While studying for the Therapeutic Relationships exam...

I came across a lecture slide which states, "A nurse shall not use physical, verbal or psychological abuse against the client."

Judy: I. Am. Flabbergasted. So you can't slap them upside the head?
Josh: Where's the fun in that?
Judy: It was gonna be my signature move! "Hey, Billy!" *smack* "Did you take your medicine?" *slug*
Josh: I'm thinking Three Stooges style motions.
Judy: "Did you have your lunch yet?" *uppercut*
Josh: Just a few light slams here and there.
Judy: "The doctor will come and see you in an hour or so, okay?" *HADOUKEN!*
Josh: FINISH HIM!

That's from a different game, but you get the basic idea. Oh god, I'm so glad that course is over. I gleefully threw the coursepack into my recycling basket. Gleefully!

Cooking Attempt #9: Mashed potatoes and Donkatsu (Japanese breaded pork cutlet)

I've been learning new recipes since I started living alone in September. I tried before, but I think I was too ambitious and it ended up being a dismal failure. (If I think about the vegetable cream soup I made then...urgh.)

I've been craving mashed potatoes since last night, so I made it with donkatsu when I came home after my exam. My parents brought me the frozen donkatsu from a Korean market. I ate it with salad and black rice. Yum~

Mashed potatoes
2 medium size potatoes
Margarine 1.5tbsp
Milk 1/2 cup
Salt 1/2tbsp
Pepper to taste

Peel and cut the potatoes into largish chunks. Put them into boiling water with salt. They should be fully cooked after about 15 minutes. Turn off the stove and drain the water. If you put the pot back on the stove with the potatoes, the remaining moisture will evaporate even without the heat on. Put the rest of the ingredients and use a fork or a whisk to mash the potatoes.
If you want it to be creamier, put more margarine or milk.

For donkatsu, heat up some oil in a frying pan at medium heat and cook the cutlets slowly. If it's too hot, the breadcrumbs might burn before the meat cooks fully.




9월에 혼자 살기 시작했을 때부터 열심히 요리공부를 하고 있어요.
전에 한번 시도해 봤는데요, 손이 너무 많이 가는 음식을 해서 실패한 것 같아요.
(그때 만든 야채크림수프를 생각하면, 욱~)

어제부터 mashed potatoes가 생각나더라구요. 그래서 오늘 시험끝나고 집에 와서 돈까스랑 한번 만들어봤어요. 돈까스는 부모님이 한국식품에서 사다주신 거에요. 샐러드와 흑쌀과 함께 먹었습니다.
음냐~

Mashed potatoes
중간 사이즈 감자 2개
마가린 1.5tbsp
우유 반컵
소금 1/2tbsp
후추 간맞춤

감자는 껍질 벗기고 큼직한 네모로 잘라서 끓는 물에 넣으세요.
거기에 소금도 넣구요.
15분쯤 끓이면 다 익었겠죠?
불을 끄고 물을 따라주세요. 감자가 들은 냄비를 다시 스토브에 얹으면 불을 다시 안 켜도 남아있는 수분이 날아갑니다.
나머지 재료를 넣고 포크나 달걀 휘스크 같은 도구로 잘 으깨주세요.
더 부드러운 걸 좋아하시면 마가린이나 우유를 좀 더 넣으세요.

돈까스는 후라이팬에 식용유를 두르고 중간 불에 서서히 익혀주세요.
너무 뜨겁게 하면 고기가 익기 전에 빵가루가 타거든요.


J'avais appris des nouvelles recettes depuis septembre quand j'ai commencé à habiter toute seule. J'ai essayé avant, mais je pense que j'étais trop ambitieuse et c'était un échec lamentable. (Quand je pense à la soupe crème de légumes que j'ai fait à ce moment-là...pouah!)

J'avais terriblement envie d'avoir la purée de pommes de terre depuis la nuit passée, alors je l'ai cuisiné avec donkatsu quand je suis rentrée chez moi après mon examen. mes parents m'ont apporté le donkatsu gelé d'un marché coréen. Je l'ai mangé avec une salade et du riz noir. Miam miam~

La purée de pommes de terre
2 pommes de terres moyens
Margarine 1.5 grand cuillerée (GC?)
Lait 1/2 tasse
Sel 1/2 grand cuillerée
Poivre

Pelez et coupez les pommes de terres en gros morceaux. Mettez-les dans l'eau brouillant avec du sel. Ils seront complètement cuits après environs 15 minutes. Éteindez la cuisinière et égouttez l'eau. Si vous mettez la casserole sur la cuisinière avec les pommes de terre, la humidité qui reste s'évaporera. Mettez les autres ingrédients dans la casserole et utilisez une fourchette ou un fouet pour faire une purée.

Si vous la voulez un peu plus crèmeuse, mettez plus de la margarine ou du lait.

Pour le donkatsu, réchauffez un peu d'huile dans une poêle au chaleur moyen et cuisinez les côtelettes lentement. Si c'est trop chaud, la panure peut brûler avant la viande est cuite.

A new challenge! - 새로운 도전! - Une nouvelle challenge!

When I was just 9 years old and just starting to get a grasp of English in Toronto, my mother decreed that I should write my diary in three different languages. It didn't matter, she said, if they weren't grammatically perfect as long as I tried. (Can you tell she's a teacher?) Well, she expected my Korean at least to be spotless. My Korean is still awesome (and I'm damn proud of it too), but I'm starting to lose some words, so I'm going to be bringing back the trilingual diary entries in this blog. The entries will not be exact translations of each other, because that is impossible, as I've stressed many times before. However, I will do my best to not slack off in the translation. Oh and hey, you can always put the translations into Babelfish for a good laugh!

