frozen.

I'm just glad I was able to put my car in the garage at my boyfriend's place before the big storm hit. We stayed inside all through the day, and took turns digging out the long driveway and some sidewalk.

What really touched me is the roving band armed with shovels who wandered up and down the street, helping their neighbors dig out cars and enough room in blocked driveways to get said cars off the street. People may joke about Minnesota Nice, but you don't survive long up here as a grouch. It's far nicer and easier to be polite and friendly when others need a hand and it's obvious you can help.
The next day, boy and I were walking to the bus stop and a couple with a baby in back were trying to get their little VW car out of a driveway. With the back wheels spinning in the snow, I called over to S., "Hey, we can help. Come back here!" Didn't take long to get them out and going. One, two, three, and push! I counted with my fingers as the lady looked out the back to see what we were up to--a push, car rocked back with enough momentum, and another push and gone! waving happily and on their way.


Snow aside, there are things more predictable than winter weather to worry for; a student in her last days of undergraduate education will soon be living in the library. Oh yes, ladies and germs--finals are here.

The good news is, I have one short paper to hand in for my career planning class tomorrow and that will be done. The rest is far less simple: a make-up exam *and* the final for Hydrology this week and then all my Biometeorology (dreaded stuff) is due next week. Cram cram cram.
(Say what you will, but there's nothing like a few days' frenzied studying to prepare for a big test. I will soon be spending all my remaining cash on coffee.)

Added to this is, of course, the job search. My time at the bee lab turned out to be shorter than I'd anticipated and now what little plans I had are all fumbly and trying to stay upright on an icy sidewalk. Hopefully I won't have to move back into my parent's house. They mean well, but I have too much up here to want to leave for an untold amount of time. All my job prospects so far are up here anyway...

I've learned that two feet of snow falling in one day can even take out the Metrodome.
I've learned that I cannot work well with someone who is so very, very type A and controlling that I feel like I can't so much as sneeze without reporting back about it.
I've learned that going down South for two holiday vacations in a row has messed with my expectations... next year we go again.
I've learned that maybe I can look forward to spring; mud and melting and messy changes aren't just a hassle, but signs of better times to come.
I've learned that for some reason, I really don't like writing cover letters.

~shrug~

Cleaning up

Well, I've revisited the blog template, and I hope this is easier on the eyes. Much as I liked the dark transparent background, it was a little hard to see things sometimes. Also, new banner! ^^ I just hopped over to WikiCommons and found a nice photo to tweak a bit and share with you all. Let me know what you think of the new look.


Speaking of new things, there's nothing quite like sleeping on fresh bedsheets in a nicely made bed. I may be very casual about where things go around here, but I do like the blankets to be straight and the pillows fluffed and nice clean everything when I sleep.

New mythology

Well, I'm not making much progress at the moment on the book I originally thought would be good material for a book review. For one, it's not particularly well-written, which makes reading a bit of a chore, and for another, it's the end of the semester. My biometeorology class is especially taxing; if I hadn't skipped so many hydrology classes to work on the labs for biomet., I'd be doing much better. As it is, I'm stuck playing catch-up for all my courses, which although doable is *not* my idea of a good time.

Anyway.

Despite all this, I'm still reading and looking to expand my knowledge about everything Pagan. Somehow I got introduced (very briefly, in passing almost) to Finnish Paganism--now I am reading the Kalevala. Huzzah for Wikisources having the first translation to English available to the public! If I'm really ambitious, I hope to read some more English translations after I read through the whole thing so I can get a better sense of what the Finnish really means, seeing as I don't know Finnish and any translation is bound to miss some aspect of meaning, no matter how slight.

Another path that I've read but little about is the Dianic approach to Wicca. There is an inner voice that says, "yeah, but... focusing on a matriarchy isn't going to fix whatever problems arose from this 'patriarchy' you vilify so much. We have to work *together* on this." On the other hand, I can see how it's perfectly right to point out the many hypocrisies that exist in out society and do everything you can to fight for equality. And if your personal path calls for some girl-only (or even, gasp, guy-only!) spirit-work, then by all means do it. But I digress--a discourse on modern feminism can be saved for another post.

