I have been blogging here for a year! Can you believe it? I haven’t forgotten about you, I promise!
I have been working furiously on all sorts of new things.
Coming soon:
A new YouTube Channel!
A One Year Anniversary Giveaway!
A new show format!
A new blog update!
Check back soon.
Okay. I didn’t get into a PhD program. :(
Instead, I am going to be writing and looking for a job. Oh, and I have to finish my thesis. That first of course. I should finish it over the summer. Then I’m done. At least for a while. I haven’t decided if I’ll apply again next year. It’s stressful and very expensive to apply to all these schools only to have them reject me.
My plans are to write and start work on a documentary I’ve been wanting to do.
In the meantime, the garden has started!
Yesterday, we started the seedlings. Since there isn’t much to show in the way of outside farming, the new and improved videos won’t start yet, but they are coming soon!
I have also started a couple of new blogs!
Countdown From 50 – It’s about the adventurous, fit life I plan to live from now on.
Carrot Dangles Stick, Confusion Ensues – Is about writing and publishing
A year of Un-Cookbooks – Is about my quest to find usable raw recipes that don’t make me gag.
All of this means that urban farming and farming videos will be most of what we’re doing on this blog, plus some other home and cooking stuff.
Following the Valentine’s Day foray into cooked food, I have had the hardest time getting back to 100% raw, and I was so determined and successful prior to that. But yesterday I made it through an entire day on raw food even though I made Eggplant Parm for Walt last night. Actually, it turned out that it was pretty easy to avoid the temptation this time. I didn’t taste the vegan parmesan but it smelled correct. The Follow Your Heart mozzarella was another story altogether.
When I went to Whole Foods on Monday, they had been out of the shredded Galaxy International vegan cheese so I had to get a block of vegan mozzarella. It had no taste whatsoever. After Walt shredded it, it had the texture of wet hair. And it absolutely would not melt. Luckily I had a little Galaxy left so I put that on top and he said it was fine, but the texture of the cheese was off-putting. And it was slightly grey in comparison to the other cheese.
Since I can no longer run, and can’t sit on my ass doing nothing in the way of exercise, I’ve decided to learn to rock climb. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. My eventual goal is to climb ice. I love glaciers and that would be so cool. In pursuit of this goal I have taken stock and realized that I have very little discernible upper body strength. That, added to the fact that I can’t spend the time going into Manhattan to go to the campus gym because of the thesis writing, equals pull up bar.
Walt installed it in the doorway between the hall and kitchen and every morning for the past week, I try to pull myself up. Well, actually what I’m doing is is bending my arms and holding that position while I try to lift my feet off the ground. So far I can’t even do that. But I was able to get up on a single toe today. Progress is slow. I am also trying to strengthen my fingers by hanging off the door frame but with one finger in a splint, this is a bigger challenge than it sounds. Oh, did I forget to mention that the doctor put my finger in a splint?
They couldn’t find a break but the pain and swelling are pretty severe so they put it in a splint and are sending me to a specialist, whom I can’t see until next Wednesday.
But eventually I will be able to actually climb something. I hope to someday be as kickass as this girl:
WhooHoo! Argo won for best picture last night.
The movie was great and it totally deserved it. But the truly great thing about the win is that it actually falls into the category of my specializations in film academia and I get to study it too! Yay!
The other thing that happened yesterday but which wasn’t nearly as cool was that we went grocery shopping. This is an arduous task in Queens when you’re looking for organic produce in the winter. Farmer’s markets are sad in the winter in New York so we have to go to the various stores to get what we want.
First stop was Chung Fat for anything that didn’t have to be organic, like young Thai coconuts. We also found cactus pears, guavas, chestnuts (for Walt, he’s obsessed with them) and grapefruits. To me, it’s most important to get organic greens, apples, celery and anything else on the dirty dozen list. The rest is usually the stuff on the Clean 15 list or has to have the skin removed in order to eat, it making it less likely that I will ingest pesticides. It’s also the best place in town to play a rousing game of “what’s that smell?”