내가 토론토에서 처음으로 영어가 귀에 들어오기 시작한 꽃다운 아홉살이었을 때, 엄마가 일기를 세가지 언어로 쓰길 바라셨다. 엄마는 문법이 틀려도 괜찮으니 그냥 열심히 쓰면 된다고 하셨다. (선생님이셨다는 게 짐작가지 않는가?) 그래도 한글만은 완벽하길 강요하셨다. 내 한글은 아직도 거의 완벽하지만 (엄청 자랑스럽게 생각하고 있다) 단어들이 서서히 지워지는 것 같아서 다시 삼개 국어 일기를 시작한다. 내가 전에 몋번이나 강조했듯이, 완벽한 번역은 무가능하지만 할 수 있는만큼 뜻이 맞게 써보겠다. 바벨피쉬에 넣어보면 재미있지 않을까?

Quand j'avais 9 ans et commençais à comprendre l'anglais à Toronto, ma mère a décrété que je devrais écrire mon journal en trois langues. Ça ne fait rien, elle a dit, si la grammaire n'est pas parfaite pourvu que j'essayais. (C'est evident qu'elle étais une professeur, n'est-ce pas?) Eh bien, elle a demandé que mon coréen au moins d'être parfait. Mon coréen est encore impressionant (et je suis très fière), mais je commence à perdre les mots, alors je vais restaurer les notations trilingues dans ce blog. Les notations ne seront pas de translations exactes, parce que c'est impossible, comme j'avais dit plusieurs fois. Toutefois, je vais essayer de ne pas relâcher dans les translations. Hé, vous pouvez les mettre dans Babelfish pour rigoler!

L'endoctrinement continue.

La fin de semaine passée, j'ai regardé Le Seigneur d'Anneaux en français. Pendant le troisième film, il y avait une scène qui me faisait avoir peur pour ma santé mentale.

Eowyn: Courage, Merry. Ce sera bientôt fini.
Merry: Dame Eowyn, vous êtes belle et courageuse. Vous avez tant de raisons de vivre et de gens qui vous aiment.
Judy: Merry a utilisé une intervention de la modèle McGill! Il a rappelé à Eowyn qu'elle a des forces qui la donne un sentiment de contrôle. C'est tellement important pour sa santé!

Vous saviez déjà que je suis folle. Maintenant, vous avez plus de la preuve.

Cooking Attempt #8: 감자조림 (Potato side dish)

I'm on a cooking roll, lately. Anyway, I was sick of having no more than 2 side dishes at a time, so I decided to make something else to add to my fridge!

This recipe is one of many Korean potato side dishes. It's a nice mix of saltiness (from the soy sauce) and sweetness (from honey).

5 medium sized potatoes - chopped into largish chunks
1 onion - chopped
crushed garlic - 1 tbsp
soy sauce - 12 tbsp
water - 1/2 cup
sesame oil - 1 tbsp
honey - 3 tbsp and then to taste

First you put the potato chunks in a large pot with lots of water and start bring it up to a boil. Lower the heat to medium and leave on the stove until the potatoes are almost done cooking. Meanwhile, mix the onion, garlic and soy sauce together in a bowl. Drain the potatoes and put them back in the pot on low heat. Add the onion, garlic, soy sauce mixture. Then add water to the pot. Stir frequently, making sure that the potatoes get coated with the sauce. When the sauce starts to thicken, add the sesame oil and stir. Turn off the heat. Add honey and stir.

I like mine a little sweet, so just keep tasting and experimenting.
Clockwise from left: Nori (dried seaweed seasoned with sesame oil and salt), potato side dish, radish kimchi, fish cake stir fry

Cooking Attempt #7: 오뎅조림 (Fish cake stir fry)

I made some fish cake soup over the weekend, but all the flavour went out of it into the broth, so I decided to make something else with the rest of the fish cake.
This is a side dish that you eat with rice. I had mine with kimchi and some nori. Yum.

Fish cake - 400g - This comes in all shapes and sizes. If it's too big, then cut it to bite-size.
Onion - chopped
Green pepper - chopped
Green onion - chopped
Hot pepper - chopped
Carrot - diced
Soy sauce - 3 tbsp
Sesame oil - 1 tbsp
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Chili paste - 1 tbsp

Boil some water and dip the fish cake pieces in it briefly. Fish out the fish cake pieces and dunk them in cold water. When they've cooled down, cook it in a frying pan/wok with a bit of oil until it starts to brown over medium heat. Push it to one side of the pan, so that you can cook the veggies with the soy sauce, sesame oil and sugar. Once the veggies start to soften, add the chili paste and mix it until it dissolves. Then mix everything together, making sure that the fish cake is coated evenly. Before you eat, sprinkle some sesame seeds on top.

This is the spicy version. If you like something milder, then just forego the hot pepper and chili paste. Yummy yum!

A Brief Self-Review

I got a phone call randomly on Thursday from the First-Year office at McGill, asking me how my first year was going and if I was adjusting well to university life. I was amused, but gratified. From what I can remember, U of T never called me except to ask for my contribution as an alumnus, because as an alumnus of the illustrious U of T, you must be wallowing in money only months after graduating, right? And from what I can remember, I also told it to go fuck itself (not exactly in those words).

Ahem.

So I told the person that it wasn't actually my first year of university life but that I still appreciated the call anyway. After I hung up, I started thinking about why I was so bitter about U of T. Was there something incredibly wrong about the whole system or was I foisting the blame for my less than stellar academic career on it?

I will be the first to admit that I goofed off a lot in my first year. Everyone knows first year is when they make sure everyone is up to speed in the basics of whatever program they're in. I was arrogant from my years at Westmount. I skipped classes, slept through lectures, barely did readings and all that good stuff. Still, I did a little better than average.

At the end of the first year, I went to my registrar (academic advisor) who basically informed me that I had screwed up the rest of my life and that med school was now out of my reach forever and ever. Surprisingly, the med school thing didn't bother me as much as her attitude that my marks, which were just average and not terrible, weren't good for anything to which I might aspire. That no matter how hard I tried from here on in, it wouldn't count for anything, because of this one screw-up. I was so bitter that I later wrote a sarcastic letter mocking registrars, which was accepted by one of the campus papers. I don't consider it my best piece, but it must have been a common enough opinion to be published in all its vociferous glory.

