This, That & The Other

I'm bored and I don't really have anything good to say... So here goes another post. So what have I been up to lately, you ask.

Well as I said, not much.

For example, in an effort to do something more productive with my time, I applied to a graduate program through a university in Sweden last week. Pray for me to your respective higher power that I get in. It's a Master of Child Studies, which I don't know what I'll do with or if I actually want to break my back to get, but since I've about the most indecisive person I know when it comes to my life and I'll likely not make a decision as to what I'm doing with my post-volleyball career anytime soon... I figure it's something. Whatcha gon' do. Great reasoning, I know.

Also related to life direction & time usage, I decided to make a new year's resolution for the first time ever this year. This is normally the part of the post where I have a passionate reason for not doing one before... but in this case, I guess it's just 'cause I was too lazy for the first 22 years of my life. Anyway, instead of only one grand 2009 resolution that I'd never remember, let alone fulfill, I decided I'd do 12. One per month. If I like it, I'll keep doin it... If not, it's out. It's all dramatic like that. Anyway these mini-resolutions aren't exciting enough to mention here but I'll indulge y'all on one example.

I unfortunately have a genetic weakness for chocolate (runs in the fam. It's my cross to bear...) and February is that time of the year where I realize I have 3 months til people I know will see me again and will be horrified by the way French cuisine has treated my bod. So I decided it was time to reign in the beast and give up my vice. (See what I mean about the resolutions not being exciting...) Unfortunately I shared this idea with The American back in January and a couple days later she decided she was gonna give up drinking for 4 months. I couldn't be shown up just like that, and so to make it fair and due to the challenge, my chocolate-less life has been extended to 2 months, starting yesterday. It sucks already. For example, in the 2 days since starting I've
had the following eaten in front of me - chocolate-filled crepes, a box of belgian chocolates, and homemade white chocolate mousse. I knew this endeavour would suck, but it's like people are inadvertently pullin' out all the stops for me to fail. Why do bad things have to happen to good people?! Why.

Cancel the Valentine's shipment

In other areas of life, things are little better. Kidding, life is good for the most part but we're going to Italy for a match soon and it's about to be rough. We made it to 1/4 finals of CEV cup and consequently we get to play Vini Monteschiavo Jesi, aka the 3rd ranked team in Italy's A1 Series. Italy is the best league in Europe and who knows if we would've even beaten the Ukrainian team we didn't have to play in the 1/8 finals... this might all sound pessimistic but for those in the know, it's more like reality. To break it down, think of it like we're a high school team playing the Bulls in their MJ heyday. I've had at least 5 different fans tell me we have absolutely no chance whatsoever... Oh the love. Those would be our "fans". So yeah, the people are behind us and should be fun. On the bright side, free trip to Italy?

Are you there God? Its me, Co.

I won't get into personal volleyball frustrations, but this is about the time of year where one feels the need to start a countdown to the end of the season... Which I'd be looking forward to if, for various reasons, I had any idea what or where I'm gonna be for the summer... And that about wraps up another round of super optimistic upate of the latest whatnot that's goin' down in my hood. Don't say I didn't warn.

It's A Good Thing

Martha would approve?

Last night the American and I decided to embark on a what can only be described as an epic quest to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Those familiar with the glories of French dessert are aware that they have an abundance of croissants, pastries, chocolates, gateaux and a million other little delights my mind dared not conceive before I got over here but sometimes you just need a real cookie. As such, we decided to take it upon ourselves to christen my new oven with our own fresh batch.

Similar to last week's Mexican fiesta meal that fell a little short, the cookies wanted to be good but something went awry somewhere along the way. A few possible reasons why...

First off, we had to find a recipe using only baking powder since baking soda is pretty much non-existent here. Ditto for chocolate chips, which run at about 10 bucks for a postage stamp-sized bag... that is, if you can hold out long enough on the scavenger hunt to even find them at all. Rather than face the prospect of selling my firstborn child for a decent amount, we decided to buy cheap chocolate bars smash them up instead. This might have been more trouble than it was worth but we really really wanted cookies. Oh and we also had no brown sugar.

