Sense and sensibility and peaceful productivity

School’s been in session. I dropped my Globalization class, because I figured I’m not quite looking to take my major in the direction of global issues, but smaller scale studies. Instead I’m taking What’s Brewing in Food Science. It’s the beer-brewing class, in short. Since entering the class I’ve been considering about purchasing a homebrew kit and trying to brew some myself. After the first batch it pretty much pays for itself, so perhaps in the near future you’ll see me brewing beer.

Other than that, all it has been is class, work, Ultimate, making dinner. In reference to all that cooking, we in the house have started to compile our favorite recipes into a little cookbook for the house. So far, it’s in a folder in the kitchen, and it’ll be getting bigger and bigger. Here’s some food I’ve been making, and some other notable meals I’ve had recently.

Dinner at Pho Hung on North Winooski with Gabrielle, which was absolutely delicious.

Scrumptious omelet I made. Consists of green pepper, onion, thyme, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, a smidge of cumin, and a little bit of Franks Red Hot in the middle. Garnished with a sprig of parsley from my windowsill herb garden this summer.

Bruschetta made with a fresh baguette, garden picked tomatoes and Shelburne Farms mozzarella cheese accompanied with a salad.

Emily and I made croutons once. Caught them on fire in the oven. Still ate a majority though. It was a mutual ruined effort. The second batch came out much better.

Spaghetti a la yummy.

I received a bag of around 10 Breugger's bagels from work randomly! [I do not work at Breugger's]

So I made some pizza bagels!

And alas, fall is upon us in Vermont if you haven’t noticed. You know what that means, right? Yes, apple picking season. This past weekend some friends and I went to go pick apples at Shelburne Orchard. Took a few random pictures with the Nikon [shown below]. Also took some with my film camera. Had black and white film in it. Once I get around to finishing and developing the roll I’ll post them up. More pictures from our outing can be found at Megan’s site found here.

This week I have a lot to do, so this is short. I have a German verb quiz and a Death and Dying quiz tomorrow, as well as 39 pages of my Death and Dying workbook due tomorrow. Friday I have an Art History test, I have College Fall Ultimate Sectionals, then two tests early next week and a 3-5 page paper due on Tuesday. Has school started yet? Goddamn. Also, I need to buy my Godspeed reunion tour tickets on Friday. They’ll sell out fast, so wish me luck! And Broken Social Scene tomorrow night! If I bring a camera, I'll post pictures. I've gotta fly up to practice now.

P.S. I just got a bunch of free pizza today from work. WITH GARLIC BREAD.

What's coming is a million new reasons to go ahead.

At work today I finished Chuck Palahniuk's Stranger Than Fiction. Pretty good time, considering I work full-time and keep busy a lot. In all it was a fast read particularly because it was just a series of articles and essays he had written between novels, none more than 30 pages long, so you had variety and you could bang 'em out really quickly and enjoyably. It was separated into three sections, People Together, Portraits, and Personal. I definitely think that the personal section of essays were the most interesting, funny, and pleasurable to read. It's also the shortest section, but the stories were quality.

I had actually read the short story Almost California for my Written Expressions class my first year at UVM. I think that may have been the reason why I bought the book in the first place. For being a required course, I used to be a Computer Science Information Systems major, I really enjoyed it. It was basic, we read essays, then wrote our own self-reflection pieces. I liked it because it was an English course anyways. I'm not longer CSIS. I've secretly been a humanities guy anyways. Went from that to Philosophy with a minor in Pure Mathematics and Sociology to a Sociology major with a minor in German. I wrote one of my favourite essays in that course, too. It was about faith, my introduction to it, and fall from it. I've been thinking about going back to it, editing it, and expanding it, since there were originally constraints on it. I think it'd be fun to get back into that.

But I digress. I believe I'll read Catch 22 next. That or The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Tough decisions to make here. I'm writing this whilst at work, so once I'm home I'll make the executive decision. The latter is an investment, the former I had read a VERY long time ago for school, but I didn't get much out of itat the time. Perhaps a rehash is needed. It's also my friend Matt's favourite book. Harumph. At the SAME time, I should read Millhauser. I'm way overdue for that. And also The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I got that as a gift, so I should get to that, too. God. This is tough. Deep breath. Pace. I'll figure out out one way or another.

Wednesday evening around here it rained. It rained hard, too. I was invited to go see Inception at the Roxy with some friends for 6:30. I opened my front door and saw the rain go from moderate to downpour. There was no way I could pass that up. I sent two text messages to my friend about 1 minute apart:

"Hey so like, it's pouring right now."
Followed by:
"I REALLY WANT TO RUN IN THIS SORRY MAYBE I'LL SEE YOU LATER ON!"

So I ended up running. It was so refreshing, totally worth it. I may have missed a great movie, but hell, it's not everyday you get to run in a complete downpour.

That evening to celebrate I went to City Market and bought 15 jalapenos and some other materials and made jalapeno poppers from scratch. There came out SO well. Rants and raves all over the place. Here's the recipe. Pictures for you!

15 of these bad boys halved and seeded

Stuff 'em, bread 'em, bake 'em

Holy final product.

Tonight I may go to a show at the Monkey House in Winooski, maybe get together with some friends, enjoy the start of the weekend. Who knows? The weekend is life's variable these days. 'Til whenever. Cheers.