Second year is a blur. I did better in some aspects, I suppose. Actually enjoyed some of the courses, but I still slept through Physiology, because quite frankly, if the profs can't be bothered to at least pretend that they're not aching to go rushing back to their labs at Med Sci, then I can't pretend to show any interest in their half-hearted lectures. I simply refuse. So second year was also a bit of a bust.

Before third year started, I said to myself, this can't be what university is about. I'm supposed to be learning new things and expanding my mind and everything else that education is supposed to do for you. So fuck it, I said, and after making sure I had enough courses to get my Life Sciences major and Math and Botany minors, I signed up for whatever sounded interesting. Classical mythology, Latin and Greek roots in Science terminology, history of math, history of bio, etc. History of Espionage was an unusual treat. Thanks to this new outlook, I enjoyed my third and fourth year quite a bit. I did all the readings that I was supposed to do and went to most lectures. Sure, I didn't take physics or more than one anatomy course. I don't regret it, even if it means I have to take them now for nursing. I don't care if I can't exactly remember how RNA viruses work. I know what works for me now. I know what I want to learn and I know I'm not a failure.

In your face, U of T.

Mon peau est trop sensitive.

J'ai reçu la vaccine pour le polio lundi matin, et maintenant j'ai un contusion sur mon épaule. Ce n'est pas une nouvel événement. Je trouve plusieurs contusions au hasard, mais celui-ci est vraiment dégoûtant. C'est bleu, avec des points violets. Un photo est compris, parce que Robert me l'a suggeré. Voilà!

J'ai eu une rêve en français.

Je ne peux pas me souvenir tous les détails, mais je pense que c'était une situation dangereuse. Il y avait quelqu'un avec moi, qui essayait de trouver la solution (peut-être quelque chose avec une machine? - je pense que je regarde trop de Battlestar Galactica) et je l'aidait. C'était très obscur tout autours, et à l'étroit. Il y avait trois étages pour réparer la problème. Je ne sais pas s'il y avait du conversation en français, mais je suis sûre que toutes mes pensées étaient en français. C'est drôle, non? Je ne peux pas parler en français sans penser un peu en avant, mais je peux rêver en français, si je le pratique un peu avant de m'endormir?

Mais voici, ma première poste en français. J'ai besoin de beaucoup d'encouragement!

Do you know what hell is, mortal?

This has been stuck in my head for the past hour.

Follow me~ Fantasy, fantasy~

Hush, my children and gather round for a university student's Halloween story...

I'm looking up jounal articles for a psychology research proposal. It is almost as bad as doing an annotated bibliography. But believe me, an annotated bibliography can be a lot worse.

How, you ask?

When you're doing an annotated biblography for a botany paper. More specifically, an annotated bibliography for a paper on a botanist from the 1860s.

That is when you must descend into the bowels of the U of T Gerstein library! Ask the traumatized few who have been to the Z stacks. It is as if a hundred years of students' despair has turned into ash and settled on the dimly lit shelves. Run your hands along the shelves and feel the residue of sighs, heavy on your fingertips.

The quiet is tremendous. You hear your heart beat.

Then, in the distance, a moan. Is it a ghost? Is it one of the ghosts of U of T?

You creep along the narrow spaces between the shelves, careful not to disturb the fragile pages, a hundred years old. Another mournful wail. Who is it?

It's a student dozing on and off on a stack of musty books. He has been in the library for the past 30 hours, willing himself to look through the yellowed pages. His brief rest is troubled. It is the weight of thousands of books bearing down on him!

The silence!

Oh, the horror!

Cooking Attempt #6: 무우국 (Beef and Radish Soup)

Ahhhh~ I had exams on Monday and Tuesday this week, so I wanted to make something that would last awhile and be yummy enough that I wouldn't get sick of eating it all the time.

Hence, the beef and radish soup. I thought it was turnip this whole time, but it turns out that it was actually radish. After much discussion with Josh and Robert, I will specify here that it's a Korean radish, which is white in colour with a slight greenish tinge towards the bottom end.

So anyhoo, the recipe here is for about 4 servings, apparently.

Ingredients:

Beef - 200g

Water - 10 cups

Korean white radish - about the size of a small fist, let's say

Garlic - 1 tbsp, crushed

Green onion - 1/2 cup, chopped

Soy sauce - 1 tbsp

Sesame oil - 1/2 tbsp

Salt and pepper

You can use whichever beef part you like. I had sliced ribeye from a Korean market. It shouldn't be too lean, otherwise it will end up being tough and you also want some beef flavour to infuse the water. You can cut it up into small bite-size chunks.

Put the beef chunks in the cold water in the pot and turn on the heat.

When it starts boiling, the oily parts will rise to the surface. Skim these off.

The radish should be peeled and cut into thin slices (5mm) so that they cook faster. Add these radish chunks to the boiling water.

Turn down the heat to medium and let it boil for 20 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Add the green onion and garlic.

It should cook until the radish pieces turn into a translucent grey. Then add the soy sauce and sesame oil. Stir and turn off the heat.

Now, this recipe might end up being a bit bland, but you can always add a little more soy sauce or salt to make it suit your tastes.

To eat it, you cook some rice and add the cooked rice to a bowl of the soup. Mix well and eat with kimchi. Yum!

Update: After this picture was taken, I went back and added some egg drops. You bring the soup to a boil, whip an egg and plunk it into the boiling soup. Give it a quick swirl and you've got egg drops.

McGill Cultural Revolution!

I always thought I'd be the one doing the brainwashing in pursuit of world domination. Who would have guessed that I'd be the one getting indoctrinated? I wouldn't have noticed that anything was happening were it not for this conversation.

