Shanah Tovah 5775! (All you wanted was pictures of food, right?)

Because that's pretty much all you're going to get. 

When school ended on Thursday, I began a more-or-less uninterrupted run of cooking and eating that lasted until Survivor brunch ended around noon today. What follows actually begins before Thursday, with the Challah Odyssey that Hannah (new history TF) and I undertook in advance of our unprecedented four-Jew Rosh Hashanah dinner. Look on in wonder as:

The dough, with yeast successfully cultivated, begins its first rise.

Post-rise dough looking awfully risen.

Out of the fridge, into silly looking little rolls, and ready to rise once more.

Look how it keeps growing!

Let's skip right to the final product. Having never made bread before, I was pretty thrilled with these results, and they tasted nearly as good as they looked. Here's a shot of our holiday table:

This just before Mike graced it with lamb and cauliflower soup and carrots and egg noodles, to go along with (of course) apples and honey and challah and wine. Note my sneaky pomegranate-vase/Jewish-holiday-multipurpose-tool to the left of the candle. It was a delicious dinner, a great way to ring in the New Year, and made us all feel lucky to have one another to celebrate with. Is more bread in the future? With Hannah's and my hubris adequately burnished by our first attempt, you can bet on it.

***

Then came Friday, and the Sulafat progressive brunch! At long last, our dream of moving from apartment to apartment and eating too much food in each place came true. I have tried to spare you the gory details, but here's the basic progression:

Stage One: The Smith Abode. Yogurt parfaits with granola and fresh fruit; deviled eggs; Irish tea brack; coffee and tea.

Stage Two: The Watsky/Procknow Palace. Shown above is the spinach and cheese strata I made (pour one out for Yasmine).

Stage Two (con't): Strata, now accompanied by juice and johnnycakes.

Stage Three (not shown) included an unreal mint cake and a delicious and flaky spinach pie. I thought I wouldn't have to eat for a week or so, but then it was time to cook for the weekend activity.

***

This weekend, Nihal house hosted their annual international dinner, in which students cook food from their respective homelands. Chase and I hosted team dessert, the hallmark of which was an all-American apple pie. Take a look:

***

So it was, by all accounts, an utterly delicious weekend, and I tried my best to think of the ideals of reflection and self-improvement that should characterize the Rosh Hashanah season. Now, just five short school days separate us from a two-week vacation that will see me trekking through the Balkans and shepherding some old friends up and down the King's Highway here, so be on the lookout for pictures if I ever feel like posting them. Onward to October!

Long Weekend

I write, yet again, from the laziest of weekends.

I think I've actually outdone myself from last weekend. Last weekend most of my friends were around, and we hung out and talked and were alternately productive and unproductive together. This weekend, almost everyone headed off campus to chaperone the proctors on a trip to Wadi Rum. I opted to stay behind, initially because I was just too late to respond but then because I realized the magnitude of the work before me:

- 28 Philosophy papers to grade

- 30 Big History assignments to grade

- 58 midterm comments to write for all 4 classes

(not to mention the normal planning responsibilities of a normal school week)

Yes, midterm season is somehow already upon us, and in order to even get to the comment-writing part I had to finish all the grading. So it seemed like a good idea to stay home, and I have to say I'm pretty dang proud of my accomplishments so far. 15 Big History assignments and 28 comments remain, and the deadlines feel so much less ominous, and I still have three hours to kill in various ways before our latest Downton Abbey marathon commences at Lina's. So I thought I'd do a little writing.

Big major life updates? Not really. But here are some pictures:

Mr. Ben with his advisees. Took an awfully long time to finally take the selfie, but I'm pretty happy about it.

Speaking of advisees, I forced them all to download this app that tracks how well you sleep and wakes you up with a biologically calibrated, phenomenally gentle alarm. This is my pride and joy so far: last night's 95% sleep, which I hope to share with my advisees and lord over their heads while they exhaust themselves with homework. Seriously, though, the goal is to make some actual progress and get them to actually consider their terrible terrible sleep habits, so I hope this can galvanize them into action.

Cooking! Top is a lentil stew made by yours truly; bottom is a paella made by Lina's truly. I had no part in the bottom one but it was delicious and we ate it while watching four straight episodes of Downton. It's really one of the only things I've been doing for the last couple weeks. It will be weird when we're caught up (hopefully by tomorrow!) and the marathon days are behind us. Looking forward to some more tea tonight.

Kittens! When I left my house for dinner in between 3 hours of grading and 3 hours of reading alone on my couch, I was greeted by this adorable sight. Look at em! The mom is in front and the babies are behind (there are actually 4 in total). They're even fluffier in person. I guess the wild cat situation at this school isn't all bad.

