Mr. Worm and the kiddies went back to Taiwan just this past Wednesday, and I went back to stay at my parents’ house. Since then, it had begun to snow heavily, last night with a snow storm, and tonight with warnings that there will be more to fall at least until tomorrow morning – so an additional 3-8″ in the Puget Sound.

I was also extremely sick, and had been sleeping for three days and three nights, pretty much since Mr. Worm had left. I’m not sure what it was that I caught, and it’s odd, because it was only 3 weeks ago when I had a sore throat and suspected fever. The sore throat lasted about 2-3 weeks, and I thought I was cured, until Thursday night I pretty much fell down on my bed delirious and finally knocked out after taking NyQuil (damn, that is some powerful stuff – never fails to knock you unconscious when needed). Today, Sunday, I am finally recovering. Still a bit weak, but at least I can somewhat breathe through my nostrils without mucus dripping out.

This winter sickness has to happen every year.

Luckily, this year round, I haven’t got a chronic cough (like I did the previous years), and hopefully won’t be getting one.

So with 7″ of snow already fallen, and probably 7″ more to fall by tonight, I am stuck at home atop of a hill with nowhere to go and nothing to do. My only recourse to connect to the world: the fantastic cyberspace of the internet. I don’t know, some people are able to surf the net and just stay online with their eyes glued to the computer screen for the whole entire day. I am not one of those people, and simply can’t even begin to comprehend what there is to surf for twelve hours on end.

When I turn on my computer, I check my 3 email accounts (usually there’s not a whole lot to read anyways), check the weather for the day (if I remember), check my 3 blog accounts (yes, “3″ seems to be the magic number for me), see if there’s anything amusing on Facebook, and if I’m really bored, read other people’s blogs and leave comments.

Lately, I’ve done all that plus attempt to do that thing called web-surfing. But so far I’ve only been surfing on familiar pages that I usually visit anyways.

Nothing new.

And because I am seriously bored and have nothing to do, I’ve gone ahead and posted 2+ new entries on all 3 of my blogs, minus my Japanese Mixi network. Japanese just takes too much energy out of me, and I always feel embarassed when posting things because I know my grammar has become rather poor, and my sentence structures not surpassing preschool level.

Oh, two days ago an ex contacted me over MSN messenger and we talked for a bit about the weather and what not, and he asked if I wanted to go out for coffee sometime. After finding out that I had a fetish for 臭豆腐, a Taiwanese appetizer literally called “stinky tofu”, offered to bring me to some place on Eastlake where they serve them.

A very enticing offer, but I would rather him tell me the exact location of the restaurant and go with Mr. Worm when he comes back.

I also got in touch with another guy I had dated, and we talked on Skype and caught up with each other’s lives. Not too many changes with him, other than finding a job. Not yet married. I suspect he was quite surprised to find out my own changes in life.

It’s nice to talk to ex-boyfriends that you’ve lost touch with but still think about every now and then, and finding out that you’re living a much better and fuller life without them. And then going on and telling your current significant other that you still keep in contact.

Evil.

Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into me.

Way bored out of my wits.

Staying indoors for four days straight has really burned some brain cells.

I sure hope this snow storm will end soon, and hope the transportation authority will start clearing up the roads soon. I need to go back home to Mr. Worm’s and check on the house to make sure everything is okay, pick up mail, and make sure no theives had broken in. (He’s been nagging me everytime he calls in from Kaohsiung about going back home.)

A snapshot of Angela and I atop of Pacific Place.

Sara’s Famous Pumpkin Cookies

After having tasted one of M’s vegan pumpkin cookies, I immediately got addicted, and would beg for a batch every time the season for pumpkin comes around. I think I even asked for them as birthday presents, once! Eventually, I came to the sad realisation that M would not always be there to make pumpkin cookies for me, there will come the one day that she will leave me and I will have to find another way to get those cookies. The day came when she moved to Oxford with her husband.

So, I asked for the recipe, and it’s been sitting in my inbox for a good two years or so. I’ve always had this fear of baking; I’m just not a baking person, and always think that the kitchen will be a disaster lest I try to do anything with the oven. I cook savory meals just fine: it’s the sweets that gets to me. (Maybe  because there’s a lot of cleaning to do afterwards.)

But today, I summoned up all the courage to just try to bake a batch at least once. Maybe it won’t be so bad after all, and maybe it will just be as easy as M said they were. So I went to our nearby Whole Foods and bought the ingredients that I needed. Looking at the recipe, there were measurements that included a “t”, lowercase. Now being the baking dummy that I am, I had no idea if the “t” stood for teaspoon, or tablespoon. And at home, I only found two measuring utilities: a 1/4 cup, and 1/2 teaspoon. Freaking out, I seriously considered abandoning the project. But since I already measured out the flour and sugar, I figured I might as well use my best judgement. Since it was lowercase, I assumed it must meant teaspoon. Tablespoon would probably have been written with a capital “T”. So teaspoon it was, and when I popped them in the oven, I had to cross my fingers and hope that I didn’t put too little baking soda (since the recipe called for “2 t baking soda”). 

And……

TA-DA!

A success! Thank you, M, for your simple recipe!

Yummilicious!!!

Coffee @ Crazy Mocha

After DWiP’s (Duquesne Women in Philosophy) monthly meeting, Taine and I finally went out on our belated coffee date at Crazy Mocha’s. She was the one who helped me the most with arrangements and other Pittsburgh/Duquesne questions before I physically imported myself to the east coast. Honestly, I’m not sure how I would have survived without her helpfulness! Unfortunately, by the time I arrived in the Steel City, she had already left for Berlin as a visiting scholar for one year. Now that she’s finally back, I’ve finally had the wonderful opportunity of meeting her! Before, I’ve only seen her in pictures on her Facebook profile. I must say, I didn’t know what to expect, and was unsure what kind of a person she would be like.

She’s very pretty and attractive in her own right, and definitely has the self-confidence but yet also humbleness of a sucessful (I would venture to characterize) woman philosopher. She’s very down-to-earth, but at the same time has an almost untimely elegant style. So: I really like her.

At Crazy Mocha, treated her that cup of coffee that I had promised for an entire year, and we sat and talked about our work, our interests, our approaches and thoughts on feminist theory, her stay in Berlin, the national (re)construction of a collective German identity, problems with politics… and of course, what some philosophers have to say about the world we live in, e.g. Arendt, Luxemburg, Habermas. I really enjoyed it! And I know such intellectual conversations will be greatly missed after I return back to Seattle. That is not to say that the things I talk about with my friends are meaningless, but it is quite different talking to a fellow scholar on pressing issues in a shared field.

It is really too bad that I have to leave now that we’ve finally met, but hopefully in the future, we will be able to meet again! And of course, there’s always email!

On a completely different note: I just bought a keyboard protector for my Macbook, and I’m still trying to get use to the touch and texture, so I’m still typing rather slowly. There are many keys that I can’t seem to hit at the right time. It’s quite a big difference…. and actually rather annoying. Instead of the slick surface that I’m used to, my fingers are hitting a rubbery, almost sticky kind of texture. But it protects my keyboard, and I have really no choice because some of the letters on the keypad are rubbing off. So, I’m trying to use it as much as possible in order to get used to it. .

Today we have really nice autumn weather in Pittsburgh. About 71 F, there is still a cool breeze that passes through. This is one season that I really enjoy about the east coast. Summer, not so much. The winters are really way too cold to my body’s liking.