Crazy Cooking! (Bonus: Wonderful Christmas Greeting Cards! Mind Trotter made!)

Today was crazy!

After my usual hot chocolate, I began cooking. I’ve choose a very complicated dish – stuffed cabbage leaves that took me almost six hours (I’ve just tried to stick as much possible to the original East-European recipe – that’s why yesterday I run between three stores to find the proper ingredients) I’ve used any break during the cooking to clean my kitchen – who always escaped untouched after all the cleaning I did the past couple of days. However, in the evening, all was shine, all was bright, my stuffed cabbage leaves were done and the presents nicely wrapped (the other dishes, most common were postponed till tomorrow morning)

We’ve dressed up and left for Christmas Eve’s dinner @ L & J. The food was good, but simple (I’ve noticed that, besides the Thanksgiving cooking, folks in Midwest don’t go for lavish meals, with several dishes; even about the Thanksgiving cooking – turkey is actually the main course and everything else are only sides) Playing, just before dessert, a very funny game involving small toys, wearing a crown and opening fortune cookies. I’ve loved it! Opening presents. Loving it, too! Watching a movie, not too great, but apparently seasoned-theme movies are already expired (I’ll write down on the Christmas business channels are involved some other time)

Back home pretty late, getting to bed, lighting a candle on the pretty nightstand I put together using the beautiful boxes I got from S&E and reading few pages of “Lovely Bones”.

Sleep tight in the sweet Christmas night.

Fiore’s Crew meeting

Passing over the graphics lab and spending my morning @ Borders, having hot chocolate in a lovely red mug, reading fiore’s literary submissions.

Back home, trying to fix my stacked computer and enjoying Christmas carols.

Getting doughnuts, meeting the web site manager and handling fiore’s crew meeting. I’ve been nervous and anxious about it, but things went smoothly and I’ve met really cool people that I’m proud to work with.

As the doughnuts weren’t too successful, we’ve stopped by L&J to share them.

“Buffy”.

Check out some GREAT Christmas cards!

I “should”

Banana for breakfast, again!.

Hot chocolate in the front of my computer (feeling guilty thinking about B working out there in the cold).

Working on a conference proposal. Weird, I was sure I could do it in few minutes and actually it took me some hours (or some good minutes, depending which is your perspective on time; sometimes, I fell I should change mine, too, and just count everything in seconds – this way, I’d have at least the impression that time doesn’t pass too fast)

Talking, or should I better say, fighting with my psychotic mother. Perhaps, I should inaugurate a new category on my blog – “Haunting Memories” – to tell you more stuff about her. I have materials for two or three novels at least.

At one thing she’s good for sure – ruining others’ days.

“Buffy” (not so funny at it used to be – I should write more about my relationship with it, right? Maybe someday. For now, I can only notice that I’ve used three times the word “should” in this post and I’m not particulalry proud about it, as I am not a “should”-fan, for sure)

On the Backwardness of America Today

I’m confused.

Yesterday, I was watching with L a movie where the male character was asking to his wife not to return to work after she gave birth to their son, but to stay home. I’ve told L that I despise such selfish men that don’t care about their wives careers and she didn’t seem to agree with me.

I really don’t understand how, within the 21st century, there are still so many people, men, but also women, who don’t believe in women’ rights, entitlement and abilities to have jobs and careers. I know US is an awkward country, far not as civilized and democratic as it is presented and I’ve wrote more about the darkness that surround women and maternity here.

Still, I have to emphasize that such cases are not all rare, unusual or unimportant. Unfortunately, not only the majority of the Americans, but the big majority of Americans (which is, I’d say, almost everyone except educated big cities people) think that women should stay home, be wives and mothers, supported by their husbands.

It’s extremely hard for me to understand what actually such men think. It’s even harder to understand what women accepting it think.

It’s impossible for me to understand how, nowadays, women can be deprived of their studies, jobs and careers, of their own “things”, of their own life, in order to be transformed in 24/24 hours nannies, cookers, cleaners, endlessly pregnant; how they are stopped to go out there to produce themselves as professionals, to create, to prove themselves! To show the world that are equal to men, that are capable of a lot great, wonderful and interesting things, not only to procreate – which, by the way, everyone can do it!

Today, on Facebook, this stupid guy, Just Bryce, was saying how  Soviet policies and Nazi ones (about the Nazi ones is not even true!!! Nazis always wanted their women to be staying-home servants!!!) are asking women to work because working women is good for society and feminism is a tool used to destroy families and it’s damaging to civilization !!! Reading his words, I had the feeling that I was reading some letters wrote in the backwardness of the 18th century by an abuzive husband. I don’t go here to details, explaining how feminism is not a Soviet policy but an US liberal and capitalist movement or arguing against the aberations he said (it’s obvious that the man had no single idea about what means feminism, but he’s dangerous, as any stupid, cause he’s sure he knows everything), but I’d like to stress out the big disapointment that I felt, noticing that, few hunddreds of years after the Illuminism, people’ minds and souls are still not illuminated at all.

Another Saturday

Up early, breakfast, work. Library, printing out stuff. Post office. Post office closed.

Home. Starting to feel me myself, easily, step by step, after almost a week.

Trying to relax.

Getting ready for diner.

Going to dinner.

Mexican food, white wine, french gossip.

Feeling good.

Falling asleep.

