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Lately I’ve been going a little crazy with the Sparkled Ginger Cookies from the Vegan With a Vengeance cookbook. They are a great cookie to give away this time of year — very festive and very yummy!
-4 tablespoons of demerara sugar
-2 c. all-purpose flour
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-2 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
-1/4 c. canola oil
-1/4 c. molasses
-1/4 c. soy milk
-1 c. sugar
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease 2 cookie sheets
Place demerara sugar in small bowl.
Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and spices. In a separate large mixing bowl, mix together the oil, molasses, soy milk, sugar and vanilla. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and combine well.
Roll dough in to 1 inch balls, flatten into a 1 1/2 inch diameter disk, press the cookie tops into the demerara sugar and place sugar side up on a prepared cookie sheet.
Bake 10-12 minutes, let cool on cookie sheets for 3-5 min and then transfer to a cooling rack.
When the semester gets busy the regular blogging comes screeching to a halt. When I first started blogging RBOCs were all the rage — a quick and dirty way to post about unrelated topics. I’m sure there are new terms for this practice now, but I’m too tired to think of them.
In no particular order:
-I had much fun in Toronto last week: The Royal, a play at the fabulous Tarragon Theatre, shopping in Kensington Market and a dee-licious dinner at King’s Cafe.
-I also took in a live NHL game last week. My favourite team (the Edmonton Oilers) were playing against the Buffalo Sabres, so Colleen and I got tickets, donned our Oilers gear and headed “over the river” to check it out. Ultimately the “good guys” lost, but we still had a most excellent time. The game was very good (the shots were nearly even), and the Buffalo fans were a lot of fun. I grew up in Edmonton during the “dynasty years” and was lucky enough to have gone to a number of games back in the day, but it has been ages since I’ve taken in a live NHL game. I must do it again soon!
-And on the subject of Buffalo, we discovered a very good brew pub. If you are into good beer, check out the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery. You won’t be disappointed!
-The James A. Gibson Library at Brock has just published their latest newsletter. In that newsletter is an article about Brock faculty who blog and it features yours truly. Neat.
-Rumblings of an expanded GO service in Niagara have me feeling hopeful. This doesn’t counter my disappointment over the decision to remove the recently-created bike lanes in downtown St. Catharines though.
-I’m thinking a lot about climate change these days. I’m also thinking a lot about how amazing David Suzuki and the folks at his foundation are. I wish our elected leaders would get with the program. Dr. Suzuki is urging all Canadians who care about climate change to give the PM’s office a call about this — there are even prizes to be won for doing so.
-Today in my Canadian Art History class I brought in a film on Pegi Nicol MacLeod. I seriously adore this artist and imagine she would have been a lot of fun to hang around with.
-Why is Battle of the Blades still on my TV? Why???
-On the other end of the CBC Television programming spectrum, I really, really enjoyed the 3 part series, Darwin’s Brave New World. If you missed it you can catch the episodes online.
The NFB (National Film Board of Canada) has just released an app for iPhones and iPods. I have been watching all my old favourites.
This one never fails to crack me up – if you substitute the piano for a computer you get a pretty good idea of how I wrote my dissertation. It is a wonder that I ever finished!!!
-Last night I watched the first two episodes of CBC’s The Great Food Revolution. I hadn’t intended to watch it, but the TV stayed on after Jeopardy and it only took me a few minutes to get hooked. In two hours this show covered many interesting topics — cooking schools, celebrity chefs, how sushi became popular in North America and the “behind the scenes” processes that go into the development of President’s Choice products. (and, yes, I’ll admit I’m a bit of a slave to the PC brand). Anyhow, this was a very interesting 2 hours of TV-watching and I’m looking forward to the remaining two episodes.
-I have finished the latest round of edits on a major research project that I’ve been working on for many, many years. I packaged it up and sent it off this morning. I’m still thinking of ways to celebrate the occasion. Suggestions welcome.
-I am supposed to be getting a new hot water tank today. Why does this fill me with dread? I think I’ve convinced myself that it will be more complicated that it is supposed to be. This aspect of home ownership (the upgrades and renovations that I can’t possibly fathom doing myself) freaks me out. Still, I want to avoid the situation that happened in the last rental house I lived in. In that house the bottom of the old hot water tank rusted right away and flooded the basement. It was an old house, so replacing the tank was not a straight-forward job (something about an old chimney and no chimney liner) and we were without hot water for days. I sincerely hope that I got all of my bad hot water tank karma out of the way that time and that things will be uneventful on this front today.
