Things to look forward to: Cloud Atlas

So, this movie looks weird, but interesting, and therefore I will probably love it. It comes out on October 26th. Also, it was directed by one of the first openly transgender Hollywood folks, so that's one point for the good side. Yay for progress!

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Muffins!

I made these muffins yesterday in an attempt to bring some sunshine back into an otherwise dreary day. And it worked! They are freaking delicious, perfect with their dense but not too sweet flavor, fresh strawberries, and just enough chocolate! Yum!

So, without further ado, MAKE THESE MUFFINS!

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups flour (I used all-purpose, but there's no rule against whole wheat!)

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt 

1 egg

1 cup sugar

4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

1 1/4 cups sour cream or natural Greek yogurt (I used the yogurt with no problems)

1 cup(ish) fresh strawberries or thawed frozen (I used fresh and you can just kind of guestimate based on how much strawberry goodness you want in each muffin)

3/4 cup chocolate chip of your choice (semi-sweet was nice)

Chocolate drizzle:

     3 Tbsp chocolate chips

     1/2 Tbsp butter

Directions:

Oven: 425F

Pan: Large muffin tin, lined and greased and ready to go! (Although honestly I always do this last...hehe)

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in your largest bowl. This shall henceforth be known as the "dry bowl". 

Now in your second largest bowl, whisk (ahem, I definitely just used a wooden spoon) the egg until yolk and white are just combined and lightish yellow. Dump in the sugar and combine. Add the butter in three additions, whisking together sloooooooowly. Then gently add in the sour cream/yogurt and mix until just combined. Do not overmix! This is very important. I don't know why, but it is. This is henceforth known as the "wet bowl".

Add the strawberries and chocolate chips to the dry bowl and mix up until the strawberries look weird all covered in flour. It's okay. That's good. Then slowly dump the contents of the wet bowl into the dry bowl in three additions, and fold slowly and carefully until all the dry ingredients are wet. Again, don't overmix. This batter will be quite thick. 

After that, you know the drill--spoon batter into muffin tins, but this time make sure you fill them all the way up. The batter won't rise an incredible amount so you want the tins pretty full. Then bake them at 425F for 5 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350F and bake for another 20-22 minutes. Let them cool for five minutes while you melt the butter and chocolate together (I had a stupid amount of trouble with this--shut up) and then drizzle (or plop) the mixture over the muffins. When they've cooled a bit longer, invite your friends over and eat them all! It'll probably make about a dozen muffins. 

Enjoy!

302 cal/muffin (1/12 of recipe)
With healthy substitutions (butter > apple sauce, fat-free sour cream, sugar substitute, no chocolate drizzle) = 169 cal/muffin (1/12 of recipe)

(From Sally's Baking Addiction)

(Thanks Mom for successfully melting the chocolate and putting it on the cupcakes.)

Russia?

So, I was checking out my blog stats (thanks everyone for reading my blog 1469 times!) and I am slightly confused by the geographical view map. I mean, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Belgium make sense to me --  I was there, and those views are probably me. But...I am quite confused by the 47 views from Russia. 

If you're the person who's reading my blog from Russia -- Welcome! I'm glad you're here. But seriously...who are you? I'm not trying to be rude, but it's a little bit puzzling. Haha.

Still, though. Russia. Cool. :) 

Playful Parties and Plentiful Picnics!

This is the masterpiece with which we celebrated the birth and subsequent adulthood of two of my favorite people: the lovely Crystina Renteria and the incredible Jackson Strecher:

The lobster's name is Armand and he decorated Jena's hair for most of the night.

And there's nothing like a beautiful picnic followed by a dip in a (ridiculously pool-like) fountain with three wonderful (if somewhat insane) people!

  

Also, my wonderful kitten Sue has something to say:

)(999jkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk]g5vbe\r=dgvbwdspc -0v

Word.

School, Schedules, and Summersummersummersummer!

Auhbluhbluhbluhbluh.

That's how I feel right now. The last many moons have (obviously) been insane, and today is the official start of my summer vacation. It's time to reeeeeeeelaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax... Ah!