Josh: Why "client"? Isn't it "patient"?
Judy: The McGill stand is that people don't have to be ill to receive nursing care, so it's more appropriate to call them "clients".
Josh: Why are they getting treatment otherwise?
Judy: A new mother doesn't have to be sick to get information about her newborn. It's a more holistic way of looking at health. "Client" can refer to an individual, a family or a community.
Josh: Ah. Do you have a little red book written by Chairman McGill?
Judy: Well, I do have a red book. It's not very little though.

And look at this quote from Mao Tse Tung's Little Red Book:
"This army is powerful because all its members have a conscious discipline; they have come together and they fight not for the private interests of a few individuals or a narrow clique, but for the interests of the broad masses and of the whole nation. The sole purpose of this army is to stand firmly with the Chinese people and to serve them whole-heartedly."

If you replace "this army" with "McGill" and "Chinese people" with "clients", you have the basic gist of McGill model of nursing. Scary.

Join me, comrades, in the McGill Cultural Revolution (or is it Nursing Revolution?)! If you see me dressed in drab grey clothing, ominously muttering about the human condition and "transformation of the profession", please take me away to a deprogramming farm. Just don't bonk me on the head with a baseball bat.

A Juicy Lesson in Korean: #5 - Answers

Okay, so it's been awhile and the last lesson wasn't something that you could really use without getting a beating (or at least some flabbergasted looks of horror).

Here's a quick lesson on answering questions.

A) Yes. - 예 or 네

예 - Yeh.
네 - Neh.

Both are "yes". It doesn't matter which one you use. Don't think that just because one sounds like "Nea", it's a negative.


B) No. - 아니요

Ah-ni-yo.

Shortened form: 아뇨 (Ah-nyo)

This is pretty self-explanatory. It gets confusing when you're answering negative questions.
Example in English:
Question --> "Didn't John go to school today?"
Answer --> "No." (he didn't go to school today)
or "Yes." (he did go to school today)

But in Korean, instead of answering to match the negative or positive of the person's actions, you respond to the question itself.
Example in Korean:
Question --> "Didn't John go to school today?"
Answer --> "No." (you are incorrect; he did go to school today)
or "Yes." (you are correct; he didn't go to school today)


C) I don't know. - 몰라요.

Mol-lah-yo.
The two "l"s should connect the first two syllables so that it sounds like "mollah"

As in English, it's not very polite to answer a question with "I don't know." Imagine if you asked someone where the train station was and the person said, "I don't know" and walked away. So it's better to use D).


D) Well, I'm not sure. - 글쎄요.

Gul-sseh-yo.
Gul = soft k sound

This is a more polite (and less direct) way of telling a person that you don't know the answer to their question.

Ahhh! Four posts in a day! I took some pictures around campus last week. The weather was beautiful. Keep clicking to the right or view as a slideshow!

Cooking Attempt #5: 김치찌개 (Kimchi stew)

I've made kimchi stew before, but it was my first time using canned tuna. Chopped pork is best, but I couldn't be bothered to buy pork and chop it up, so I used tuna and tofu. You can also use spam.

Ingredients:
Green onion
Garlic (mushed)
Canned tuna (instead of pork)
Square of firm tofu (cut into small squares)
Kimchi (older, slightly sour kimchi is better than one that's fresh)
Sesame oil (just a touch)
Water

If you're making this with pork, then you cook it first on a skillet with some oil. When it's just about done, you add everything else. Water should be added until it just barely covers the kimchi. Stir it well so that everything mixes and let it boil until the kimchi is soft and the soup part is ever so slightly thicker.

Eat it with a bowl of rice and other 반찬. An easy way to use up leftover kimchi.

Thanksgiving in Toronto

I spent Thanksgiving holiday in Toronto. Not with my family, since my parents were in Wiarton and my brother had plans with his friends. We don't really do anything for Thanksgiving anyway. Koreans have their own version earlier in the year. Come to think of it, we don't really do anything for that one either. Our family really is apathetic about these things.

It was my first train ride ever in Canada. I was so excited. I had my bags ready and I got on the bus to go to the train station. There was a little kerfuffle about the bus running only during rush hour and me being momentarily confused about the 24hour clock on the bus schedule (15h does not mean 5pm), but it was all cleared up and I had everything planned out perfectly. I got to the train station, got my tickets and lined up for the track. I thought I was really far behind, but it was obvious later on that I was actually in the first quarter of the line, which snaked to the far end of the station and doubled back.

I got on the train with a countless number of other students who were all going home for the holidays. I looked around the car about an hour after we left and everyone was either doing readings or typing away on their laptop. Readings. They never end.

We arrived in Toronto around midnight, so by the time I got to my parents' condo, it was around 1am. I called Robert, took a shower and went to bed.

On Saturday, I went to visit Jenn's condo, the first time since she and Jon got married. They had kittens! Dizzle and Grace were oh so adorable and floppy and flatulent. Jon tells me it's the wet food they're eating and that I shouldn't squeeze their tummies, but how can I resist snuggling them? Jennifer and I had Thai food near her condo called "Thai Spoon". They gave us so much food. Urgh but yummy. After that, we hung out at her condo and I played with her kittens until Robert picked me up to have dinner with his family. I got to see Julie and Randal, who've just come back from teaching English in Japan for a year. We played Mario Kart.

On Sunday, I went to Josh's graduation party with Kevin, his father and Bryan. It was nice chatting about nothing and everything. (Everything and nothing? Nothing and anything? Anything and nothing? Ah, who knows.) Afterwards, Josh, Kevin and I had a sushi dinner near Kevin's place (NOT the Yonge Ichiban, which failed a health inspection some weeks ago). I hadn't eaten sushi for so long. Since Bryan was being a poopypants and didn't want to do the Traumathon (Korean revenge flicks!) with us, we watched Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance in Kevin's bedroom. We were suitably disturbed. They're violent films, but there's more to them than just clobbering people with hammers and shooting off people's hands. It makes one think more about pain and suffering and whether revenge can really be a catharsis to all of that. (The answer is: NO.) I liked Lady Vengeance better. It touches me more because it's somewhat more realistic than Old Boy. I really can't say anymore without giving out spoilers, so I'll stop here. We stayed up until 4am, talking more about everything and nothing.