Next was Target for cat food and paper towels and Walt’s soy milk. (unfortunately, we got there too late to play the “can I help you find something?” game. This is an event that occurs at 8am at every Target store. All or most of the staff meet in an area large enough to hold them and discuss the sales from the day before and congratulate all the people who did something wonderful. Each manager steps forward in turn and says “Good Morning Team!” to which the remainder of the group replies en masse “Can I help you find something?!” When we’re there on time I get to play along with the stupidity of the whole exercise while I walk up and down the aisles gathering my wares, shouting “Can I help you find something?” along with them, but alas, yesterday we missed the fun. Much to Walt’s delight.) We bought Hotel Transylvania (which was terrible) and I was starving so I ventured once more into pre-made juice territory and got a Naked Juice Green Machine Smoothie. I drank it on the way to Fairway for organic fruits and veg. It was…weird. As Walt pointed out, it was like green drinkable catsup. And the garlic made my stomach upset.
So I have to be in Manhattan all day today and to keep from having to drink any more of these digesting juices and smoothies, I am bringing my own.
Today’s Juices:
1. Blood orange
2. Honeydew-Cucumber-Pear
3. Mango-Pomegranate
4. Some disgusting green concoction which I will report on after I drink it.
5. Plus lots of water.
Stay tuned.
(This is very long so if you’re easily bored, I’d skip it.)
Oh, the joys of applying for admittance to a PhD program. I’m having so much fun, aren’t you? Since I’ve talked about it ad naseum, you know that I am waiting for the decisions on my PhD applications. I applied to 8 programs in December and the application process is one of the most nerve-wracking things I’ve every done. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to share my experience with the process in case you have any allusions that the process is in any way simple.
First, I realize that everyone goes through the following charmingly twisted hoops and that I am not special. However, my job during this process is to make the PhD gods overlook my non-specialness (wherein all the applications look exactly the same) while I try to convince them that I am indeed most special, if they will just give me a chance to expose my specialness without actually having to print my application materials on polka dotted paper. And since I am the only person in my house currently applying for PhD programs, I am a little special. Even if it’s only the ‘stop eating paste’ variety of special.
The process looks like this:
1. You’ve watched 7 millions films. You get a B.A. in something film-ish or maybe even in film. You add another million films that you are forced to watch in class because not one of the 7 million you viewed previously is one being used in any of the 4 years of classes you’re taking.
2. You decide you should be the world’s foremost expert on Jane Austen films or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or genocide film or Northern Irish cinema or Film anti-theory as a new theoretical paradigm. You then get an M.A. in Film or something sort of related to film. You start submitting papers to journals and conferences, about 90% of which are rejected. Another 9% never reply to your submission (apparently it was that bad.) The final percent will be accepted at first but rejected after you send in the full paper, because of “space limitations.”
3. During your first week as a master’s degree student, someone (probably several people) ask you if you’re going to get a PhD. You think, “I can’t even find the printers in the library, I don’t understand anything one of my professors is saying (I keep watching her mouth when she talks, hoping that lip reading will offer a different level of enlightenment) and I somehow managed to get myself locked into the stairwell of the science building on the first day, but if I make it through the first semester without getting an F or dying of exposure after locking myself on the roof of the gym, I might consider it.” You answer, “Of course.” That night, a friend of yours tells you they’re not going to go for a PhD after their MA but instead attend a yoga school then teach classes in California.
4. You take on the challenge and decide to continue the joy of constant near-death experiences that make up your life at graduate school and, thinking yourself very clever and fully prepared, (after all you have a vague idea that your research proposal should have something to do with film, or maybe, good film) you make an appointment to talk to an academic advisor on the first day of fall classes for your final year. This is slightly more than three months before the first deadline. You state your purpose. Your advisor asks, “Can I see your research proposal?” You get a quizzical look on your face, thinking “Certainly. If I had one. But since I have no idea what they should say, I have yet to start one.” You say, “I haven’t finalized it yet.” She asks, “You mean your recommenders haven’t critiqued it yet?! But it’s already September. Are you planning on applying in the upcoming cycle?” You start watching her mouth because you’re not sure what she’s saying, but you don’t think it’s good. You say, “I am applying for the Dec. 1 deadlines” hoping that has something to do with what she wants. “No one has looked at it yet.” She looks at you like you just rode a horse into the office, then jumps out of her chair and jerks you out of your seat as she runs by. Momentarily, you both arrive in someone else’s office, everyone looking a little startled. Your advisor explains that you are oh so very late and that you need help.
