Make Mine Trout

Those who know me, know that I love to bake, I'm always on the lookout for a new recipe to try and I often like to create my own. I have spent countless hours in kitchens coming up with new cookie recipes, brownie recipes and the like. Some have been triumphs such as porcupine cookies (named because they are a vanilla cookie rolled in slivered almonds and when baked kind of have a porcupine appearance- I didn't name them though that was my friend Chris) others have been failures and given names like skunk suckers (a hard candy experiment that went horribly wrong and quite literally smelled like skunk :P).
Today I decided to look around and see if I could find a better cheesecake recipe than the one I already have. While I know that mine is reliable and I've tweaked it so it comes out the way I like, I thought it might be nice to try a new one. I read through the first several recipes and they seemed pretty standard, some called for lemon, others almond extract, there was one however that I had to look at twice as I thought I had read it wrong. The title was normal, it just said delicious cheesecake, I clicked on the title to have a look at the ingredients and the directions. Skimming the ingredients I had to look twice, fourth ingredient down, trout. Yes, I said trout. I thought for sure I had read it wrong so I looked again, but there it was T R O U T. While I do like fish and I'm not at all opposed to trying new things for the most part, I draw the line at adding trout to mine or anyone else's cheesecake. Cheesecake can have chocolate, nuts, berries, fruit, candy, even cookies in it, but not fish. That just crosses the line......

This hobbits tale

What do post graduates do when they are fed up with work and need a break? Why they run away to London to see William Fitzsimmons live. Yep Jenna and I took a break from our "long hours" of "constant work" to see him perform live this evening.
What an adventure it was, walked into town to catch the coach to London, only to have coach drive up to university, we laughed over it and called our pointless walk into town much needed exercise. We experienced odd smells on the coach, really rank manure which was just yuck, then a very strong smell of onion, we're talking so strong the eyes were almost burning.
Anyway, made it to London and found the right underground line to take us in the right direction. We got there with quite a bit of time to spare so we decided to grab a bite to eat at the KFC across the street. After dinner we headed out of the restaurant and in search of the building the performance was being held. We weren't entirely sure where to go, we knew we were on the right street, so it wasn't to big a deal and we had plenty of time. As we walked we noticed the big shiny egg building ( I forget what its really called) and were talking about what we called it, it dawned on us that we were walking in the wrong direction as the concert was north of London and we were heading south, so we changed direction and continued our search. We walked several blocks before realizing again that we had missed our mark, the building was in the 30-40 range and we were not in the 90's so we once again turned and headed back. Finally found the small chalk sign for the performance and made our way down into the building. Jenna found us a place to sit after we stood leaning against a wall for a few minutes. She picked the perfect spot, nice big comfy chair and a really good view from the side.
The music was so amazing, it was the best concert I have ever been to. He's just wow, all I can say is wow. The music started a bit later than we thought it would and William was doing a second encore when we realized we should begin our journey back towards the coach station. Here is where the story gets interesting. So we make it to the train station in plenty of time, only problem is a train won't be there for another 20 minutes. We look at the time and think "okay we're cutting it close, but we can make it". Train is late, but we get to the underground and still think "we're okay" only had to wait about 30 seconds, then we were off. We're still looking at the time and wondering if we're going to make but figure we're okay. By the time we get to Victoria rail station and up and out of the underground the coach will be leaving in 2 minutes. We realize at this time there is no way we can catch the coach so, okay we figure back up plan we'll take a train.
Jenna and I look up and quickly begin scanning the departure board looking for Canterbury, guess what, no Canterbury. Closest we can get is Faversham, then take a bus to Whitstable, from there we would have to walk. We look at each other and think it though and decide walking a footpath through the forest in the middle of the night is not the most brilliant thing to do. Jenna sends a text message off to Tom our flatmate and asks how much a taxi is from Faversham to Canterbury, the reply around £25 but probably more as it will be late when we arrive, but if we drop Tom's name we might get a discount. We laugh a bit over this then go back to wondering what the heck to do. Neither of us is to keen on sleeping in a train station or a coach station until we can get transport out, and walking doesn't seem the best idea either. In the end it was our flatmate James who came to the rescue, we took the train to Faversham where he picked us up and delivered us to VW. The ride wasn't without being poked fun of for being stranded in London and then Faversham, but all in good fun. Jenna and I are now baking slaves until the end of term, but seeing as how I love to bake I'm okay with that.
Anyway to sum it all up, the night was full of adventure and I wouldn't trade it. I had an amazing time. I got to hang out with one of my best friends, listen to one of my favourite artists live, see the awesomeness of his beard, and I have a story to tell about I got there and back again. Yep definitely a top night :D

That First Step

Finally started writing yesterday, didn't write much and most of it is rubbish but there are at least words on a page. This dissertation has been a difficult one for me, it has raised many questions that I have not thought of before and has caused me considerable amounts of sleepless nights. Its difficult to study something you have been a part of your entire life. I find it increasingly difficult finding the separation between myself and my research. Things I think of as common knowledge I find are things I have to explain in detail.

Some days are so frustrating I want to pull out what little hair I have. But all post graduates go through the same frustrations and I am no different. We must each forge our own path and do our best to sort out what we have learned in our fieldwork and explain it to others. After all isn't that what anthropology is? Learning about culture and sharing it?

I often wish that I had chosen a topic that was far less personal, I had grand illusions of going off into the field to some exotic country I had never been to before, studying a culture I had little knowledge of and returning to Canterbury with amazing stories and beautiful film footage. I envied my fellow students who went to Nepal, Columbia, Kurdistan, Finland, Cameroon and the like. I wanted to do the same, but instead my field work was predominantly chat rooms and websites, talking with people I couldn't see and using pseudo names, rarely leaving my flat.

In all honestly my preconceived notion of fieldwork was naive and silly. Brought on by reading far to much Malinowski and exoticizing other cultures, for shame.

Ummm Plymouth Rock?

In the U.S. pilgrim refers to the early European settlers, you know the one who celebrated the first thanksgiving with the Native Americans. I realize that there are other definitions for the word pilgrim, as it used to describe a person who is making a pilgrimage to a religious or some other place of significance.
Never the less I was a bit surprised when I saw the signs directing pilgrims to parkwood. I'm guessing that the pilgrims being led to parkwood are in Canterbury perhaps making a pilgrimage to Canterbury cathedral as it was where St Thomas Becket was martyred and has the tombs of King Henry IV and Edward the Black Prince of Wales.

On a side note about Canterbury, I recently learned that Charles Dickens used Canterbury as the backdrop for David Copperfield, pretty cool yeah?