from http://www.kundalini-tantra.com/rtbrain1.html:

Surround yourself with as many things and methods capable of bringing fifth circuit brain activity as you can. To do this, a partial listing of techniques follows:
1. Unlearn traditional ways of thinking. Don’t judge or analyze others and their actions or thoughts. Function on a basic, physical, fourth brain circuit sexual plane. Be patient. Be creative. Be different than you were. Give up the past and the disastrous training it contains.
2. Meditate 38 minutes daily. New ideas indicate good meditation.
3. Be aware. Notice everything about you; colors, sounds, people, trees, etc., and try to increase that awareness every day.
4. Listen to dreams, hunches, intuition and sort them out according to second circuit, first circuit, or possible higher brain circuit emanations. Dreams represent the firing of brain cells in specific brain circuits. Many times these are just random firings and mean nothing. Some times, they are not random and tell you what a specific brain circuit is focused on.
5. BELIEVE YOU CAN DO THIS! Don’t rely on the opinions of others to judge and evaluate your path. Rely on the discernment of your teacher and guide as you build a new ability to rely on your own discernment based on the new understanding and knowledge of the world around you.
6. Surround yourself with the following:
flowers, potted or fresh cut
music, classical or light classical
bright colors
bright lights
bright odors
sensual touch and thought
sexual activity
views of scenic nature
helpful, respectful, and similar friends – crap, where do i find these ;)
7. Be creative to some extent each day
8. Read about your Path. Study regularily
9. Good nutrition
10. Use activity to open the fifth brain circuit. Practice Tantric rituals of all levels where legally possible. The physical world works to bring forth physical energy. Don’t rely on mental energy to boost your physical energy to the levels required to reach your goal. These methods abound and are great for the spiritual couch potato. Get off your couch and make some mental, spiritual, and physical progress each day.

from my researchig for paper due today. (yesterday + 1 day extension)

sidecar

today tim insisted on trying the sidecar drink, and while i wasn’t too exstatic about it while biking down the cold spadina, i must admit it is something interesting.

we ended up getting the best cointreau (which is in turn the best type of triple sec), and the best brandy/cognac – vsop courvoisier, and used fresh lemons.

it is insanely strong, but smooth and definitely warms you up.

The Sidecar was developed during WWI, when a certain regular cusomer arrived at the Ritz on his motorcycle (replete with sidecar), and asked the bartender for a cocktail that would help take off the chill. The bartender was caught in a delema, a drink to remove a chill would appropriatly be brandy, but brandy was traditionally an after dinner drink, and his patron was wanting something before dinner. So he combined cognac, cointreau, and lemon juice to mix a cocktail whos focus was on the warming qualities of both the brandy, and the cointreau, while the lemon juice added enough of a tartness to make it appropriate as a pre-dinner cocktail. So a properly made sidecar should betray its roots as a drink that warms your palate if not your bones

fettuccine alfredo with shrimp

monday was such a stay-at-home-and-eat-comfort-food day, after the wicked party that tim had for his 25th.

so, today i cooked fettuccine alfredo – which came out fantastic. i wish i made more!

cook the fettuccine as usual: specifically, tagliatelle from this company. highly recommended. al dente, of course.

the sauce: fry up garlic in butter (i used oil and had to throw that batch out), just a tad bit of frying in lots of butter. its lots of everything, very unscientific. add shrimp (precooked, sorry superkev! thats the only kind we had at home). after a little bit, pour in milk (wish we had cream, so used lots of milk instead – like 1/2-3/4 of a cup on this pour alone), and stir. start shredding in parmesean (from a block), stirring constantly. then throw in preshredded parmesean, which added a little taste but a lot of pleasant cheesy texture. all of this is happening on medium heat. continue shredding in parmesean and stirring, and the sauce will thicken. i kept adding butter, milk and parmesaun as needed. final quantities were probably like:

3-5 tablespoons butter
1 – 1 1/1 glasses 2% milk
half a cup to a cup of preshredded parmesean
3 tablespoons of freshly grated parmesean

sauce thickened, pasta finished cooking, pour pasta water out as much as could, put the rest in (along with some of the left over water – like half a cup maybe – it added more of sauce to the sauce, if that makes any sense). stir, add more milk/butter/cheese. at some point above i salted something, but the cheese is salty on its own so it wasn’t lots. probably a good idea to salt the pasta water before it starts boiling.

so, yeah, mix in the pan, put on plates (it forms beautiful little white saucy heaps of pasta with shrimp in it – very pretty), and shred some more parmesean on top of that for good taste. i added a little dill (like not more than 2 dashes), but tim didn’t like it on his. i thought it was great.

this was definitely a success.

second part of the evening – fried potatoes, special style.
start cooking potatoes, whole. about 5-6 per 2 people should be enough, i had 7 and one was left over.
15 minutes for the potatoes (not fully done).
start frying up some onions and lots of vegetable oil. when potatoes are @13-15 minute mark, take them out and cut into cubes (use your own preference to size i think). then fry them in oil, for about 20 minutes, until they’re golden.
turned out delicious – greasy, fried, warm and soft inside and crunchy outside, and great as a tv-relaxation snack. not healthy, but helps with the hangovers for some of us (not me, of course, i didn’t have a hangover ;p)

morning after party i made some shell pasta with zucchini sauce. i’ll be trying that with more experimentation on wednesday – maybe i’ll do a variation on this recipe – my mom should have all of those things.

what do you mean its a week later?

apparently even as a self centered blog this entirely blows, cause i don’t care enough to write about myself. aren’t you happy!

philosophy essay handed in. yay for developing thinking.