Besides the few stupid loose ends to tie up (why is going to college so complicated?) I'm all set for school in the fall. Having my schedule is a relief of momentous proportions, even though now my stress-o-meter is free to develop anxiety about the classes themselves instead of worrying over their nonexistence. The fact that I'm taking mostly classes that have nothing to do with the things I'm majoring in (i.e. good at)--such as Music in the Human Imagination (I am horribly un-musical), Intro to Sociology (my concept of this study is very vague indeed), and Archaeological Science (how the heck am I supposed to know what to expect in an archaeology class?)--makes me feel like I'll be in for some serious surprises this semester (ALLITERATION!). And my only English class, Intro to Literary Analysis and Interpretation Skills, is a night class on Tuesdays, which sucks because this is the class I want to be most focused on. Lastly, Advanced French makes me nervous because, even though I tested out of the first four semesters of French on the little test thing (miracle of miracles!) I've never taken college French before and may or may not be totally out of my league. Ugh.

Blah blah blah I'll stop bitching about school now. So...Orientation! It was fun, exhausting, and intense to say the least. I wish we had had more free time because after a while all the spirit stuff and student organization stuff got old. Also, I wish they had had more student orgs out to throw themselves at us, because 75% of them were either Greek organizations or churches, neither of which I have the slightest interest in. Several times I got roped in to their subtly decorated booths and had to carefully extricate myself once I realized that "Student Fellowship" really meant Baptist Club before giving them all of my information. But I met a lot of really cool people and hopefully this process, minorly unpleasant as it was, will help me "make the transition" as UNT has so enthusiastically promised.

God this post is boring. I apologize.

And now, after all of that, LET SUMMER COMMENCE!

My thoughts on Instagram after all this time.

You may not care, but over the last month of very frequent, mostly daily use, I have developed some rather strong opinions about Instagram. If you're one of my photography friends, you might be interested.

An astute blog reader would notice immediately that I have abandoned Instagram in the last week or two. This is because it can be incredibly boring. After a long time I feel like all my photos look the same because I'm limited to the same twelve effects for every shot, and those effects are almost always whittled down to the few that aren't overwhelmingly overprocessed - Amaro, Rise, Hefe, Lofi, and X-pro for the most part. Although I admit I almost always want to use Amaro, but often stop myself for fear of overusing it. It's easy to get bored with it and just settle with something sub-par. I also dislike the squareness of it. No, I actually really like the squareness, I just wish it wasn't the only option. It's so limiting when you've taken a well-composed rectangular shot. And I've found that I almost never use the focusing thing. It almost always looks fake and it's realy hard to match up a real-life photo with a perfect circle or a perfect line of focus. It just doesn't make sense. I wish they had a focusing brush, or you could somehow mess with the aperture settings of the phone camera, but yeah.. I realize that's a lot to ask of a lowly app.

Also, Instagram on my phone enjoys shutting itself down randomly, taking two minutes to open up its camera, and freaking out when there's no internet connection to load up a shot. I really wish you had to choose to upload it; either it sucks and I don't want it on the internet under my name, or Instagram has a fit trying to upload it out of wifi. Stupid technology.

But sometimes, you know, the app allows me to make art out of the crap my phone produces, so I guess that's good. I still prefer the PhotoShop app, but that's tedious and still not very versatile. Mostly I just want to use Samson, my lovely Canon Rebel, and Camera Raw on my computer. But alas, such luxuries have stayed in Texas. I'm coming!

Here are a few of my favorite Instagram pictures I have taken, just for the heck of it. (I realize that most of these are photos of other people's art and maybe that makes me a dirty plagiarizer, but all I can say to that is "PTOOEY!")

Day 31, 32, & 33: On My Way Home!

My last days in England were spent scuba diving off a much less challenging beach (still so cold my hands didn't work for like half an hour afterwards), visiting family, and shopping in Truro, the nearby city/town. I don't think it has as many people as Denton (?) but it's much more dense, much more city-like: it has all the fancy shops and pedestrian areas and tall buildings, which Denton, for the most part, lacks. It's a neat town, though, Truro is.

