What's the best thing about today?
For once I actually have several things vying for this award!
- EWK is getting better after his nasty infection that we shall not talk about because anything to do with infections is kinda gross.
- I may have mentioned that I helped build a website for free for a friend's sister's company a few months ago. I found out today that they've decided to pay us just because they're really nice people and they like the site a whole lot. Wads of cash I wasn't expecting is always good.
- I got a job! 3 hours teaching per week. Regular wads of cash is even better than unexpected wads of cash!
Of course this balances out the crap stuff.
- I've managed to catch a head cold which has left me grumpy and out of sorts.
- I've managed to catch a head cold just before I start my new job, so now I'm going to be sniffly and confused all over poor hapless graduate diploma students.
- The landlord has put our rent up $40 per week, which is why the job was so damned fortuitous right now.
- Oh, and I'm really, really busy and haven't had time to Vox recently.
Hope you are all well. Give my love to your family. Hope to catch up with you again soon!
xox MWAH! xox
In the understandable excitement about the parliamentary apology to the stolen generation earlier this week, this interaction between the Deputy Prime Minister and the Member for O'Connor got lost in the mix.
I wonder if Wilson Tuckey's cheer squad will be issued pom-poms or not.
I've been very busy this week so haven't had much of a chance to catch up on Vox. Sorry about that. I tried reading all my missed neighbourhood posts today but gave up after the twelfth page. I hope I haven't missed anything huge!
Here's what I've been up to this week:
Sorry: I cried buckets during the PM's speech apologising to the stolen generation. His speech was well written, well said and very moving. Then I wanted to smash the telly once Dr Brendan Nelson (the opposition leader) started talking. At first it seemed like he was making justifications for the removal of Aboriginal children. Then he was trying to divert attention to current problems in remote indigenous communities. Somehow the ANZACs worked their way into the speech for about ten minutes. Then he misrepresented the words of one of the stolen generation to try and make it seem like many Aborigines didn't want an apology. And at the end he had the gall of saying that what they really wanted was for people to listen to them and understand them. Well, yes, Dr Nelson. Which is why maybe you should have listened to the fact that they wanted a genuine apology and understood that they didn't want you sabotaging the day like you did.
Yes there are huge problems in remote Aboriginal communities right now. Yes they need to be talked about. Yes they need to be addressed. But that was not the time to do it. Using Dr Nelson's obsession with the ANZACs as an example, what would people think if a career politician decided the dawn service was the best time to bring up present day abuses in the military? Or spoke about whether Private Jake Kovco committed suicide or died while skylarking? Or ignored the soldiers entirely and spoke instead about indigenous culture for ten minutes? People would be disgusted because there's a time and a place for everything and that was SO not the time or place to highlight those issues.
So now I'm waiting for an apology for Dr Nelson's apology. Here's hoping he doesn't balls that one up too.
Uni: Still busy writing my thesis. Nothing much new there
Exercise: I've started alternating going to the gym and running 5km each morning. That and an increase in the amount I was eating resulted in a 0.8kg weight loss, which I'm quite pleased about.
Art: Too busy with exercise and uni. I'm still hoping to find (or make) time to do some more art, but I'm not stressing myself out about it too much.
Valentine's Day: Was a day like any other. As EWK said, it's better to treat all days like Valentine's Day rather than saving it up for one day per year. Which would be great if any of those other days involved restaurants or flowers. Which they usually don't.
Family: My cousin Alex was over from the UK and I got to catch up with him briefly before he got on a plane to Sydney. I was really nervous beforehand because I'd never met or spoken to him before in my life. I haven't been to the UK since I was 3 so my knowledge of the English side of my family is limited to aunties and uncles who have been over here to visit us. He was really lovely and very chatty. I'm hoping to keep in contact with him and hopefully through him get to know my other cousins in the UK. It's very strange to meet a complete stranger and realise 'wow, this is family'. It was a great experience and I'm really glad we managed to meet up while he was in Melbourne.
Nothing much happening. I probably won't be able to catch up again until next week. Have fun without me until then!
I have found my own personal white whale in life and it is vegan french toast. A few weeks ago I began my quest to make the perfect non-animal french toast. It quickly became a quest to make edible non-animal french toast. Now I'd be happy if I could actually make it without having to chew through grease-proof paper.
It all started when I found some recipes for vegan french toast online. It required egg replacer mixed with soy milk as the batter. So I made it and it was great! ... As glue. The bloody toast stuck to my allegedly non-stick fry-pan. I even tried it in another fry-pan with heaps of oil. I had to tear the bread to get the bloody things off. Attempt 1: utter failure.
The next weekend (french toast being a weekend thing after all) I thought I'd try blending tofu with soy milk and using that as the batter. Who knew that tofu could make almost as good a glue as egg replacer? So I spent the morning scraping tofuey bread off fry-pans again. Attempt 2: more failure.
This week I figured I'd try the tofu-soy milk concoction again, but bake them on greaseproof paper in the oven instead. I even coated the greaseproof paper with spray oil just to make sure nothing could possibly stick to it. Nothing except tofu/soy milk french toast, of course. Attempt 3: this is getting beyond a bloody joke.
How could there be so many vegan french toast recipes out there and not a single one creates french toast you can actually eat? Is it a huge online conspiracy? People are responding to these recipes saying "I made this and it was great!" What the fuck magic cookware are these people using? Why has no-one else replied with "Might be fine if I could ever scrape it off the teflon to find out. I am seriously considering using this recipe to fix shattered porcelain instead."
So next week I'm going to try another method. I'm going to coat my bread one side at a time and grill it. That way it couldn't possibly stick to anything. Could it?