Monday was Thanksgiving at Robert's house, with a giant turkey and stuffing and homemade cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes/yams and desserts. Oh so many desserts. Robert's mom, Lilian made pumpkin maple cake and two different versions of a dessert with chocolate cookies covered in whipped cream (one with lactose free Cool Whip and the other with homemade whipped cream). I brought Korean rice cakes, traditional cookies and Japanese chestnut snacks (none of them homemade, obviously). Everything was oh so delicious and I told myself that I probably wouldn't have to eat for three days afterwards. (Yeah right.) After dinner, Julie, Robert and I played Palazzo, a board game about building palaces. It was designed by the same person who made Princes of Florence, which I like (and also spilled a giant glass of water the last time we played). Then Randal came down to play Mario Kart with us, because we pestered him even though he was studying for a job interview.

My train left at 7am on Tuesday morning, so I took the first subway train down at 5:40am. It started pouring rain when I was right in between my parents' condo and Finch station, so I got soaked. It wasn't a fun train ride, trying to sleep with wet clothing on. When I got to Montreal, I said screw it, I'll take a taxi home (even though it was only 2km away). I told the directions to the driver in French, but when we got there, he spoke in English. Why do people keep doing that? I speak French well enough! Practice with me, goddammit!

It was sad that I couldn't see everyone this weekend, but there's only so much time. I barely saw my mother and brother. Hopefully in the Christmas holidays, I'll be able to see more people.

Oh, and this is a little wooden cat that Julie and Randal gave me. I haven't named her yet. She sits on top of my bookshelf in my apartment, ready to pounce on someone's head!

Cooking Attempt #4: Chicken penne

Okay, so it's been awhile. I made this on October 3rd, because I felt like chicken and I wanted to use up the red pepper and onion half that had been sitting in my fridge for a week. I'm terrified of anything going bad or mouldy in my fridge. The germs! The germs!

I bought some chicken breast strips and cooked them in a skillet with some oil and diced onion and red pepper. It reminded me of fajitas, except I didn't have any tortilla to go with it. So I cooked some penne at the same time. I love penne. They're small but not so small that they get smushed when you're draining it. I put some Japanese ginger dressing on it, because it was the only thing I had other than teriyaki sauce and it was yummy. Maybe I should try teriyaki sauce next time. And rice. Ooh...getting hungry just thinking about it. Oh yeah, the white stuff on top is mozzarella cheese. Cheese and Japanese dressing? It worked out. Fusion cuisine!

Un bon weekend!

Robert visited Montreal this past weekend with his brother, Jerome, and his mother. I was never good at inviting people into my home. You'll remember that most people have rarely been to my house, if at all. It makes me feel very self-conscious and exposed.

They were kind enough to schlep some stuff that I asked my mother to prepare for me. These items were:

1) a box filled with books (all my Jane Austen, all my Alexandre Dumas, whatever else I might like) and DVDs
2) pink autumn blanket
3) box of Korean instant noodles
4) package of Korean tofu soup mix
5) computer chair
6) stereo
7) a jar of kimchi (because no Korean can live without kimchi)

That's all I asked for. What I got was a car crammed with packages of meat, a case of soy milk boxes, a dozen Asian pears, several cans of tuna and a container of cream cheese on top of everything else that I asked for. (I noticed, with a small suppressed sigh, that the box did not contain half as many books as I would have liked. Dickens instead of Dumas. Ah well.) One pleasant surprise was a box of peanut butter cookies. I was complaining to my brother about being unable to find any in the nearby grocery store and he remembered! I know I call him a doofus, but he does have rare moments of thoughtfulness which is all the more touching when it happens.

So we brought all the stuff up and decided to go for dinner nearby. We walked down Le Parc and went into the Greek restaurant, because it was the first place we noticed after we remembered that we were actually looking for a restaurant. It was very yummy.

The next day, Robert and I walked to the condo where Lilian and Jerome were staying to help move his grandmother's antique icebox to the car. The icebox from the early 20th century, before they had refrigerators. Everyday, you would have a person deliver a block of ice to your house to be placed in one of the compartments, which would help cool the food stored in the other compartments. It was really interesting.

Afterwards, Jerome took Robert and me to a Tibetan restaurant that he used to frequent when he went to McGill. Then we went to see "3:10 to Yuma". I love me some Christian Bale, but have you seen the wrinkles around his eyes? The man has to take care of his skin, really.

We walked back home. Apparently, Jerome went to eat poutine without us. *shake fist* Next time, I'm determined to get some poutine. It's almost sacrilegious that I haven't yet tried poutine despite having lived in Montreal for over a month.

The next morning, Robert and Jerome had to return to Toronto, so we went out for breakfast at Cora's. It was my first time eating there. So yummy. Mmm, western omelette. I wish I could have practiced my French more with the waitress, but she switched to English when she noticed that we were conversing in English. I've noticed people do that quite often here. I still try to talk to my building manager and superintendent in French though.

Robert and Jerome drove away and I managed to walk to school without sniffling too much. It was nice spending the weekend with company and relaxing without having to worry about readings or assignments. *sigh of contentment*

Now to eat all this food...

A Juicy Lesson in Korean: #4 - Untranslatable Insults

First, I have to rant a little.

On Tuesday, I had my second French class for students in health sciences and I just have to point this out. Once you have a general understanding of a language, you have to give up trying to translate you thoughts word-for-word for the following reasons:

1) Every language has it quirks and phrases that just cannot be translated literally.
2) Trying to tranlsate everything takes up time and energy.
3) Native speakers will understand you even if your grammar isn't perfect.
4) It's fucking annoying for the other students in the class.

I am one of the annoyed students in the class. Good god, man, you may think English and French are very similar, but they don't even have the same origins. English is a West Germanic language and French is Latin based. They don't have the same conjugations and tenses, so for heaven's sake, don't try to find an exact equivalent. And if you don't know a word, then get yourself a bloody dictionary. You can even have mine.