And now I'm on the first leg of my journey home: Truro to London by train. I'll be home by tomorrow night (though for me it's slightly longer than that). So now, that Beatles song is playing in my head, "We're on our way home, we're coming hoooome!" Yay! (Seriously, there's a Beatles song for every conceivable situation. Not even joking.)

Wow. I just watched a man pull up a QR code on his iPhone in place of a ticket, which the lady scanned with a machine. I swear one day no one will need wallets because it's all gonna be in a little wallet app on our phones.

Random thought. Sorry. Anyway...

As I've been training, I've been reading the book State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. For Seeley vets, you will understand why I found it funny when I read the synopsis:

"In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, scientific miracles, and spiritual transformations, State of Wonder presents a world of stunning surprise and danger, rich in emotional resonance and moral complexity.

"As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle. Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working on a valuable new drug, she will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice as she journeys into the unforgiving heart of darkness..."

Eh, eh? Catch the references? The last phrase loses all subtlety: yes, this is basically Heart of Darkness told from a woman's perspective. Instead of the Congo, it's the Amazon, instead of Marlow, it's Marina, instead of Kurtz, it's Dr. Swenson. But the fact remains that the basic plot is the same: unassuming average person is thrown into a jungle which has a mind of its own (the symbolic "heart of darkness," the potential for evil at the hart of all mankind) to find the elusive genius hidden away within, only to discover a wealth of moral ambiguity and so-called "spiritual transformations" there. Even the titles bear the same rhythm: state-of-won-der, heart-of-dark-ness. The reviews on the cover say this book is "a masterpiece," but I feel the petulant urge to argue that it was Joseph Conrad's masterpiece first.

No, no. I am too harsh. This really is a fabulous novel, and original in ways other than the obvious. The characters are interesting, the plot is not exactly identical to Heart of Darkness (though the themes are), and it explores some very fascinating issues. It's a lot more personal than Conrad's novella, more modern and intimate and accessible (and feminine). It doesn't have that heavy existential overtone, which I kind of loved in HoD but will admit was exhausting. Also, without the hindrance of being a vocal narrative or whatever you want to call it (where Marlow is telling the story in real time) it was a much more conventional read (whether that's a good thing is up to you). I really did enjoy this book; Patchett is clearly a very intelligent writer. But it was especially interesting having just read Conrad's version. So yeah. Make of that what you will.

I am including this picture because I feel obligated to include something colorful for your poor internetted minds. I promise as soon as I'm home these posts will become much more aesthetically pleasing, and arguably more interesting for some of you. Not long now!

Day 30: Rough Seas and Red Lions

After sleeping in almost ridiculously late and finishing my book (I'll get to that later) my father and I went scuba diving off Maenporth Beach. Sort of. We swam 200 meters out into the sea (in the rain, in the frigid water, each with what felt like my entire weight in equipment, and getting tossed around by rocking waves), went under for a few minutes and saw, oh I dunno, three different kinds of fish and lots of algae and lots of seaweed and lots of sand, but mostly just murky water, then proceded to fight the tide back into shore (a long swim) after deciding that it wasn't worth it in these rough conditions. Also, neither of us had enough weights on our weight belts to get us all the way down. Oh, it was exhausting! I'm glad we did it, because we've never been successful in scuba diving in England before, but god was it tough going. By the time I got out onto the beach I was lugging around an extra thick layer of water all around my body as well, and my too-big shoes were completely bloated and my fingers didn't work because of the cold water. But maybe tomorrow the weather will be better and we'll get back in our astronaut suits and dive down at Pendennis, which is supposed to be better diving. Maybe.

Then we came home and I tried to rest but instead ended up making Easy Bars and Flapjacks, two Australian snacks which are delicious. I will include the recipes, because recipes are one of my things.

EASY BARS

3/4 cup brown sugar
200g butter
1 1/2 cup flour
1 egg
1 cup chopped dates/dried fruit

Melt butter and sugar in a saucepan. Remove from heat. Add flour, eggs, and dates. Spread in a greased pan and bake at a moderate temperature (maybe 350F?) until they look edible.

