reipan

 I made muffins! 

...I was actually trying to produce cupcakes, though, so this may not be the achievement it looks like.

 So, um.

I may have sort of just danced a Morris set.

...

You wish you were this cool.

I told people I would be posting details of this on my LJ, as I don't like Facebook and it's taken me ages to check out the cool features of the polling function here.[Poll #1534365]

 Me on a happy-things meme.  Go on, you know you want to.

 Just got home to an email about the posters for CUSU LGBT Awareness week. Apparently our flyers were refused at Magdalene College and accepted at Corpus and St Johns, only to be pulled out of people's pigeonholes and thrown on the floor.

This is the shocking news that in modern-day Cambridge some people still object to Queer Folk And The Like, and are not afraid to make their views known in a tediously immature sort of way.

...seriously. I mean, if a college wants to point-blank refuse the flyers then that's one thing, but pulling them out of pigeonholes and throwing them on the floor? Not only is that one of the most petty things I've ever heard of (you know, as well as being disrespectful etc), it also just seems pointless. If you object to Awareness Week drawing attention to itself then surely throwing the flyers on the floor is the wrong way to go about rectifying the situation? A small piece of laminated paper in your pigeonhole is very easy to overlook, it's considerably harder to ignore the floor suddenly being covered in rainbows.

Just sayin'.

Too rushed and jittery to make a reflective post about my year/decade just now; maybe tomorrow.

In case I spend most of tomorrow curled into a ball, Happy New Year, everyone!

I actually meant to post this for rionaleonhart a while ago, and as I've just made and am consuming it for the first time since I arrived in Cambridge I may as well, given that I am supposed to be doing an essay.

Please note:  Quantities here are pretty approximate; I learned this through a combination of watching my mother and trial and error. Also, while some things do need exact quantities of everything this doesn't seem to be one of them. Be individual!

Carbonara

feeds ten people, or one MAN. by which I mean, serves one



Ingredients:

- ~125g pasta (about a quarter of a 500g pack, in other words). Spaghetti is traditional, but about anything will work.
- one or two eggs
- parmesan cheese, grated
- salt
- pepper
- single or double cream (optional)
- bacon, or pancetta cubes. If using bacon, one or two rashers; if using cubes, they come in handy little boxes of which you should use one.

Method:

- Sanitation is manly! WASH YOUR HANDS!
-  Cook the pasta. I'm going to work on the assumption that you know how to do that; if you can't, Google it. 
- In a large  bowl, beat the eggs; add salt, pepper and grated parmesan to taste, and the cream if using.
- Heat the bacon in a frying pan (or wok, if you like) with a little oil.
- Add the cooked pasta to the beaten eggs mixture. Mix well.
- Add pasta-and-beaten-eggs-and-other-stuff mixture to the bacon pan and cook until the egg is set, stirring constantly to make sure you don't end up with a giant pasta-and-bacon omelette. Unless you want a giant pasta-and-bacon omelette. I guess that would be pretty cool.
- Serve. Enjoy. Unless you've had a really bad day or you don't like bacon or you're allergic to eggs or something. In the latter two cases, though, I'm not really sure why you're making this in the first place. 

Yes! Good? I'm told that it tastes okay without the bacon, so vegetarians are free to omit that; I'm afraid vegans are pretty much screwed, though. (Pescatarians can use smoked salmon instead, maybe? I've never tried it, but I can't see why not.)

I got a part in the CULES panto! I'm a stupid henchman! :D

Does anybody know a decent method for folding and ironing fitted sheets? I can never quite get them to come out right; normally I just try to fold them into the most approximately square shape I can and hope for the best, and that works okay, but there's always the inevitable one or two that end up looking like a cross between Casper the Friendly Ghost and...well, a badly-ironed fitted sheet. As they end up stretched out on my bed anyway I suppose it doesn't really matter, but it would be nice to be able to do things properly.

I am writing this entry as I let the iron sit and do its iron-y thing for a bit. I think that our iron, incidentally, is possessed by the same thing that's living in the toilet - for the past year our toilet has routinely taken several tries to flush and, at each successful attempt, let out a banshee-like wail. It also occasionally emits a high-pitched whine for absolutely no reason, save that, apparently, of waking me up fifteen minutes before my alarm. We've taken to calling it Sheila. Anyway, our iron has a similar poltergeist - for reasons unknown to all of us, it likes to leak and/or bubble, froth menacingly and spit out some water-and-grit mixture. The latter is not as common as the former, but the former happens every time we use it. Or every time I do, anyway. I sometimes find that letting it take a little rest puts it in a better mood.

Maybe I'll start calling it Igor.

It strikes me that quite a few fairly basic household appliances around here are broken. Neesan and I have been after Dad to replace the toilet since, well, it started making that freaking noise; I don't know why my mother won't buy a new iron. She told me once, but it made so very much sense that I can't remember what she said, or even if we're still on the same reason. Our shower door's been a bit rickety from day one. The reason given on enquiry tends to be that money's a bit tight, but as we've recently acquired a new paper shredder and a bunch of clothes for my mother I'm more inclined to believe that they just enjoy the feel of having things that aren't so broken they don't work, but are just flawed enough that they can be bitched about in intricate detail. (I'm not here to judge; they work hard for their money and can spend it on whatever they like. 

Although it'd be nice not to be woken up by that high-pitched squeal anymore.)

Know what else is weird? Everybody seems so surprised at the amount of stuff I iron. I mean, they let me get away with the shirts (I wear a lot of shirts) but...I thought everybody ironed trousers and jeans and jumpers and things! It's not like it's hard, and it makes them all soft and nice and easier to fit in your drawers? No? Come on, guys, it's not like I iron my underwear or anything. Not that there's anything wrong with ironing your underwear if the mood takes you that way, as long as you can see why most people don't bother.*


I am quite unreasonably tired; I've taken on household duty while Dad is in Finland so that Mum doesn't have to worry about things and also because I don't really have anything better to do; it's been a quiet week. Projects for the month: finish Heart Thief, get some scripting done for the webcomic Jo and I want to do together and try to finish the stage adaptation of that Japanese short story that I started - something I've never done before and I'm not sure I'm carrying off with any skill, but...I suppose we'll see. (Confidential to rionaleonhart : WHY DO YOU HATE ME WHEN I SHOW YOU NOTHING BUT LOVE?!)

I have also acquired a ukulele, and take great delight in sitting around and playing it. Badly. I still haven't quite worked out how to sing and play at the same time (any tips on that?) but at least I can make sound come out of it that isn't horrible! Yay me!

...right. I have rambled for too long about ironing, and now I should probably get back to it. Was going to do a long and involved post about my feelings and the future, but now that I've sat here for a while I don't really feel up to it. Maybe later.

*Based on no statistics whatsoever; will retract statement if it turns out that 50% or more of the population iron their undergarments, although reserve right to relentlessly mock the OCD type who actually bothered to go and check.