Tidbits, Tasty and Otherwise

A week back in Cam. Not much exciting to report. Except! Yesterday morning I got an email informing me that I will not in fact be unemployed next year! (I meant to post this whole thing yesterday, sorry..) Excellent news, I'll be a Teaching Fellow in Greece! The school is great -  Dad went there, Uncle went there, cousin went there, Aunt taught there. It's been a pretty important Poseidon institution, and I'll be there next year! 

Of course the main point is that I'll be in Greece! After countless summer vacations, two summer language programmes, and a lot of Greek lesson time, I will finally get to live there, and spend time with the family I usually only see for holidays. When I think about the experiences I will have the people I will meet I get ridiculously excited. And then...

..I remember...

...exams.

Ugh. 

I'm glad I got that email because I was planning on posting something along the lines of 'my life is really not going to be very interesting for the next two months.' This is of course, still true, but now at least I have something worth sharing. I am being a little dramatic I suppose, as there are a few exciting things coming up. For one, this is Holy Week, so aside from a lot of church there will be one last, brief, baking adventure before I put away the pots and pans for exam term. Plus, (and I'm sure this has escaped none of you) there is that whole 'Royal Wedding' thing. And yours truly is going to be there. I will be your own private correspondent on all things royal. How exciting!

Anyway, I'm going to share a few images from the last week that pretty much sum up what's going on. First of all, food. Lauren keeps telling me I should re-purpose this as a food blog, and I can't explain how happy that would make me. Sadly, no such possibility, at least in this stage of my life. My kitchen consists of a fridge and a microwave. This has certainly helped me get creative (I can cook eggs (most types), pasta, cookies, and cupcakes in the microwave) but I don't have the time or space (or money) to cook nearly as much as I'd like to. Instead, I amuse myself by trying to create the cheapest and healthiest meals I can to help me maximise my concentration/rowing potential. A few samples:

 Grown up ants on a log.. The attractive brown lump is sunflower seed butter, one of my discoveries I brought back from Atlanta. It is. Amazing. I'm already worrying what I'll do when it's finished.

This is a magpie! On the roof across the street, as viewed from my window. One by itself is not an exciting event of course, but two is worth a photo. There is a British superstitious rhyme about magpies that goes something like 'One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, etc.,' thus, two magpies=joy. Yay! Obviously I'm not really superstitious, and have seen plenty of single magpies without the sky falling in, but these guys did make me smile. They stayed outside my window bouncing around across the street, and are actually quite cute, I think.

Another delectable item that has been tiding me over. Peeps! Hehe just look at him, so adorable! I said in an earlier post that I really didn't think I liked these. I think the problem is the sugar on the outside. I really don't like sugar. However, if you shake him over a bin, a lot of the sugar comes off, and the marshmellow stuff is delicious. (Side note: Brits say marshmAllow, not marshmEllow. Strange, no?) Anyway, Peeps have been sustaining me. Mm.

 When I'm not eating Peeps and other junk, I have been making some pretty amazing salads. This is probably one of the more picturesque, and I was very proud. Incredibly tasty.

 When I'm not eating, I've been working.. I have spent rather a lot of time in various libraries, me and the books. Wahoo. This is what I'll be doing for the next two months! Yay.

The University Library!!

Some more window bars. Lovely, no?

Slightly more cheery : there was a wedding in Trinity last Saturday! This meant there was no food in Hall, but as I still haven't been to Hall once this term, not a problem for me. Plus it means there are people wandering around college in top hats and morning suits. I approve, most definitely.

This photo is from Palm Sunday! I had hoped to go King's Chapel for some classic music, but since it is not yet official term they weren't doing a service. So instead I visited Great St. Mary's, the University church, and not only did I see quite a lot of the Fellows who have lectured me, it was really lovely. The service began in a tiny church down the street, and then processed to Great St. Mary's singing 'All Glory Laud and Honour.' It was really lovely.

I came downstairs the other day to see this on my way to the library. Encouraging sight, isn't it?

A pot! There is a saga behind this thing. My crew and I won it last year in January or February (I can't even remember anymore). It was the first time I had raced off the Cam, and it was miserable. Absolutely freezing, and no shelter at all. The 5k stretch of the river was completely straight with one landmark, a bridge. The race was grim, but we won our category! We should have received these pots at the time, but we went back to Cambridge before they had calculated all the times. We found out afterwards that we'd won, but to get the pots someone had to go to Peterborough to get them. We were planning on picking them up at the same race this year, but it was cancelled due to bad weather. Finally, my friend/crewmate Julia went with her family (they live in Cambridge) to Peterborough to pick them up for us. She brought it to me in the library, isn't it beautiful? I'm very pleased :) So I finally have a proper pewter pot to show from my rowing efforts. It joins two medals and some glassware. ;)

There you have it. The happenings of my life. There will be some Eastery goods to share in the next few days too!