databases is done. yay for tim’s brilliance.

saturday – harry potter and tim’s party.

sunday – study! w00t for starting 4 days earlier than usual.

i went to my mom’s work’s new year party today (they always celebrate it a month early – must be out of consideration for those of us who have birthdays on dec 30th!). it was fantastically decorated (40’s black and pink theme – stunning.), and the food was awesome.

cooking wise – meh, nothing lately. no time. reheating food.

clothes wise – i was sick, and then writing papers, and then sick some more. same pair of jeans and sneakers for the past week. yeah, i’m changing the shirts, but even the sweater is the same dark grey turtleneck from netherlands.
tonight i’m going spiffy. driving downtown in black(some kind of)top and my favourite green skirt.

coffeecup

cuba red walkway

the quiet before the storm (of assignments)

photo of garlic, rippedmy life is officially great.

well, i guess i’ll have to work backwards again, to update you all eagerly awaiting audience on the past 4 days.

however, it turns out i have another passion in life outside of photography, and fashion.

it is cooking. yes, i know, you are all shocked. but the more time i’m spending at tim’s, the more i cook, and the more i cook, the better i feel because tim finishes all of it always and asks for seconds. its a good feeling. and i realized i really, really like tastes and food.

so i added a new category. its called “what olya cooked today“. talk about self centered…

so, to recap this past week.
sunday i headed home, in jeans, black shoes, and spent a great day with parents. we ate a fantastic dinner together with tim, of my mom’s roasted duck. unfortunately it was not as juicy as usual, but it was still pretty darn tasty. i also went on a mini photshoot of last fall leaves with mom and shady. here are two pictures that i selected and edited since then: 1 2

sundried tomatoes, ripped
monday: headed out bright and “early” at 1 downtown, for tim to study, and for me to try studying. it was midly successful. it was another black simple shirt (long sleeve, slim horizontal neck cut), jeans, black shoes, stuff like that.

tuesday: classes, classes, classes. jeans, jeans, jeans. honey garlic wings and fries for dinner, and a tiring 3 hour class. then i went home and finished watching sex and the city with mom, ate fantastic mushroom soup with blintzes with meat, curtesy mom. was awesome. fell asleep late (3-4am) after watching “a perfect murder, and loving the haircut of the girl.

wednesday: woke up at 9am, and headed out by taxi to my hairdresser. sorry, no photos of my hair, but its short, blond and tim called it “elegant”. wednesday evening was spent buying zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, and 3 pomegranets (for $5), the joy of life.

zucchini 01here in lies my proudest moments of the week. first off, i made some fantastic zucchini (wow that’s tought to spell). heat up some (a lot) oil, add some (like 3 cloves) garlic chopped, and sun dried tomatoes (which i soaked in some wholesome olive oil for 24 hours ahead) chopped to larger pieces than garlic, and heat all of that up to just before garlic browns (at like almost medium heat). quickly peel the zucchini, and shop it into circles, and dip it into the oil, keeping it all at lower heat, for about 10-15 minutes, until the circles become white, and tender.

it is absolutely delicious.

oh yeah, and i was dressed super hot the whole day too! soft green skirt, and black top with two zippers, and new haircut, and black boots. i looked positively hot. :D

but, it gets even better.

mozzarella gthursday: very, very productive day. went to databases tutorial (not that helpful), met the prof, picked up midterm and assignments (i’m an idiot, but that’s okay, cause my amazing boyfriend doesn’t mind or see it :P ). even got the mark on my midterm raised… but not by enough. i’m 4 marks away from a pass. 4 marks out of 250… *sighs*
anyway.
after that, went to the bank and felt positively important as i got to go upstairs behind the locked door and through the hallway next to the open safe. like, lined up, and then the lady at the counter said that it’ll be 10 minutes before someone can talk to me, and when the time came the woman actually like walked around until she found me. so i got my accounts all set up and figured out. they were really impressed by my credit, i think. mwahahaha.
afterwards, back to kensington market, and picked up a sturdy lock for my bike. w00t.
and theeeen i bought more zucchini, dill, realized i have not a clue what basil looks like, and couldn’t get that, lemons (mm, pretty), green onions, and 100 grams of FANTASTIC mozarella. ooh so creamy, good tasty, awesome.

and for my dinner i had more of those zucchinis, but the highlight of this evening was this fantastic connoction:

  • a bit of mozarella topped with
  • dill
  • a sundried tomato lightly warmed up
  • a tiny bit of garlic

    • its like the sandwich without any disgusting bread. bread would so ruin that.

    after all that joy i had a pomegranate and an episode of CSI (season 1, friends and lovers).

    and then there was class, and then there i am at home, and time had just FLOWN since i returned. i still didn’t cook anything, but those zucchinis are mighty tempting to be friend up with some flower into crunchy healthy snacks.

    next week will kill me with assignment and school work.
    same with the week after.
    if only i had work ethic, intead of clothes, food and fun ethic!

    random reading

    “…Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand…” (the Skin Horse)

    i miss my teddy bear!

    Artist
    (Dominant Introverted Abstract Feeler)

    You are an ARTIST (DIAF)— creative, adventurous, and deep. Although you are an introvert, your dominant ideas lead you to assert yourself often— especially through your work. You actively put your creativity to constructive use, and because you are ruled by your heart you are less likely to be inhibited by logic.

    You have an intuitive understanding of emotion and know how evoke it in others, but the real world can be a prison of foolishness and embarrassment if you don’t get your head out of the clouds a little more. Also, you are 87% likely to write poetry take photographs. Please, for the love of God, stop now.