The Office

This, friends, is my new office at USD. Yup. Pretty bare. In many, many ways, it is a vast improvement from my office space at OU. For one, it's all mine. That's right. I'm not sharing and juggling schedules with two other TAs, with six of us crammed in the corner (dubbed the "Muses Alcove") of a room filled with cubicles. So yes, all mine. The office holds three other desks, but each is equipped with a computer, and no one has to share with someone else. Being a PhD student automatically comes with perks.

And that's the other thing: no having to wait for a computer to free up. This one's mine, too. Well, for my sole use, I mean. And that's not too shabby. Sure, the computer is, well, I think it is pretty old. But it runs fine and loads pages quickly enough. My desk boasts lots of drawers, and as I like storing things in drawers, this works out really well for me. You can't see it very well in this shot, but to my right is a closet (this building used to be a dormitory; you can see where there used to be a shower head in the ladies' bathroom) with a bookshelf. Currently, it's filled with the folders and old student papers hoarded by the last TAs to occupy this space, and I'm weeding through them. Over the next four years, I expect I'll fill that shelf.

And the air conditioner works great. I've had to bring a jacket from home just so I don't freeze during office hours.

The downside? Well, it's rather . . . quiet. Compared to my last office--which was always bustling with 20 other TAs going about their day, preparing to teach, meeting with students, watching youtube vids and complaining about this class or that--my office is, well, dead. I mean, it's great for actually getting work done. But my office hours don't coincide with the other PhDs I share that office with, so there's no one to talk to. There's nowhere to go where all the action is.

It's just the first week, I tell myself. Surely things will get hopping at the semester rolls along and need drives the others to campus. We'll see.

I'll take another picture of this office in four years. We'll see how things have changed.

Attempt No. 2 at Cooking Healthy Food

These are jalapeno poppers, baked, not fried. Because I haven't quite figured out my oven yet, they are a little overcooked. Fortunately, they still turned out to be quite delicious--though very, very hot, some bites. You should have seen me separating yolks from whites (enough to make anyone laugh out loud), but I think I've got a better handle on it now. And it was my first time using panko, which was fun. It made the poppers crispy and tasty.

It is, of course, intended to be an appetizer, but appetizers should be fairly quick to prepare, right? These took--baking time included--around an hour and a half, though I admit that I was working pretty slowly. And when you take into account a few oops-moments (e.g. separating out egg whites), it's no wonder I couldn't get them done sooner. In any case, it became my dinner and left my mouth on fire, as a good popper does.

How are these healthy, you ask? Well, using fat free or reduced fat everything sure helps, as well as the baking. The recipe claims that, when all is said and done, one serving is about 220 calories. I'm willing to bet it was a bit more.

This, my friends, is a ficus bonsai tree I bought to make my home a little more . . . happy. At least, it makes me happy when I look at it. I've set it atop Bookshelf No. 3, which totally changes the ambiance on that wall for the better.

Mom tells me that her mother used to name the plants in her house. That's a little silly, in my opinion. I mean, it's a tree. But then again, I also think that the practice of talking to one's plant is silly. According to some people, however, doing so may actually affect it's growth. I guess that makes sense, on some level. I mean, if plants have spirits, just like animals and people do, who's to say that they don't have spiritual needs, like good music and, erm, good conversation?

So maybe, in addition to blaring Queen, I'll let my little bonsai know how pretty it is, how my day went, my thoughts on human-plant relations, etc. I haven't named it yet; I just call it (lacking originality) "Bonsai." But I'm open to suggestions.

I forgot

Is it terrible that I had forgotten all about this blog until Holly mentioned it to me last night? Too bad I don't have anything really exciting to write at the moment, or enough time to write about the exciting things that I could write about.

The Circle of Life

Do you ever find yourself wondering, "Hey, where are all the dead animals?" I mean, the world is full of animals, and given that the majority don't end up in our freezers and are subject to mortality, it follows that the world must be filled with dead animals, too. Right? I mean, the decomposition process is good, but it's not that good. Dead creatures don't just disappear a la Yoda or a goomba.

The most I've seen of actual dead wild animals--exempting anything killed by a car or a shotgun or flying into a window--are dead birds (okay, this one might have flown head-on into a window) and dead squirrels. I actually saw one squirrel drop dead from a branch when I was still living in Ohio. Squirrel heart attack? Acorn poisoning? Squirrelicide? I'll never know.

I'm sure wild life conservationists know. And probably Wikipedia. But I'm just musing here, and a preliminary search of Yahoo answers yielding unsatisfying results .

Attempt No, 1 at Cooking Healthy Food

Over the summer I bought a cookbook for healthy eating. "This is it!" I told myself. "You're finally going to trim that waist!" Thus, I set myself a goal, that I would prepare EVERY SINGLE RECIPE IN THE BOOK, at least once a week.

Behold my first creation! This is salmon with mustard crust and a side salad of spinach mess (basically spinach, red onion, blueberries, sunflower seeds, orange slices, tomato, and raspberry vinaigrette). It tasted superb.

And I've never prepared any kind of fish before, so this was something of a victory for me. It's a cut of salmon glazed with honey mustard, topped with red onion and a slice of orange, broiled for about 8 minutes. Turned out to taste rather superb, if I do say so myself. Although, I wonder if you can really screw it up?

Bike and Lock

So I'm already struggling on the daily photo blog thing. Not that I don't have the photos--I just forget I have the blog. I'll endeavor to do better.

I present to you my new favorite toy: Bike. That's what I call it, usually with the first-person singular possessive pronoun preceding it. I remember a time when I used to name my bike; I think I named it after a horse. Majarose, I think it was. Or Tisha. I would pretend I was riding a horse and call "Giddy up!" and slap its rear end. I guess I've grown out of that phase.

That was probably twenty years ago, and I was six. The bike, I remember, was purple with a pink seat and pink handles. I think it had different colored beads on the spokes that tinkled as the wheels turned. I never took it far, just around the neighborhood and maybe a couple of times to Plymouth Elementary. It was the bike I was riding when Kelli suggested I ride with my eyes closed and I crashed and skinned my knees. It was the bike that I used to roll over sluggish potato bugs on the pavement. It was the bike I never thought to lock because in those days you didn't worry about someone stealing it.

Eventually, I graduated to a "big girl" bike, which I now realize was still not exactly full size. This one was white and splotched purple, black, and pink. Kelli's was green and purple, and I envied her that bike. No real reason why, just that it belonged to Kelli, and as every little sister knows, whatever the big sister has is unquestionably superior. This bike took me to school every day, but I don't know whatever happened to it. It probably got lost, or trashed, or sold, in one of the many moves our family passed through over the years. And I never got another bike.

Until now. I am an adult about to embark on a PhD track. And again, I have a bike.

And I love it.

(I bought a lock.)