FLAPJACKS

6 tbsp Golden Syrup
200g butter
12 oz oats

Melt butter and syrup in a saucepan. Add to oats and mix to coat. Spread in a greased pan and bake for a while at a good temperature until they look edible. Haha.

But seriously, both these things are delicious and worth making for easy picnicking.

Blah blah blah then we eventually went to dinner with some friends of my grandparents, Mike and Sheila Golding, at the Red Lion, a really neat old restaurant that was built in 1500 or some such ridiculous year a million years ago. It had a lot of ambience,, and some really nice candles that made for wonderful entertainment, until I stuffed it out on accident. But food was good. Lots of olives.

Now I'm in bed and I desperately want to go to sleep and I want all this orientation nonsense to sort itself out because, no, UNT, I will not be attending both Orientation 5 and Orientation 6, and I would like it very much if you would realize that before I "miss" the first one and you freak out on me. Also, I wish you would save all the classes I need for me, but I doubt you will, so blah.

All of this nonsense is so confuuuuusing. :-/

Oh, and I was going to talk to you about Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger! Overall I thought it was okay - not nearly as good as The Tie Traveler's Wife, but Niffenegger is clearly a talented writer with a very distinctive style that I happen to love. While this story was less...I dunno...charismatic? than her first, it certainly wasn't a waste of a novel. But it was more depressing, and not in a the cathartic, life-affirming way of TTW. Just straight up depressing. As in, it will make you depressed. It was one of those books that kind of leave you feeling ill because of the complete moral ambiguity and the horrible dilemmas and ultimately the decisions that the characters make that, despite the element of fantasy (ghosts/afterlife), are so prevalent in real life, even if they are kind of hidden (because they suck). So yes, it was a valuable read. But not an uplifting one and kind of a stomach-curdling one, too. And I don't usually like ghost stories, so I don't know if this is something a ghost-story lover would enjoy, but just...have caution. I didn't really like any of the main female characters, either. I kind of loved the main male characters, each for different reasons, but they were ultimately disappointing (in an entirely human way - I'm not blaming the author for this). The girls, on the other hand, all had that weird mental/personal feverishness that made them hard to connect to and almost repulsive, as if their personalities are diseased. I'm not sure if that makes sense here, but if you read the book you'd know what I mean.

I don't mean to sound so critical - the book was legitimately good, a fascinating look at some of the weirdest kinds of relationships, from twin sisters and their twin parents, romances with massive age differences, dead lovers, spouses struggling with OCD. It was truly absorbing, just incredibly hopeless. So, read with caution. But do read.

Day 29: Dramatic Arts in Dramatic Places, Frenchy Frenchness, and Scholarly Payoff.

You know what my favorite word is to begin an email? Congratulations, because it's usually followed by "You have been selected to receive" and then a sum of money in the form of a scholarship. I thought all of my congratulations were in the past (until I apply for a second round next year...ugh -_-) but this morning I had the lovely surprise of an email from UNT Scholarship Services informing me that Follet Store College Fund has awarded me $2000 for next year, as long as I write them a nice letter of thanks. So that's wonderful. There's nothing like the feeling of twelve years of work and stress finally paying off. Literally.

Then I also learned that I got a (bum bum ba-BUM) three on my French AP exam! I am psyched because I half thought I failed it. You know, a four would've been nice (five being completely out of the question), but I passed. I PASSED! This is the test I have been dreading since freshman year, and now it's over and I passed and that's that. Yes! Also, I'm sure I can max out the credits on the CLEP test no problem, so it was never really about the credits. Mostly about the shame of failing and the validation of passing. Oh god yes.

