In the Computer Lab..

.. and I'm having a sudden craving for moussaka. That Greek dish which "traditionally consists of layers of ground (minced) lamb, sliced eggplant, and tomato, topped with a white sauce and baked." (Thanks Wikipedia- I don't know how I'd survive college without you.) I had it at the Athenian grill a few weeks ago and it was sooo goood. Must learn how to make it. Oh wait, I can't cook for nuts. But I AM planning to learn from the best (Grandma and PoPo) when I get back so watch out, world.

I'm in between memorizing 40 lines of Paradise Lost for my Milton final. It is a really good epic poem, but in this edition the guy doesn't indicate which parts of the text have footnotes, so there are basically a bunch of annotations at the bottom and you have to check every once in a while to see if what you're reading has been footnoted (is there such a word?) So my eyes are constantly darting from the top to the bottom of the page all the time and it becomes frustrating.

Spiderman 3 was a disappointment, and I've figured out why: too many villains (none of whom were nearly as compelling as Doc Ock), too little of that cranky editor guy, the girls had great hair colors but were wimpy, and the new Green Goblin looked juvenile on his flying skateboard. Let's hope the last installation of Pirates (with Chow Yun Fatt as a Singaporean pirate) will be more exciting...

Ahhh... there's about 8 days between me and Singapore! Happiness. This may be my last blog in Austin, because 72 (number of posts so far) is a nice number and a multiple of 12. I am gonna miss the squirrels here though. They provide great on-the-way-to-school entertainment.

Gonna leave you with a picture of the movie I'm most excited about right now, Pixar's Ratatouille:

The Chipmunks - Girls Of Rock and Roll

girls girls girls

Absolutely Batty

A slightly amusing email I received today. Was tempted to laugh out loud, but I'm guessing it posed enough of a health risk to warrant an email to the whole university... hope no one gets sick.

If you or someone you know touched a bat near the south end of Bellmont (off of San Jacinto St., across from the Alumni Center) on Monday, April 23, 2007, Environmental Health & Safety needs to talk to you. Please call Environmental Health & Safety, 471-5776 / 471-3511 or call the City of Austin Health and Human Services Department, 512-972-5590, and report that you touched a bat. Thank You.

Carin Peterson
Safety Specialist | Environmental Health & Safety
University of Texas at Austin

FYI, Austin's Congress Avenue Bridge is the home to the largest urban bat colony in North America. And their flight out from under the bridge has become a must-see tourist attraction. I haven't seen them yet, but I heard it looks like that great scene from Batman Begins where the adult Bruce Wayne is in the cave and slowly conquering his phobia as the bats swirl around him.

3 More Weeks To...

No captions needed, I'm sure. I must admit - these were taken off UK's The Daily Telegraph's website (no self-respecting Singaporean would eat char kway teow in such small portions) but I decided to post them since they were so beautiful. Sigh. Now it's back to enduring 22 more days of Tex-Mex.

For now, we are all Hokies

I picked up a copy of the Daily Texan this morning after work, as I always do. Its report of yesterday's horrific tragedy started like this:
"The University of Texas will no longer hold the painful distinction as home of the deadliest school shooting in American history after a gunman on the Virginia Tech campus left 33 dead Monday."
Today's gray skies and incessant drizzling were reflections of the national sentiment. Flags were flown at half-mast, and tonight the Tower lights will darken in remembrance of the victims. A vigil is being planned for sometime next week.
But those are symbols. It all comes down to the 33 people. Sitting in the computer lab in the library today, checking the news sites as more and more information rolled in, I could see other students doing the same. We saw the gunman's face, and the smiling faces of the victims, and wondered how, and why.

Selected pictures from the Weekend of Gluttony and more

The Extension girls; Singapore girls; church girls. See a familiar face in all the pictures (besides me)? That's Miss Seoh Yu Lin Andrea, my supposed lookalike and crazy housemate. Bullying aside, she's become an indispensable part of our household and I don't know what it'll be like without her next semester. This post is for you, girl!

More random pictures because I'm in a visual mood but

I promise I will update in words soon. With relevant photos. But for now...

