I remember walking into kindergarden class,
it was a rainy,
gray,
day,
Wearing my yellow, wet raincoat.
Stepping off the plane,
Seeing exotic things,
That I have never laid eyes on,
I was only seven years old,
Thought I had seen all the beauties in the world,
I was wrong.
I’ve smelled the most greenest grasses,
Smelled the beautiful, yet mysterious essence,
Of this strange, tropical world,
I have seen the native people of this country,
I was in Honduras.
I have traveled to El Salvador,
In search of my sister and brother,
I have eaten a
Delicious,
Mouth-watering,
Warm,
Cheesy,
Pupusa,
While drinking a
Sweet,
Sour,
Beverage called “Fresco de Mora,”
Blackberry Juice.
I have walked on my grandfather’s ranch,
Feeling out of place,
Confused,
Scared,
An American compared to my relatives.
I have rode on a beautiful, brown horse,
I have felt the warmth of chickens,
In between my palms.
I remember walking into kindergarden class,
like it was yesterday.
WRITER'S STATEMENT: I like poems that talk about poetry and this is one I wrote about why I write poems. It acknowledges that writing is a risky, even dangerous endeavor (it takes up your time; it might fail; you might embarrass yourself; you're expressing something you might be afraid to show others...) "Graffiti Artist" came from a moment when I was on the LIRR and I saw a spray painted message in a really difficult place to get to that wished some anonymous "Dianne" a happy anniversary. It made me think about the tremendous desire that person had to express himself and the risks he took to do it (unlike the writer of the graffiti in the photo above). The phrase "I know" in the poem is so important to me that I gave it its own line. It's the moment that the speaker, passing by on his journey, identifies with another writer and shares in the understanding of what drives one to write.Summer vacation is already halfway over and I’m already sad. I still have half of my summer homework to do and am currently ignoring it. When I look back to this summer vacation, I’m going to remember horrible times. Nothing FUN and EXCITING has happened this summer. What a poo. Yes…I just called this summer vacation poo.
The two most recent events all circle around my mom.
I mean, the one time that I am trying to be helpful by following my mom to the MSR to keep her company, I just waste a lot of time and get very very wet. We were there from before seven in the morning to past six in the evening. !!! I had to continuously go to the car to change the meter ticket because the maximum time limit for one ticket is 3 hours and then I kept on running out of quarters so I had to find some store willing to exchange my dollars. And the worst part is that it rained…HARD…and I had no umbrella. The highlight of that day was that I got to try out the Paris Baguette bakery (in flushing) and I finally got to try a crepe (but I had to wait about an hour for this one and the worker there yelled at me and got very angry when I tried to take a picture of one of the displays...but I did take pictures...kekeke). I ordered a crepe with Nutella, strawberries, chocolate ice cream and whipped cream. I felt like throwing up in the end....and almost did...but it was worth it!
This is the display for two different crepes. The one on the top has strawberries, nutella, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup. The bottom one has whipped cream and oranges.
Then yesterday, my mom took me to the beach, but the description words from her mouth and the actual thing was very different.
I’ll post up pictures of course but to describe the beach in few words as possible…sweltering hot, seaweed infested, rocky sand, and horse flies. The only good part was that I got to play Mario Party 5(?) on x-box and was in first place (but I had to leave before the end).
This is a picture of the rocky sand.
…NEVER AGAIN! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN!
No matter how much bug spray I used…I still got bitten by mosquitoes! Right on my neck too! It looks like a person bit me………so ITCHY!
Anyways, that’s my “two events that happened that’s worth mentioning” post.
Well, as to my title for this entry, I’m going to post up another recipe I tried just last week. It’s not my most recent baking attempt, but it’s the one that I took some type of picture of so I’ll post it. This recipe is actually from the Hershey’s website. My mom is getting really angry about me baking, so I’m trying to use up all my ingredients as fast as possible before they go bad.
My friend was over so she did the mixing and I did the dishes and measuring. We ma
de Chocolate chip bars. It was very yummy and the actual recipe is for cookies but it was easier to just pour the batter, spread it out a bit and bake it rather than scooping out mounds for cookies.
So, it was successful and rather yummy. We used three different types of chocolate chips (dark, white, and semi-sweet) instead of just semi-sweet chocolate chips. YUM!
This is a pile of 3 bars. Yum! You can see the white and semi-sweet chocolate chips. Yum!
