Don’t expect to hear from me for a while… my submission deadline is the 28th of June and I am panicking. So much work left to do!
But, with luck (or hard work), I will be done with this thesis by the end of June.
It also means I will be spending every spare moment I have working on it. Right now my mom’s suggestion of just having a baby and going on the benefit seems really appealing… though I think I can make out a light at the end of the tunnel.
Until July…
I recently flew from Wellington to Cancun to attend a wedding in Playa del Carmen. I bought the ticket a bit last minute, but found a good deal from United that was about $500 cheaper than the next option.
Maybe I have been spoiled by living in New Zealand where they don’t take your shoes away and forbid you bringing water on a flight, or force you to pose nude in submission to “federal regulations”, but I had forgotten how hellish an experience flying can be in North America.
The 30 hours each-way trip certainly reminded me.
I understand that the TSA are just doing their job. There are literally thousands of people passing like sheep through sensors and detectors, and those people probably get really fucking annoying after a few hours of shuttling the masses around, but do the TSA need to be so goddamn tetchy and dyspeptic? You can just see the misery brewing beneath their eyes.
Flying United was truly awful. The last few trans-Pacific flights I have done were on Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand tries to make the 13 hours Auckland-LA flight as painless as possible, the flight attends smile and they give you free decent beer, nice NZ wine, and edible meals.
When I first boarded the United flight from Sydney to LA they started out by showing us a video about how United has “top industry expert chefs”.
After I got my meal I couldn’t help but think the video must be some kind of cruel joke. Are they delusional or just pathological liars? The “food” they served us was more vile than the cold pet food available in refrigerated sections of New Zealand supermarkets. Breakfast consisted of a roll that was rock hard and tasted of plastic, leathery potatoes and watery eggs.
With the new addition of the DirectTv service, United now forces you to watch hours of Lincoln commercials on domestic flights, unless you pay $7.99 (for flights over 2 hours) to access the range of “quality programming” available from DirectTV. You cannot access any flight information or other programming from the screen located approximately 8 inches from your face. Nor can you turn it off, until after the plane has reached its cruising altitude and then, you may only do so by pressing the brightness “down” button several times until eventually the screen goes dark. Not exactly intuitive. United is essentially forcing people to be bombarded by advertising on a flight they have already spent hundreds ($2,200 in my case) on. I found that irritating beyond end.
Have you ever seen a United flight attendant smile? I don’t think so. All they can do is growl in your direction and throw soft drinks at you.
If only O’Hare wasn’t the airport closest to my mum’s house, I could swear off United forever.
I really hope they realise how awful their service is make some changes. It makes me feel inhuman to fly United.
However I did get to see Chichen Itza, and go to a beautiful wedding.
Two of my favourite things are cycling and sewing, so I was really stoked to see McCall’s 2013 Spring catalogue full of awesome looking sewing projects and bikes!
Sewing and Cycling in McCalls 2013 sewing patterns catalogue
Now let’s get on our bikies in our new frocks!
I just crossed the 70,000 word threshold on my thesis!!
As you may or may not be aware the maximum length for any thesis at Victoria University of Wellington is 100,000 words. That’s a limit, not a target. I don’t want to jinx myself by being too confident, but i feel really good about the progress I have been making lately.
The end is nigh!
My submission deadline is 30 June 2013.
Then I guess I have to find a job or something.
Actually my plan is to stick around NZ a while, I have to wait for somewhere between 8 and 12 weeks for my oral defence, and then I will probably have to do some revisions (hopefully not too extensive) before finally resubmitting and then another few weeks/months before I get my final results. It’s a very drawn-out, anti-climatic process, and I intend to celebrate at every step along the way! That’s an opportunity for at least 4 separate parties as I see it-
Apparently I am not officially a PhD until my thesis is bound and the university library has a copy. Realistically that probably won’t be before December of this year. In the mean time, once I submit, I can find some full time work (maybe doing research, teaching, or library stuff?), try to get a few papers published, and apply for academic jobs starting the following August. Unfortunately, I won’t be done in time to be seriously considered for academic postings starting this August/September, but in a way I don’t think I’ll be ready to pick up and leave Wellington in 6 months. I still have a massive stash of fabric that I have not had any time to make anything with in ages!
Also I just got my bike rebuilt. I have 5 more gears now, and I’m looking forward to breaking them on the hills around Wellington!
Recently I have been extraordinarily busy with finishing up my thesis and lecturing, teaching, marking, doing research, etc., and it’s been hard to find time to update this blog.
Normally I find this a good creative outlet for when I have something on my mind I want to discuss. I guess I have just been too preoccupied with other things to have time to promulgate my opinions on life and the world these days.
However my thoughts were recently stirred when I listened to the 2 latest episodes of “This American Life“; namely those related to Harper High School, parts 1 & 2.
I was shocked and truly saddened to hear what was happening in my hometown, not far from where I lived for years. From 2000 to 2005 I lived in various locations in the Pilsen neighbourhood. The Harper High School chronicled in the show is just 6 miles from the last apartment I lived in at 2222 W. Cermak (the house I lived in is sadly now a bank parking lot.)
