(no subject)
Apparently my sister, in addition to her school librarian duties and her coursework to turn her provisional librarian license into a permanent one, is teaching a math class indefinitely (i.e. until they succeed in hiring more than one of the three teachers for whom they were searching this summer). Wish her luck (though it's a course she's taught before so perhaps that will make the lesson planning easier?)! I have to say, I am somewhat disturbed that her 08-09 school year started two weeks before the BGU 07-08 school year (excluding weird programs like mine) ended...
In case anyone missed it, Israel's Prime Minister, who's been at the center of corruption allegations for months, announced that he won't be running in the September elections. He's pretty extraordinarily slimy, and in that regards his replacement will probably be better, but I don't have much faith that that will be the case policy-wise. So, because there's not much else to do when it comes to corrupt politicians (well, except for the ones whose corruption involves sexual misconduct, then you can always make porn, i.e. the old whitehouse.com), here's some humor: LOLmert and this gem,
me: You heard Olmert finally bit the bullet?
Announced he's not going to run in the Kadima primaries in mid-Sept.Of course, he said it's because he's being chased by investigators even though Israel is better than it's ever been under his administration, but at least he did it
Friend: Yea, i hope Tzipi Livni takes over
She's much cuter than Olmert.me: And Barak, for that matter
Him: well, yea
she is also a lawyerme: ah, the true reason you like her ;)
him: besides how she looks in a bathing suit, yea
me: Not going to ask how you know that
don't want to hear about you bankrolling her family vacations to U.S. beaches ;)him: nah, i just go on a website that has world leaders in bathing suits
its almost like porn
but not quite...me: that reminds me of a song a friend of a friend made up in high school
the title is "These Things Aren't Sexy"
"Strom Thurmond swimming in jello, Margaret Thatcher on a cold day""These things aren't sexy, they just aren't sexy, they don't make me want to have sex."
I spent a rather silly amount of time this afternoon pointing out people who should be in the TJ Shakespeare Troupe directory (as requested by the site creator, who doesn't know any of us "old folk"). Of course, given that he originally asked in November he might not have wanted to get them now, but I figure it can't hurt. For any of the old Troupies who haven't seen the site, you might find it entertaining. And on a related note, this afternoon's efforts turned up the old unofficial Troupe site, which might even be amusing to non-Troupies ('cause who doesn't love a good screw joke?). The whole experience was rather surreal.
Adding to the high school nostalgia, Facebook recently decided that I should find George from TJ, which led to the realization that there's a TJ Alumni GSA group on Facebook. It only had five people, which I decided was ridiculous given that the actual GSA, even in it's first year (my senior year), had quite a few more people than that, so I invited the people who had been in it at the time. Now, I didn't invite older people 'cause I wasn't clear on whether the group was alumni of the GSA or queer and straight-ally alumni of the school. But apparently Sarah noticed the group, and proceeded to invite what I can only assume is every TJ alumnus on her friends list, so now the group is seriously skewed towards the AudLob crowd (though granted, so was the GSA generally). I'm also rather pleased to see a few of the people there* (one guy I only really knew frosh year who is so apolitical I can only assume his membership means he's queer rather than a straight ally, which given that I mostly saw him as asexual is nice to see, a couple of alumni who are dating one another, which is just sweet, and one person with whom I'd lost touch and with whom I'm pleased to now at least have the option of the option of reconnecting).
While I definitely still have a soft spot in my heart for Troupe and it played a huge part in defining my high school experience, the way in which I decided to stop doing shows my junior year was definitely not the most positive experience in the world. Even now it's weird to think that I only really was involved with shows for half of my time in high school while the bulk of my activities and to some extent social networks were outside of school (working at the library, mentorship, Fairfax County gay activism, and USY). The people from TJ with whom I've kept in touch, while many of them were also involved in Troupe (including a good chunk of those now in the Alumni GSA group :)), I mostly didn't get to know until after I stopped doing shows. But looking at the sites was still fun!
To end this extremely rambling and rather inconsequential post, here are some of my recent culinary adventures.
Chick Pea Burgers
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03/chick_pea_burge.php
I made some changes from the recipe. First of all, I did the amounts such that it looked right to me because I used dried chickpeas not canned and wasn't sure of the amount, but I'm pretty sure I used a lot less green onion than they call for and if I'd used what they say it would've made it a lot harder for the burgers to hold together (especially since I didn't use a food processor - I just mashed the chick peas). Also, I don't have chili powder so used red skhug instead and omitted the tomato so it wouldn't be too liquidy. I omitted the bread crumbs and parsley 'cause I didn't feel like dealing with either (given that my means of generating bread crumbs would be crumbling a piece of bread), but to help the coherence added a beaten egg to the mixture. I can't really speak to the original recipe, but what I made came out quite tasty.
Red lentil salad
I perpetually underestimate how long these lentils take to cook, so the lentils are a bit mushier than they should be which threw off the whole salad. But it's tasty, anyway. It was extremely loosely based on this recipe, though I omitted the vinegar, oil, tomato, cucumber, and feta but did use corn and mint (and given all the differing ingredients all amounts are probably somewhat different from the recipe).
