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Today I got the keys to my new apartment in Providence and we moved a car full of boxes in. The apartment is older than my current one but it has central air conditioning, a dishwasher, and washer/dryer – things that I don’t have right now and they seem like such a luxury! The stove is so old that it’s brown & orange and has an analog clock, but it’s full sized which means my baking pans don’t have to touch the sides of the oven like they do now.
It’s in a converted warehouse. When we saw the photo on Craigslist, we saw this:
It looked dated, like in a 1980′s way and I assumed it was a sliding glass door or something boring. But then we saw it in person, and pulled back the curtains and it took my breath away. (Sorry, my cell phone doesn’t have a setting for backlighting)
Our bedroom also has one of those windows. The previous tenants had those sheers hung up with flimsy tension rods, and they were draped in a way where you can tell they never opened them. After we moved our boxes in, I had to take at least one of them down because it looked so ugly.
The giant arched brick does a great job of distracting me from the up-close and personal view of the highway outside. Now, any ideas on better window curtain options to show off those windows?
“University of Massachusetts president Jack M. Wilson, after pressure by a state lawmaker, recommended that the UMass board of trustees strip Robert Mugabe of a doctor of laws degree he received at UMass-Amherst in 1986. It would be the first time the board has revoked an honorary degree.”
*update*
From the St. Louis Post Dispatch blog:
“This makes Washington University’s problems with protests of plans to award an honorary degree Friday to Phyllis Schlafly pale by comparison. Whatever you might think about Mrs. Schlafly, she’s no Robert Mugabe.”
eh?
Last night I had a dream that I was spinning yarn, first on a spindle and then a spinning wheel. Where did that come from?
After getting past the colonial & revolutionary historical periods (which I find really boring), I’m finally getting to the good parts of A People’s History. Two things that kept me awake last night:
“Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is. And so, the schools, churches, the popular literature taught that to be rich was a sign of superiority, to be poor a sign of personal failure, and that the only way upward for a poor person was to climb into the ranks of the rich by extraordinary effort and extraordinary luck.”
He’s talking about the 1880′s and 1890′s! I also thought this passage, on the same page as the previous paragraph, was also really interesting:
“Carnegie gave money to colleges and to libraries. Johns Hopkins was founded by a millionaire merchant, and millionaires Cornelius Vanderbilt, Ezra Cornell, James Duke, and Leland Stanford created universities in their own names. These educational institutions did not encourage dissent; they trained the middlemen in the American system-the teachers, doctors, lawyers, administrators, engineers, technicians, politicians–those who would be paid to keep the system going, to be loyal buffers against trouble.”
Two years since I graduated college and I’m finally doing some book learning.
Since I’m in between knitting projects and low on yarn, I started making coffee cup cozies and baby booties using scraps.
First up: some baby Uggs; or as I like to call them, Buggs.
I started making them with size 1 needles but they seemed freakishly small. so I went up to a size 3 needle, and they still seem freakishly small but I was too lazy to try again. As long as they fit for like, a day or a minute I’m satisfied. They are even made with fake suede yarn. Proof that even Uggs can be adored when in miniature form.
I also made these “Saartje’s Bootees” using leftover sock yarn. I made one pair, and they seemed soooo tiny, so then I made another pair that are also really small. I think the teeny tiny ones will just go in the trash.
I don’t know have anyone to give these to yet. Perhaps they will go into my pile of extra knitted hats that my sister always makes fun of me for. (Sometimes I knit hats with leftover yarn, and I throw them in my cabinet just in case I want to drop them off at a charity collection or if someone comes to my house and needs a hat. Neither of those ever happen.)
I know a ton of people who are either pregnant or will be pregnant soon so there will be lot of baby knits coming up.
Oh man, I love how Stuff White People Like has come up in so many different conversations lately. Just yesterday, my colleagues and I made SWPL reference when the topic of studying abroad came up, and then we had to explain SWPL to our executive director, who is a 50-something tough Jewish Boston lady. She responded with a story about a new Whole Foods that is supposed to open on a Monday in April, but they changed the grand opening date because a Monday opening was bad for Feng Shui. She gets it right away!
Later in the evening, I was grocery shopping and Brian made a SWPL joke about the weird hippie white guy who was trying to speak Spanish to an elderly grocery store worker. Then I was at the bakery counter and while I was ordering, this exchange went on next to me:
Middle aged guy: Hi, I’m —’s husband. What’s your name?
Early 20′s, Hispanic American guy: Nice to meet you, I’m Jaime (he pronounced high-may)
MAG: High-May?
HAG: Well, in English it’s Jay-mee, but I’m Spanish so it’s High-may. (he has no accent, which might be what is so confusing to MAG)
MAG: So what do you prefer?
HAG: High-May. A lot of people say Jaymee or Hi-Meee, but it’s High-may.
At this point, I got my cupcake and walked over to Brian at the deli counter. I was laughing to myself and I told him what just happened, but even while I was telling the story, I could still hear the old guy talking and repeating “high-may,” as if it was such a difficult concept to grasp.
It’s so nice to know that other people can also laugh at these types of white-yuppie, bourgeois-bohemian encounters hilarious, and thanks to SWPL it’s finally socially acceptable to acknowledge these situations.
Photo on the go
Moroccan Mint tea in shot glasses @ Fresh Side.
I went out to lunch and was served a pot of tea with shotglasses instead of teacups. It was pretty, but I had to refill after every two sips.
1210071428.jpg
Originally uploaded by everydayasian.
I lost my phone at a party over the weekend. It was so cute and now it’s gone 
I put my PDA on eBay so that I can pay for a new phone, which is also sad.
Also, I was just asked to go on a retreat which begins the night that I scheduled my birthday party. One of my supervisors/colleagues has tried to invite me to this intense social justice training for the past 2 years. She has also mentioned many times that she’s always invited the people who had my position before and they never want to go and it was pretty disappointing. I definitely don’t and didn’t want to go, but I was going to try and go to score points with her. I’m sure I’d learn something too, but mostly just to score points. Yesterday, at the last minute, she gave me the information. It starts on a Friday night, and goes all day Saturday and all day Sunday. But my birthday outing is scheduled for Friday night and I already sent out the e-vites to 15 people. I don’t want to cancel my own birthday, but now she’s going to think that would rather socialize than care about “important things.” How do I fix that?
Autumn on campus
Originally uploaded by everydayasian.
I know it’s cheesy, but the leaves were gorgeous this weekend. I took this picture of campus today.
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