One Week

No, I am not going to be discussing or nit-picking apart the amusing Barenaked Ladies video (Youtube is being annoying and won't let me embed the video). For those of you who are trying to forget that today is, in fact, a Monday, or for those of you who have lost track of their internal clock, today is February 7th. That means that it is one week until Valentine's Day.

No, this is not a bitter, angry, bitchy post.

This is a post of puzzlement and face-palming at advertising.

A while ago I "liked" or subscribed to some piece of merchandise from Victoria's Secret (VS). As much as I harp on them, I really do like the majority of their bras. The body stuff can be a bit much, the swimsuits are always good for a laugh, and I'm sure some of the "technology" in their bras really was created by NASA scientists. I have no idea how some of that "lift" is achieved. Anywho, due to my internet agreement, I often get posts by VS in my facebook newsfeed on my Droid. The postings are normally fine, intriguing, good for a laugh. Normally.

The exception to this is that I really do not need to be reminded every five posts that it is a week from Valentine's Day. VS, if you are able to see the information on my facebook profile, you would know I am not "in a relationship", "being complicated with" or any of the other non-single options. For that matter, I do not have any relationship status currently on my profile. It's just blank. I've been adopting a policy of not broadcasting this information to the world. It works out rather nicely. That being said, their programmed posts really should check if I have a "sweetie...or that hottie you friended last week".

Not to single out VS, I simply don't see the point of the excessive advertising that comes with this particular holiday. Yes, advertising publishes and circulates information about products leading to hopefully, greater sales of goods. I understand this for Christmas. I understand this for Thanksgiving and Halloween, however, Valentine's Day just seems like a mimic of old gender roles and stereotyping. If you are in a relationship, shouldn't the guy remember to do something sweet without images of pink teddy bears bombarding his brain? Shouldn't you yourself think to do something thoughtful for your guy or gal right back?

In my life since the start of dating, I've had Valentine's Days where I was single and happy about it, single and upset about it, and in a relationship. Heck, I asked one of my best boyfriends out on Valentine's Day at midnight and made him a delicious dinner after his computer science lab. I've had a boyfriend take me out to a great steak dinner. Chocolates have filled my stomach some years, and alcohol others.

I am not bitter, not angry, not lonely, not sad. I am actually at a pretty good place in my life. It's kind of awesome.

You know what I'll be doing this Valentine's Day?

Going to the pub with one of my best girl friends since it falls on a Monday, possibly working, and then looking like this watching romantic comedies with my roomie and red wine.



Oh, and eating chocolate. It's not Valentine's Day without large amounts of dark chocolate.

Will the Wonder End?

Maybe it's because I am still five years old at heart. Maybe it's because I ride the peaks as well as the valleys, and enjoy ever second of exhilarating rush that comes with cascading into the valley. Maybe it's because I still sometimes cuddle up with my favorite, and oldest, teddy bear at night. Maybe it's because I'm figuring out what to do with my life.

Nonetheless, I'm happy.

Maybe it's because I've been listening to happiness themed playlists on 8tracks.com, or that I really enjoy my sculpture class, even though I burned my left ring finger using the hot glue gun today. Maybe it's because water polo makes me smile whenever I try to do a hold. Everything just seems right. I am normally a happy person, but only for the moments. Something is different.

Happiness seems like it could be a permanent gig.

I'm a cynic, I'm an optimist, I'm crazy, I'm lovely, I'm exuberantly unsure of future enthusiasm. I'm not sure where I'm going, but I know where I've been. I think the fact that I am seriously contemplating wearing a cape to work next Wednesday says something about how joyful I can be. I don't know where I'm going, but it always seems there's a fluffy unicorn able to carry me back along to happiness.

I don't think I'm ever going to lose that unicorn.

Some Food for Thought

While the main purpose of this blog is to have an outlet for writing, I do periodically observe trends and data. I am dual majoring in mathematics and economics after all. With that in mind, I find it highly amusing that in the eight months that I have been blogging, my third highest, or third most visited post, has been about pierogies.

The secret to a man's heart is through his stomach appears to be true for both sexes.

In Portland Town, Oh Portland

By now, many of you, or anyone who is remotely internet savvy and possesses a facebook account, has heard of the internet show, "Portlandia" with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein from SNL. If you have not heard about it or seen it, well that's why there's a link above. Go click and check it out.