The one thing I'm really proud of this weekend (well, besides all the work I've gotten done). Finally busted out my beautiful Shabbat vase and actually lit candles, and even had company to do it with (you can see Mike's leg in the background there). Jordanian vintage port and some local bread made perfectly good substitutes for the real thing, and it just felt so nice and comfortable and homey to do a little celebrating together on a Friday evening. Here's hoping I keep remembering to actually do it. And also I'm gonna need more candles.

Well, duty calls, I think: laundry and other such weekend duties before I head to Lina's to bang out some more grades and watch some more British people totter around. No school tomorrow because of a Professional Development day; I can handle that. And in two weeks it'll be October break and I'll be in the Balkans, which is pretty hard to wrap my head around. Life certainly moves fast enough around here; sometimes it just rocks to slow it down and just sit and think and read and write for a weekend. Til next time.

The Mondays

Last year, the best thing about the Sunday-to-Thursday work week was that the weekend seemed to show up sooner than you expected. This year, I realize that I get to experience the Mondays not once per week, but twice!

In the two weeks that seem to have passed since last we communed in the digital plane, school has started. We are now in full swing, almost halfway through the second full week, and I can't deny that I'm feeling the difference between Teaching Fellow life and Real Teacher life.

Before more details, here's the hastily composed mirror selfie that became the Shot Heard Round Facebook:

Way more popular than I expected. Anyway.

My new teacher life, basically:

- Four classes: two of philosophy, one of world religions, and the Big History monster (amounting to 16 periods of teaching per week)

- The triumphant return of the Glee Club (with more singers than ever, which is thrilling, and a gigantic performance coming up in October, which is I guess a little terrifying)

- Dorm duty once a week (hooray!), but because it's with freshmen, we're starting off the year with something that amounts to supervised study hall. Don't be surprised if I send more updates from fluorescent prisons for the next couple months.

- Various and endless meetings related to: advisees (I have six of my own now; five juniors and a sophomore, each with his or her fair share of emotional or intellectual baggage for which I have quickly become an unloading point), professional development (which I signed up for, so I can't complain), and eventually Arabic (which hasn't even started. How do I make time for that one?)

- On the plus side, I don't have a co-curricular, which leaves my afternoons bafflingly open, especially when I'm feeling on top of my work. Today, for instance, I felt both so academically drained and so guilty for having a free afternoon while everyone else slaved away on the tennis courts/improv stage/debate halls that I did this: 

First-ever solo baking project in Jordan! Except I still owe Yasmine for the ingredients, which she bequeathed to us like three months ago. I'll get there.

So life is busy, which isn't that much of a surprise, but is still feeling like something to get used to. Big History has been a crazy mosh pit of excitement so far because we're trying to coordinate schedules across oceans and time zones, but the students are so thrilled about the class that I'm usually very excited just to walk in the door. World Religions feels a little strange because I'm (pretty intentionally) leaving the curriculum design in the hands of the new teaching fellow in the department, and since she's never taught before we're still ice-axing our way up the learning curve. Philosophy often feels like the old shoe I can just slip into, except when things go haywire (like they did this Sunday) and I feel like everything I know is slipping out from under me. Hopefully that doesn't happen too much more; it's not what I need on Mondays. Or Sundays. Or both.

There has been time for fun, of course, very little of which I have documented except the food. Are you surprised?

This one time we cooked dinner on a weekday! That doesn't happen often enough and should probably happen more. I helped with the eggplant at Meg's; Meredith was (as always) responsible for southern comfort. 

Once we watched a Studio Ghibli movie with a projector on a wall. "The Cat Returns." Familiarly weird and totally fun.

Last weekend, the return to Beit Sitti! Made some different dishes, had the same amount of fun, and there were about 40 people there (30 of them from King's) which made for a uniquely raucous good time.

Nothing on tap yet for this weekend, which I can't say I'm sorry about. I'm sure things will come up, and until then I watch it from my faraway Monday outpost. Tuesday's my big day, with all 4 classes and Glee Club, so I think the thing I'm the most excited for is the big ol' sleep I'm planning to get starting around 10:00. Guess I should feel lucky I can get to bed that early. 

More news from the front to come!! Life has felt pretty normal so far; I apologize for not having quite the same I'm-in-Jordan joie de vivre that probably characterized my posts at this time last year. I'm having fun, don't worry, but I'm also definitely working, and I'm glad to report that so far that's not a bad thing.