boston day one: (thankfully temporary) homelessness

So I had wanted to do a picture a day or something for every day of my stay in the Boston area this summer, but mostly I've been too busy actually doing things to sit down and write about them. I'm going to attempt to catch up and then start writing a bit about each day. Knowing me, this will probably last about two weeks and then I'll give up. Oh well. I'll give it a shot anyhow.

It was weird waking up on Sunday morning and not going to church. Patrick and I had stayed up super late watching this movie, The Illusionist, not to be confused with The Illusionist, which is what we thought we were getting from the redbox, and would have probably been a much cheerier movie. Anyhow. I spent the morning packing. We all had spaghetti for lunch and then I left for my flight. I was nervous and crying.

Patrick helped me get my luggage in the airport. My bag was overweight. Turns out that's an additional $95--a total of $120 for the one bag to be checked! I only paid $180 for the entire trip! We shuffled between the two bags to make them both in the acceptable weight range and in a moment of panic checked the second, carry on sized bag as well, costing a total of $60. Still, half the price I would have paid for the one bag. Strange pricing.

Anyhow, we said our teary goodbyes and I went through security. My flight got delayed by about an hour. On the plane a kid behind me kicked my seat and loudly smacked his gum the entire time. Instead of doing anything useful, I sipped ginger ale and played Angry Birds.

Now, on Saturday, I got an e-mail from my subletee (is that a real word?) copied to a couple of my roommates asking them to put the key outside the apartment for me on Monday. Trouble is, I was arriving Sunday. I e-mailed the whole group asking them to please have it ready on Sunday, but there was no reply on Saturday. There was still no reply when I landed in the Boston airport.

I called my subletee and she said she'd text me the number of another roommate, but it turns out she didn't have that roommate's number. I decided to stay with Bethany (my college roommate from Winthrop) for the night--she had met me at the airport to help me with my bags and we just decided that will be easier. Several hours later, no phone call and no key still, and I am panicking. Finally, after much searching and worrying, I got in touch with one of my roommates, and her boyfriend was in town and had a key so I made arrangements to meet him Monday morning.

Other than that chaos, it was quite a pleasant evening. Bethany's house is nice. We ate frozen pizza and sorbet outside. It was almost like old times in college.

Favorite moment of the day: eating lemon sorbet outside
Least favorite moment of the day: saying goodbye to my family

oven sopapilla

Have you ever had a sopapilla at a Mexican restaurant? They're little fried tortilla-like triangles of goodness, usually served with ice cream, honey, and chocolate syrup. Yeah, probably not authentic, but still delicious. I figured out how to make them without the deep frying but equally delicious. I looked online thinking, surely someone has done this before, but it appears not.

I think that oven sopapillas are probably the best contribution to society I will ever make in my life. I am eating one right now. Maybe its deliciousness is overblown in my head because it's the last week of classes and this is good comfort food.

you will need:
a flour tortilla (I use whole wheat)
sugar
cinnamon
butter

I highly recommend honey as well. If you want, you can do whipped cream, ice cream, and/or chocolate syrup. I'm not giving strict measurements because it's really up to you. You can decide how healthy/unhealthy you want to make this dish.

Melt some butter in a cup (I use about a teaspoon). Use a brush to brush it on both sides of your tortilla. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on both sides of the tortilla and rub until it's kind of coated (I probably use about a tablespoon sugar and a teaspoon cinnamon). Put on a pan. Place under broiler until the tortilla starts looking bubbly. Flip and let cook until edges are crunchy. Drizzle with your choice of toppings.

Depending on how you make it, it's not bad for you. I estimate that my sopapilla was about 230 calories. Not bad for a dessert. And I fit in whole grains, and honey and cinnamon are good for you too.

Enjoy.

The past couple years I have not given up anything for Lent. I have a complicated relationship with food in general and giving up any form of junk food leads to me to think more about being skinnier than pursuing Christ, and not eating any type of normal food hampers my athletic training. There's no habits I have that are particularly troublesome or that take away time from spending with God, it's just a lack of discipline in general that gets in the way. Still, I think about it every year.

This morning I was sitting in statistics class with Toni. I had overslept and was still tired and was holding a cup of coffee when I realized that the coffee was something that I depended on instead of Christ. I am not coffee obsessed or caffeine addicted but when I am tired, I think, "A cup of coffee will fix this." And I look forward to my coffee every day. I think about what kind I will brew and when I will drink it. I enjoy how it tastes and smells and its warmth. I am a grad student. This is my fuel.

I think more about coffee during my work day than I do Christ.

How tragic.

And that is why I will not be drinking it during Lent this year. I cannot tell you how much I do not want to give it up. I really want my cup of coffee tomorrow afternoon. If I would have realized that this is what I was going to do, I would have been drinking three cups of coffee a day for the past week, but it just occurred to me this morning. If it were not near midnight I would brew a cup of coffee now and drink it. I will miss it. (Disclaimer: when I go home for spring break, it is tradition for Dad, Victoria, and me to enjoy coffee together, and I will do that because that is not as much of a dependency thing as a family tradition.)