This week's lesson is on insults. Don't get it confused with swearing. I reuse to teach swear words in Korean, because it's inappropriate and also, it just doesn't have the same flavour if you don't say it just right.

A) _____ is/are disrespectful. - _______ 싸가지 없어.

Ssa-ga-ji up-suh.

Ssa = Say "sa" with an exhaled breath behind it.

You can add a name/pronoun to the blank or omit it altogether if the listener already knows who you're talking about. (This rule applies for all Korean sentences.) The translation is very inadequate. If I read "Tony 싸가지 없어", in a novel and had to translate it, it would be "Tony is a disrespectful asshole who thinks he's all that." All that is implied in one phrase. This is one of the phrases I miss the most.


B) You're making a spectacle of yourself. - 쌩쇼를 해라.

Sseng-sho-rul heh-rah.

Literally, it translates to "Do a live show." As you can see, it's an imperative and if the person is already doing something inappropriate, then why encourage them even more? Perhaps a better way to put it is, "You're being ridiculous. Why don't you do a live show while you're at it, you spaz?"


C) Mind your own business. - 너나 잘 하세요.

Nuh-nah jal hah-se-yo.

jal = almost a soft "chal"

This is meant to be very insulting to the listener. First, there's the meaning, "Mind your own business" which is disconcerting for anyone to hear. For the second layer of insult, we must examine the literal meaning. "너나" is "you" in the most informal speech level with an emphasis as if to say, "Don't worry about me. Worry about yourself." "잘 하세요" is "Please do well" in the imperative on the formal speech level that you would use in polite everyday conversation. They're innocuous enough on their own, but together, it implies that the speaker should show respect for the listener but is deliberately choosing not to. It's even more insulting than if the whole phrase had been in the informal speech level. All this is in 6 syllables.

You can hear this where there are 34 seconds left.



Bonus: You can hear "Good-bye" (안녕히 가세요) when there are 30 seconds left.

There are many more. Even phrases that aren't insults. There are still moments when I wish there was an English version equal in eloquence to its Korean counterpart. I tell these to Brenda and we laugh together and wish that there was someone else to share in our amusement.

Cooking Attempt #3: Latkes

I was recently asked, "Why latkes?"

You don't understand. I spent my childhood with friends from Yorkhill E.S. who taunted me every winter about latkes and the goodness of latkes and oh, how they couldn't wait for Hannukkah.

And I would go home and daydream about latkes while eating rice cake soup (traditional Korean New Year's dish) with kimchi and all the 반찬.

I've been waiting for this moment for 14 bloody years and lo, I have done it! Why latkes?

Because I had lots of potatoes and eggs.


I chose the simplest recipe I could find on the internet (basically, just potatoes, onions and eggs) and went at it. I know it just looks like a giant blob, but I assure you that there are at least 10 latkes on that plate. The thing in the middle is sour cream. I honestly had no idea I would end up with so many. Guess I'll be eating latkes for awhile. Yay!

Note for next time: If I make the potato pieces smaller, does that improve the texture? Also, I've seen recipes with all sorts of extra crap like baking powder and whatnot. Do I really need those? Very very curious, indeed.

A Juicy Lesson in Korean: #3 - Talk Like a Pirate Day

Debbie said I should teach something that pirates would say in Korean for Talk Like a Pirate Day. The thing is, I don't know what Korean pirates sound like. Of course, there are Korean pirates. There have been for centuries, but I don't know if they had a special pirate slang and if they did, what it sounded like. (The Asian pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 are obviously from Singapore/China.)


So I will use this opportunity to teach imperatives in Korean. And since this is pirates we're talking about, we will presume that they did not use the formal speech level. Instead, they would treat you like dirt. AND STOMP ON YOUR FACE!

Ahem.


A) Give me _____! - _____ 줘! [followed by utterance of very bad words probably]

_____ Jwo! = "j" almost sounds like "ch" + wo ("Whoa!")

In the blank, you can use whatever you like: food, items of clothing, anything at all. Remember that this is very informal and urgent-sounding.


B) Do _____! - _____ 해!

_____ Heh!

In the blank, you can use a gerund (an action noun). For instance, I could say to my brother, "Cleaning해!" (while shaking my fist). When you learn the Korean forms of the gerunds, you can just slip them into the formula.

Example: Cleaning = 청소 (chung-so) -----> "청소해!"
Driving = 운전 (oon-jun) -----> "운전해!"


C) Aren't you going to give me ______? - ______ 안 줘?

______ Ahn-jwo?

This is more rhetorical. It would be more accurate to translate it as, "You're not going to give this to me? How dare you?" followed by a beating (it's a pirate after all). Basically one can use this interchangeably with A). This one is slightly more threatening, because it implies consequences to a refusal.


D) Aren't you going to _____ ? - ______ 안 해?

______ Ahn-heh?

Just like B), you use a gerund in the blanks. This follows the sentence structure of C) and basic meaning.


E) Please do ______. - ______ 해줘.

______Heh-jwo.

As obvious from the "please", it is not something a pirate would say. It's an informal (almost childish) way of asking someone (who is very close like a friend or family member) to do something for you. Again, the blanks are filled by gerunds.



BONUS LESSON: "I know I am a foreigner. Sure. You can keep staring at me. Don't touch me though." as requested by Tara.

네, 저 외국인이에요. 쳐다보시는 건 괜찮은데, 만지지는 마세요.

Neh, juh weh-gook-in-ee-eh-yo.
Chuh-da-bo-see-neun gun gwen-chan-eun-deh, man-ji-ji-neun mah-seh-yo.

(Literally, "Yes, I know I'm a foreigner. You can stare at me, but please don't touch.")


Hahah! I think you're going to need a sound file or something. I'll try and figure it out.