My first thought was of how far removed I feel, and felt, even then.
I lived so close, but was so totally unaware of the kind of violence that was a paret of people’s daily lives. I remember the story of the birthday party drive-by they described in episode 2, which was big news in the city back in 2006. I never realised how common drive-by shootings actually were.
And while gangs and violence are a problem here in New Zealand to certain extent, it doesn’t coem anywhere near the level of American cities. If you lose your wallet or an iPhone here, people actually turn it into the police. It’s safe. My boyfriend reckons he lives in the most ghetto part of Wellington, near the Newtown flats, and yet doesn’t even have a lock on his door.
Apparently “Only eight days into 2013, Chicago is already on a grim pace to not only continue the bloody trend of an elevated homicide rate — but to surpass it.” according to the Huffingtonpost.
My uncle was carjacked outside a service station in December near Berwyn. He has since decided living in Manila is safer, and moved back to the Philippines.
This kind of news just makes me feel sad. I hear these kinds of stories and wish there was something I could do. How can we help? How can we solve problems like this?
I wish I had an idea.
So, back last year when I had surgery for Endometriosis, my doctor told me I should cut gluten and sugar out of my diet. I tried to reduce… I even tried going gluten free for a bit, but I found life without cake was unbearable!
After speaking with one of my colleagues at Vic, I decided I would start out the New Year with a 14-day challenge – to go gluten, sugar, and alcohol free for 2 weeks!
The weeks leading up to Christmas and New Years involved a lot of over-indulging, on food and drink, and so the 1st of January seemed like a good time to start. Today is January 14th, and I have mostly successfully met the personal challenge I set out for myself! My only misstep was eating a Strepsil a few days ago, which at the time tasted like the most delicious thing I had ever put into my mouth.
I realised around day 2 that I have a serious sugar addiction. I have been dreaming about candy. I have candy stashed all around my house. I am a candy addict. Giving up sugar has been the hardest part of this challenge for me. I think partly this is because there aren’t really any good substitutes for sugar. I haven’t allowed myself to have honey or maple syrup, though I have been eating a lot of fruit. Other sweeteners (aspertame, sucralose) are basically just chemicals and not good for your body (though I did have a diet Pepsi once last week when I was seriously craving something sweet). Otherwise, my diet has been sadly lacking sweetness. Sometimes the cravings would be so strong I could physically feel my body yearning for sugar and it actually frightened me. So, here I am on day 14, trying to decide if tomorrow I will allow myself to binge on all the sweets hidden around my house, or if I should try to continue my sugar-free life style?
I missed the alcohol in social settings. And on warm Sunday afternoons where it would have been lovely to sip a beer or a gin and tonic on my balcony. What do you do when you don’t drink and can’t have sugar? I have been having a lot of tea. My favourite is Stir Tea’s Rose Early Grey. Maybe because it vaguely reminds me to Turkish Delight?!
Gluten free hasn’t really been such a challenge. I have been enjoying rice and experimenting with polenta and other non-wheat based carbohydrates. I made Bahn Xeo the day before yesterday.
I have also been having fun trying out various gluten-free bread recipes. Here are the two loaves I made recently:
On the left is the yeast-free easy gluten free bread, and on the right is the gluten free sandwich bread.
The yeast-free easy loaf I adapted from Elena’s Pantry.
This loaf is nice, but a bit crumbly. You can do it without the xanthan gum, which was $10.99 at Common Sense for a small bag, if you don’t mind the crumblyness.
My gluten free sandwich loaf turned out really awesome.
I adapted it from the Gluten Free Cooking School’s sandwich bread recipe, and used my bread machine to do the mixing,, but baked it in the oven.
1 tablespoon bread machine yeast
1 teaspoon sugar (needed to activate the yeast!)
1 ½ cup warm water (not too hot or you’ll kill the yeast)
1½ cup rice flour
½ cup soy flour
½ corn meal
½ corn starch
2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon salt
3 free range eggs
1 ½ tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
Overall lessons learnt about gluten free bread:
Good luck!
So I went to see Grimes last night here in Wellington. It was a pretty fun gig but it was definitely a very young crowd, full of young sweaty bodies pressed up against each other, rubbing up on each other, even old ladies like me. At one point Grimes even brought a girl up on stage who looked as if she was about to be crushed by the audience. It’s been a while since I attended a gig that was full of such excitement and energy… I could actually feel it emanating from the crowd. I wonder if this increased and palpable energy was because of Grimes’s fame or a connection with her music? I think the last time I experienced a same kind of energy was at Laneway last year, which was also full of pretty famous bands that people were really excited to see. I suppose it must be a combination of the two – not only are you able to be in such close physical proximity to some one who’s world famous, but you feel like you have this deeply personal connection to them and their music.
Anyway, I tried to take a few pictures but it was so crowded and hot and sweaty that none of them turned out that awesome.
Here they are:
