Phew

Mid term and a computational project out of the way. One mid term left. That was a stressful week.

I've never done any computer programming except for a brief online tutorial I took once on html. Now I use matlab for a class. I have mixed feelings about the experience. Overall it was incredibly fun. It's extremely satisfying to type in a command and see all your efforts lead to one beautiful plot. It was very stressful, though, because I was trying to learn a whole lot of stuff at once for a deadline. I leaned pretty heavily on a former programmer friend of mine who had to put up with me for a couple of days saying "hey, dude, it's [h&c] again. Uh, how do you ______?"

My friend tells me that as far as programming goes matlab is very easy. That makes me excited to learn more.

I became compulsive with it and I felt like I was doing that empty vessel distant boyfriend thing during the past week. Glad that part's over.

One interesting part was finding out how juvenile I still am. When I was trying out simple programs just to learn syntax and such, I named them things like "eatme" and "gobblemy____." When I type "eatme" I think it gives out an collection of 8x8 random matrices :). I'm reminded of a novel where the main character was interacting with some programmers who created a virtual world. The dude went into this virtual world to do what he needed to do for the story then interacts with the virtual beautiful tour guide woman. When he mentions the programmer's name (we'll call him joe johnson), the woman chimes in with something like: "Joe Johnson is the greatest man alive."

Mexi-chuan Shrimp & Scallions

This weekend H-Mart was having a deal on scallions: 5 bunches for $0.98. Giant was having a sale on frozen shrimp: $8.98 for 2lbs (medium size shrimp). I searched in my Google Reader for recipes for these ingredients and found these two by Mark Bittman:

Sichuan Shrimp and Scallion Stir-fry

Chili-Fried Shrimp With Scallions

Both were excellent, but I liked the first one better for the unusually-green-oniony flavor. I had some shrimp left over and the scallions were due to go bad (I had purchased 6 bunches!), so I wanted to make the Sichuan one again. But I had 3/4 of an avocado to use up, plus I wanted more spiciness.

I added chili oil (the kind that you get on the side when you ask for it in Chinese restaurants) to the peanut oil before adding the shrimp. This made for a recurring kick throughout the meal that I enjoyed.

I started to add just a slice of the avocado, but then realized that my other avocado was going soft already. I decided to throw all 3/4 of it into the blender, plus a little lemon juice. I blended and BOOM, guacamole color instead of the vibrant verdancy of green onion. I tasted it and found I'd created a Mexican dish out of a Sichuan one.

It turned out really well. I had it on top of rice, but I'm wishing I had some tortillas to finish off the remainder.

Mexi-chuan Shrimp & Scallions

• Salt
• 3 bunches scallions, trimmed
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• avocado (maybe half? play with amount)
• dribble of lemon juice
  
• 1 pounds shrimp, peeled
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• one teaspoon of chili oil
  
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

First, if using frozen shrimp, take them out of the freezer and into a colander, and put them under cold running water (not too fast a stream). Shake them around every few minutes to distribute the flow of the water. They should be thawed in 15 min.

Boil water. Cut 2 bunches of scallions into 4-inch pieces. When water comes to a boil, dump these into the water and let cook for only a minute (just getting them bright green). Then drain, saving liquid for smoother pureeing. Then plunge scallions into icewater. Then drain again, not reserving the liquid. Put scallions, garlic, avocado, lemon juice, and a little of the scallion liquid into blender and puree.

"Roughly" chop the remaining scallions and cilantro. Peel shrimp if necessary.

Heat oil on high, adding a spoonful of the chili oil (with lots of the chili flakes). When chili flakes begin to sizzle, add shrimp and spread out on bottom of pan. Pinch some salt on top of them. Do not stir (for some reason) until sides look a little pink (a minute or less). Then stir to your heart's content. When everything looks pink, add the "roughly" chopped cilantro and scallions. Stir-fry for a minute. Then add avocado-scallion puree. Season to heart's content. Cook until everything's warm. Serve on rice or in a tortilla.

The Know-It-All Dilemma

3/16 Edit: writing this post merely vented steam and prevented me from writing an ill-advised email. Will delete soon enough. 3/19 RE-EDIT: Cut this post down to three questions and a statement.

What can you do with a person who says they don't like you because you and che (non-gender-specific pronoun) are both know-it-alls?

Doesn't J.K. Rowling decide whether her character is gay or not?

Is anybody really entertained or enlightened by Andy Rooney any more?

I am not a know-it-all, though I understand if it seems like it at times; I state strong opinions and often am wrong, but I never take it personally if you disagree.

Tearing It Up 2: Tearing It Down

Here's what I imagined occurred in the minds of the Hatandcoat blog's readers over the past week, in chronological order:

1. "Huh, no food posts. Aak probably forgot."
   
   
2. "Wait, no posts about the Baltimore Breakfast Feast and the crepes Aak made for it? What's going on?"
   
   
3. "Huh, no food posts, still."
   
   
4. "No food posts. It was kind of a silly thing to blog about anyway."
   
   
5. "No posts so far this week."
   
   
6. "..."
   
   
7. "What the hell is Aak eating? I MUST KNOW."

I apologize for creating a(n imaginary) demand and then refusing to fulfill that (imaginary) demand.

I got sick. Again.