Cooking attempt #2: Potato 반찬

Koreans have a bowl of sticky rice at every meal with many different side dishes and/or soups. The side dishes are called "반찬" (ban-chan) and they come in little dishes at the beginning of meals in every Korean restaurant (unless you order bento boxes or something, which are Japanese). Normally you make a lot of it at once and they keep in the fridge for a week or even more. I got this recipe from a Korean website.


First I peeled potatoes, chopped them up and cooked them in a frying pan with a little bit of olive oil until they started to brown. Then I added some water (enough to boil around the potatoes) and soy sauce to taste. You let it cook for a bit on medium heat and add hot chili powder (Koreans use ground up red hot peppers) and some ground up garlic. Keep cooking until potatoes are fully cooked and the water is almost gone. Add sesame seeds before eating with rice. I had dried seaweed (nori) with mine. Mmm mmm~

Note: It is a bitch working with photos on Blogger. Holy crap.

A Juicy Lesson in Korean: #2 - Thank you.

I thought about doing more advanced sort of greeting, but Josh suggested that it might be better to cover the basics first.

All Korean textbooks will say that Koreans do not use intonation, which is true. Our syllables mean exactly what they mean no matter how you say it. However, we do have a set way of using tones in common phrases, even if we don't think about it. This is why Koreans might need you to repeat sentences a couple of times to understand what you're saying. Sadly, I'm a bit lazy at the moment to put up sound clips. -_-;; We'll see how that goes.

A) Thank you - 감사합니다 or 고마워요

i) 감사합니다.

Kahm-sah-hab-nee-da.

Most Koreans pronounce this in such a way that the third syllable "hab" blurs into "ham". This slides into the next syllable, "nee". The last syllable, "da" should sound almost like a soft "t".


ii) 고마워요.

Ko-mah-wo-yo.

wo = "Whoa~", but short. (I trust that you won't need to imitate Keanu Reeves.)


"감사합니다" is a more formal thank-you, to be used in situations with strangers. It might be used in business transactions, for instance. "고마워요" is more familiar. It's a heartfelt thank-you for the other person helping you. Between good friends, you may shorten this to "고마워" (Ko-mah-wo), which is informal.


B) You're welcome - 천만에요.

Chun-mahn-eh-yo

People may not use "천만에요" all the time, just like we all have different ways of saying "You're welcome" ("No problem", "Don't mention it", etc).


Random note: "Please" is implied by the formal speech level when you ask for something in Korean. There is a word in the dictionary for "please" - 제발 (Jeh-bahl), but the tone is more desperate and pleading. It is therefore not used in everyday conversation, unless you want to stress its importance.

A Juicy Lesson in Korean: #1 - Greetings

I will be writing posts focusing on certain Korean phrases that might come in handy. I'll start off with what I believe are basics, but if there's something specific you want to know, then feel free to leave comments and ask! There won't be much vocabulary, because you can look those up in any dictionary. I'll be focusing on the everyday phrases and how to use them. There are many (at least seven) speech levels (honorifics) in Korean. I'll be teaching at a level that is appropriate for strangers and colleagues. Oh, and I use the Judy romanization, because I don't know how to make all the squiggles on top of letters.

Lesson #1 - Greetings

A) Hello - 안녕하세요.

Ahn-nyoung-hah-se-yo.

Ahn = ah+n
nyoung = say "young" with "n" in front

"안녕하세요" is appropriate for any time of day. You should accompany this with a bow. The higher the person's social position in relation to your own, the lower the bow.

Note: You cannot use "안녕하세요" like you would use "Hello" to start a phone conversation.


B) Good-bye - 안녕히 가세요 or 안녕히 계세요.

i) 안녕히 가세요.

Ahn-nyoung-hee-ka-se-yo.

"안녕히 가세요" is when the person you're speaking to is leaving, regardless of whether you're leaving or staying. This is accompanied by a bow, like all greetings.

ii) 안녕히 계세요.

Ahn-nyoung-hee-kye-se-yo.

kye = say "yea" and add "k" to the front

"안녕히 계세요" is when the person you're speaking to is staying. This is accompanied by a bow, like all greetings.

Note: You can use "안녕히 계세요" to end phone conversations.


C) Casual Greeting - Hi and Bye - 안녕

Ahn-nyoung

This is a casual greeting and should only be used for close friends and people of a lower social position. As a result, you don't need to bow to the person you're speaking to.


What's the next lesson? We'll see!

My first home-cooked made-from-scratch meal!

Rejoice, good people, for I have made my very first proper meal in Montreal!

Ramen and canned soup does NOT count.

I went to Metro today and bought myself some chicken drumsticks, a bag of salad greens, a couple of tomatoes, some pumpernickel bread and margarine.

Then I marinated the drumsticks in barbeque sauce for a few hours, during which I took a nap. Then I cut it up so that they would cook faster and voila! I put my precious Japanese ginger salad dressing that I bought back in Toronto. Mmm~ so refreshing.

Doesn't it look yummy? I'm so proud of myself. Yay!

While I was eating it, I calculated how much the whole meal had cost and it comes to less than $3. Isn't that amazing? I'd never thought about that before. Anyhoo, yay!

If anyone has suggestions for an easy meal, let me know!

Sigh. Goddamn textbooks.

Textbook shopping is definitely one of my least favourite things to do in life and the McGill bookstore does not make it easy for me to fork over my money.

First of all, you don't know what books you need until classes actually start, so everyone converges at the store in the first few days to try and find their textbooks. It is MADNESS. The line ended in the middle of one of the shelves, went to the wall and then followed the wall around the whole basement and back to the cash registers. At least the U of T website gave you the option of buying your books online (even used ones). Then they would tell you when your package was ready so you could go and pick it up anytime during the summer. You could even have it shipped to you if you wanted.

When something makes me think fondly of U of T, you know the apocalypse is nigh.

The books are also scattered all over the place. One would think they would be under the "Nursing" sign, but oh no, I found three of my books in random piles in the Anthropology section.