"Portlandia" is a little show that both mocks stereotypes of Portland residents, neighborhoods, and the city's attitude while still being ridiculously hilarious. For anyone who lives or visits downtown, I personally think it's so amusing because of how close it hits close to home. While I technically live in unincorporated Washington County, I say I am from Portland. I hang around downtown a good deal, know the West side like the back of my hand, and can find my way around the East side. Also, you'd have to pay me good money to say I lived in Beaverton.



Many people know the show, but did you know that Portlandia is actually a large, iconic statue for the city? It's not just a made-up catchy title.

While "Portlandia" the show may be entertaining, I'm still not quite certain how I feel about it still, however, it did encourage me. On my last day home over Winter Break, I set out to be a tourist in my own city. Armed with my point and shoot camera, which apparently had almost no battery, I started in Pioneer Place and began to wander. Unfortunately, my camera gave out just as I was entering the Pearl. Pearl shots are subsequently captured with my phone, and by the time I got to the North West area and the East side, well, there's documentation in my mind, but not in any format that I can upload.

Thus, below, I give you another highly visual post. Welcome to some highlights of Portland. My Portland.


Children playing by a fountain is always adorable. Hi Pioneer Place.

These type of fountains are along both sides of the Pioneer Courthouse. What's cuter than otters?




Sorry bear, the otters are cuter.


The courthouse itself, as seen from the if you were facing towards the waterfront.


Awesomeness is awesome.


No writing about Ptown is complete without the Portland Man.



There is a special place in my heart for the food carts. Gold star to anyone who knows where they go to sleep at night.


Artsy-fartsy time. Welcome to the rear of the Arlene Schnitzer Hall.


In an attempt to take a picture of the works outside the Portland Art Museum, I accidentally captured a snapshot of a true Portland beard. In the Rose City, we do everything hard core.


Southpark Seafood Grill, why are you always so tasty?

This doesn't necessarily have a lot of cultural or historic meaning, but Clay is how you get to Sunset Highway, aka my mad dash home.







FINNEGAN'S! Prepare for pictures of stuffed animals. Finnegan's is the Northwest's largest independently owned toy store.


Where else am I going to find a stuffed Tasmanian Devil? Not the Looney Toons character.

Quality reading right there.

I have no idea what their message or cause was, but the signs looked cool.

Oh hi, Living Room theatre.

Please pardon the blurred pictures. At this point, I was taking pictures with my phone. While my little Droid 2 is awesome, it still can't compete with a quality Sony camera.

If I could die wandering the shelves of Powell's, I would be a lucky lass indeed. I love Powell's. That's about the simplest way to put it without sounding like a crazy fanatic. Powell's is the largest independent bookstore west of the Mississippi River. Powell's gives me hope for the world. It is the physical embodiment that print is not dead. If you are ever in Portland, visit Powell's. Take a coffee and get lost. It'll do your soul some good.

The Powell's pillar.






There is also Powell's 2; the technical bookstore, which recently relocated from deeper in the Pearl. Someone's got to stock books about mathematics, programming, and engineering.



Once again, I apologize for the picture quality. While hard to see the sign, this is the Deschutes Brewery Portland Pub. While I gained vast amounts of Portland knowledge when I was 16, obviously my knowledge of bars and pubs has been a bit minuscule. This was my first legal beer in Portland. I highly recommend the porter. On Portland beer notes, the Widmer Brother's hefeweizen is also fantastic.


Two gold stars to whoever can say this street correctly.

Unfortunately this is where most of the pictures end. I miss shopping at Ray's Ragtime and Three Monkeys. Getting my movie time in at the Fox Tower and then grabbing a donut at Voodoo Donut's. I miss the Cuban food at Pamiche. I miss flicks on the bricks in the summer, and the tree lighting in the winter. Portland is my home. Ptown represent.

Reflection, Part Two

Classes have begun at RPI. Choosing a mixed, stylized schedule, my first day consisted of two art classes, yet tomorrow I face mathematical statistics and combinatorial optimization and integer programming. That's a mouthful and a half. Gathering my materials led me to round up backwork and books that I am lending to friends. On my bookshelf, next to my Econometrics text, I saw a bound paperback leaning very indiscreetly. Being guilty of having a horrible memory, I could not instantly recall what it was, and lifted it out of its nest to rediscover its identity. I found my Senior Reflections.