Your new minder is a recent PhD graduate who calls himself a rock star in academia in the first five minutes of your meeting, then proceeds to tell you that you basically have no hope of getting into any school you’d be happy about because you should have started last summer. He then states that even though you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, you should contact your recommenders and make sure everyone has a copy of your proposal to rip apart. Because it will be wrong. He runs through a verbal checklist of what 30 or so items should be in the proposal and says that all of that has to fit in two pages. You ask where to find good samples of proposals. He shrugs. On the way out, he says that he’ll be conducting a PhD workshop in March if you want to apply for the following year. You sit in a study carrel in the library and cry the rest of the afternoon.
5. The next morning you wake up really pissed off and a little hung over and scream into the mirror. Then you make appointments with anyone willing to talk to you about the possibility of getting into a PhD program. All of them stress the importance of a good research proposal and personal statement. They also alert you to the fact that some schools might want this combined into a single document. One of them asks if your recommenders are anybody important. You think “To whom? In what way?” but you say “Probably not.” She looks at you and shakes her head. She then suggests the PhD workshop in March. Somehow your inability to make friends with famous people suddenly makes you a bad person. Your chances apparently are getting worse. You pick up a brochure for truck driving school.
6. You start writing your research proposal which takes two days of writing and revising. Once you’ve gotten to a place where you think it’s at least at the first draft stage, you take a copy to the rock star in some misguided belief that this person is actually trying to help you. He says “Replace the first paragraph with a personal story.” “Ooh like what?” you think. “Should I recite a narrative of how I made breakfast? Lost my keys this morning? Got lost in Ikea?” Before you ask any or all of the questions in your head, he says, “something about how you got to this point. Mine was about when I got sneezed on by a fairy.” “I’m sorry?” He repeats it, you hear the same thing. You leave his office picturing the lovely Tinkerbell sneezing on this arrogant tool who’s way to full of himself to offer any actual help, and trying to figure out how letting the PhD admittance committee know you believe in fairies is in any way helpful to the process. And if it is, you’ve been going about this all wrong.
7. After another 2 days of re-writes, you email copies to 4 people. Your academic advisor doesn’t reply. Your best friend says that one of the sentences is too long and confusing but she would accept you anyway. (BFFs are like that. That’s why you love them to bits.) Your recommender wants to see the final version, not a draft, which this clearly is. And your thesis advisor, says “You need to come see me about this.” These are words you never want to hear. It never means anything good is about to happen.
8. You go to his office a couple of days later. He looks at you like he’s trying to figure out what to say. “I’m going to be honest. This sounds like an undergraduate wrote it.” Yikes. There is literally nothing worse he could have said to you. Except maybe “You’re ugly.” He then tells you in detail all the things that are wrong with this piece of crap including that the first paragraph with the personal story has got to go. He says to start re-writing and come see him in a week. You leave his office hoping that Tinkerbell will show up any moment.
9. You write 6 more drafts and finally, your thesis advisor says, “This is just unique enough to make your application stand out. Now you can start the applications.” You’ve got three weeks until the first deadline.
10. After beginning the applications for 3 schools, you hear that another department on campus is doing a PhD application workshop. You go. The two professors giving the workshop spend the first 1/3 of the time telling everyone that no one should get a PhD anymore. The second 1/3 is spent listening to several of the other students say things like “I don’t really want to stay in academia, but I don’t want to get a job so I’ll get a PhD.” Or “I applied to 12 schools and didn’t get into any of them.” Or “I know that the school I want to go to is going to accept me so I don’t see the need to apply anywhere else.” The rest of the time is spent on how to get funding and, finally, what to include in a research proposal. This was a colossal waste of time.
11. On the way home you think about what’s been said and realize they’re wrong. People do need to get PhDs. In theory, their argument works. If fewer new PhDs enter academia, then there’s a better chance tenure will be achieved by the existing ones. However, in practice, it can’t work. The idea behind getting a PhD, and the reason that this system of education exists is to create new knowledge. All too often, once tenure is achieved, the scholar ceases to create new ideas but usually builds on his or her previous work. Without the constant infusion of new PhDs, there would eventually be stagnation in the various fields. So all the people over the years who’ve said that no more PhDs should be conferred are basing this on their own situations rather than an overarching look at the system. You scream. People on the subway move away from you very quickly.