We pressed on. Only to come to the realization, once we were already home of course, that we had the wrong kind(s) of flour. Apparently we needed Type 65 and had only types 55 and 45... Say what? Mom? So we decided to buck up and use what we had. Well actually, we had no choice since the grocery store does in fact, posess food but isn't actually trying to sell anything by being open for a grand total of about 5 hours a day. Maybe 6 if it's Thursday which is made up for not being open at all Sunday or heck Monday either. Throw your hands up for a 4 day weekend. Before you think I'm complaining, we knew all this before, but were just pissed that somehow didn't take precautions and buy every kind of flour available. Anyway, long story short - we later found out the 65 flour was pretty key when the cookies came out the consistency of dog biscuit.

These problems were child's play compared to the fact that we don't have measuring tools of any kind. We tried to buy some by miraculously making it to the store during operational hours but alas, sold out. Sweet. So we improvised by conducting a complex experiment using a bag of rice and a mug. Ah science. We poured out the last 150g of rice into a mug and estimated that the mug was roughly double that, so we had one 250g container. Which makes what in cups? Your guess is as good as mine... Your guess is probably better actually, based on the amount of sugar we thought was supposedly correct... Dang it, where are my grade 7 fraction skills when I need them!?

Last but not least, my oven thermometer is only in celsius. Luckily my Canadian heritage saves the day again as I'm familiar with this unit for reasonable outdoor temperatures, usually on the far negative end of the scale in the Motherland. Unluckily, it's fahrenheit all the way for baking. The American was obviously useless in this domain as well. So we figured 190 was a nice strong number and hoped for the best.

8-10 minutes later, choirs of angels sang as we opened the oven door.
15-2o minutes later we contemplated rolling myself down the stairs to throw up the dozen & a half cookies just eaten.

Despite all the stumbling blocks, our attempt was a reasonable success. The cookies were flat, really crunchy about 40 seconds after cooling and way too sweet. But pretty good. Tonight we're going for creme brulee.

My oven doubles as a dollhouse

Missing the "dough" in cookie dough.

The carnage from the rice/mug measuring experiment

Objects in photo are not as delicious as they appear...

16 crunchy wonders of creation

The aftermath

My stomach says no

Things I Learned Today

Rather than pretend my week/weekend was exciting and attempt to write something half-decent, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Yesterday, Desma, her boyfriend Benoît and his friend Benoît (I know. Either it's a popular name or French people just roll in twin-name crews) and I went to Toulouse to Ikea, volume 2.

It also kind of inadvertently turned out to be a makeshift International Day since we started out with a solid Canadian breakfast, followed by a Swedish lunch and an attempt at a Mexican dinner. The French chocolates didn't disappoint and did us right as well. The festivities ended with a bang thanks to our discovering an authentic Cuban straw hat at Benoît's straight off the streets of Havana.

Enjoy.

Breakfast of Champions



Nothing starts the day off right like a little taste of home...
O Canada.

To all the haters:
ya'll can see that I don't dance for a reason...I'm tall & gangly and it doesn't end well. To those who have been so unfortunate to have seen my mom cut a rug at any a wedding, you understand.

Today I learned that French people are very obedient:
Take a stack of pylons out of your trunk and throw down on a busy road... Cars will merge and voila - instant traffic jam.

Doing my best 4-year-old on Christmas imitation...

Unfortunately, children's furniture - while cute - is best left to the smaller folks out there.
(See mini Benoît on left)

Modern day Goldilocks?

After a nap, I recommend enjoying tea while sitting in chairs that bend your legs at sharper than a 90 degree angle. Curse my giganticness.

Between training, I'm considering moonlighting as a Swede.
Then again, maybe not if I ever make that face again...

I learned our club has sick scarves a la Euro soccer teams...
To all the Canadians - order yours today. Nothing protects against a brutal Canadian winter, or says warmth meets style quite like a polyester blend.

I learned this the hard way:
Though you think you might have found the equivalent of Cheddar, don't be deceived. It's not the same, nor will your taste buds be at the end.

Sadly, an attempt at Mexican food falls pitifully short when the "fajita mix" tastes disturbingly of cat food.
The look on my and Benoît's face are proof enough.

I also learned that French TV sucks sometimes.

French headgear on the other hand....

I'm more inclined to a Cuban piece myself.
Havana Noche? It's the title of the next Bond film I'm working on.