Every time I think about coffee, the most trivial of things, during this Lenten season I will seek to set my mind on Christ, the most significant of things, in my moments of boredom, tiredness, and weakness. May he be honored and adored by this small sacrifice, and may I find joy, satisfaction, and focus as I turn towards him to meet all of my needs.

I got a new cookbook called More with Less, which is a Mennonite cookbook about how to eat simply and considerately of other people. I liked this poem at the beginning of it:

You have heard it said
     that because of hunger in Third World countries
     we should not overeat.
But I say unto you
     that the abuse of your body, mind, and soul
     is never justified.

You have heard it said
     conserve for the sake of the crisis
     because of limited amounts available to us.
But I say unto you
     the only wise use
     is that which brings glory to God.

Let not your hearts be troubled by this kingdom
     but let your bodies and energies be dedicated
     in service to God and man.
Surely you will find
     the future kingdom
     already being fulfilled in your life.

--Martin Penner, Recife, Brazil

Compared to common culture, I think I eat well. I cook most nights and 90% of what I eat is from produce or meat that I've bought instead of from processed foods, and I try to buy in-season, and local, when available. But still, I think that I can live more considerately by eating more considerately. I can use simpler ingredients, save money, and give it away to others. I can reduce the amount of things I eat that are bad for the environment or for people. I'm really looking forward to reading this book, learning from it, and trying out its strategies. I'll let you all know how it goes.

dear upstairs neighbors,

I appreciate you not holding band practice tonight. However, I do not appreciate you throwing a party tonight with loud music and bass that is now nearly shaking my furniture.

I never see you early in the mornings. May I suggest that you shift all of your daily activities forward by approximately two hours? Then, we would never have problems.

love,
lauren

dear upstairs neighbors,

I am also a musician and I understand and support your endeavors to start a band and become musicians. You're not too terribly bad, especially since your lead singer got drastically better over break, or you replaced him with one who could actually sing, or you just stopped trying to sing Kings of Leon, whichever actually happened. At any rate, I admire your persistent, every night practicing, and I can hear your improvement. What I want to know is why I have to hear your improvement at midnight and after. Your neighbors would like to be able to turn on and off the music that they hear, especially when they are trying to sleep...

love,
lauren

sometime over Christmas break or maybe a little before I remembered that music existed.  I mean, I had been listening to music and all, but something, and I don't even remember what, made me remember that music comes from real people and isn't magically generated out of a computer like iTunes makes it out to be.

So, I have decided to remember how to play piano. I didn't practice any over break due to busyness and to not particularly wanting to be heard. But I've been here for a week and have practiced five days. It's been good. I remember more than I thought I would.

I like practicing here. The practice rooms are warm. The upright pianos let me play more comfortably and expressively than the baby grands did at Winthrop (yeah, I'm weird). And so far I haven't heard anyone else practicing who was exquisitely good at piano like I did in the practice rooms at Winthrop. That makes it a whole lot less intimidating to sit down and play as I want to, mistakes and all. And it's more enjoyable since when I sit down at the piano I don't have to panic about having to play this for anyone else if I don't want to. There's no teacher looking for my mistakes, no jury at the end of the semester asking me to play the one scale that I can't remember, and no expectation that I have my pieces perfected and memorized in 15 weeks. I'm on my own schedule and I'm my own worst critic.

I'm working on getting Chopin's Nocturne in C# minor back to well-polished (and I'm pretty close). I really would like to finish the rest of Mozart's Twelve Variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star--I play probably five or six of the twelve variations well and I'd like to learn the two I skipped and get the remaining variations to the point where I play them well. I have no interest into returning to the two Bach inventions I learned, haha. After I get those two pieces down I'll probably polish up the Granados Danza Espanola No. 2.

I'd like to start a new piece or two as well. Probably one at a time for now. I'd really like to eventually attempt Granados' Valses Poeticos but I think it's a bit beyond my skill level right now, as is his Danza Espanola No. 8, which no one in the world seems to have recorded except perhaps Ms. de Larrocha, and I can't find a link for her (excellent in my opinion) rendition anywhere. So we'll skip the Granados for now. I'm thinking about finally learning the rest of Mozart's Sonata K545 that I've known the first bit of for forever. I've got a book of Clementi sonatinas that might be another potential option, or I might just pick something out of my big book of classics. I'd like to play Debussy's Arabesque No. 1 but all those triplets over eighths might kill me. We'll see. I just need to find something the right difficulty level--challenging enough to increase my skill but easy enough that I won't get frustrated with it.

I'm going to try to be disciplined and practice at least three times a week. I can spare a half-hour three times a week and that'll work wonders. Hopefully my academic schedule won't be chaotic enough to stop me.

mk that's all for now.