Happy Valentine's Day!

What love should look and taste like!

Easy and Delicious Pad Thai

...not a myth. I made it, which vouches for the easy part! This recipe is a mix of bits and pieces from various online versions, but it was good, so I wanted to share. And put in on here for when I lose the sheet of paper I wrote it down on!

Ingredients

- 12oz rice noodles
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, chopped
- enough oil to fry above chicken (~1/4cup)
- 4 eggs

- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 green onion, sliced

Sauce
-3T seasoned rice vinegar
-6T fish sauce
-5T sugar
-crushed red pepper to taste
 -1.5t peanut butter
-a bit of lime juice (yes, precisely that much)

Optional
-bean sprouts
-salad shrimp

-1/4 c chopped peanuts

Prep
1. Prepare the noodles (if they're raw, cook them, but if they're already cooked, wait)
2. Mix up the sauce ingredients
3. Heat sesame oil on high heat in a wok
4. Fry the garlic and green onion
5. Add chicken, cook.
6. Add eggs and stir in 1-2 minutes (it looks like way too much egg, it's not, don't worry)
7. Add the things that need heating--noodles, bean sprouts, shrimp...
8. Add sauce.

Plate, garnish with chopped peanuts, lime wedges, whatever you like/remember from restaurants. EAT.

A Master's In Music

As much as I liked music before my master's, I became infinitely more obsessed with it during the program. My tastes were changing before I left, and I had some people in my class that have great taste in the kind of music I was gravitating towards, which was awesome. Now that the program is over I realize that certain songs will always remind me of specific semesters--the location, the people I met, the things I was doing. I love it! Here are some of my favorites from each semester:

1st Semester, Groningen (The Netherlands): All kinds of adjusting and rethinking. "Islands" by The xx (whose AMAZING concert I just saw in Asheville, NC).

2nd semester, Montpellier (France): I think it was this one, although I'm honestly not sure! Another weird semester. Not my best musical time.

3rd semester, also in Montpellier: Weird and awesome, sort of carefree and dreamy in a weird way."Hard 2 Keep" by R E A L M A G I C and "Twice (16 Bit remix)" by Little Dragon.

4th semester, Uppsala (Sweden): Work hard and play hard. The sun didn't go down much, and we didn't sleep when it did.

Grey Hairs

I have so many... I started pulling them out, but my Greek friend told me her grandmother says two grow back to replace each one. I felt like I should believe Greek grandmother wisdom, so tried to leave them alone. I mentioned this to my sister and she told me that when you pull one out "six come to the funeral." Glad I stopped when I did! It's alright though--I'll be a cool young grey-haired person. I just wish they'd start coming in somewhere less obvious than my bangs, come on! Particularly that curly one that sticks out the front of my stick-straight hair like a unicorn horn :)

Baking scones to awesome music...

...makes for an excellent Saturday morning(ish). The plan for Terrapin (a brewery) with the family later makes the evening look pretty good too!

Awesome Music: http://8tracks.com/annickoost/pity-party-cancelled-due-to-outrageous-dancing

Figuring out my life update

I was pretty bummed when  my job fell through. Come on--I was supposed to be going to Reunion Island (it's ok to have never heard of it, no one has. It's off the coast of Madagascar). Tropical yet French, with awesome curry, beaches, and mountains. Now, post-moping, I'm ok with it: The island has a "restless" volcano (you can scroll down a bit to see that it erupts at least once most years) and angry sharks and is on the rear end of the universe (it doesn't show up on world maps).

I was also only going to be there for 18 months and was then going to have to revisit the "what do I do with my life" question, my all-time favorite. The idea was to turn the position into a PhD, but you never know if that kind of thing will work out (and given how me having any involvement in the project went, I was right to be skeptical!). So this way I got started earlier sorting out my future.  After thinking about the options and what I want to do with myself, I came to a shocking realization---for the first time ever, I actually want to get a PhD. I never thought I'd feel like that--I thought I'd eventually end up getting one as a logical step in my career. But I have finally found that part of science that keeps me up late happily reading papers. Spatial epidemiology (aka, among other things, landscape epidemiology, ecoepidemiology, and medical/health geography) is the study of the spatial patterns of diseases, and I love it! The methods themselves are fun--I get to make maps and look at satellite images and huge tables of variables--and the questions I can ask with them are awesome. I like it enough to not even be bothered that I've become a statistician of sorts, which I never thought would happen and amuses the people around me to no end.

So now here I am, applying to school again. I do that a lot. I would like to get back over to Europe, and so am looking there. There are great people for me in the UK, where unfortunately funding for non-UK/EU citizens is only slightly more common than unicorns. Maybe it's a good thing--I like the sun and don't want to take a three-year break from it... Maybe I'll have more luck on the continent. I'm also looking in the US to give myself more options (and please my mother), even though I don't really want to stay here. I have found one program I'm excited about against my will though. We'll see! As usual, onward!

Meilleurs Voeux for 2013!

It's the time of year to bring out a tradition I discovered and loved while in Europe. French friends introduced me to it, but a German one recently did the same thing, so I'm not sure how widespread it is. The tradition is really wishing someone a happy new year, as in sending a personalized message with specific wishes for them for their upcoming year.  I remembered too late to get cards out to you guys this year, so I'm going to violate the whole idea by posting general wishes for all of you, but it's still better than just wishing you a Happy New Year (although that is certainly part of the package)! You guys are all doing such different things it's hard to generalize, but no matter what you're up to, I wish all of you a happy 2013 full of awesome adventures of whatever suits you best, from travel to work/school to home life!