issues. I need to put together a committee of people to supervise my thesis. I talked to my main supervisor about this, and he suggested the appropriate professors to ask, and approximately what to say. At this point, I was under the impression that it was basically a given that they’d say yes (I think my supervisor was too). The first guy said yes, however he first joked somewhat awkwardly (and I think somewhat seriously) about if there was any way he could get out of it. Not exactly flattering.
The second guy threw me for a total loop by saying that he didn’t think he was the right person to help on this thesis. I admit at this point I was a bit stunned. Luckily, my supervisor seemed equally surprised, so I felt a bit better about it at that point, but it did really throw off the rest of my week.
That night we had the departmental barbeque that happens every year. I like the barbeque, and I like the people in the department, but I’m quite shy. After a few minutes of having talked to the people I know, I spent a while following Hubby around. Overall I had a good time, but I did feel a bit like a wallflower. Normally wouldn’t have bothered me, but this week it was just one more thing.
Then, the piece de resistance on Thursday was when I got stood up for lunch by a girlfriend who completely forgot that we were supposed to meet. I’m still a little steamed about that one, as I stood around like a starving idiot for half an hour in the student union building before hubby came along looking for lunch himself, and we joined up.
The rest of the week was fine, and mostly I’m over it, but hopefully next week everyone will actually want me.
Weekend at Whistler, or Megan Rediscovers her Fear of Heights
We spent this past weekend at Whistler. It really was pretty awesome. I can totally understand why people love that place so much, and I wasn’t even there during ski season. Although I did discover just how much more outdoorsy most people who go there are compared to me.
We spent some time watching the end of the mountain bike runs, and went near the beginning of some hike trails, but my parents weren’t really up for hiking, and Hubby and my sister were busy. They chose to take advantage of actually having one another’s presence (as the only two daredevils in the family) to go Zip treking. As ziptrek sounded more like something that would make me cry than have fun, I elected not to join them. They claim it was awesome.
Instead Mom, Dad and I took the gondola to the roundhouse. This turned out to be a bit frightening. I haven’t been in a position to notice it in a while, but I am TERRIFIED of heights. Being up high on a mountain didn’t scare me. However being up above the mountain on a gondola did. I held on tight to the bar, and convinced myself that by holding on I was driving.
Once we got up that far, Dad went to sit in the Roundhouse, and Mom and I made the 5 minute walk down to where the chair lift to the peak starts. Originally I was just going to walk her down there, but then we saw a little old couple getting off the lift, and I figured that if they could do it so could I. That wasn’t my brightest moment.
I have to confess that I was in tears by the time we reached the top. The chair approaches multiple shear rock faces, where you think they must be the top, only to go over and have the ground fall away under it again. By the time we finally got there my knuckles were white. Luckily despite all my apprehension, down was significantly better than up. I was worried that facing downhill would make things scarier, but for some reason this wasn’t true. I did however make my parents buy me a beer for courage before I agreed to get back into the gondola down the mountain.
Beef Curry Pot Pie
My parents are in town at the moment, and so Hubby and I have been making all of our “specialty dishes” to feed them. One in particular that we invented and particularly enjoy is our beef curry pot pie. Hubby thought this was a dish his mom made, but when he asked for a recipe she had never heard of it. Then he thought it was something he’d had at a pub, but we checked that pub’s menu and there was no sign of it, so we had to make it up.
We start with cubing up a bunch of beef, we prefer round steak for this. Then we cubed up potatoes, carrots and celery, as well as onion. Proportions are entirely up to taste. we just make sure there’s enough to fill the casserole dish.
The veggies are microwaved with a bit of water until they are just tender. If this step is skipped, the pie comes out a bit crunchy (as we unfortunately discovered when we served it the other day). Then we add frozen peas and mix all the veggies together.
At the same time, we brown the beef in a frying pan. Coating the beef in flour first helps it to brown up quickly and nicely. Next we use the beef browning to make a gravy. Generally I need to add butter, then mix in the flour to make the roux. To this we usually add beef broth, and milk if we have it to thin the sauce to the desired consistancy.
We then flavour the sauce with salt, pepper, pureed thai chili peppers (i don’t know exactly what kind, the market we go to simply calls them “hot peppers” but they are very hot) and lots and lots of curry powder and some cumin. The sauce should be yellow. We also add a dash of worcestershire sauce, and sometimes a bit of hot sauce depending on the flavour.
The final step is to buy some Tenderflake brand puff pastry, roll it out, and put it over the top of the pot pie. Cold from the fridge we find a large one of these bakes in about an hour. We usually cover the pie with something for the first half-hour to keep the pastry from getting too browned.