Pepper #30, Edward Weston

Undoubtedly one of the sexiest peppers you'll ever see in your life. And my current favorite photograph.

Oreo-flavored toupee? No, it's a Coronet guinea pig! Cute eh?

And lastly, a picture of the defiantly messy space I call home :)

Opening of Swan Lake in Melbourne

One of those pictures which make me go, "Wow."

Rhetoric 309K

Another reason why my Rhetoric class on the Gospels and the Historical Jesus is my favorite class this semester.

Email from my professor at 11:30pm, Sunday evening:

I hope you all had a nice Easter weekend

On Wednesday night, we'll be watching the second (and final) video of
the semester, a film version of Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice,"
which offers a meditation on the relationship of Christians and Jews,
of law and love, of faith and action. It's an extraordinary play --
and a thought-provoking movie.

In lieu of candy and fruit, we'll have pizza and drink, so please
come with an appetite -- and come on time (it's important we start
the film as soon as possible).

In the next day or two, please send me the following:

(1) how many pieces of Double Dave's pizza you'll eat (from a "large"
pizza) ... no need to be shy.
(2) what's your favorite topping (if any ... understand that I won't
be able to get you a strange topping like anchovies ... think more
common toppings). Let me know by Tuesday evening (I'll send a
reminder on Tuesday afternoon) so I have a good sense of how many
pizzas to get.

Thanks. See you Wednesday.
TB

The Foodie In Me

Food-wise, I'd rate this week 10/10. Chris' dad was in town and so on Wednesday he threw a Hainanese Chicken Rice party at my place for all of us impoverished, starving college kids, complete with cabbage+fishball soup and beef+kailan. Very, very nice. Unfortunately we didn't take many pictures so unless someone puts them on Facebook you will just have to imagine the blissful looks on our faces. We ended up playing really dumb JC Orientation-type games after dinner like the one where you have a blanket dividing two groups and then the blanket drops and you have to guess the name of the person opposite you... yeah. Um. Guess you had to be there.
The weekend rolled around and on Good Friday, we caught the Easter play at Victory Christian Center in which Andre was the token Asian Nerd... haha not really; he was just one of those hyper-analytical coffeehouse intellectual types. Close enough. Then we headed off to a Vietnamese restaurant called Sunflower despite my protests of "No more Asian food!" It wasn't a life-changing gastronomical experience, but I have to say the crispy egg/flour dish with the tougay, mushrooms and sweet sauce and the crispy calamari salad were superb. Everything was served with loads of onions and fresh lettuce which really brought out the taste of the dishes. We then headed to La Tazza Fresca for coffee. Upon entering, our ears were immediately assaulted (and no, that isn't an exaggeration) by the sounds of a very drunk accordionist who was yelling his heart out. It was terrible! We were about to leave when he sunk into a more mellow tune, which was still awful but at least we could now hear each other. I got myself a very nice mug of minty mocha which was an interesting hue of grey-green. It looked gross, but tasted great, which is the case for many things, I realize.
On Saturday the city Austin woke up to crazy freezing weather, because the cold front came in. Don't ask me what that means. I just say it because that's what everyone says. The cold front came in. Yup. Anyway, that kind of ruined our plans of swimming in Barton Springs. We headed to Andre's with our own piping hot sandwiches from Quizno's and made sundaes. There's something curiously nice about eating ice cream on cold days. I remember gelato never tasted better than when I ate it on the wintry streets of Sydney in June 2005. So we crushed oreos and graham crackers and cornflakes and added sprinkles and fudge and caramel and whipped cream and made our creamy creations just how we liked it. It was great. That was followed by a game of Cranium, which provided a lot of laughs and Fun Factoids and taught me how to spell 'minotaur' backwards. And guess what: the eating didn't stop there! Chris, Arlena, Becks and I headed to Sao Paulo's for some good Brazilian fare. I got a bean and cheese quesadilla and some really thick, hearty, chock-full-of-homemade-goodness chicken chipotle soup. Great for a cold day. The four of us split the moist-as-heaven Tres Leches cake, which was soaked with three types of milk. Mm.
Today is Easter Sunday. After church, Kirsten, Kenaz, Craig and Tamra (our college group leaders), their four kids and I headed to Buca Di Beppo's which is the coolest, quirkiest Italian restaurant I've ever been to. It's a family-style place, and their walls are literally covered with all sorts of weird pictures. The most striking was one huge blow-up 1940s/50s black-and-white shot of all these pretty ladies in dresses eating spaghetti with no hands. Some had sauce on their faces and it was just such a fun picture. There was also this picture of the famous portion of Sistine chapel, but in this case Adam was handing God a can of Parmesan cheese. Hehe. The food was served family-style, and what was supposed to be a 'sampling' of manicotti, stuffed spicy sausage shells, baked ravioli and chicken cannelloni fed four adults. Also outstanding was their Caesar salad, which I think was more oil-based, and was served with anchovies (they taste like wet ikan bilis) and the fat garlic bread drizzled with herbs and mozzarella.