[Update: so, when the LivClean guy was out here setting up this whole new hot water tank dealio the other day I specifically asked him about the chimney liner, given the last experience I had with a hot water tank. He, apparently, checked and said I have a proper liner and everything would be fine. The technicians just stomped in and out of my house and couldn't do the install because, you guessed it, I didn't have a chimney liner. Whatever.]
I signed up for a Twitter account ages ago, but still haven’t been able to figure out what the hype is all about. I enjoy blogging and facebooking and other online applications, but Twitter just seems a little dull to me. I want to like it — if only because the cute little bird on the logo is, well, just so. darn. cute.
Given how popular Twitter is I figure I must be missing something. I understand the basics of it, I think, but I just don’t find it all that interesting. Maybe there are ways to use it that I haven’t thought of yet — anyone care to share?
My mom and dad are visiting Niagara this week. We’ve had a nice mix of doing touristy stuff and also just poking around the house and garden. They’ve been helping me get some house and yard work done, things that I haven’t had a chance to do. My grass has been cut for the first time in weeks (thanks dad!) — it wasn’t something I could even contemplate doing when my allergies were raging angrily out of control.
Today I baked bread with my mom. We used my grandma’s recipe for Danish rye bread. Yum!! My grandma used to make big double batches of bread and buns, giving most of it away to friends, family and neighbors. I love this bread, so she would always save a loaf or two for me. It was such a treat!
I haven’t had this bread for years and was thinking about it a while ago. When my mom called me the night before they flew out here and asked me if there was anything I’d like them to bring, I suggested she bring this recipe so we could bake bread. I’m glad that we got a chance to do that today.
My little point-and-shoot digital camera is on its last legs. My mom gave it to me when she upgraded about 3 years ago, so it is about 6 years old. I have taken thousands of snapshots with it, but when it was becoming apparent that it wasn’t going to last much longer I started shopping around for a new one. I’d read some good things about Canon’s PowerShot SX1 IS and it seemed like a good fit for my needs. If I were still shooting professionally I would have gone for something like this little beauty, but that isn’t really necessary for the kind of photography I do now. I wanted something lightweight and compact enough that I can bring it on hikes, but I also wanted something that would allow me to take some decent pictures while on those hikes (especially since I’m gaining new appreciation for birding). Anyhow, I finally went to Future Shop and picked up a new camera today! So exciting!! I’m dashing off to my writing group meeting now and can’t spend much time playing with it tonight (so much to learn, so many settings!), but here are some early results.
It was absolutely gorgeous in Niagara yesterday — the sun was shining and it was about 13 degrees (Celsius). We took advantage of the wonderful weather and went to Niagara Falls for a hike. We did a walk I’ve wanted to do since I moved here — along the Niagara Whirlpool. It was amazing!! One of the most exciting parts of the afternoon was spotting some Long-tailed ducks, who appeared to be enjoying the circular current of the water in the whirlpool.
I didn’t get any pictures of the ducks (I must buy a digital SLR with a telephoto lens soon — especially if we keep going on birding adventures), but here are some pictures from the hike. I was especially fascinated by the giant mounds of snow (melting very quickly in the warm sun!) and the icy blue colour of the water. I also loved the green sap oozing out of the wooden stairs down to the whirlpool. I know it is likely a side effect of the treated wood, but since it was St. Patrick’s day I imagined it was the work of an impish leprechaun.
On a related note, I was absolutely horrified to hear that there was another person attacked on a local hiking trail. This is terribly upsetting!!
In a few hours I will be participating on a panel with 3 other Brock faculty members as part of the new faculty orientation events that are going on this week. The theme of the panel is “What I Wish I’d Known” and we each have 10 minutes to talk about things we know now that we wish we’d known when we first started at Brock. It is meant to be conversational, but I thought I’d take the time to write out some of these ideas here as it will help me organize my thoughts.
1)I’ve learned how important collaboration is. Academic life can sometimes be a solitary one — sure, you are among other human beings when you are in front of a large lecture hall, but the bare bones material of academia comes from hours of research, reading and writing which are largely solitary activities. I’m an introvert and I find these quiet activities quite soothing and enjoyable, but since arriving at Brock I’ve also learned that it is really important to collaborate with others on some of this type of work. There are a number of benefits, including getting to know your colleagues and being able to approach a research question or classroom material from different perspectives. Some examples of collaborative projects I’ve undertaken at Brock include:
-collaborating with the liaison librarian for our Department in the planning of my classes, particularly the large first year “Intro to Visual Culture” class. Together we have developed assignments and assessment methods to help students improve on existing research competencies. We each have different academic backgrounds and areas of expertise and by combining these we have been able to come up with approaches that neither one of us would likely have done if we’d been working on our own. I’ve certainly seen the difference that having this included in my course makes in terms of student writing and research skills.
