CranAppleSauce

Note Osya left yesterday. He's trying to convince us that he's responsible enough for a kitten. By 'us' I mainly mean Папа. The night before he said no, because he had asked Osya to replace the trash bag and Osya hadn't, so now he's trying to prove otherwise.

(the note reads: I'm more responsible. Cleaned table took dishes out and put dishes in under 35 min. Didn't miss bus. More to come.)

clearly

a) written in a half-asleep state <3

b) More to come is almost a threat.

~

Sima's been playing angry birds with his stuffed animal angry bird, which consists of him throwing it at me, me not doing anything, him making a blowing-up noise and then telling me weather or not I'm dead (depending on how close the bird got to me.)

~

Mama calls me: did you pick up Sima (aka did I come up when the bus came)

Me: yes

Mama: there's a chicken in the fridge. you can do what you want with it

Me:...

Mama: with the exception of doing nothing. you can't do that.

                 so she outclevered me

~

 Yesterday was the first night of Hannukah, so I made apple sauce. I added a tiny bit of sugar because of the cranberries and granny smith apples used.

1) peel and chop the apples.

2) put about half an inch of water in a pot. put the apples and whatever else in as well (i.e. cranberries.) the initial water is just in there so the apples don't burn until they get warm enough to seep out their own juices. mmm, gory.

3) let them cook on high until they get mushed enough, then put them on low. closer to the end, add the spices and sugar.

apples are mostly water, so I strained my apple sauce (before I put the spices in, after I put the sugar in) and ended up with pink cider.

Yum.

 We went over to Innka's+

(latkis and fried dough and the whole thing)

very satisfied, especially compared to last year when I spent Hanukkah at Botstein's house.

Wontons

 x

Mama bought some wonton skins, so I just make wontons out of random things I found. steps;

1) fry the stuff together.

I used parsley, bean sprouts, mushrooms, scallions, fresh ginger, lemon zest, soy sauce, sesame seeds and sesame seed oil.

 I ended up having to make another batch once I realized there wouldn't be enough filling, and I used what little I had left of the bean sprouts, a carrot (I just used a potato peeler to cut it), an egg and the rest was the same.

2) put a spoonful of stuffing onto the wonton skin

Sima helped me with this part

3) close the wonton. use water as glue.

I put water on two adjacent edges, took one corner and attached to the corner across, and stuck together the sides. You can make other shapes, but I stuck with the simplest one.

3) you can make soup or steam or fry them

 I fried, used safflower oil because I figured it can get to a high temperature and that might be better. Also, it's a new thing in the house so I just wanted to use it, dunno if it actually makes a difference.

Additionally, I made miso soup and Mama made Jasmine rice. 

The sauce was soy/sesame/honey/ginger

and that was dinner.

Bats

I think this photo is kinda awesome. Might have something to do with me thinking that bats are kinda awesome. Have you ever seen them all preserved in a museum of natural history? They look like little woodland faeries, smiling with their teeth. Neither evil nor good, but definitely mischievous and magical.

I'm home. It's stressing me out. I have 6 weeks off and I have to do something with them and family ... I didn't find any winter courses I wanted to take and I don't want to go to Israel right now because I want to go in the summer and it's too sudden to go now and I might not be able to go skiing because I have to watch Sima while Osya and Mama go to LA
and shoot me now.

I'm going to go to Yulka's today to start our cloths-making/remaking projects. Taking the train, haven't done that in a while.

edit: I'm now signed up for this class  
though I still have to wait for it to clear the payment and stuff.
it's a new-years present (which makes me feel better about the money), and hopefully I'll be able to make the credits transfer. 

Almost Done, What I've Done

more me being self-centered about Margaret's tumblr;
[link redacted} 

Margaret and I also made a brown sugar pound cake yesterday for Jack's birthday! Rosette and Margaret got him a book called Grossman’s Guide to Wines, Beers, and Spirits signed by the author to a guy name Maury, and it also had an article fro the NYTimes folded in, with chemistry on the back.

Tea as well :)

and the choclates Mama sent me (yes, my back feels better Mama, thank you for the heating pad <3)

I'm almost done with finals week. I still have to present my photo project tomorrow, and I might still do the extra credit assignment for stats, but everything else is done, I just handed in a final paper for stats. I took photos last Saturday for the Caribbean Student Union party (it was like, a semi-formal thing, nothing crazy)

also:

Hi All, Since I didn't get a chance to approve you before
registration closed, we need to use the regular add/drop forms. If
you're still interested in being in this class, please email me to
set up a time this week when I can sign your form. Best, Cole

I already finished with all the add/drop form stuff so I'm in the class! woot! Susa is too :)

She's the professor that someone said that if she taught knitting they would take it.

Lily Jack Rosette Margaret and I went to this 'Chinese' place in Rhinebeck. It was like a a fake-gold-guilded hole-in-the-wall which we still enjoyed, partially because we had a little adventure getting there and partially because it isn't kline. The same day it was Alana's birthday (the 2nd) so we celebrated by watching the last two harry potter films and eating icecream and brownie-cake. but we gave her the present a couple days ago (fancy flask)

in the photo shes looking at the preliminary gifts we gave her; random things in little plastic balls. i think two of them added up to a necklace.
She's driving me home. So soon!

Russia

I know I don't usually write about the news but: Russian Protests.

