Travel Blog

I’ll be keeping a day to day recollection of my trip’s events here.

Exams

Well, now that I’m slightly less mortified about it, I’d like to let everyone know that A) I’m alive and well and B) I missed wednesday’s exam for probably the stupidest reason. I slept in. I woke up at 8:20 in a blind panic, and proceeded to run upstairs screaming at the top of my lungs for anyone to help me.

This woke up my dad ALSO in a blind panic, because he thought someone had died.

After a rushed explanation, he agreed to get me to school, and that I should get ready. As I was brushing my teeth frantically, wondering if I should put on pants before running out the door, I caught sight of a clock. I had exactly 7 minutes to get to school. On a good day, it takes 20 minutes by car to get downtown. And armed with the knowledge that I wouldn’t be admitted if I were late, I gave up. I emailed Sherri, explained things, and bawled until she emailed me back. I have never cried over school in my entire life, so you can imagine that this was… strange. I was convinced I would be kicked out of the program and have to be a career waitress until my body quit, and then turn tricks behind the seven-eleven.

Anyway, Sherri got back to me with good news, which calmed me right down (along with the advice to keep breathing, which got rid of my histeria). I was still gonna pass.

A week or so later, I’ve got my marks in all my classes except business computing. I did quite well, except where I missed the class, but I still passed. I suppose as long as I walk away from this with a lesson, it wasn’t a total loss.

And that lesson is, do not rely on only 3 alarm clocks, buy 6 more.

Karaoke

Ah… it’s that time of… week again! So, incase you want details, here they are. The limelight is located at 531 St. Mary’s Rd, in the basement. I’ll be there at 10:00 pm at the latest, and I’ll be staying till probably about 1:30 or 2:00-ish. This’ll be happening on wednesday.

Be there or be square.

Youtube Exposed

Well, my friend Naod linked this video to me, and it made me think. I always wondered how youtube made money, and it makes me sad that the internet really is a corporation. Take a look. I know it’s long, but totally worth it.

To quote my friend Scott…

FREEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!

Don’t ask, just keep reading. Today when we were done classes, and maybe more yesterday when I handed in the last assignment, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t realize how much school has been weighing on my mind, and how bad a mood assignments hanging over my head has put me in. Basically, I feel awesome. I didn’t even worry about money too much, not even when I got a look at my phone bill!

Go me!

So, in a crazy drunken (well, not really) celebration, I chopped off all my hair.

See you monday, if you recognize me.

Cinnamon Roll Raisin Bread

Chris’ infamous (to me at least) birthday present. I lifted this bad boy about a year or so back, from madame benoit’s ‘the new and complete encyclopedia of cooking’. She’s like the french-canadian version of Julie…? What was her last name? That movie, with the cooking and meryl streep?

Who knows, the point is, this is a monster of an orange cookbook that is my default if i can’t find the recipe I want in my mom’s index. Anyway, the story is that Cinn-zeo left st. vital centre, and BAM there goes my cinnamon bun hook-up. So, determined to overcome this trouble and save money, I hunted my mom’s recipe cabinet for anything resembling cinnamon rolls, and I came out with this. It’s not remotely a cinnamon roll, but is damn delicious.

Yeah. It has everything, including the method for rolling croissants (which is my next big project, now that i’ve mastered cinnamon buns). As you can see, it’s rather old! I think it was my grandmother’s, considering madame benoit was big in the 50’s, I’d say that isn’t unreasonable.

A few tips for reading my recipes: big T is for tablespoon, little t is for teaspoon. Tablespoon is 15 milliliters, teaspoon is 5 mls. A cup is 250mls, a litre is 4 cups and nutmeg can be poisonous if ingested, so don’t try to snort it.

But without further ado:

Madame Benoit’s Cinnamon Roll Raisin Bread ((With comments from Mia to help your journey)).

Bread:

1 package of active dry yeast (or, 2 and 1/4 tsp)
1 Tbsp white sugar
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 Cup warm water
3/4 Cup scalded milk
1/3 Cup soft butter (I’ve substituted margarine, and it worked out fine)
1/2 Cup sugar
1 egg, lightly-beaten
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups seedless raisins (OMG nut bread?! could I add chopped pecans?! I bet I could!!)

Filling:

2 Tbsp melted butter
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

1. Stir the tablespoon sugar and ground ginger in the warm water, until dissolved. Stir in the yeast. Let stand ten minutes ((I screw up the yeast EVERY TIME and I have advice. Stand it in a covered and warm place, like a toaster over at 100F.  Also, let the yeast warm to room temperature before use)). Stir well. To the scalded milk add the butter and the 1/2 cup sugar, stir until the butter is melted. Cool ((I like to use to use the fridge. Speeds up the process)). Add the yeast and the egg. Blend.

2. Sift Together the flour and the salt. Add half to the yeast mixture. Beat hard until smooth. Cover and left rise in a warm place, until double in bulk ((Don’t rush this. It needs like a half hour. But don’t leave it for longer than 40 minutes, even if it hasn’t doubled)). Add the rest of the flour, turn on a floured board, fold in raisins and knead until smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl, oil the top of the dough. Let rise in a warm place until double in bulk ((Don’t you love that step two takes an hour and 15 minimum? DO NOT RUSH THE RISE! Again with the min30/max40)).

3. Punch down ((I’ve honestly never beaten the crap out of this bread, so I think I might be misinterpretting this instruction…)) and roll on lightly floured board into a 7-by-18 rectangle. Brush on top with the melted butter ((Be liberal, even if you think it’s fatty and gross. Try to remember that if you add a half cup of butter and sugar to a piece of poo IT WILL BE YUMMY)), sprinkle with the brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg mixture. Roll tight like a jelly roll. Place in a greased 9-by-5-by-3 bread pan. Covered and let rise in a warm place, until double in bulk ((Yup, min30/max40)). Bake in a 350F pven 45 to 50 minutes.

