Entries tagged with question period

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theme and variations...?

The other day, I bought a 10lb bag of potatoes because it was cheaper ($4!) and more portable than the rice available in the nearby grocery. Friends, I've never tried to cook this much potato in my life! Does anyone have any go-to (and low-energy-friendly) recipes? I can only come up with so many variants of "bake" and "soup" on my own... /o\

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curiosity killed the cat, etc.

♣ In an ~epic moment~ of impulsive 30th-birthday genius, I decided to attempt the free Windows 10 upgrade. I didn't particularly like the new interface and was distinctly unenthused by the built-in OS activity tracking thing (are we not sufficiently tracked already??), so I decided to revert to Windows 7. HAHAHA. Hello, endless startup loop with total repair failure! Hello, 3 days of aggravation and off-and-on troubleshooting attempts! Hello, unsubtle reminder from the universe that I really need to improve my system backup habits! (I'm super paranoid about schoolwork, current/recent research, and resume-type things, but my equally necessary mood-equilibrating/happy memories stuff? Not so much.) I have still not managed to block out time to actually fix things because I need to finish my endless lit review first. /o\

♣ Officemate didn't believe me when, in our mutual exchange of birthday-almost-twin wishes, I told him I'm 30. Buddy, I realize that you're trying to compliment me but... have you never met any other Asians our age??

♣ Last night must have been the first time I've managed a full REM cycle in a while. Most of the time I don't dream even when I do get decent sleep, but I woke up this morning with very perplexing half-images of a NYC dance friend, what seemed to be a toy koala bear (?!), and pretty but nondescript cityscapes with parks and buildings in my head. What even. 0.o

♣ My family is coming to visit this weekend, and I don't think I have enough time to actually hang out with them because WORK WORK WORK SO MUCH WORK (and also a previously-organized trip to a cabane for dinner). Non-overlapping spring "break" schedules are the devil.

♣ A friend of mine in NYC really wants to become a copyeditor, and is generally seeking information on careers in the publishing industry. Does anyone have ideas or recs for info sources, or maybe some general advice that I could pass on to her?

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French reacquisition program

So! 3 months into the move, I'm still living in a mostly-English-speaking bubble. This is annoying, as the language thing is really standing in the way of non-school social integration, exploration, and other things. Yesterday a friend of mine posted this Quebecois pour les nuls video, and I realized that if I can't reliably get my friends to speak French to me, there are other ways to go about it!

Therefore: any recommendations for French-language videos? Songs? Podcasts? News sources? Taking any and all suggestions, but I need to hear it more than I need to read it- I have an easier time of comprehension/recall when I have text in front of me; it's things like slang and pronunciation that trip me up.

Crossposts: http://glass-icarus.livejournal.com/340690.html

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curious george is curious*

What do you guys think of first when you think of "American music"? Artists, genres, top 5 songs; whatever comes into your head.

*(This is only partly ~~morbid~~ curiosity, you understand. The rest of my objective is to gauge how much wtf face I should make. ;P)

eta; also I am spared from making smitten kitchen's salted caramel brownies only because a) I'm scared of making caramel and b) my roommate made a pan of triple-chocolate brownies the other day. >.>

Crossposts: http://glass-icarus.livejournal.com/338865.html

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let's try that again

♠ Since I was apparently one of the last ones on the train, here's my thread at

kate_nepveu's words & deeds love meme 2.0!

♠ NYC stats are so annoying, even with leads from the university librarian. /o\ The NYC City Planning Department and DOH sites have been helpful in the slightly-off-target, facedesk type of way; I keep running into overly detailed or overly expansive census files! You'd think someone somewhere would have a nice comprehensive county-level demographic overview, but if there is one (is that expectation really too convenient? idek), I haven't found it yet. In the meantime: if anyone has suggestions re: where to look for demographics and education-type stats overviews, I would really, really appreciate them. ;; Especially education-type stats.

♠ Anyone playing Health Month this month? I stopped for a while but I figured that what with the beginning of thesis-ing, I'd better start watching certain habits again. Sleep, for example. >.>