At Jesuit High School, there is a tradition where seniors are asked to write a personal reflection about their time from the past four years. It is open to almost anything; it just needs to be a personal, meaningful reflection of some part of your time. Browsing back through it, I was struck by two things. The first, is how conversational my composition was. The second, both my own, and many of my closest friends from high school spoke of support, interdependency, and an appreciation of others.

My senior year in high school was an awkward interesting mix of some of my greatest moments with myself and friends, and some of the lowest points of my life. Would I repeat that year? Definitely not, I do not think that I could match that amount of energy, however, there is a point that I wish I could revisit. Sometime that year for me, I became myself. Not completely 100%, but a solid 90%. The remaining bit has come in college. Reflecting back on that year, I have realized that was the first time I became truly comfortable with myself. I have always put up a good face, but deep in the chaos, was a moment where everything clicked. I stood up for myself. I learned to say no. I learned not to ride in cars with boys. I learned to be me.

It is my personal belief that everyone has some moment in life where that great "click" occurs. When your personal universe is perfectly aligned, and the heartstrings of your being perform into the most beautiful symphony of joy. College has not brought new movements to my song, but rather, a polishing of my greatest work--myself.

To borrow a phrase from an old friend, when did you visualize the awesomeness? When did you realize you were truly you, and content? Despite whatever doubts and fears life may bring, you realize it will be at least okay. There are lows, there are highs, and there is life. Make the most of it, your way is best.

Should I?

So I've started sketching more again, due to the large amount of free time over winter break. The question is, can I maintain this once classes start? Taking two art classes, one would suppose a positive yes, but can that be safe from statistics? Mathematical analysis? Economics research? My horrible desire to do everything?

I'm hoping yes. As I think, there isn't much point about this post besides to show off my sketches. Let's be honest, I know that unless I post this to facebook, all of four people will probably read this, therefore, I'm not being that vain in showing off my little sketches. This isn't even quality finished work, just little wisps. Oh well, off to sketch lovelies.



I guess that this is also a call for free, and paid, requests/commissions, since those normally keep me at some level of productivity.



Growing up sucks.

That is all.

Pierogies

Warning: This is a highly visual post.

On Halloween weekend, my good friend Erin and I attempted to make pierogies by scratch. With two people working, which includes talking about it, chatting about life and other things and attempting to figure out what exactly we were supposed to do, it took us around five hours to make a double batch. For reference, a double batch made about 150 pierogies, which sounds like a lot. It's actually not when you volunteer to gift pierogies to male friends who look to pierogies as childhood comfort.

Anywho, my Dad loves pierogies. They were also a comfort from childhood, as I found out when he told my mom he remembered making them with his baba. Thus, I volunteered to make pierogies for my family on Wednesday. The whole process took me about four hours. This shortened time horizon can be explained by not having anyone to converse with, more wine, and only making a single batch (75 pierogies).

For those of you who are not aware of what a pierogie is, it's pretty much a dumpling of Slavic origins. The most common filling is a potato cheese filling--you're probably seen Mrs. T's frozen kinds in the grocery store. Now that you have that bit of knowledge, do you actually know what it takes to make them?

Well I'll show you through pictures! Yay pictures!



The first photo shows the pork filling I made, the initial dough, and in the background there is a pot with potato cheese filling. Honestly, each component is relatively simple, just very time consuming.

After making both the fillings and starting on the dough,



(Potato filling)



Yay dough!

I then floured the dough a bit more and transfered it to an area to roll it out, kneaded it, and rolled it out.



After rolling out, really really really really really thin,



Seriously, it needs to be thin dough. It gets folded over upon itself and to make that amount of dough do that, you need to make sure it's both thin and elastic. Erin and I found this out the first time around and had to do some extra work accordingly. Yes, you might say well why not make more dough per pierogie? Well, that would make them too doughy, especially since you are putting carb inside more carb. It's just overkill that way.

Anyway, after rolling out and cutting into the right shape you can now fill the circles of dough with the filling and fold over to get something that looks like this:



The remaining steps are to cook the pierogies. First, you boil them, and when they float to the top, you can remove them from the water.



To finish, take the boiled pierogies, and sautee them. It gives them a nice finish.



And voila! Finished pierogies in all their pretty perfection for pleasurable dining experiences.



Om nom nom! Traditionally, pierogies are also then served with sour cream, fried bacon and sauteed onions. Many other fillings exist besides the classic potato and cheese, and my pork, such as lamb, just a cheese filling, and buttery cabbage.