So the point of this extremely over-long entry was to tell myself that over this weekend, I ate enough to last me the rest of my time here in Austin. From now until I get home, which is roughly one month, I will eat less and lose the pounds I've packed on since I got here. It won't be easy, but I don't want funny stares at the airport. Here I go! Miss you all and can't wait to see ya.

Update: Okay, some of the restaurant links don't work and I can't figure out why. You can always Google them if you're interested.

Stargazing

I saw an announcement on the UT website yesterday:

"AUSTIN, Texas—The West Mall area at The University of Texas at Austin will become the filming site Tuesday afternoon (April 3) for two scenes for the feature film, “Fireflies in the Garden.”
The filming project on campus from 1-9 p.m. Tuesday is expected to have minimal impact on vehicle and pedestrian traffic. University police officers and guards will be on site to help route traffic around the production areas.
One scene on the West Mall will be filmed on the west steps of the Main Building and the other scene will be in the circle drive area near Flawn Academic Center.
The production by Fireflies in the Garden, Inc., describes interactions within a family in crisis and how the tragic death of a family member affects family dynamics. The cast includes Julia Roberts (YES!!), Willem Dafoe (okay i guess... he was a mean Green Goblin), Emily Watson (Yes! Gosford Park!), Carrie Ann Moss (Trinity from the Matrix! Woohoo!), Ryan Reynolds and Ioan Gruffudd (Who?). Only Reynolds and Gruffudd will be involved in the scenes to be filmed on campus Tuesday (Nooooo...!)."

Didn't turn out to be such a bad thing because the 2 actors in question happen to look like this:

No, they didn't look like this during filming, but it was total star fever on campus. Some students had already been chosen as extras and everyone else was dreaming up ways to get on camera. Crew members kept telling us to keep quiet. Turns out Ioan Gruffudd (L) was the guy who played William Wilberforce in the recent Amazing Grace, the stretchy guy in Fantastic Four and Lancelot in King Arthur. But from what I gathered talking to the other curious onlookers around me, all the girls were there to see Ryan Reynolds (R), "that total hottie from Van Wilder!!" I vaguely remember Beth/Mark downloading a really grainy version of that movie a few years ago, but I don't remember any of it. It was funny how every single girl (including me!) was whipping out their camera phones and snapping away while he was getting his makeup done... And when, for one brief moment, he turned around and flashed a smile, there was a collective squeal/sigh of delight. Feast your eyes...

Ahhhh

Isn't it just wonderful not having to be jolted awake by the jarring sounds of your cellphone alarm? I woke up at noon today and it was sooo NICE. Watched Stranger Than Fiction with a bunch of others until 4:30am last night after coming back from 6th Street. We went to this place called The Belmont where we were confined to the restaurant area since half of us are under-21. Overall great ambience, if a little too dark for me. They served surprisingly affordable food- I had a yummy steak and mushroom quesadilla. We were served by a pretty blonde with a European-ish accent, so we took turns guessing where she was from. Russia? Holland? Germany? Sweden? Czechoslovakia? Poland? Turns out she was from Latvia. Interesting.
Anyway, Stranger than Fiction was a good movie.. I've always loved Emma Thompson since Sense and Sensibility and she didn't disappoint in this one either. In keeping with the Will Ferrell movie tradition, we're gonna watch Blades of Glory tonight, a film that will probably remind me somehow of Mark/Asher/Joel/Kyle and their uncanny ability to quote the dumbest movie lines over the table during family gatherings at Grandma's.