The cold was on the edge of my awareness on Saturday, and so I packed very warm pajamas for my sleepover in Baltimore. I also started taking a multivitamin, echinacea, and zinc. All to no avail. I was feeling fine during the making of the Sunday Breakfast Feast, but afterwards, my sinuses began the long melt downwards. By Sunday evening, I was a puddle of congestion, coughing, and overall bleckiness.

Then I had a snow day, which is clearly evidence for the existence of Providence. I made lentil soup with cabbage, about which I will blog later, perhaps.

I made so much that I ate at least double portions of lentil soup for Monday dinner, Tuesday for all three meals, and Wednesday for all three meals.

I started biking again on Thursday morning, just in time for the warm-up. Very nice.

Now that I'm feeling better (still coughing, but it's not too bad), the question is, do I persist in detailing nutritional decisions and exercise quotients, or do I find another way to fill the empty space on this here blog?

I'm leaning towards stopping. It was interesting to focus so much on exactly how much I was eating, what portion size, and so on. I think I've internalized it pretty well, for now. As for the exercise, recording it or not made little difference in how much I biked, but I liked getting the stats. In a sense, I was trying to "game-ify" my life.

While posting daily was valuable and insightful (to me), I think I could derive some benefit from writing such posts weekly instead of daily. It wouldn't be scientific, but it might just be less annoying to you guys. If I really wanted to get scientific about it, I could enter calorie amounts into a worksheet and get real numbers... which leads into the second reason I'm thinking of stopping: inadequate time to navelgaze.

(I've slimmed down to the point where I can fit into my tightest jeans. I probably won't be able to maintain this state of affairs, but it's nice for today, when I have to wash my standard jeans.)

End Program.

Tearing It Up

So sorry to keep you all waiting. No, I was not on a starvation diet. I simply had no time for anything for the past couple of days.

I took some Japanese students around the campus, practicing Japanese, on Wednesday. The only real place of interest to take them was the Dairy, where I bought ice cream for the first time in like nine months. It was white chocolate with a little caramel. Then the students paid for me to have lunch with them. Even though I'd brought my lunch, I couldn't refuse.

I had to stay up late on Wednesday night, so I tried eating more to help sustain my energy. Eating more did not help, and it caused considerable... discomfort, later.

I spent money on food today at the food court on campus. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Wednesday's Meals

Breakfast: cereal, fat free milk
Lunch: medium ice cream, 4-pack of Chick-Fil-A strips, apple
Dinner: spinach and feta penne pasta with 2 ham slices cut into strips
Late Snacks: half a bag of Thai Lime Cashews, a couple of servings of yogurt-covered Goji berries, a few handfuls of almonds

Wednesday's Exercise

Biked to bus stop: 7 min.
Biked UMD-SS via trail: 50 min.

Thursday's Meals

Breakfast: bowl of kashi, fat-free milk
Lunch: spinach/feta pasta with ham
Dinner: Thai Chili's stir-fried duck with bamboo shoots

Thursday's Exercise

Walked to bus stop: 18 min.
Walked from Gallery Place to north of Columbia Heights: 1.5 hours
Walked home from bus stop: 20 min.

Friday's Meals

Breakfast: kashi, milk, crumbs of brownies
Lunch: medium salad with avocado, radicchio, carrots, and spinach leaves, brownie
Dinner: 8-count CFA nuggets, large waffle fries, grapefruit

Friday's Exercise

Walked to bus stop: 12 min (kinda ran)
Walked home from shuttle: 15 min

What I Learned Today

...or over the past few days since my last post.

• The Russian word for hello is Здравствуйте! Transliterated: zdravstvuyte! Its roots are in words for "you," "health," and an imperative form, meaning "Be of good health!"
  
  
• Bob Costas pronounced "Beijing" a really bizarre way throughout the Olympics.
  
  
• He pronounced the J in Beijing with the same sound as in "genre." In other words, with a sound that does not exist either in Chinese or English (except in French loan words). It's "Beijing," with a J as in jingle.
  
  
• In Japan, they make no clear distinction between "looking young" and "looking like a child." This explains so much.
  

Aak's Been on a Tear

With this post I make it 54 for the month of February between the two blogs. That makes it the most productive month since we've been doing this. This post puts my personal contribution at 10. Aak's been on a tear.

Some of it is due to him finding ready-made formats with the biking, learning, and eating. And then more eating.

Speaking of eating, I just had a terrible burger that's making me ill. I have no plans to eat at that place again. When I feel this way it makes me crave soda. Does that make any sense or is it still learned from when I was a kid and I was always given ginger ale? Someone once told me that ginger ale used to actually have ginger in it which has healing properties and the fact that we drink ginger ale when we're sick is a misconception.

The cool thing about getting older is that you can think about the people you're friends with and how long you've known them can now be measured in decades.

Back to Aak. I imagine that he's become more efficient with it - blogging. I put too much thought into a post, or I should say that I stare at a blank screen and think "I have nothing to write" a lot then give up. While I wouldn't say that I'm generally overjoyed to find out about what Japanese food my coblogger ingests on a given day, more power to him.

Off to class now. I've been bummed recently to realize that I need to set aside massive chunks for myself to learn my class material and understand it properly. When setting aside schedules I always want to squeeze in an hour here or there to get something done, but I can't do that with learning. Maybe I should just lock myself away for a month at the beginning of every semester and do nothing but my classes and emerge when I'm ready. Then I can emerge from the cocoon ready to live.