My latest gimmick

So as many of you know, cooking is not my thing.  I'm not good at it, I don't enjoy it, and I generally don't feel like it's worth my time to try to learn because my progress is so slow.  Probably because of the first two reasons.  That said, it is a very useful skill to have and I greatly admire people who are good cooks.  But I have a helluva time trying to learn anything from most of them because I don't have that cooking "sensibility" - I'll call it.  You know what I mean - some people just get it and can throw anything together into something delicious and make it look easy.  My Grandma is one of these people, and so is my friend Olivia.  I remember one time she was visiting me and suddenly decided to cook dinner.  She just started pulling stuff out of the fridge and made biryani (which is a delicious and seemingly complicated Indian rice dish).  WHAT!?!?  When I try to make something spontaneously out of the fridge it's like - an egg sandwich.  If I even have eggs and bread, which I may not.  You get the picture.  But the thing is, I understand the importance and value of it and even someone who loves eating out as much as I do gets sick of it eventually.  Also, I would prefer to have a little more control over what I'm putting into my body and you know the restaurants are cutting corners when they can.  Plus, I hate not being good at things, let's call it what it is. 

So, all that being said, every so often this thing happens where I'll get the idea that suddenly some new factor in my life is going to make me learn to cook.  Here are some of the things I've tried in the past, in no particular order: buying a wok, living alone, joining a co-op, learning from friends, buying expensive recipe books, joining a farm share program, moving to China.  So far, nothing's worked.  I mean, there are a handful of things I can make pretty well, but that doesn't really count.  I'd still rather go out 90% of the time and use my effort for other things.  

But today, it happened again.  I was in a bookstore shopping for Christmas presents when I noticed this lurking nearby.  Immediately I thought, "Maybe if I try cooking like a guy I'll have a breakthrough!  I generally relate better to guys in many areas already, so why not this one?  Plus it talks about grilling, and I think I could do ok with that.  If I had a grill."  So, stay tuned, maybe this will be the gimmick that actually works. 
But don't hold your breath.

Ok, so enough about the new gimmick excitement.  I started the day by going into school, as planned, to load my video for Janice - and here it is, as promised.

Also I received a couple of emails from my Level 0 students today informing me of their new timetables and expressing their regret that they aren't in my class again.  Isn't that the sweetest?  Both guys too.  Ray even forwarded me a photo he took with me on the last day of class.  Here it is.  He always sat in the front row but fell asleep anyway, just like my dear friend Carol Toppe.  :)  He also liked to announce that things were "Amazing!"  I'm gonna miss that guy.

After finishing up at school I caught the ferry to HK and went and got the yummy bread with butter and sweetened condensed milk and finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.  I enjoyed it, but the ending wasn't very satisfying and I think it's drastically different from the film.  Now I can watch it again to compare.

I had intended to check out "The Peak" - a mandatory sightseeing experience, but I didn't have enough time for everything, so Christmas shopping won out.  I've discovered that for me, the key to good shopping is to let my unconscious do the work.  I've been testing this theory for some time and then reading The Social Animal really solidified it for me.  If I just wander and don't focus too hard on strategically finding what I want - it seems I somehow walk right into it.  This is also how I win at paper-rock-scissors.  I just let my unconscious take over.  So after lunch I wandered and sure enough, got the major items I needed in plenty of time for my screening of the new Sherlock Holmes movie.  I wandered through the big mall where the theater is and came upon this performance.

Note the "Nightmare Before Christmas" musical selection.  Weird.

And I took this video of the skyline before departing.

I'll say a few words here about the movie in case anyone is interested, but if you're like Anne and don't want to know anything in advance, cease reading now.

So I have to admit I was kind of disappointed by this movie.  I don't think it's as good as the first one, the trailer made it look better than it was, and it was heavy on the action and gore, light on the deduction.  Plus, it's the baddest of the bad guys, so I guess either they aren't planning to make any more or they don't care about the logical flow of the story.  I guess the latter may be true since Holmes was even further from his book version this time and I think old RDJ was having a little trouble deciding how his character should be and sound.  Still hot though.  Maybe I'm overreacting, (although I just checked the Chronicle and Mick agrees).  I vaguely remember feeling the same way about the first one and now I really enjoy it.  I'll have to give it another try when it comes out on video.  Still worth seeing if you liked the first one, just not as good as I'd hoped.  Mycroft was hilarious though and I love that he calls him Sherly.  Jude Law has really grown on me as well, even though he's about a thousand times more exciting and charming than the real Watson.  It's a film though, I realize they have to spice it up.  Plus he looks better with facial hair, as do all men.  So, in sum, a fun way to spend a couple of hours but nothing special, as we say here in Macau.  ;)