So far the book is definitely written with an agenda in mind, and it's funny how it made it through so many printings with the same spell repeated three times...

well, writing a critique should definitely be interesting. If I can manage to write one for each book, that should cover some requirements for the DP, which I really want to get working on once I'm done with college. Finally, free time to write papers on things I'm actually interested in! :D

Priorities

I never could get the hang of Tuesdays.

It's almost Thanksgiving, so I have a short week of classes and work, meaning that this time I would *not* skip out on Hydrology in favor of trying to get other things done, as has been the case so often this semester. (I'm looking at you, Biometeorology labs!)
For some reason, my boy and I woke up stupidly early and couldn't get back to sleep. There was also a radio playing somewhere in the house at that exact level where I could hear the song just enough to pay attention to it and stay awake. Unwillingly. So I woke up boy, we did something else for a while and then fell back into blessed slumber.
I was sure that catching the bus wouldn't be a problem. It generally isn't when the highway is so close and there are loads of buses going downtown.

Someone had something else in mind for me today.

Between two missed express buses (with much cursing) and a mechanical failure of the bus I did catch, I ended up walking towards the final bus stop on the way home with a blond lady who wore a light blue coat and a fluffy knitted pink hat. We ended up at the same bus stop, checked the time, and headed in to the local cafe for coffee to wait for the next one since this particular route runs every half-hour.

I tried a latte with flavored with white chocolate and almond today--I usually go for dark chocolate and roasty, caramely flavors. I think it suited today well.

R. and I ended up chatting once the bus finally came--she's a grad student at the U, working with bacteria that make oils and ester waxes, with a potential for biodiesel too. It sounds really interesting and seems to suit her biology and genetics background well.

What really got me was the rest of her story and how willing she seemed to help me out. I suppose we both go to the U, and are interested in somewhat similar things. She's even familiar with the professor who taught the Bioremediation class I took a year ago. The best part is the advice she gave: that even though my parents are pushing that I go to grad school, it's best now to figure out what I really want to do and do it. If going to grad school will make me happy and I have a burning desire to learn more about a certain field, that's the time to apply and get in. R. spent a few years working after getting her master's, and even then she waited tables after graduation. Once she figured out what she wanted to do, it was back to grad school and now she's happy to be back on campus.

It was really great to hear things from a new perspective. I admit I'm not entirely sure what to do after my current job runs out (ideas about teaching English in Japan become more and more enticing) and I know that I've been burning out as far as academics for the last year, easy.

R. also mentioned that she wished she had had someone to be a mentor when she was fresh out of her undergrad experience. I'm glad she feels the need to give back to someone who needs it. I must be sure to do the same for someone else down the road. Gifts like this don't come lightly.


So that's how I met a new friend today.


I walked home grinning. I thanked Whoever was/is watching out for me today, thought back to my earlier frustration at the first bus stop on the highway and said, "Fine, I'll shut up now!"

May I never lose my sense of wonder.

I think this is why I am Pagan.
If there's a way to blend Peter Pan
and Redwall
and wandering in that little stretch of pine woods out by the elementary school
and pretending I'm really a Native American with a real bow
and learning how to pet a cat nicely and feel her purr
and see the colors of sunset making everything glow and look new

seeing the Milky Way stretch out above you and feel that awe-full sense of perspective

curling up on a cold night, grateful for a hot dinner and plenty of blankets to keep the warmth in

seeing a flat expanse of snow under gray skies and trying so hard to remember midsummer's heat sinking into your bones and how fiercely green the world is then

knowing that someday, your matter--molecules and atoms--will be lost and recombined into something else. Some part of me was once a velociraptor.

Eggs: dinner of champions

Well, I couldn't find my muffin tin, so there went my grand idea (borrowed from a blog post by Just Bento) of turning my delicious yet overflowing bowl of thick chicken soup into mini-pot-pies for packed lunches...

so I did this instead.



Huevos Rancheros

Base:
Oil
1 baked potato, cooled and chopped
half a green pepper, chopped
1/4 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced

Top:
Salsa
An egg or two
Water
Lemon juice
Grated cheddar
Fresh parsley
Hot sauce if desired


If you have a cast-iron pan, now is the time to use it. Nothing works better for browning potatoes--and using a nice, dry, baked potato really makes this the easy part.
Heat up a bit of oil in the pan and throw in the garlic. Let it sizzle for 30 seconds, and throw in the pepper and onion. Cook over high heat until things start to wilt, then remove and set aside. In your hot pan, add a little more oil and bring it back up to temperature. Add the potatoes and *don't touch them*. Like searing a steak, you want them to get nice and brown and they'll release from the pan on their own. Once they do, stir them around some and let their other sides brown too.
Add the pepper-onion mix back to the pan with the potatoes once your spuds are almost done. Lower the heat a bit and let things cook together while you do the eggs. Don't forget to stir.

