Stoopid Blogging

I don't know what to write. I finally have a chance to write after well over a week of working too much for thoughts of anything else, and I can't think of anything to write about. Or at least anything that sounds worthwhile to me. I wrote a post about my girlfriend, and deleted it for being way too sappy. I wrote a post about squash and the exercise I've been doing, but it was way too boring, so away it went as well. I wrote a post about orientation, posted it, reread it, and now would like to apologize to those of you who bothered to read it. It's pointless.

But, I'm beginning to think that the whole blogging process is pointless too. I sincerely doubt that what I have to say is interesting to anyone else. And there's no point in blogging for myself, that's called thinking.

So, I think I might just delete this blog and forget about it.

Orientation

This past week was orientation week in Education City. At Carnegie Mellon, the entire orientation was planned, scheduled, coordinated, and led by the upperclass students. Now in many schools, this would have been a recipe for disaster and a weak start for the incoming class. Not so with these students.

In fact, the students did a fantastic job and the result was not only professional, but highly motivating to both the freshmen and the Student Affairs staff. Personally, the entire process thrilled me. My job simply advising and observing the progress was quite satisfying. I'm not sure how to describe the pleasure of watching a student learn and grow, and this week was filled with such events.

I certainly hope that other schools can learn to stand back and allow student leadership, and I know that I look forward to a successful year with all of the organizations that I will be advising.

Creativity

In my humble opinion, there is nothing better in the kitchen than a healthy dose of creativity. It bothers me how many people are literally scared to enter the kitchen without a safe, step-by-step recipe in hand. So, I am saying loud and proud, make something up.

Every dish that I have made from a recipe was alright. Each dish received good reviews and failed with about the same regularity as when I simply began cooking with a group of ingredients and a mind to have fun. I've included in this post a number of pictures of dishes that I have prepared completely from scratch, with absolutely no recipes. If you would like any of the recipes now, please let me know, I'd be glad to try to remember what I put in each. However, the point I'm trying to make with the pictures is that delicious, attractive food can be made without ever taking a cooking class or following the letter of a recipe.

Now, don't get me wrong, recipes and classes have their uses. Those of you who know me well know that I read cookbooks for leisure and watch the Food Network religiously. But creativity is the ingredient that makes a dish personal. It can be using a recipe as a base and changing the final touch to your own liking, or completely inventing a new dish. Take this simple example: my friend gave me a recipe she had found for moist bran-muffins with a cream-cheese frosting. I tried the recipe and thought that it would be a great breakfast recipe, switched around a bit. So I simply added a bit of orange juice to the muffins and mixed the frosting with orange marmalade. The result was a new muffin and my own tastes satisfied.

But to go even further, I have found very little as satisfying as creating a new recipe completely from scratch and watching friends and loved ones enjoy it. Enjoying my own food is one thing, but pleasing those that I care about with it is on another level entirely. So, I encourage everyone reading this to go out there to your kitchens and make something up. If omelettes with peanut butter, mushrooms, and cheddar can be delicious, so can what you invent!

On a final note, I'd like to thank my wonderful girlfriend, Sophie, for patiently tasting my many, many culinary creations, good and bad. I love you darling.

Oh yeah, and if Eric Gagne blows one more damned game for the Red Sox I'm going to blow a gasket. I never liked that guy, and now that his ERA with the Sox is approaching 20, I'm ready to explode. For christ's sake, Tavarez was better than this jackass. Stop putting him in when the score is close!

Potluck People

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who came to the potluck tonight. It was really a blast and great to get to know all of you a bit better. I'm definitely looking forward to more!

TGI...T?

OK, two quick things before I talk about what I opened this post for:

1) Frosted Mini Wheats Cinnamon Streusel sounds delicious, and I think that that is more than just the fact that I haven't eaten today and its almost 3 pm. (I just saw a commercial for it, yum)

2) Walking up the stairs to my apartment after biking for half an hour and then lifting weights SUCKS.

Anyways, it's my first true weekend in Doha, and I honestly wasn't looking forward to it. I had gotten used to heading to work and feeling like I was accomplishing something. But, instead, I have avoided the bane of senior year and have pushed myself to check things off my list on the weekend too. Yay for me. So far I have gotten a bit of extra sleep, probably well-deserved. I also cleaned my apartment and used my dishwasher for the first time.

On another sidebar, it is incredible how long it takes to fill a dishwasher when you live alone.

I have also worked out and am about to begin cooking for the potluck party tonight that my coworker and I arranged. That should be a lot of fun and good eats. So, all in all, it turns out that if I just refuse to be excessively lazy, even I can get stuff done on my time off and not feel so wimpy.

Exercise!!!!

So after 4 years of a slowly degrading body, I am FINALLY beginning to work out. I have to thank Darbi for helping me begin. However, I think that what is really helping is a combination of time, proximity to equipment, and the fact that the workout room is fairly empty. I hate working out with people watching me.

Why? Because I am incredibly out of shape and embarassed/disgusted by my body. Four years ago, I weighed 160 pounds and was able to do anything physical that I wanted. Now, I weigh 220 pounds and get a bit winded after jogging a quarter mile. It's pitiful.

But, now I have set my mind to doing something about it. I want to drop to 185 pounds eventually. More importantly, I want to improve my cardiovascular health to the point where I can be active and not feel like I'm dying. Of course the most important goal is not to have a heart attack.

So, that's my plan. Kick my ass if I don't keep it up.

Compromising My Values?

So I broke down today and did something that I never thought that I would do, bought an SUV. OK, technically I am renting it, but I am still paying to drive it for an extended period of time. For those of you that know me, I don't think that it is completely compromising my values. For those that don't, I hate SUV's. I think that they are the most useless piece of trash ever devised. As far as I'm concerned, they don't handle families as well as minivans or station wagons, they don't handle icy or slippery roads as well as a car, they burn gas like its nothing, and they empower drivers into thinking they are invulnerable. So why, then, did I decide to pool resources with my coworker and get one?

Well, for one thing I don't need to worry about icy or slippery roads here, but I may need to worry about having a 4-WD to navigate less well paved areas. Second, and most embarassingly, the price of gas is not really an object here (sorry environment!). But most importantly, the empowering drivers bit is still true. Not that I need to be empowered, but Arab drivers are in general maniacs. Additionally, many of those maniacs do it in giant SUV's. This means that when they crash (and its definitely when, not if) they do a LOT of damage. In this case, I want as much protection as I can possibly get, and sadly, that is in another SUV. I figure that as long as I'm safe with my own driving, I can lower the risk of an accident. But the risk of someone else hitting me is so high, that safety precedes all environmental or financial concerns.

And that's why I got an SUV. But I swear to you all now, when I get back to the states, I'm happily returning to my hybrid.