Pay it forward in 2011

Guys, guys. I'm moving to Australia at the end of the year! Starting in January I will be attending medical school for two years in Brisbane, at the University of Queensland, then in New Orleans for the following two at the Ochsner Clinical School! Can you tell that I'm excited??

Now that I have a plan for next year, I'm thinking of what to do for the rest of this one. My current thoughts include spending some quality time in Korea and learning to cook Korean food, and maybe visiting some friends in Europe on my way back to the States, before heading Down Under. I'll think through the details once the more pressing priorities are out of the way.

But to backtrack a bit now. At the start of this year, I made an announcement on Facebook:

Pay it Forward in 2011: I will send something handmade (most likely food, in my case) to the first 5 people who leave a comment here. They must post this in turn, and send something they make to the first 5 people who comment on their status. The rules are that it must be handmade by you and it must be sent to your 5 people sometime in 2011.

Now that we're about halfway through the year, I figured I should get cracking on my offerings before my life gets any more hectic with exams, papers, and Big Life Decisions (see above), and such like.

My original plan was to bake something special for each person, but I was struck with a new idea upon espying a small bead shop near campus. I used to love making bead jewelry in middle school, and thought it would be fun to try my hand at it again.

So, a bit about my four(!) Pay it Forward recipients...

For Joanne: a necklace
I met Joanne through another friend while we were living in Boston. She is an incurable Hello Kitty addict, but I actually associate her more with sunshine, laughter, and bright colors. She is also your go-to girl for fun, pretty jewelry, whose extensive (and ever-growing) collection makes her (awesome!) husband Atom shake his head in mock despair. So, sorry Atom, but I'll be adding to that collection.



For Raba: a set of knitting stitch markers
Raba comprises one-third of The Brain. She and Jodi are my buddies for knitting, quilting, baking, cooking, chick flicks, Chinese takeout, Lord of the Rings, VeggieTales, history classes with a certain professor wearing a mustard-yellow sweater... and so, so much more. I can't think about Williams without remembering the hours we spent giggling over cheeseburgers and buffalo fries at the Snack Bar, and the innumerable movie nights with takeout from Chopsticks. Lately Raba has been incredibly busy with classes and work, but I hope these stitch markers will remind her to take a break once in a while and relax with a movie and some knitting!



For Haydee: a bookmark
Haydee is my math buddy. We became friends while struggling through math problem sets together for three years at Williams (she studied abroad junior year). The janitors in the math building grew quite accustomed to walking in on us in empty classrooms at 6am, exhausted and covered in chalk dust but (usually) triumphant. We made for an excellent team, with Haydee thinking up novel approaches to problems, and me picking through the details to find weak points in her proofs. Haydee is well on her way to becoming a professional mathematician now, having just finished her first year of math grad school!



For Jake: a cake
Jake is another brilliant mathematician I know from Williams, all set to graduate with Honors (High Honors?) come June, and head off to math grad school in the fall. I first met Jake at the start of my senior year (his freshman year), chatting about the math and chemistry departments. He was later pressured into joining the marching band, which I think he ended up enjoying much more than he had expected. Since he was the only guy to reply to my Pay it Forward announcement, he got a cake! He wisely chose the lemon + blueberry combination (my specialty!) over chocolate, so that's what he got.



Yes, in a bright pink box, because that's what the Safeway bakery lady gave me when I asked for a cake box.

Don't you? 'Course you do!

Spring! It's the loveliest time of the year, if only for the longer daylight hours.



And spring means spending Sunday afternoons poisoning pigeons in the park with my sweetheart.

Wait, what sweetheart?

Disclaimer: I harbor no particular love for pigeons, but I don't actually condone killing them.



Okay, so that wasn't about pigeons, but swallows are cool birds because they carry things. I had just wanted to share some media that greatly influenced my college years, and fowl just happened to star(?) in both. And you know keeping a blog is all about sharing information nobody cares to have.

In that spirit, here's another song we used to sing a lot in college, about a duck.

Er, I mean, a llama.

And a duck.



Right. So, guys, it's spring! The birds are tweeting outside my window at 4am, the squirrels are frolicking, the flowers are blooming, the pollen is flying...



My condolences to those of you who suffer from allergies, by the way. My allergist informed me last year that I have been suffering from hay fever all my life. Ohhhkay, but do pardon me if I blithely ignore what he said, because as far as I can tell, I am not suffering from hay fever, nor did I before.

I did almost fall out of my chair laughing when he told me that I was also allergic to animal dander, though, because at the time I was a mouse wench spending most of my waking hours in the animal facility. It's possible (probable?) that I developed an allergy from working there for two years, but what can you do?

Well, that's neither here nor there, and my supposed allergies aside, it really is spring, and all this daylight is making me very, very happy.



A while ago there was a post on Sweetapolita about a delightful cake that was the very embodiment of sunshine and spring. I haven't had the time or patience to attempt the layer cake yet, but it's in the queue.

I settled for a lemon-blueberry bundt cake in the meantime, and it's quite tasty, despite the sub-par photos. My trusty dusty Pentax has its limits.

When life hands me lemons...

...I make zest! Honestly, I don't think there is a scent that I love more than that of freshly-grated lemon zest.

A continually overworked mouse-wench-about-to-turn-grad-student, I turn to baking as a way to relieve stress. It is somehow so therapeutic to prepare and combine the ingredients, then to trust the oven to do its job. The chemist in me likes to analyze how each ingredient contributes to the final product, but there is still something magical about the way a goopy mess turns into a delicious cake. Of course the best part about this chemistry experiment is that you can eat the final product!

For the 234th birthday of the United States, I made an apple pie and a blueberry-and-cherry buckle. I am not American, but I guess I won't turn down an excuse to bake something to go with the theme of the day. :)