Well, worst comes to worst, the Anthropology department doesn't accept my thesis proposal, and then I don't have to spend the next year going through my own personal hell of attempting to be productive. So, uh. Silver lining? I guess?
(...I'd still kind of like them to accept it, though. Just because.)
Plus, I have to revise my final nonfiction paper for Friday, and then study for an exam and write two moderately intelligent-sounding essays for the week after that. It's not the worst workload I've ever had, but it's going to be a bit of a bumpy road between now and the end of classes, ducklings.
(I've decided that I'm going to call all my readers "ducklings" from now on. It has a nice ring to it.)
Anyway, enough about my future stress. Time to move on to the reason why I have all that stress, aka, the recap of the week where I was not nearly productive enough! I mean, I was sort of productive. I just clearly should have been twice as productive as I already was. And should have, you know, rechecked that email about theses proposals.
[Under the cut: pictures of food, Foodstock, my apparent narcolepsy, and THE AVENGERS.]
So the most interesting thing about this week was the fact that I have apparently developed narcolepsy. Well, no, not really. It's just that because I keep making bad decisions when it comes to sleep, my body has retaliated by A) making me sick, off and on, and B) making sure that my ears don't even register my alarm when it goes off in the mornings. I was an hour late to work on Wednesday and I missed my morning class on Thursday, which was completely appalling to me, not least because I had spent a while the previous day making cranberry-vanilla coffee cake for my TA session, after spending a significant amount of time trying to figure out what would be an appropriate baked good to bring for a morning meeting.
[caption id="attachment_9436" align="alignnone" width="520" caption="Half of the batter with the cranberry-vanilla-sugar filling."]
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_9439" align="alignnone" width="520" caption="Just out of the oven!"]
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_9442" align="alignnone" width="520" caption="Deliciousness. I wanted to get a cut picture for the sake of showing off the pretty layering effect."]
[/caption]
So not only was I really embarrassed about having woken up at noon instead of 8 am (and seriously, I'm thankful I didn't miss my afternoon classes, either), but I also had an entire cake that I didn't know what to do with. Thankfully I've been able to foist it off on other people over the weekend, which is at least better than it sitting around in my kitchen going stale while a mountain of dishes piles up in the sink. (Seriously, for every dish you wash, it's like ten more suddenly become dirty...)
Anyway, aside from that little mishap, my week was pretty much normal — oh, yeah, except for how I went to the AVENGERS MIDNIGHT RELEASE AND IT WAS FANTASTIC.
I was actually so full of feelings that I was completely blank-faced for most of the movie and a great deal of time after that, while internally I was pretty much like this the entire time:
I know one or two people who weren't huge fans, but otherwise, most of the reactions I've seen have been incredibly positive. Personally, I was really impressed by the way that Joss Whedon (Wesleyan alum!) managed to really highlight each of the characters. I've always had a hard time with ensembles, but he played all of the characters off each other in some really amazing ways.
Also, the Black Widow is fantastic. Even the one person I know who wasn't thrilled suggested that the movie should be called "Natasha Romanoff Is Better Than You."
Anyway, after that I went to sleep (...eventually), and then woke up just in time to go to the It's Only Natural Restaurant down on Main St. With my mom, who was in town briefly, a friend of hers, and Flatmate Katie. The ION Restaurant has tasty vegan/vegetarian food and excellent sweet potato fries, which I always appreciate.
Then it was back to my room for homework, then to a Wesleyan Musical Theater Collective meeting, and then to the training meeting for the Foodstock volunteers so we could get our t-shirts and assignments. After that, I ran off to WesWings to go grab myself a lobster (once a year, WesWings holds Lobsterfest, which, as you may guess from the name, means that you can buy a freshly-steamed lobster; I saved mine to eat later, since I had already had dinner, but I can't turn down an opportunity for lobster when it smacks me in the face with giant red claws), and then it was off to the Film Series for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King — or, as we "in the know" fans like to call it, LotR:RotK. RotK, for short.
Oh yeah, I'm cool. I know.
I'd forgotten how emotional RotK gets, though; I definitely welled up a little at various points. I can't help it; when Gandalf is riding away and Pippin is looking heartbroken as he almost falls off the horse trying to get a last glimpse of Merry, the cousin and best friend from whom he has never before been separated...
It gets to me, okay. Damn Billy Boyd and his expressive eyes.
Also, that movie is looooooong. Three and a half hours for the theatrical release? Intense, man. Worth it, and full of brilliance, but intense.
Then the next day I woke up at 8:10 so that I could get to Foodstock by 8:45, and I just realized that I haven't explained Foodstock to you yet, have I? Well, I can let the poster do that just as well:
As someone who loves both food and writing, I wasn't able to resist the siren song of the description. Plus, being a volunteer meant that I got to get into the events which were limited to registered guests only.
I was an escort, which basically meant that they assigned me a speaker (two, actually, which came as a surprise) and I got to help them find their way around, make sure that they got to their event on time, etc. etc. Of course, my first speaker only arrived at 10 am, which meant I could have gotten another hour of sleep, but whatever, I'm not bitter or anything. I took him over to Faith Middleton's interview with Ruth Reichl, which I sat and watched because my mom and I are fans of her memoirs, even if my speaker was a bit snarky about Gourmet magazine going under while she was Editor In Chief. She seemed pretty cool, though, from the interview.
My speaker made it fairly clear that he neither wanted nor needed any sort of assistance, and I cheerfully zipped back to HiRise and slept for another hour. At 1 pm I went to "Writing So They Can Taste It," a talk by Molly O'Neill, which talked about getting into food writing and was really interesting. I don't know if that's something I'll be trying to do at any point, but a lot of her tips for food writing could apply to general writing as well, and I ended up taking about three pages of notes.
Then my second speaker arrived — Ariana Bain, a Wesleyan grad ('05) who's now a sustainability consultant and pretty much the nicest person on the planet. We chilled for a while, went to "The Business of Food" panel, and then headed off to her and my other speaker's event, which was (unsurprisingly, given her job) about sustainable cuisine. I was a little worried that it would be boring, but A) there was delicious, delicious sushi, and B) somehow the panelists (Ariana, chef Christopher Prosperi, and Terry Walters) managed to make a discussion of the contradictions and complexities inherent in the food industry and global marketplace so interesting that I ended up taking another set of notes.
If you want, you can find out more about Foodstock HERE. It was a fantastic event; I hope it happens again.
Then, after that was over, I pretty much ran to catch up with my friends before we headed over to see the Avengers for the second time in 48 hours.
This viewing was delayed by a guy hitting his head and needing paramedics (yikes), and then by the projectionist turning off the reel while trying to fix sound issues (frustrating), but things picked up, and I ended up like this again:
Of course, in recompense I spent pretty much all of today inside working on homework, but into every life some rain must fall. Farewell, my ducklings; I will see you next week! I hope to still be sane by that point.
[Original tags on this post: AVENGERS AVENGERS AVENGERS, baking,basically my brain is full of superheroes and it is a glorious thing, film series,Food, foodstock, it’s only natural restaurant, kermit flailing all over the place, LOOK I DID THINGS, more food,pretty pretty pictures,sometimes I worry that I should be attempting to be an actually responsible and productive human being, stress and stuff, stuff I have done]
No comments:
Post a Comment