Unbelivable! I’ve really did it! Today!

Breakfast and coffee and starting working on a SoP. A sunshine lightening my right eye and caressing the related cheek.

Amazingly, after few hours, I’ve finished it. Just when I was more and more sure about its lack of utility. It seems that such less-carrying attitude often helps you to get more easily over stuff that are usually so annoyed and hard to accomplish – and just because you’ve put too many thoughts and efforts into it.

I don’t want to build monuments for my skills, but, after all, I’ve wrote in few hours a paper that took my friend J few months. And, again, I don’t want to build monuments for my skills, but it seems a pretty good piece.

As my schedule got a little more relaxed, I’ve had some time to do laundry (yeah, exactly, I’m that kind of girl that ignores household works for intellectual ones – and, you know what? this is the only way to go for a smart woman!)

“Buffy” with grapes and bed time!

Not quite there– New Exhibit Opening Tonight @ Boxcar Books

A new exhibit at Boxcar Books celebrates the creativity of Emily Janowiak. Originally from Lafayette, IN, Janowiak received a degree in Visual Arts Education from Indiana University, Bloomington, 2005.  Emily Janowiak currently lives in Indianapolis and teaches drawing, painting and photography at the high school level. Janowiak works with a variety of media and has recently been doing a great deal of work with collage and altered books.

Accordingly to Emily Janowiak’s artistic statement, her pieces are emphasizing the self’s search and the complexity of human relationships:

“Seemingly disparate words, imagery and concepts often have more in common than meets the eye, and I attempt to bring these varied elements together to reflect my experiences.  My goal is to collect scattered fragments of thoughts that can never quite form themselves into a finished picture or a completed sentence and transform them into compositions that depict the tension of something that is unresolved and just out of reach.

Central to my work are the pursuit of identity and the complexities of human relationships, both of which are disorganized and without finality.  Many people find this lack of resolution unsettling, myself included.  However, the uncertainty pushes me to explore new ways in which to take random elements and provide them with a sense of structure.  I find a strange comfort in unfinished business because it leaves the door open for optimism, and I hope to convey this concept through my pieces.”

Emily Janowiak

Not quite there will be on display at Boxcar Books through Wednesday, December 2, 2009.

Boxcar Books is hosting an opening reception for the exhibit on Friday, November the 6^th, 2009, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Content Current

As an industrious writer, I don’t miss (or at least I try not to) any opportunity of writting and making some money.

The destiny lead me to try my luck with Content Current. It was probably one of the worse decision ever. After I’ve worked out my butt to write a good and very well researched sample paper on the topic I’ve received (Florida Photography Schools), I haven’t heard back from them for more than 3 weeks (WTF!!!) and, then, it was just for letting me know that my application was rejected, due to my very poor quality of writing (WTF!!!)

Here’s the sample I’ve applied with, for others judge it, as well:

If you are willing to turn your creativity into a real career, Florida is the perfect place for it, offering art degrees at most of its 163 private and public higher learning’s institutions. Florida is also home for top art institutes, art colleges, art and design universities and design academies that will provide students the creative education they need, in various fields as interior and graphic design, fashion, recording arts, photography or digital photography and digital production.

Especially if your interests are focusing on photography, Florida should be your first choice. Great schools as the Digital Media Arts College, Full Sail University, International Academy of Design & Technology, Miami International University of Art & Design, The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, or The Art Institute of Tampa, yield photography degrees that produce top class professionals, offering a comprehensive education, which combines both theoretical and practical aspects and blendes academics with artistic excellence.

Florida’s photography schools offer students the opportunity to work closely with the best professionals in the field, in cutting-edge laboratories and studios, using the newest technology developed, including darkrooms, high-tech workstations, devices for lighting control, large format and digital photo equipment printers, inkjet printers, scanners and strobes. Also, the courses’ content regularly updated to answer the latest market requirements and the small and intimate classes, with a low student-to-faculty ration, help students develop greater depth of knowledge, experience and skills.

Thus, photography programs’ graduates in Florida will posses the necessary abilities and will meet the proficiency requirements to pursue rewarding careers in fashion photography, industrial photography, commercial photography, sport and reportage photography, portrait photography, wedding photography, or within the laboratories industry. As a photography school student in Florida, you will receive high quality training in the areas of composition, available light exposure, principles of cameras, lenses, model composites and areas of safety, in using portable flash, making prints, outputting digital images, in high and low key various kinds of portraits, multimedia presentations, table-top product photography and many others, from traditional techniques and tools to alternative methods and the latest software developed in the field of digital imagery. Therefore, you will be prepared for many career options, whether you choose to work as portrait or commercial photographer, photo reporter, black and white specialist, photography specialist or laboratory technician.

Florida’s schools are not only challenging your skills and offering you the training you need to succeed, but also help you improve your creativity and imagination and develop critical abilities. Thus, photography programs in Florida are helping you to explore the endless possibilities of artistic manipulation and to understand the images’ value and importance and the way they are affecting world’s culture and to properly judge their intellectual and emotional content.

Also, photography schools in Florida help students to complete a strong portfolio of personal works to present at gallery shows, both inside and outside the campus, in order to meet potential employers.

If a career in photography is the one you are intending to pursue, Florida’s photography programs are the key to your success!

My cartoon for New Yorker

My cartoon for New Yorker’s contest.  Isn’t it neat?