 There are a lot of more normal sources out there (many of which I have read)

but I'll add this video

because I know this kid (sorry, it's in Russian)

and I know the adult who wrote this essay (he, unlike the kid, lives in Moscow. This is also in Russian)

there's too much for me to write a cohesive and well-rounded post about this (which is why I generally don't write news, and especially not politics. Too hot-button topics, and I'd rather discuss and debate face-to-face)

but this is all too interesting, to thought-provoking, too anxiety producing and hope as well, because there is a possiblity for positive change, but also a chance that everything will go to shit, or nothing will change.
a weird mix of inbred cynicism, inspiration and fear.

attempt to describe Bard

"could you please tell me the ups and downs of Bard cuz I swear to effing god I can't live in Scotland anymore"

So I have a friend I met at Massart during Saturday studio classes. She's very French, even though she grew up in NYC (but went to a French school. and basically whenever I think anyone looks like her or moves like her they turn out to be French.) She sent this message (it's longer) to me and a freshman who she knows here. So I attempted to describe Bard. It was hard. We talk a lot about being at Bard here, yet somehow everything ended up being rather scattered. Because we complain, but that's not all we mean. Here was my attempt (she asked about cliquishness and drugs. She's considering Bard and Sarah Lawrence)

Yeah, I was going to say similar things that
a) I'm pretty sure I've seen you Lily (which goes to show you how small the school is, I guess)
b) It's finals week which is why we are not responding properly (took two today, had paper due monday, had another exam saturday. typical college stuff, though I suppose the fact that a few of my friends have 20 page papers is a bit less typical and more Bard is into writing and analysis. It doesn't sound as bad here as it does to the rest of the world, because you get good at it)
c) I like it here a ton. Like, people complain. It's really easy to complain. People here are good at complaining.
They complain about:
-hipsters (but they are hipsters)
-pretentiousness
-food
-crazy profs.
-dorms
-registration

Secretly they:
-get sucked into the aesthetic. The weed. The pea-coats. The Raybans. the fact that you can wear anything.
-like the intellectualism. they pretend not to care and kinda care about coming off as blaze, but some people just are passionate in a very awesome way.
-no, they don't like the food.
-the brilliant interesting professors that are hidden and not-so-hidden all over. The worst professor I've had used to teach at Harvard. Many want to be called by their first name, the classes are generally small (not as small as we would like, but enough for discussion to be important) Student feedback is important too, i.e. they are hiring bio and psych professors right now and they are having the candidates give lectures and have students respond and evaluate the candidates. Other than the Harvard Prof, my experience with the faculty has been very positive. Like, I'm taking a history of sociological thought class right now, which is not something I'm really interested in. But it was still a class worth taking because the professor was so good (and I didn't even realize how good he was until halfway through when it hit me-I think a similar thing happened to some other students who realized how well they where understanding some pretty dense texts)

One of the profs I have next semester is described as such on ratemyprofessor: "I'd take knitting with Cole if she taught it. "
general breakdown: academics are important, sports are not.

quotes from my roommate:
"part of going here is hating it a little bit"
"the food is terrible, registration is horrible, but I'm going to stay here"
"I would be a little bit unhappy anywhere I went"
(it's almost a bonding thing to complain)
But it also has a lot to offer, some people transfer, but a lot of people, despite their complaining, really appreciate what Bard has to offer and don't want to leave. It can be cliquish, I guess, but it's also partially a matter of having a group of solid friends. And I've made new ones outside of my friend group through classes this semester, so it's not a rule, just a tendency. I like my social life here, despite the fact that we are IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS classes are awesome, professors care (though some are very weird...kinda like older versions of the students, with more power and having had more time to develop their quirks while reading philosophy in their offices)
we don't have bros. we have like...fake bio bros.

umm, yeah. I don't know if that was helpful. I guess I'm trying to defend against the stereotypes. I don't know about people getting carried out on stretchers (people do get drunk and go to SMOG, but most of the time it's just dancing and dubstep and yes, people getting driven to the hospital sometimes but usually without an ambulance but by a student-run emergency driving system)
if you have more specific questions it might be more useful than my very-long-and-disorganized-rant.

but yes. i love it here, but it is a not-standard place.

Pending, round two

12142

LIT 2064   Other Romanticisms

Cole Heinowitz

M . W . .

11:50 -1:10 pm

OLIN 301

ELIT/DIFF

Cross-listed: Victorian Studies It is only in recent decades that studies of Romantic poetry have begun to look beyond the “Big Six”: Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Byron. Yet between the 1780s and the 1830s, Britain witnessed an explosion of writing by figures generally excluded from the canon, including women, proletarians, people of color, peasants, and those deemed insane. In this course, we will explore the works of this “other” Romantic tradition while taking into account the ways in which political issues and social mores shape a body of literature and mediate its status in the marketplace. We will also question conventional understandings of British Romanticism itself, challenging assumptions about its historical, aesthetic, political, and philosophical characteristics. Readings to include works by George Crabbe, Robert Burns, Anna Barbauld, Mary Prince, John Clare, Thomas Beddoes, Laetitia Elizabeth Landon, Isaac d’Israeli, and William Hazlitt. Some previous exposure to Romantic literature is required.  Class size: 18

things that are bitter:

tonic water (quinine)

the top part of a really large carrot

grapefruit

strong tea

coffee

beer

cough syrup

citrus peel

burnt things

poisonous berries

soap

dark chocolate

cilantro

some olives

that strip that they make you taste in science classes that has PTC on it

turnip

I like some of these things.

Emma and I were talking today and she said vinegar was bitter (nope-def. sour) and then I tried to come up with things that were biter but it seems that she dislikes or hasn't interacted with most of them. no cough syrup, no grapefruit. plus a lot of bitter things have an acidic after taste-like some coffees.