So I think I ended the last post somewhere around banana cake. I gotta say, the banana cake was a hit yet personally I thought it was rather average. It was just not moist enough, I used the Edmond's recipe, but from now on I think I will use three bananas instead of two. And of course I made sure to make a really rich chocolate icing, which makes everything good. You see over here they don't seem to eat banana cake, everybody was quite interested as to what it was. They thought it was banana bread, and I said no it is cake. But, people say, if you put it in a loaf tin and make it bread shaped it would be banana bread. So I had to explain no, cake and bread are very different, the mixture is different, the texture is different. If I put this recipe in a loaf tin it would still be banana cake, just in loaf shape. I tried banana bread actually, it didn't really work and I didn't get the big deal. I would rather make cake.
So as for work, it is as life-consuming as usual only it is starting to get to me and I find myself slacking off. Sure, I work long hours, but I am not getting quite so much done. Still a lot done but it is just never ending. And I can't find the time to do research, to read and learn new stuff. There is a website, PhD comics. Today's comic really illustrates how my life is right now:
So you see this is why I have nothing to talk about. After work I am so worn out, I come home and read my book. So far this year I have gotten through a pile of books already. I read The Butcher Boy, an old Irish story. It is about a young man that is slowly driven insane by his circumstances in life. It was quite sad really, a bit awful. I also read Pompeii, I historical novel with a difference - that being that instead of being something to do with the English royal family it had an entirely different setting. Made a nice change. And it was very good. You always know that a book is really good when you are annoyed at it for ending. I also just read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I had been wanting to get my hands on it for some time now, I thought it would be a good spoof. The concept is good, it surely could have been hilarious. Sadly, it was not. It was rather poorly executed. It didn't make me laugh once. So not only was it a very poor piss-take but it ruined the real satire of the original Jane Austen novel. So now I must find another book to make my day better.
Of course, that is actually rather misleading because there is nothing wrong with my day today at all. I only spent about three hours at work, I went grocery shopping and I watched a movie. And now I am cooking. I am going to have a bunch of friends over tomorrow, really just to give me a reason to cook lots of food. Hopefully they can all entertain themselves. See what I really want to make is pumpkin pie. Only it will be butternut pie because you don't get pumpkins to eat here which is very stupid. And I want to make a proper chocolate brownie too, one so rich that it makes you sick just to think of it.
So in order to have a reason to bake yummy things I will invite friends over for dinner. I am going to make a vegetable lasagna, which I am right now making the sauce for. Then I will prepare the pie filling. Tomorrow I will only have to make soup, put together the lasagna, make a nice salad and do the chocolate brownie. It is still really cold here so it is very neccessary to have soup. Plus I really love lentil soup, it was my favourite thing to eat in Abu Dhabi, and I want to share the joy of good lentil soup. A friend will bring home-made bread. Here in Ireland they eat soda-bread, which is a non-yeast bread, it uses baking soda instead. And it is really good. It's more cake like than normal bread, a little bit sweet, you can put nuts and seeds and anything you like in it, and it's particularly good once it has gotten cold, spread with butter and honey.
After my weekend of entertaining hopefully I will feel ready to face another week of work. The really insanely hard work is sort of my own fault because I signed up to demonstrate the first-year zoology practical labs. But it's for a really good cause, I will put the money I'm getting for it on my student loan. It's not much but better than nothing. Only this last week the lab was terribly boring, they had to dissect earthworms and mussels. I think I preferred looking down the microscope. Even though I did have to go through so many microscope slides I had dreams about them.
So as for work, it is as life-consuming as usual only it is starting to get to me and I find myself slacking off. Sure, I work long hours, but I am not getting quite so much done. Still a lot done but it is just never ending. And I can't find the time to do research, to read and learn new stuff. There is a website, PhD comics. Today's comic really illustrates how my life is right now:
So you see this is why I have nothing to talk about. After work I am so worn out, I come home and read my book. So far this year I have gotten through a pile of books already. I read The Butcher Boy, an old Irish story. It is about a young man that is slowly driven insane by his circumstances in life. It was quite sad really, a bit awful. I also read Pompeii, I historical novel with a difference - that being that instead of being something to do with the English royal family it had an entirely different setting. Made a nice change. And it was very good. You always know that a book is really good when you are annoyed at it for ending. I also just read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I had been wanting to get my hands on it for some time now, I thought it would be a good spoof. The concept is good, it surely could have been hilarious. Sadly, it was not. It was rather poorly executed. It didn't make me laugh once. So not only was it a very poor piss-take but it ruined the real satire of the original Jane Austen novel. So now I must find another book to make my day better.
Of course, that is actually rather misleading because there is nothing wrong with my day today at all. I only spent about three hours at work, I went grocery shopping and I watched a movie. And now I am cooking. I am going to have a bunch of friends over tomorrow, really just to give me a reason to cook lots of food. Hopefully they can all entertain themselves. See what I really want to make is pumpkin pie. Only it will be butternut pie because you don't get pumpkins to eat here which is very stupid. And I want to make a proper chocolate brownie too, one so rich that it makes you sick just to think of it.
So in order to have a reason to bake yummy things I will invite friends over for dinner. I am going to make a vegetable lasagna, which I am right now making the sauce for. Then I will prepare the pie filling. Tomorrow I will only have to make soup, put together the lasagna, make a nice salad and do the chocolate brownie. It is still really cold here so it is very neccessary to have soup. Plus I really love lentil soup, it was my favourite thing to eat in Abu Dhabi, and I want to share the joy of good lentil soup. A friend will bring home-made bread. Here in Ireland they eat soda-bread, which is a non-yeast bread, it uses baking soda instead. And it is really good. It's more cake like than normal bread, a little bit sweet, you can put nuts and seeds and anything you like in it, and it's particularly good once it has gotten cold, spread with butter and honey.
After my weekend of entertaining hopefully I will feel ready to face another week of work. The really insanely hard work is sort of my own fault because I signed up to demonstrate the first-year zoology practical labs. But it's for a really good cause, I will put the money I'm getting for it on my student loan. It's not much but better than nothing. Only this last week the lab was terribly boring, they had to dissect earthworms and mussels. I think I preferred looking down the microscope. Even though I did have to go through so many microscope slides I had dreams about them.
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