Shifting Sand

It's Rez Week now at UT, a week-long event before Easter where all the Christian ministries on campus unite to pray and praise. There's a 24-hour coffeehouse right outside Gregory Gym, where there's a free flow of coffee and live music in the afternoons. There's also large panels where Christian artists paint what's on their hearts and a 24-hour prayer tent. I went to see my friend Kim play her songs yesterday, and was really touched by the whole atmosphere. You can read what she has to say here. All passers-by are attracted by the free speech board, where anyone can write down answers to questions like "What's worth dying for?" (some answers: "Love", "Equality", "SPARTA!!")

So yesterday, while hanging out at the coffeehouse with Kim and a cup of hot cocoa, I heard this girl sing one of my favorite songs from my favorite Christian band, Caedmon's Call. If you haven't checked them out yet, please go do so now. They write some of the most meaningful lyrics in contemporary Christian music, a genre where a lot of songs just recycle the same old tired phrases. Anyway, I've always loved this song since I heard it in the Smiths' lakeside home in Montana six years ago (where I first encountered Caedmon's Call's CD "40 Acres" - how coincidental). It kind of speaks to me where I am right now so I thought I'd share it.

Shifting Sand

by Caedmon's Call

Sometimes I believe all the lies
So I can do the things I should despise
And every day I am swayed
By whatever is on my mind

I hear it all depends on my faith
So I'm feeling precarious
The only problem I have with these mysteries
Is they're so mysterious

And like a consumer I've been thinking
If I could just get a bit more
More than my 15 minutes of faith,
Then I'd be secure

(Chorus)
My faith is like shifting sand
Changed by every wave
My faith is like shifting sand
So I stand on grace

I've begged you for some proof
For my Thomas eyes to see
A slithering staff, a leperous hand
And lions resting lazily

A glimpse of your back-side glory
And this soaked altar going ablaze
But you know I've seen so much
I explained it away

Chorus

Waters rose as my doubts reigned
My sand-castle faith, it slipped away
Found myself standing on your grace
It'd been there all the time

Chorus

Forty Acres and a Mule (or in this case, a really sleepy bull)

Belated photos from Saturday's 40 Acres Fest, where I got "married" to K-Fed (If you look closely you can see his name on our 'marriage certificate'), got a Longhorn painted on my face, an awesome balloon hat and a henna tattoo (not pictured). Lots of colors, lots of sun. Bevo, our mascot, whom everyone suspects is drugged, popped by for a visit. We ate mee siam and curry puffs cooked by the Malaysian association and some really good Indian vegetarian food, made our own s'mores and scored exceptionally low on the African American Student Association's "Soul Jeopardy". As Andrea said, it was great because it was so "Pasar-malam-ish." I can't think of a better word to describe it.

Fix You

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2u6k-99qcCE

Smile. It lets your teeth breathe.

As happy as a clam because my Psych test got postponed to Monday. Hello, weekend.

Spring Break 2: It's Not Easy Being Green

Saint Patrick's Day Parade in Dallas; "Beads! We want beads!"; wearing my grubby green T-shirt (thanks Mark) to avoid being pinched; "Kiss me, I'm Irish!"; gingerly loading the gun at the range; how NOT to shoot a rifle (one should lean forward, not back); wishing I had my cowboy hat with me; a girl, a lake and two trees on the picturesque Baylor campus in Waco; group picture taken with Chris' camera perched precariously on a tree branch

The Weekend before Spring Break: Yee-Haw!

Funny little shop in Johnson City (LBJ's hometown); LOVELY BEER-BATTERED MUSHROOMS IN RANCH SAUCE at a bar in German-ish town Fredericksburg; adorable Peach Garden cafe and store; atop Enchanted Rock at sunset; happy we made it up that darned huge pink rock; Arlena's puppydog look; CAMPINGG!!! with chips and bread; the morning after; R-O-D-E-OoOoOoO; me, my hat and a piece of fudge; the crowning of Miss Rodeo Austin; Hook 'Em Horns!!!