Chapter 22 - Poutine for Dinner

In which our hero eats Canadian food with her Taiwanese friend in Australia ...

... also spiders...

So here we go.  I'm in the sort of denial stage of overwhelmingness.  I had a maths test on Friday, at 6 p.m.  Stupidest time for a test ever.  Except maybe Saturday, but I don't think that's an option.  I think it went well.  I know I got two of three questions right, anyway.  I also got my quiz on Tuesday all right as well.  In the maths lesson on Friday at 3 the prof started "reviewing" ordinary differential equations.  Again, assuming stuff we know.  It sounds awfully familiar, but what he was doing was like totally foreign.  After a while it started to sort of ring some bells.  I'm sure I've done it before.  But it was basically another maths class of panic and frustration and feeling stupid.  Ugh.  Dislike.

And on Thursday in our Electromagnetics tutorial, the prof decided, quite wisely, to go over the first assignment, which is due in week 6.  It's just the end of week 3 now.  Panic.  We're supposed to design a mass spectrometer which will separate molecules into atoms and read how much there is of each, and then determine if they're associated with illicit drugs or explosives or whatever.  It's supposed to be compact enough to fit comfortably in an airport security centre, and with reasonable enough materials that it's not super expensive, but still the best we can get to achieve the objective.  Holy carp.  I'm pretty sure I'm gonna fail this one.  (Although I'm just looking at my giant wall planner, and it turns out there's a week of holidays at Easter, which doesn't count in the overall week count, so week 6 is actually farther away than it seems.  I know that's no sort of attitude to have, and no one really wants to be doing assignments on the holidays when there could be lots of chocolate to be eaten, but it's comforting nonetheless.)

Then also there's a MATLAB in-class quiz on Tuesday, which I haven't revised for at all.  And an electromagnetics lab report due Wednesday, and an electrical machines one due Friday.

So what do I do? Grocery shopping, FB, look up movie times, eat poutine, and watch telly.  The last Indiana Jones was on.  They've been doing one per week, every Saturday night.  The kids have been here for Raiders and Last Crusade.  We made them look away at the scary bits.  Also, I tried in vain to explain to #1 what a crusade was.  She didn't quite get it, and I didn't feel like I could explain it all without giving more history of the whole kind of history of Christianity and Romans and Europe and the unfortunately misguided European Christians of the time.  Oh well.  Some day she'll learn it all properly, and say to herself 'Oh, that's what Christine was talking about.'

I did do some of the one lab report, but it was such a sunny day, and despite the kids being away and the house being quiet, I just wasn't in to it.  Not like the first weekend the kids were away, where it was also raining so I had nothing really else to do, and got quite a lot done.  This weekend, not so much.  It's only Saturday though.

So now on to the actual story of the day.  Unfortunately circumstances have prevailed that Wen Ying has decided it's more financially feasible to move from here to a house closer to her new job.  She's leaving tomorrow.  That's another part of the reason I didn't get much done, because we were just sitting and chatting.  First I got up and ate my brekkie.  Honey-nut corn flakes (which are awesome, by the way) and banana.  Then we went out grocery shopping.  Then we came back.  I looked at my lab report for maybe 30 mins, then I was hungry so I did lunch.  This is what I made:

That egg in a ring of pepper thing we've been seeing on that TV commercial.  It nearly worked, but I was using XL eggs, so they spilled over a bit. 

The finished product.  Those crackers are saltines, but here they're just called Premium, made by Nabisco.  (I managed to make the connection because of the Premium Plus ones at home).  Anyway.  They come as two squares together, so if you want normal sized squares you have to break them in half along the perforation.  Like graham crackers.

Then Wen Ying did her lunch, and we sat out on the deck and ate, and talked for a bit.  Then I went back to my room for more homeworks, and then around 4:45 I was feeling a bit peckish again, so I went for some tea and biscuits.  Then a bit more work.  Then Wen Ying came and asked me what my dinner was going to be, and I said I didn't know, and she said she didn't either.  So she put some frozen chips in the oven, and we figured we'd rustle something else up once they were ready.  Then I had a flash of pure genius.  Poutine! We had fries, no cheese curds, but grated will do in a pinch, and gravy mix.  It was great.  The gravy mix wasn't regular brown gravy.  It was called pepper sauce.  But it still tasted like awesome.  And I've converted Wen Ying to it's awesomeness too.  She loved it.

Ca va faire un grand poutine! (Mais il gout come l'awesomenss.)  (I haven't done French in a while.  Can you tell?)

That's when the telly went on, and Indiana Jones was found.  It was the new one, just in case there's any purists who might regard the third one as the last one, and might be confused as to which I'm talking about.  Anyway.  Then it stayed on for the rest of the movie, and another movie after that.  Then it was quarter to midnight, so naturally I went back to work.  Did a bit of the lab report.  Then shower.  Then bed.  Then a bit of blah blah blogging before sleep. 

Now on to the spiders.  Mr. Stripey, who you'll remember from previous chapters, has long since vacated his Abode by the Road.  I think he was only actually there for a few days.  Anyway.  He, or his twin, perhaps, has showed up on campus.  I was doing some last minute studying at one of the picnic tables on Friday evening, and I noticed him over in the trees, just chillin' in the middle of his web.  Naturally I went over and took a picture.  I can't show you, however, because it somehow saved to my phone memory rather than the memory card, so I can't get it off my phone.  Or well.  It's probably blurry anyway.  Today I looked up a guide to Australian spiders, and if I found the right one, then Mr. Stripey is actually a female.  Oops.  Mrs. Stripey, I guess.

Now as the sub heading indicates, this is about plural spiders.  The other one is not nearly so heartwarming a story.  Wen Ying went to bed about half way through Indiana Jones.  During the second movie I was back and forth to the bathroom on a teeth cleaning mission.  I walked back to the telly with some dental floss, and about a minute later I heard an exclamation from Wen Ying, followed by 'Christine! Come here!'.  So over I go.  She points to the ground and says that there's a great big spider.  It was hard to spot at first, because it was semi dark, and the spider was right beside a shag rug.  It was huge.  Like, a small dog.  OK, maybe not.  But still.  Shock and panic.  I tossed Wen Ying a shoe, and the poor fellow unfortunately met his demise.  It was gross, and frightening.  And I hope it never happens again, because Wen Ying won't be here to save me.  It'll be me and the munchkins huddled in a corner, and Sarah dealing with it, I suppose.  Ugh.

Now on an unrelated topic, I've found myself thinking a lot about South Dakota recently.  I very much want to be back there.  I think I'm in withdrawal.  The weather here is hot and sunny, and there's pine trees, and slightly familiar but slightly strange shops and ways of doing things.  Also, Wen Ying's car smells like Grandma's car.  I don't know what's up with that.  But it certainly triggers memories.  Another thing is that Wen Ying mentioned talking with her grandmother, so that made me wish my grandparents were still around.  I wondered if they'd have given me some money for my adventure.  And what they'd think of it.  And I always want to send a postcard to Grandpa Charlie, but I can't, because he's not there.  So I send one to his sister instead, whom I've never even met, but I'm sure we'd get on.  If I keep going I'm going to cry, so I'm going to talk about something else.

First of all, a correction on an earlier post.  I mentioned that I'd seen a road kill 'roo in the median of the highway, and lamented my first kangaroo being on the wrong side of the life/death scale.  Some days later I realized that that was in fact not correct.  I saw those kangaroos on the golf course way back in O-Week or something.  Totally forgot.

Lastly, today's Oz-isms:  tracky-dacks means track pants, and someone who's quite keen about something could be described as 'keen as mustard'.  I like that one.