None of this would matter, of course, if there was a decent stock of used books that I could buy, but even that is lacking. I checked my reading list for this term and there is no way I'm paying $140 for a book so that I can read 60 pages from it. I can photocopy the pages I need for $3.00, for Pete's sake. If it was a book that I would have to read the whole way through and use for assignments and whatnot, fine. Take my money. But that's seriously way too much when I've already paid $65 for a "coursepack" of articles that I need for the same course.

So my mission for tomorrow is to borrow the book from the library and photocopy the hell out of it. Fun!

After watching movies all weekend, I must conclude that Koreans are either incredibly inane or exquisitely precise in their revenge.

Having been more or less inert during the entire long weekend in my typical lazybum fashion, I have perched my butt once more on my Ikea kitchen chair and compose my thoughts once more. (Seriously though, if I ever express to you an intention of watching a Korean romantic comedy, shoot me. The most inane nonsensical things I've ever seen in my life - and I've watched both Mortal Kombat movies - continue to be produced in a country whose film industry is quite well thought-of when one considers its violent thrillers and revenge flicks. We are nothing without our heroes pulling out teeth and cutting off fingers.)

Today was my first day at school. I left 40 minutes before class, which I then repented due to the inevitable result of me having to sit and wait for over 20 minutes for class to begin. Call it overzealousness, I don't know.

The first class was Research in Nursing and the professor let us leave as soon as she finished the introduction. That was okay with me, because it was FREEZING in that classroom. It was a sign of things to come.

I took that time off to warm up a bit in the sun, like a snake slithering out from under its rock to bask in the glittering morning light. (My prose is a bit frou-frou, but sooner or later, I'm going to get writing assignments and I need to practice, you dig?)

Then there was the Therapeutical Relationships in Nursing. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what I'll be learning in that course. I found out that we're going to be visiting patients with in partners for 1.5 hours every week. I did not know that. Hopefully it won't be awkward as my nursing home volunteering experience. I hope my partner is someone with a decent sense of humour. I am full of hopes.

Development over the Lifespan was three hours long. It's rather unfortunate that the professor stutters a bit. I don't know if she was feeling ill, because she kept coughing and losing her place. Not that I was paying much attention, because all McGill classrooms are colder than a meat locker and I was trying to will myself out of hypothermia. The good news is that half the classes are going to be spent in group discussions, which should be less dry than straightforward lecturing. We named our group The Rebel Sharks, because we couldn't think of anything nursing-related. So when other groups started introducing themselves as The TLC, The Healing Touch, The Red Nurses (McGill's school colour is red) and so forth, we were absentminded scratching our heads. At least The Rebel Sharks sounds better than The Dromedary. I mean, really!

So, nothing too exciting. I haven't met anyone yet (other than my group members), but I'm not really disposed to go in search of people either. It's not my style. That didn't help so much at U of T, where thousands of people just mill around without so much as a hello, but maybe in this intimate program, I'll be able to find people that I can really get along with, without having to censure the more...eccentric facets of my nature.

Fingers crossed, eh?

Alas!!!

I met with my academic advisor again to discuss my U of T trascript. There was a little kerfuffle because the McGill chemistry department wouldn't recognize my Organic Chemistry credits from U of T (138H and 247H). I have two, for crying out loud! Are you telling me that U of T counts less than McGill? She thought it was ridiculous as well, so she overruled them and also left a stinging message on their answering machine. It's all finally settled. I'm going straight into the second year of the nursing program (out of four). I still need first-year physics courses, but I can take them later when I have time (third year has less mandatory courses).

BUT!

Sadly, this means that I don't have time this year to take French as a Second Language courses. How am I supposed to improve if I don't have a proper teacher and other people to practice with? One can only learn so much from books. What am I going to do when I start clinical stuff in the winter? WAH~~!!! *sniff sniff*

Zut alors... T_T

Je suis awesome.

Heh.

I ran all of my errands in French today and I feel pretty accomplished for it. They were very simple (buying stamps, an extension cord and envelopes all at different stores), but it was so satisfying to be able to say that I wanted 10 stamps or to ask where the envelopes were. It was small, but a triumph, nonetheless. You get that instant gratification, you know?

In related news, I went to my French placement test this morning and they're putting me in a third-year course! She said it might even be too easy for me (picture my BWUH??!! face) but that I could ask the instructor if I needed something heavier. Yay!

Exciting discovery!

Just back home for lunch before going out to the campus again.
While I was on my way to take a French placement test, I stopped by a post office that I found on the Canada Post website. Guess what? It's in an underground mall (like the PATH in Toronto) just down the street from me! I didn't even know it was there. It's small, but it has a grocery store (Metro), the post office and even a tiny movie theatre! I'm so friggin' excited. I don't have to go all the way downtown just to get groceries! Huzzah!

After lunch, I'm going out again to get my student card. Then I'm going to stop by the Humanities and Social Sciences library to borrow some books! Hooray!

PS: Am I too excited for such a paltry discovery as a grocery store?

Ohhh lonely rolling staaaaaahh~

I am finally in Montreal, after a hectic weekend of packing and bridesmaid duties (read: partying). I wanted to name this blog "Lonely Rolling Star", but it seems that someone has already taken it and so here I am with a teensy more uplifting name.

It's been 4 hours of being utterly alone in Montreal since Robert left after helping me move. I cried buckets, if you must know. We'd be having a perfectly normal conversation while putting dishes away and vacuuming shelves and then I would burst into torrential tears while clinging onto him like a koala in the rain.

But logically (LOGICALLY, mind you, which I just couldn't bring myself to be in my precipitation-drenched marsupial state), we live in an era of perpetual connectivity and therefore are unable to be truly alone unless you're a hermit living in a cave somewhere on the Scottish moors. And even there, I'm guessing there's got to be some reception on your cellphone. So, comforted ever so slightly by this wonderful age we live in, I start this bloggy blog of a blog.

Who will I meet? What will I do? When will I-

Hold on a sec. I just got a text message from Robert.

PS: When I start French classes, I will make an effort to write little bits in French.