rude uni shock + cup is full(-er) + caramelised mince & coconut rice bowls 🥢
This week has felt like an eternity... and I'm writing this on a Thursday! I've been supervising year 12 practice exams all week and it's resulted in that torturous headspace (for an ADHD brain anyway) of scratchy-brain boredom. The special consideration students I was meant to supervise 1:1 (meaning you can do something else while they're working away) haven't turned up, so I've been in the main hall instead with 50+ students. I don't feel like I can just send off a few emails or read my book with the other supervisors around, so it's much less stimulating. In my standing-and-observing state – waiting for a hand to be raised, asking for a tissue or to use the bathroom, I've found myself turning over this one observation about the cohort (who in this occasion are all private school girls) – which is there's NO variation in what they're wearing! It's all trackies, uggs, singlets, oversized hoodies and slick-backed ponies. The lack of individuality makes me a little sad. Me, in my androg-femme workwear, with a grown out mullet and hairy legs, snail-pacing up and down the isles is hopefully contributing something positive.
Anyway, I'll get off my soap box now. Hi, hello! Hope September treated you well. I finished uni term 3 in the middle of the month and then had to start term 4 the following Monday because they brought it forward so the teachers have more time to mark assignments before Christmas... rude! No, I mean it's more than fair for the teachers, but they didn't communicate that very well – because I was under the impression I had a two week break, rahhh!
I guess I've adjusted to the change pretty well. Once the work is done it's done type-of-thing. I'll have a longer summer break this way (... trying to look for the positives). But it means I've done some uni work on weekends around this exam supervision and other work commitments, which has NOT done wonders for my work-life balance! See previous mention: of this week feeling like an eternity!!!!!
But for some positives... I've been exploring some exciting I Want Dopamine for Dinner next chapter possibilities. The fourth print run of which arrives next week. I've had to stop UK and EU shipping due to unpredictable custom charges, but there may be a solution in the pipeline... I'll say more as when I know more.
I feel more like myself than I did last month. I can't believe placement only finished 4 weeks ago! Having more time for filling my cup (cooking, seeing friends, reading, playing piano, writing) amongst the busyness, has made all the difference to my headspace. So while life is full-on, tiring, a bit boring (with work and study), but also fine, for the most part I feel in a really good place.
YOUTUBE.
A post-placement weekly vlog and a freezer restock for the next term went up on my channel this month.
KITCHEN.
L–R: kacang pool with buttered toast & a fried egg, japchae and a cream cheese broccoli sauce pasta (I Want Dopamine for Dinner recipe) with GF fish fingers.
L–R: freezer-prepped spinach rice with beans and Mexican-style rice (I Want Dopamine for Dinner recipes), a vegan GF salad sandwich with Yumi's brand hashbrowns and another luscious plate of dal tadka.
L–R: my fave sushi bowl, cheese stuffed Italian-style meatballs with a low FODMAP pasta sauce and buckwheat porridge to go into the freezer.
L–R: a cheese and chive scone loaf, aloo tikki in a pita (again!) and a breakfast burrito for dinner with sautéed zucchini greens.
L–R: chocolate covered freezer berries with a white chocolate crème (a copycat of those that are in Australian supermarkets right now. Just okay – but won't be making again), a chocolate cake made from a box cake mix & packet of pudding mix (came out tasting like mochi cake) and some dark chocolate, cardamom and orange shortbread (recipe needs finessing).
WATCHED.
I watched the final season of Colin from Accounts (S3) – thought the ending was great (especially for Lynelle), but didn't like witnessing the characters' same old maladaptive coping habits and crappy communication styles. Go to therapy already!
Watched the Canadian coming of age film, I Like Movies on SBS on Demand and really loved it. Follows socially awkward (to me obviously Autistic), self-focused Lawrence, who gets a job at a video store in his final year of school to try and save up to go to NYU. You hate him but empathise with him anyway. It's semi-autobiographical, heartbreaking, full of awkward humour and is maybe my favourite coming of age high school film since Eighth Grade (high praise).
Semi-based on the real chaplain at Melbourne Airport, The Airport Chaplain (on SBS on Demand and Netflix) is such easy viewing. It's a real job – but not so much religious support and much more spiritual, emotional and psychological support to all who pass through its doors. Think mum's and children escaping domestic violence, pilots having panic attacks mid-flight and airport security officers wrestling with assuming the worst in people. Good stuff!
READ.
Claire Keegan's short story collection, Walk in the Blue Fields won't be my favourite work of hers but it was very absorbing and achingly beautiful – with themes of missed potential, frustration and loneliness.
Inès Cagnati's Free Day (1973) is a French classic about a girl from a poor Italian-immigrant family in France who feels torn between her family (who are neglectful of her anyways) and her boarding school. She rides the 20km journey between the two worlds and you feel her ostracism, felt-difference and pain on every page.
I reserved Philosophy of the Home at my library after seeing the cover on Pinterest (it sounded right up my alley). Unfortunately, I was reminded of how much I struggle with philosophy. I'm afraid not much of this one stuck between the ears, but I do know that I strongly disagree with how the author talked about sex (like, speak for yourself... dude)... so maybe I wouldn't have agreed with the rest of it anyway if I did get it.
Temporary is a kooky-as novel about a young woman in the lower-classes of a bizarre dystopian world where she goes from temporary job to temporary job in the hope of achieving "steadiness" (aka a permanent position). It's a commentary on the gig-economy, but just when you think you've got a grip on reality it slips into weirdo-world again by the next page. Don't know if I would recommend it, but I wasn't bored.
RECIPE.
This month's recipe is for Caramelised Mince & Coconut Rice Bowls – a seriously moorish bowl of comfort inspired by the Vietnamese pork-based classic. It's sweet, salty, rich, yet also light and fresh. It also results in excellent poops (thank you cabbage!) and is genuinely worth putting on your weekly rotation.
See you next month,
– Phoebe
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