Making use of the library

I have been checking out a lot of books from the Duke library lately; I wanted to find a few to read for pleasure because that's much cheaper than just going out and buying something but all but 2 of the books I have currently checked out (16!) are actually for my research. Boy, nothing keeps me on the edge of my seat like Structure-performance relationships in surfactants, Szycher's Handbook of Polyurethanes, and Emulsion and emulsion stability. In all seriousness though, these books have been extremely helpful in figuring out what's going on with my project when I've hit a few walls. I also have a book I checked out for pleasure reading called Castle but I've had it for two weeks and I just can't get into it so I'm just going to take it back. That's a bummer because I don't really like to start things and not finish them but I also don't like wasting my time, and reading that book is a waste of my time. It's unusual for me to be relying so heavily on books again because in undergrad and most of grad school so far I've relied on Google and then scientific journals. But I remember spending a lot of time at the library in elementary and middle school so it's nice to get back to my roots :-P

January's third new dish: black beans and rice

Well this recipe was actually a bit more glamorous than the title to the post, but I can't remember what it is called in Spanish. One of my good friends and former college roommate came over this past weekend and taught me how to make this dish in preparation for our trip to Costa Rica! She studied abroad in Costa Rica and has probably spent a total of about 6 months there, so I trust her to know what the common foods are :-)

I didn't take any pictures as we were cooking because we were chatting and catching up. But essentially we sauteed some garlic with onions, then added the black beans and then dumped all of this on to some rice. It was EXCELLENT. Not my typical breakfast food, but it was so good. I was really looking forward to eating all sorts of weird fruits for breakfast but now I'm looking forward to some heartier meals as well. We also grilled some plantains and scrambled some eggs to eat with it. We had a lot of black beans left over which I mixed into another rice dish for Keegan and I to make our own versions of burritos a few days ago. Mmm, tasty.

I'm really excited about the different food options for this trip. And I'm also getting pretty psyched up for some New Orleans cuisine as well!



This picture of the leftovers in some tupperware definitely doesn't do it justice, but believe me, it was delicious.

Yearly progress

I think I have made some good progress on the goals I wanted to accomplish in 2011 considering we're only about 3 weeks into the new year.

So far I have:

• Submitted an abstract to 3ICSHM
• Made the maximum yearly contribution to my IRA
• Run at least 20 miles every week (in fact I've run more than 25 miles every week but I've been slacking at updating my little blog tool... which I'm going to delete now because I don't use it)
• Saved more than 20% on both my trips to the grocery store (28 and 34% the past two weekends!)
• Made plans to attend the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival with Caitlin (I will be going to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama! By May I will have visited 35/50 states - well on my way to my lifetime goal of visiting all the states)
• Submitted my Master's committee form (first step towards graduating with my Master's in May!)
• Made three new recipes (the third I will post about once I take the pictures off my camera)
• Lost 4 pounds (if I maintain this pace I should reach my "vacation" weight prior to our trip!)
• Worked more than 40 hours a week in lab each week (I've been working 6 days/week so far this year in preparation for my lab meeting presentation and just because there are a lot of things I am working on and the weekends are the best time to get to use all the equipment I need without being in everyone's way)
• Read 4 books for pleasure (only two of them were books I'd never read, so I only included two posts about them)

January pleasure reading, part 2

A few days ago I finished reading the fourth book in the Narnia series, Prince Caspian. This was like all the other books in the series have been -- entertaining but not really mind-blowing or anything. It was a nice story, and I guess these books are geared more towards younger readers, but it seems like C.S. Lewis could have elaborated more in his books, like J.K. Rowling. All of these books are pretty short so it feels like the entire book is a buildup to something that lasts 3 lines. What a let-down... It's also a little boring because everything is wrapped up in neat little boxes. I guess you can't kill off main characters in books designed for readers that are only like 10 years old, but it seems like nothing really happens to move the story forward. Anyway, I'm planning to read the last 3 books in the series and I'm mostly happy about that, but I also just want to read the whole series for completion's sake. :-)

My hobby:

Reading about trips I would love to take but can't afford (now, or most likely ever).

This is how I kill time waiting on experiments when I've finished the papers I want to read for the day. And in all fairness, we could probably afford some of them someday, but there are so many! And a lot of the more active ones we wouldn't be able to afford until we're too old to do them :-P

January's second new dish: Italian-marinated chicken

Last night I made another sauteed chicken dish. Over Thursday night I marinated some chicken in Italian salad dressing with pepper and garlic then I made it last night. The end result was tasty, but I didn't take too many pictures. I think I prefer chicken with spices rather than marinade, but I also think using salad dressing is a shortcut that is probably not going to get me the best result. Maybe I will try to make my own marinade sometime to see how that goes. I did better with the oil this time and used a more reasonable amount, but I also left some of the marinade in the pan while the chicken cooked (which looks sort of funny in the picture and I'm not sure I'm supposed to do it that way). I will also probably look at baking things with soup on them, or barbeque sauce or something.

January's new dish: garlic chicken and asparagus

I have actually made several new things since January began! I made some garlic chicken and baked asparagus. I'd never made asparagus before, but I've had it at restaurants and always found it to be very tasty so I decided to branch out and make that on my own. I have no previous knowledge to fall back on to determine if asparagus in the produce section is "good" but I think it turned out pretty well, so I guess I picked a good bunch.



I also sauteed chicken, which I have never done before (at least not with entire chicken breasts). Usually when I make chicken I either grill it on the handy George Foreman, or I boil it and then chop it up to put in something else, like a casserole or pasta dish. To make this garlic chicken I just seasoned the chicken with garlic powder and pepper. I would have used actual garlic but I don't have any right now, and I wanted to try something new.



The only thing I would change about these dishes is to use less oil when I cook them. I used more than I needed and I think that would greatly effect the healthiness of the meal, but I'm actually not sure how much oil really gets into the food when you cook. But at the very least, it was coating everything, so I'm sure we ate a fair amount of olive oil. Our house also still smells faintly of garlic, but I love me some garlic, so that's alright. It'll air out eventually...

January pleasure reading

For Christmas this year I received Anthem and We the Living by Ayn Rand. I started Anthem on New Year's Eve and I've already read it twice. Granted it's only about 100 pages long, but I really enjoyed it and I wanted to read it again to soak everything in!



I really like her writing style and, of course, her ideology. For the first part of the book I was a little confused because everything is written by and about one person, but he always refers to himself as "we" instead of "I", which is part of the main themes of the book (the dangers of living solely for the collective good).

I had a few quotes that I liked in particular, such as:

"It was not that learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. That is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them."

As we reached the end of the story, the main character has escaped the oppressive collective, along with his new knowledge of electricity (which had been lost to men previously) and discovered homes occupied by people long ago. In the home it was obvious they already had electricity and clothing and books (things all lost to the people now) and the main character read the books contained in the home and came to understand the word "I" (the Unspeakable Word in the society he escaped). My favorite part of the book was the end where he understands all these things and can put all the answers to the questions he poses in the beginning of the book into words:

"Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the lodestone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.

I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is not but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the mean to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!

I do not surrender my treasures, nor to I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of spirit. I guard my treasures; my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim in. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned."

And then my last favorite quote from the book:

"And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else."