uncharted territory

The wait is finally over and almost over at the same time. I know my clinic assignment now-- adults! I am excited for the opportunity to work with adults this semester, it is a completely new and forgein experience for me. After years and years of working with kids, this will certainly be an adjustment. I have actually only had one job since I started working after high school that didn't involve children. It was in a library at UCSD, working in an adjunct section of Inter Library Loan, where I scanned and emailed journal article to people all day. Boy was that exciting!
My main concern is breaking the habit of using that voice that you get with kids. I have certainly been conditioned for years (incorporating behavioral psychology terms here, please excuse me) to respond to whomever I am working with in that high but soft voice with an affirmative "good job!"
Clinic starts next week, let's hope I don't tell my adult clients that they are "awesome".
If I do a good job, can I at least get a sticker?

mmmm, cheesy

I was so excited to see my new Fine Cooking magazine last weekend, even though I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet. The front cover showed a picture of macaroni and cheese, which I got hooked on and couldn't stop thinking about for a week. I had never So finally, I resigned to just try the recipe without my beloved magazine. I read through several recipes from the web and my roomie's new 'Cooking Light' magazine. So excuse the following recipe's lack of details, as it is my own. But trust that it comes from a blend of other reputable recipes (mostly Cooking Light, so you can feel better that this is pretty healthy) and it is utterly delicious. So much so that I have made this mac and cheese recipe two times in the past week. I also didn't realize how great this would be, so I didn't take a picture. I am sure I will be making it again soon, as it is one of my new favorite winter dishes-- toasty warm on a rainy day!

Mac and Cheese
adapted from a bunch of recipes
servings: 3-4 as main dish, 6-8 as side
time: 45 minutes

• 1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
  
• 6-8 oz cheddar cheese (maybe 2 cups)
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 3/4 cup milk
• a good dash of paprika, salt and pepper and small dash of chili powder
• dollop of sour cream
• tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 slice of bread, in crumbs using the food processor (I use the butt of the bread that no one likes) -it should be about 1/2 if you want to substitute boxed bread crumbs
• 1 Tbsp melted butter
  

Cook the macaroni in salted water, until it is al dente (it will soften in the baking process as it absorbs some of the milk). Meanwhile, grate the cheese and make the sauce. To make sauce, first create a rue by cooking the flour and milk together in a gentle simmer for 5 minutes until it is thickened (use a whisk to blend together). Add the cheese. Once the cheese is melted, turn off the fire and add spices, mustard and sour cream. The sauce should be runny enough to slide off the spoon as a liquid. Add more milk or sour cream to thin as necessary. Add macaroni. Put it all in a 8-9 inch casserole dish. Mix bread crumbs and butter, and add to macaroni as topping. Bake in a 350 oven for 20-30 minutes.
taster comments coming soon!

a local incident

Some may have seen the local news coverage about a shooting that occured less than a block from my parents house on Saturday night. The incident happenned at the Masonic Lodge that shares a parking lot with my church in Long Beach. Intial rumors and reports in the night linked the incident to Parkcrest members or staff. Later it was confirmed that the shooting occured at a birthday party for 2 teens at the neighboring Masonic Lodge. Two died in the incident and one suffered non-life threatening injuries. I came into town on Sunday afternoon as the dust was settling, so I missed most of the initial uncertainty. My parents had come home late Saturday night from LAX (right after the incident) to find their neighborhood blocked off by dozens of police cruisers. The police were in the process of shuttling 300 teenagers that were at the event to the elementary school a few blocks away for questioning. They explained to one policeman that they lived in the neighborhood and as he let them by my dad asked if it was safe to go home. The policeman responded "I don't really know." The gunman has still not been caught.

Here is a video of the NBC news coverage from Sunday afternoon.

my nighttime endevour

this is your brain.

this is your brain on too much neuroanatomy.

either that or a new pursuit in cosmotology school. the break from studies is almost over. bring it on.

my near death experience

so it has taken about a week to recover and get to the point where I can recount this story to you. It was all very sudden and... (who am I kidding, the only reason that I am writing this now, if ever is that it's finals week and there is no better time to procrastinate). Now back to my story.
I was making dinner for myself last Sunday. Veggie tacos in case you are curious (kale and beet greens to be exact, it was yummy but I will spare you the recipe as I probably just grossed a few people out). The veggies were all set to go as a filling to my tacos, all that was left was to heat up some corn tortillas. I don't know about you, but I really like to heat up tortillas over the stove's flame (that is why a gas stove will always be superior to an electric). So I turned on the neighboring burner, but a pot lid was kind of close to it (I have a bad habit of leaving pot lids on the stove because I don't see them as dirty enough to warrant washing, but not quite clean enough to put away, man the digressions are getting out of control). I decided to move the lid after the fact, and I am sure you may be able to guess what happened next. The entire sleeve of my brown cable knit sweater caught on fire! Now this is where it gets a bit troubling. What did I do, you may ask? Stop, drop, and roll? No. Run over to the sink to douse myself in water? No. Before I go on, I must preface this with a disclaimer of sorts.
You see, my limited exposure to fire is: 1. candles 2. birthday candles 3. the fireplace 4. bonfires at the beach
How do I normally put out these said fires? 1. blow it out 2. blow it out 3. let it smolder out 4. let it smolder out
So you can safely assume that I wouldn't let myself smolder out. So instead, you guessed it-- I started blowing on my arm to put the fire out.
When that (obviously) didn't work, I hit myself with the tortillas I was still holding in the other hand. That also didn't work. Finally, my roomie who was just a few feet away saw the flames travelling down my back and came to my rescue. She hit me until the flames went out :)
Oddly enough, when everything was over my sweater was still intact, and the fire had travelled the entire sleeve and back of my sweater in 10 seconds. Our theory is that there was a hair hanging down from the sleeve that caught on fire as I reached over the flame and it burnt up other loose hairs and general fuzz on the sweater. So those of you girls who "shed" alot, let this be a lesson learned.
We ended the night with some much needed drinks at a wine bar for my birthday. I still do owe the roomie a drink for saving my life....