In your little bitty saucepan, throw in some salsa. For this part, it's totally OK to cheat and use the cheap stuff since it'll get watered down anyway. Save your expensive locally-made organic kind (or even--gasp--homemade!) for topping the eggs just before serving.
Water down the salsa until it's about half as thick as it normally is and add a little lemon juice. Tomatoes are naturally acidic, but adding a little extra is good insurance when you're poaching eggs. There should be enough liquid in the pan to barely cover the egg(s).
Once this mix has begun to bubble fiercely, gently add your egg(s) and let them cook. Turn down the heat and let the sauce reduce when the eggs are just shy of done: poke the yolk with a spoon and see how much it gives. If the edges are starting to get firm, that's a good time to turn it down. Adding a lid while they simmer is optional.

Now comes the fun part. :)
Slide your beautifully browned potatoes onto your plate, platter, or bowl. Using a slotted spoon, fish out the egg(s) and place them on top. Scoop the big chunks out of your simmering liquid and throw that on the plate too; you can dump the water in the bottom, it'll just make for soggy spuds. Spoon some fresh salsa on top, hot sauce as you like, and sprinkle cheese and parsley with abandon. If you're patient enough to wait for the cheese to melt, you're a stronger soul than I.

Dig in.

different changes this time

Normally it takes me forever to get used to the bright long days and painfully slow warming that comes with Spring--this year, I was hoping August would never end. though with the warm, sunny weather lately, you'd think we were stuck in mid-September for weeks despite the leaves changing...

In any case, I think I've finally gotten over the fact that it's fall now. I'm an autumn baby, so normally the changing leaves and cooling weather feel like coming home to me. Not this year. I had a little hint of what the Wild Hunt feels like some days back, but it was brief. I guess it's just been too damn *nice* out to get into the whole doom-and-gloom mien that goes with Halloween and Samhain.

Part of me suspects this has something to do with how I really don't respect Odin all that much, though it may well be a grudge held over from my Christian upbringing; there I go overanalyzing things again. (But I don't, really. I mean, he figures very prominently in the Eddas, he's supposed to be all-wise but he's still a warmonger... I guess I should bite the bullet and just get to know Him, huh? Then at least my little bitch-list will have some backing with experience and not just book-learning.)

anyway.

I run around a lot, despite *still* not having a job. My boyfriend and I split the time between each others' places, and Wednesday is kind of my stay-at-home day, which Genki definitely appreciates. I feel really drained when I don't get enough time here, even though I haven't connected here as well as I did at my last apartment. It's still my place after all. It has my pets and my things and my bed and it's where I've set up my altar. (I am starting to feel more comfortable being Pagan in my guy's Jewish house--you can tell if you know how to look for it--but that's another post altogether.) So it's a day like this, where I'm procrastinating as usual on the homework due tomorrow, baking potatoes in the oven and enjoying the weather through open windows as I rearrange my blog layout again and finally feel like there's something worth writing about.

Golden sunlight reflecting back the gold and red of changing leaves, sunlight not sticking around as long as it used to a month ago, along with a feeling of real calm has I think helped it sink in.
sunlight.
Part of me wants to go back two or three months and find somewhere utterly private where I can soak up as much sunshine as my body can take, feel that heat all the way down in my bones soaking in and storing it up for the cold days. You know when the trees are in full leaf, and everything's so strongly green you can smell it? Goldenrod is just starting to bloom; the spring flowers are long gone, and coneflowers haven't yet faded into seedheads and become the local wildbird buffet. It's then that all the green ones are at the very height of their power.

Maybe aligning myself with the Vanir has brought be closer to the green world this way. Subtle changes in power, the waxing and waning of my soul (for lack of a better word) is now tied with leaf-spring and sunshine and rain and that incessant vitality of a plant in summer's full swing. I'll have to see what real cold brings, as there's older patterns that I've laid down earlier in my life that have been around longer and will probably kick in then.