around

There's a recipe for How to Get Settled Into the Rhythm of a New Country. It's 1 part working to learn things about that country, and 1 part waiting. Great stretches of long, torturous waiting. When you move to a new country, you're essentially trying to learn in the shortest amount of time possible what everyone else has been learning since they came out of the womb. It's not at all crazy to feel overwhelmed. Everyone else has had their whole lives to learn everything, and they've had people in their lives whose role it's been to teach them. You, on the other hand, hop off the plane and are immediately swept into the fray. It's overwhelming, and frustrating, and scary, and it'll make you cry a lot from the sheer weight of what you're dealing with. That's perfectly normal. You'll spend plenty of time feeling stupid for not knowing what seems to come to everyone else naturally. It'll take so much time  to adjust to everything y...

Something new has come into creation. I call it... dinner. As mentioned, I went out and bought a stovetop burner (with actual fire) so I could do more cooking for myself and have more control over what I eat. In 45 minutes I turned three ingredients into a symphony of yum. We start at the dawn of time, with fire. I did not, in fact, burn down my apartment. Yay! First I made the pasta, because it would have been the easiest to re-heat if I had wanted to. Next came the meat, which I mashed and mixed with a little brown sugar and some pepper. I don't think I put in enough to make a difference, but I knew I'd prefer not tasting it to tasting it too much. After the pasta was drained and in a plastic tupperware container, I put some oil in the saucepan. I forgot that water droplets and oil aren't friends, and in heat they are deadly enemies. I had to wait for them to sort out their differences before I could put the meat in. Once the meat was...

You learn your priorities by looking at what you're willing to spend money on. For example, any time I buy clothes I'm reluctant to part with any amount of cash. I go straight for sales racks and coupons and usually only buy anything full-price and verging on expensive if I've saved for it, am doing well financially, and/or need it. On the other hand, I cannot give my money away fast enough when it comes to eating quality food. Now that I'm on a good salary and able to afford a few luxuries, oh man, am I big on eating the good stuff. I've been eating most of my meals out of 7-Eleven and Family Mart for the past six months and I think I'm crystalizing with preservatives. When I went to France for Christmas (which I will... eventually blog about) my mother and sisters made dinner two nights in a row, and I made dinner for myself while they were away in Normandy, and it was nothing short of ambrosia. (There were genuine Italian noodles and some chorizo (cured ...