-collaborating with three other faculty members to plan and host Greenscapes, an interdisciplinary conference on how gardens have functioned (and continue to function) in human societies. Again, we each came to the project with different areas of expertise and, as a result, worked very well together as a team. The original conference was held in October 2007 and we are in the midst of planning for the October 2009 conference — look for the CFP to go out soon!
2)I’ve learned that it is really tough to maintain the 40-40-20 balance. (*note: at Brock, like most universities, our contract stipulates that 40% of our professional time should be spent on teaching, 40% on research and 20% on admin/service to the university). In my experience it has been more like 70-10-20, with 70% of my time being taken up by teaching. I’ve discovered that teaching will expand to fill as much time as you allow it. I suppose it is natural to focus on teaching because the rewards/repercussions are so immediate (i.e.: “I have class tomorrow and haven’t finished putting my slides together!”), whereas we all know how long it takes to get something written and published, so it is easy to fall into the “what’s one more day?” trap. What happens, of course, is that one more day turns into one more week which turns into one more month, and before we know it the term is wrapped up and very little time has been spent on research.
I expected to struggle with this in my first year as I’d been warned about how long it takes just to settle in to a new city, a new job and a new university. Also, of course, you are typically prepping new classes in the first year of a new job and those do tend to take a bit more energy and time. I was not, however, expecting the pattern to continue in my second year, but it did. I’m beginning my third year at Brock and will have to make a conscious effort to stick to the 40-40-20 allocation of my time. I have a number of strategies that I am employing to do this:
-First of all, I’ve found some colleagues who are struggling with the same issues and we’ve agreed to check in on each other on a regular basis. Perhaps we’ll meet for coffee to discuss our research or maybe if our schedules are too hectic we can check-in over email. The point is to be externally accountable to someone, to have someone ask things like — “hey, did you finish those manuscript edits yet?”
-I’ve also started a private WordPress blog that I use to track daily goals and progress. This is a modified idea I got from reading Paul de Silva’s How to Write a Lot, a book Katharine recommended to me. One of his suggestions was to keep a spreadsheet where you track your progress. I have tried this (and will probably continue to try this), but I found it too constrained for my liking. I wanted more room for narrative and felt myself thinking, “I’m in the arts, I’m not an accountant” as I entered in my numbers on the Excel columns. So I’ve supplemented the spreadsheet with the blog where I can freewrite (a tip I learned in grad school when the guru of dissertation writing, Joan Bolker, did a workshop at Queen’s), keep lists and track what I’ve done and what needs doing for the variety of projects I’ve got on the go.
3)I’ve also learned how important it is to find activities outside of work and to take the time to get to know the area in which you live, especially if you’ve moved to a new city/region to begin working. I know that the “to do” lists seem a mile high, but things will still get done if you take a Sunday afternoon off to visit a farmer’s market or go for a hike. In Niagara, we are lucky to have oodles of fruit stands and wineries, and one of my favourite ways to de-stress and get familiar with my new surroundings was to visit these places on the weekend. There are also a number of great places to go walking — Short Hills Provincial Park is a new favourite of mine, but there are many other spots to explore.
I’ve also recently taken out a membership at the YMCA and am amazed at how taking the time to go for a swim helps me feel so much better — I sleep better, I don’t feel as stressed out, and those aches and pains in my neck from spending so much time at my desk have nearly vanished. It almost seems counter-intuitive to stop what I’m doing and head on over to the pool when I’ve got overdue writing projects, courses to plan, meetings to attend, etc., but in the short time that I’ve been doing this I’ve come to understand how this will actually help me get more work done in the long run. I hope I can keep it up through the fall and winter months.
Alright — I’m off to campus to take part in this panel. I’m looking forward to hearing what the other participants have to say on this subject!
Scott sent me a link to a game called Just Letters — it is strangely addicting. In a nutshell, it is a set of flash alphabet magnets (like the kind you might have played with if you grew up in the 1970s) that you rearrange at the same time as other people are rearranging them. Doesn’t sound like fun? Give it a try! You might be surprised. Oh, and don’t even think about stealing my letters! 