Twitter and Social Networking

So, I have given twitter a shot, and experimented for a few days, mostly by doing the most annoying thing I could think of with the service. That is, post racing. Hah Sherri, that’ll learn you to… uh… teach us about social networking!

Anywho, I actually had a bit of fun racing Tim. I made 14o tweets in the span of four days, half of which actually occured within the first 12 hours. The other part of twitter that I prefer over facebook, is the fact that it’s not clogged up (yet) with stupid games and quizzes and apps and chain letters. Although, it has it’s fill of spam bots already.

I mostly use facebook to keep in touch with people (it’s super easy to find someone on facebook too), and status updates. I just keep an eye on my main page, and see what people are up to. Which is what twitter is! The big downside is that far fewer of my friends use twitter, and it’s more difficult to find them.

One of my friends noted that twitter for regular people was kind of boring. Twitter is for celebrities and businesses and other places that have announcements. And so, I can definitely see twitter being useful for libraries, announcing readings, launch of new programs, whatever. Anything to get in tough with that young, hip crowd.

Although this is my last required blog, I actually like this website, like this page, and have already redirected my old blog here so… I suppose I will keep blogging here. At least until I graduate!

Twitter

AS THREATENED I now have a twitter.

My username is Missingmissmia, and i will be updating every hour on the hour with the most boring minutia and i will race ANYONE. tweet me your challenge?

Activity #2

So I signed up for del.icio.us.

And, I’d like to note, I got confused as all heck when I saw people blogging about twitter. Is there something I missed? My theory is that “if you already use one social bookmarking site, try out the other and compare.” got misinterpreted. When Sherri said that, I think she meant ‘if you already use diigo, try delicious, and vice versa. Not ‘if you use a social bookmarking (Which got mixed up with social networking somewhere) site, try a different one.’.

I could be wrong, but someone please explain how twitter got into this.

Anyway, onto to meat and potatoes, or the chickpeas and rice, or whatever, I am not sure I like del.icio.us. I find it kind of clunky, and I’m not looking forward to tagging all my bookmarks. I love the idea though, especially for my webcomics, haha! I am constantly trying to assemble an alphabet of webcomics that are actually good, and now it’s easier than ever to find other webcomics that I’d like. I’m mostly looking forward to seeing a few of the interesting things that my classmates have book marked though.

This whole site is pretty cool, and since I’m already familiar with tagging, it’s going well.

I can see how social bookmarking would be useful in a library. It’s like when you’re shopping on amazon, and you see ‘people who bought this, also bought this’, but ‘people who bookmarked this, also bookmarked this’. I can see this sort of thing leading me on a wildgoose chase, and becoming a huge time sink. Especially if I find my way to cracked dot com, or tvtropes, or some other…. business.

Then again, the internet isn’t exactly serious business, so I suppose that sort of thing is inevitable.

But back to libraries! Anytime the library is getting more connected to people out there is a good thing, as far as I’m concerned. Unless they’re trying to lure in teenagers by sponsoring drag races…

Anywho, the point is, it’s 4 hours and 7 minutes past my intended bed time, and 7 minutes past my latest possible bed time if I want to function tomorrow, and I am done this assignment.

Activity #1

I LOVE TO BAKE!

There, I said it. My dirty secret it out. Being a library technician is actually tied for second on my list of career choices. Number one, of course, was Art school. It’s too far away though, too much money, not a viable career option, very competitive, etc. It just didn’t work out, is what I’m saying.

When I decided that University wasn’t for me, Mama sat me down with the old Red River college course catalogue, and told me to pick something out that I actually wanted to do, instead of just going to school for the sake of going to school. That’s how I ended up here. But, I was thiiiiiis close to going to culinary school to be a pastry chef. Baking has always been a huge passion for me (and my sweet tooth), and I’m not too terrible at it (well, I’m still waiting for a review from Chris about his ‘birthday’ bread, but I’m pretty sure I fail at yeast). But, it remains a huge hobby. When I’m lying around the house, I’ll just pick up and start cooking.

Anyway, ever since Cinn-zeo left st. vital centre, I’ve been looking for a good cinnamon bun recipe. Which is where del.icio.us came in. I just searched ‘Cinnamon Buns’, and a ton of recipes popped up. Normally for recipes I just hit up all recipes dot com and get whatever I need (You can ingredient search!!), but this gave an an opportunity to explore areas of the net that for some unfathomable reason, aren’t on all recipes. Long story short, I now will be busy over the holidays.

I found a ton of good looking recipes, including a Cinnabon rip-off I’m anxious to try. Coincidentally, Delicious led me to all recipes anyway. I tried the same search on google, using the same keywords and got many similar results: recipes.  There was one ‘cinnamonbunfunrun’ charity thing, but mostly it was delicious, delicious bun recipes and pictures. Google didn’t get me directly to the cinnabon rip-off, though it did lead me to all recipes.

Delicious was interesting in the way that I could sort the websites by deciding which tags to filter, so I could narrow it down just to recipes. I prefer delicious for recipe searching over google, but not over all recipes. It got me more relevant results, and more recipes from blogs (and everyone knows that the best recipes come from someone’s grandmother, so the best place to get strangers’ grandmothers’ recipes is a blog!). Google did the job, but Delicious had some extra features that made it pull ahead in the end.

WOO 14 more minutes! I can do this!

Geez, looking back, I should have searched egg salad sandwich recipes.