12. You send out 7 applications for PhDs and one application for a writing program which you pretty much have no hope of getting into and realize that all but one are top tier schools and you could, quite possibly, be screwed.
13. Two months later you get your first rejection, from UCBerkeley. Since it’s very early in the process you realize that you must have been rejected in the first round which could be based on anything at all, including potential mismatch, advisor not being available, missing criteria, missing materials, etc. and is almost certainly not because of your proposal. They probably didn’t get that far. This gives you some hope, but then the real panic sets in while you wait and wait and wait…
To be continued when more results come in…
Okay I have mostly been raw for about a month now and the weight is not coming off, which is bothering me a lot. But what is very strange is that garlic and onions are seriously grossing me out. I can’t stand the taste of either one. This is totally weird for me because before going raw, I used to eat tons of both. Now, the thought of garlic makes me sick.
I am taking this as yet another challenge.
So far I can’t eat the following things that other raw foodists are eating:
Kale (this might change, but for now – YUCK)
Peppers (I am very allergic)
Tomatoes (because of the inhumane treatment of migrant tomato farmers but I will eat them if they come from a small organic farm or from my urban farm)
Garlic and Onions (this might change too, but right now they are seriously gross)
Chocolate (I will use fair trade but otherwise I will go without)
Also I realized that my taste buds must have been dulled by the fake foods and salt and oil because things taste very different. I can taste all the chemicals in certain things, like toothpaste. So, there are a few more weird borderline aversions.
Spirulina (I’m on the border with this one. I liked it about a week ago but last night it was icky.)
Salt (I used to put salt in a lot of things but now so many foods taste naturally salty, like spinach so I reducing my use of it.)
Mustard (okay, this isn’t an aversion, but I am having a weird craving for it and I generally don’t like mustard.)
So that means I have to open up possibilities elsewhere. Since I’ve noticed that many raw food enthusiasts eat the same things over and over, maybe they’ve had the same kind of food aversions I’ve had. I am going to try to get some really interesting recipes together that use some of the more unusual fruits and veg, so I don’t get bored.
I have found that I am loving baby arugula, kiwis, golden beets, dill and pomegranate seeds. But since I can’t use peppers, garlic or onions, I have to find ways to spice up my meals in some other ways. Hmmm…
After a lengthy discussion and the discovery that the cacao nibs I bought are fair trade, we decided to throw the remainder of the chocolate and cocoa away. It’s true that we have already paid the various growers and middlemen who’ve profited from the slavery of children and therefore we can’t escape culpability, but we decided that we couldn’t enjoy the benefits of the slavery in good conscience.
Cacao pod picker courtesy of The Dark Side of Chocolate
We ended up throwing away 5 boxes of Baker’s Chocolate (a Kraft Product and not fair trade), 6 bags of Enjoy Life Mega Chunks and Mini-Chips and a container of Hershey’s cocoa powder (not fair trade). Enjoy Life is not fair trade either and issued the following statement on the issue:
“While our chocolate is not fair-trade certified due to strict allergen requirements, our supplier focuses on improving conditions for the cocoa farmers and is committed to operating in an ethical, responsible and safe manner.”
Since there are several other vegan and allergen free chocolate products on the market at least one of which is fair trade (see Mama Ganash) why can’t this be true of other chocolate companies as well?
The reason we decided that we couldn’t benefit from the chocolate we’d already purchased, is that knowing the situation now, there is no way that we could enjoy that benefit. I would always be thinking about the children enslaved as cacao growers, used, manipulated and beaten so that I could have a chocolate chip smoothie and Walt could have my chocolate orange cake. There is no way we can not know this now that we know it and therefore there is no way we could actually eat the products of slavery.
Mea Culpa – This brought me to the fact that last year I had come across Enjoy Life Products in Target and was so excited that they were vegan that I wrote several articles extolling their merits and recommending that vegans use this brand of chocolate chips and chunks in their cooking. I am very sorry I did that and see no way to correct that mistake other than to ask my followers not to buy any chocolate that isn’t fair trade, including Enjoy Life. And say I’m sorry. Especially to the children. It most definitely won’t happen again.
And I will also say that the chocolate industry hasn’t heard the last of this.
For more information on Fair Trade, visit the Fair Trade USA website: http://www.fairtradeusa.org/