* This doesn't include a couple of people with who I'd previously reconnected, both of whom are trans (I think FTM but possibly genderqueer). I'm slightly befuddled by the pattern that seems to be developing in which people I know (outside of Smith and NUJLS) who are transgendered and born female-bodied have first names starting with letters in the middle of the alphabet (seriously, there are two Js, both of whom now go by Julian, one L, and one M), and all of them kept the first letter of hir name when transitioning.
In case anyone missed it, Israel's Prime Minister, who's been at the center of corruption allegations for months, announced that he won't be running in the September elections. He's pretty extraordinarily slimy, and in that regards his replacement will probably be better, but I don't have much faith that that will be the case policy-wise. So, because there's not much else to do when it comes to corrupt politicians (well, except for the ones whose corruption involves sexual misconduct, then you can always make porn, i.e. the old whitehouse.com), here's some humor: LOLmert and this gem,
me: You heard Olmert finally bit the bullet?
Announced he's not going to run in the Kadima primaries in mid-Sept.Of course, he said it's because he's being chased by investigators even though Israel is better than it's ever been under his administration, but at least he did it
Friend: Yea, i hope Tzipi Livni takes over
She's much cuter than Olmert.me: And Barak, for that matter
Him: well, yea
she is also a lawyerme: ah, the true reason you like her ;)
him: besides how she looks in a bathing suit, yea
me: Not going to ask how you know that
don't want to hear about you bankrolling her family vacations to U.S. beaches ;)him: nah, i just go on a website that has world leaders in bathing suits
its almost like porn
but not quite...me: that reminds me of a song a friend of a friend made up in high school
the title is "These Things Aren't Sexy"
"Strom Thurmond swimming in jello, Margaret Thatcher on a cold day""These things aren't sexy, they just aren't sexy, they don't make me want to have sex."
I spent a rather silly amount of time this afternoon pointing out people who should be in the TJ Shakespeare Troupe directory (as requested by the site creator, who doesn't know any of us "old folk"). Of course, given that he originally asked in November he might not have wanted to get them now, but I figure it can't hurt. For any of the old Troupies who haven't seen the site, you might find it entertaining. And on a related note, this afternoon's efforts turned up the old unofficial Troupe site, which might even be amusing to non-Troupies ('cause who doesn't love a good screw joke?). The whole experience was rather surreal.
Adding to the high school nostalgia, Facebook recently decided that I should find George from TJ, which led to the realization that there's a TJ Alumni GSA group on Facebook. It only had five people, which I decided was ridiculous given that the actual GSA, even in it's first year (my senior year), had quite a few more people than that, so I invited the people who had been in it at the time. Now, I didn't invite older people 'cause I wasn't clear on whether the group was alumni of the GSA or queer and straight-ally alumni of the school. But apparently Sarah noticed the group, and proceeded to invite what I can only assume is every TJ alumnus on her friends list, so now the group is seriously skewed towards the AudLob crowd (though granted, so was the GSA generally). I'm also rather pleased to see a few of the people there* (one guy I only really knew frosh year who is so apolitical I can only assume his membership means he's queer rather than a straight ally, which given that I mostly saw him as asexual is nice to see, a couple of alumni who are dating one another, which is just sweet, and one person with whom I'd lost touch and with whom I'm pleased to now at least have the option of the option of reconnecting).
While I definitely still have a soft spot in my heart for Troupe and it played a huge part in defining my high school experience, the way in which I decided to stop doing shows my junior year was definitely not the most positive experience in the world. Even now it's weird to think that I only really was involved with shows for half of my time in high school while the bulk of my activities and to some extent social networks were outside of school (working at the library, mentorship, Fairfax County gay activism, and USY). The people from TJ with whom I've kept in touch, while many of them were also involved in Troupe (including a good chunk of those now in the Alumni GSA group :)), I mostly didn't get to know until after I stopped doing shows. But looking at the sites was still fun!
To end this extremely rambling and rather inconsequential post, here are some of my recent culinary adventures.
Chick Pea Burgers
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03/chick_pea_burge.php
I made some changes from the recipe. First of all, I did the amounts such that it looked right to me because I used dried chickpeas not canned and wasn't sure of the amount, but I'm pretty sure I used a lot less green onion than they call for and if I'd used what they say it would've made it a lot harder for the burgers to hold together (especially since I didn't use a food processor - I just mashed the chick peas). Also, I don't have chili powder so used red skhug instead and omitted the tomato so it wouldn't be too liquidy. I omitted the bread crumbs and parsley 'cause I didn't feel like dealing with either (given that my means of generating bread crumbs would be crumbling a piece of bread), but to help the coherence added a beaten egg to the mixture. I can't really speak to the original recipe, but what I made came out quite tasty.
Red lentil salad
I perpetually underestimate how long these lentils take to cook, so the lentils are a bit mushier than they should be which threw off the whole salad. But it's tasty, anyway. It was extremely loosely based on this recipe, though I omitted the vinegar, oil, tomato, cucumber, and feta but did use corn and mint (and given all the differing ingredients all amounts are probably somewhat different from the recipe).
* This doesn't include a couple of people with who I'd previously reconnected, both of whom are trans (I think FTM but possibly genderqueer). I'm slightly befuddled by the pattern that seems to be developing in which people I know (outside of Smith and NUJLS) who are transgendered and born female-bodied have first names starting with letters in the middle of the alphabet (seriously, there are two Js, both of whom now go by Julian, one L, and one M), and all of them kept the first letter of hir name when transitioning.