Other than those adventures, we went to the Minack Theatre today. As I'm sure few of you understand the significance of that, take a look at the pictures below. This theatre, built in the 1930s pretty much single-handedly by a badass woman named Rowena Cade, is situated spectacularly over the sea on a Cornish cliffside near Penzance. It's a very dramatic backdrop for a very dramatic place; the round stage with its various levels and columns and arches is very aesthetically pleasing and a perfectly versatile set for the variety of performances that grace it each week. The seats are reminiscent of ancient Roman theatres, sunk in terraces down the hillside, forming a kind of half bowl. And the show itself - Moliere's The Hypochondriac - was brilliantly done: witty, lively, ironic, and well-played. Although, it was the only show I have ever seen that had a chorus member on book the whole time, calling lines where necessary (which wasn't much, but still). Oh, it was hilarious, though! Seriously, if you get a chance to see (or be in) a Moliere play, jump on it. Or, you know, if you get the chance to come to the Minack. Absolutely spectacular.

Day 28: Adventures in Fruit Pickin' and Park-n-Floatin'

We started today with a trip to Chyreen Farm, a pick-your-own fruit farm with an abundant bounty of black currants and gooseberries. Luckily it wasn't raining, so we were able to pick almost 3 pounds (or was it kilograms?) of both fruits, which you can see me carrying below :)

Then we went down into Falmouth and rented a small boat to take out for four hours. We (my dad, mostly) drove the poor little 6-horsepower thing all over the bay (in the freezing wind) to Smuggler's Cottage, the cute little coastline pub we've been coming to forever. Recently, though, it has changed hands and lost some of its homey charm, though the food was still good. The significance of the place, actually, is that Eisenhower stopped there to have a meeting when all the boats converged there to set out for D-Day. So that was nice. Then we took it back, trying desperately to beat the high tide. We made it.

When we got home, my grandmother and I made black currant jam. It's actually not difficult. Just a cup and a half of water boiling with a pound of black currants for twenty minutes, then for ten minutes after adding four cups of sugar. We put them into four hot jam jars, and tomorrow they will be cool and ready to eat! I will also be taking some home with me, of course. :)

And that's about it. I have four busy days left before I take the train up to London for a night and leave the next day. Phew! It'll be nice to be home. :)

Day 27: Shopping in Falmouth Town

First of all, I would like everyone to join me in admiring the new shoes I bought at ASDA (UK's WalMart), as long as you ignore my horrible TOMS tan. I am glad to welcome a pair of floral flats to my admittedly large (shut up) shoe collection. Yay! I feel cute! :D Maybe I will actually fit in with the classily floral-clad youth over here instead of my usual bedraggled (but practical!) vacation attire that I am so sick of.

I also bought a new swimsuit at ASDA, as I do almost every time I come here, because swimsuits over here fit my figure so much better than American ones. American swimsuits seem to be blind to the fact that some of us do actually have boobs and need more than just little fabric triangles to be comfortable. So thanks, Britain, for your innovative swimsuit designs! Huzzah!

Thirdly, I bought yet another book for under three pounds. This will be my fourth book purchase of this trip and I'm beginning to be concerned about space, but not concerned enough to not read anything for the next week when I'm on such a roll! I have read five books so far -- FIVE books in three weeks, four of them in the last five days! Oh my god, I had almost forgotten what it was like to have time to read. The book I bought is called Her Fearful Symmetry and it's by Audrey Niffenegger, who wrote Time Traveler's Wife. That's honestly the only reason I picked it up (it was fate, I swear - I walked into the shop, picked up a book, saw her name, and was out of there in three minutes, prize in hand), but I trust her completely to have written another brilliant read.

Other than that, we wandered around Falmouth's High Street, looking in Cornish shops and watching the water. At one point we found the Falmouth Theatre Company's rehearsal space, and we went in and talked to the three people who were building the set for their upcoming show, Theft. Too bad I won't be around to see it, but their program seemed remarkably -- and charmingly -- similar to Denton's Campus Theatre. They were very cute, though. One old man who was talking to us must have lit five matches to light his pipe but each time they'd burn out before he'd stopped talking long enough to use it, so he'd just throw it on the floor and light up another one. It was very quaint. :)

Unfortunately I couldn't take pictures of any of this because my phone was dead. So just use your imagination, I guess.

Then we went to the beach for a while. Enjoy these pictures.