Today being a Sunday, I decided that I needed a break. I had just managed to escape from a horrific day at a campsite. Ah! The bugs! The only good thing about going to the campsite yesterday is that I had the most fantastic BBQ meat and I got some much wanted reading done. Anyways, against my parents' wishes, I escaped back home (in a friend's car); and it was pouring! Although I had told my parents that I would be fine alone at home...the mind is quite amazing at conjuring up frightening images and thoughts...In the end, I only went to sleep once the sun had risen and the freaking birds would not shut up.
Once I had woken up, it was well into the afternoon and I had not eaten for the past 26 hours. Therefore, I was going to make pasta but after boiling the water, I realized that the pasta was expired 7 months ago! Well, I scraped that idea and searched around the house. The only meal that I could eat was ramen (for those that do not know, ramen is instant spicy noodles). Let me make it clear that I am a disaster in the kitchen; So I somehow managed to ruin my noodles...I don't know where I went wrong. The directions are quite simple: 1) Boil the water 2) Put in the noodles, soup powder, and dry vegetable mix 3) Cook for 4~5 minutes 4) Add egg if desired. Somewhere I went wrong and ended up with a very soupy puffy thing.
I did manage to swallow half of it and then I gave up and decided to just throw it out. At this point I touched a centipede in the sink that I thought was a scrap of food. AAAAHHHH! Yes, the fifteen minutes afterward involved a lot of soap and a lot of scrubbing and a lot of hot water. I hope that the thing drowned in the hot water (it crawled down the drain).
So in the end, I settled for making some yum-o cookies. But, I was too lazy to measure everything out first...so that created a problem with my dough...which melted because of the butter...and I substituted the dark brown sugar with light brown sugar...so that may have also created a problem...and all my cookies weren't the same size...okay, so I had a lot of problems...but it worked out somewhat in the end! I still managed to get some type of disfigured flat glob thing that tasted great!
So in celebration of making some really great tasting cookies (no matter how ugly they were), my artistic piece for this entry is a list of questions to the ingredients that were required in the recipe.
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Dear Ingredients...
Oh! I Can't Believe It's Not Butter*! can I still use you like regular butter?
Do I still need you Mr. Salt when my fake butter is already salted?
Can I replace you Mr. Dark Brown Sugar with one Ms. Light Brown Sugar?
My dear Cake Flour and APF** how old are you both exactly?
Have you gone stale my dry Oatmeal?
Why do you both come in such large quantities when I only need a tsp. each of you Mr. Baking Powder and Mrs. Baking Soda?
Why must you chocolate chips come in ounces when I can't measure you in ounces?
Ms. Vanilla! Must you spill yourself all the time?
Try not to get your shells in my dough Mrs. Egg! And are you pregnant***?
Can't all of you mix together perfectly to give me a good dough?
Why must all of you bake into some thin flat bread thing instead of a thick fluffy cookie?
Does the cookie at least taste good?
*This is the name of the butter that I use. It's made of "Sweet Cream Buttermilk" with "no trans fat" and is "naturally cholesterol free". It is also made of 60% vegetable oil spread. There is some small print so I'm guessing that it's not all too good for you. And Buttermilk isn't really that much better than butter. It's still milk mixed with some type of acid (lemon or vinegar). Well, overall, these fake butter is better than eating real butter (since real butter is all cream)...
**APF is just an abbreviated form of All Purpose Flour - a flour generally used in all types of baking and cooking
***Have you ever bought organic eggs? This usually happens in organic eggs, but if you look at the eggs carefully, after you break them, sometimes there is a tiny speck of a black thing shaped like an embryo. You're technically supposed to scrap those eggs because the eggs have been fertilized. It's actually kind of gross. I suggest that you stop buying organic eggs if this happens often; it's recommended that you crack your eggs in a separate bowl before adding them to a recipe, just to check. Organic doesn't necessarily mean better.
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These are some pictures of my cookies…
This one is a picture of the first batch….some were eaten…
This one is of the second batch…the somewhat better ones…
And to emphasize how thin these cookies were…
That’s part of my finger… these cookies are like 0.5 cm…
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So, that was the end to my entry. These are the two videos that I watched to make the cookies. It's just really one video that is split into two parts. the ingredients are as follows...I just pasted directly from the little info box at the side of the video...
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Ingredients-- this will make about two dozen cookies
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup cake flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 blended oatmeal
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 1/2 oz of Hershey's chocolate bar ( the big bar is enough )-- if doubling this recipe, try another brand for the other chocolate, like Cadbury
6 oz of chocolate chips ( approx 1 1/4 cup ) semi sweet chocolate chips or a mix
VARIATIONS- you can also add 1/4 cup chopped nuts
you can also add peanut butter chips if you want
Bake ate 375 F for 10 minutes or 190 C for 10 minutes
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PART ONE
PART TWO
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ENJOY!
