Bucket List #16
#16 Cook a turkey dinner meal
I love Thanksgiving. Partially because I love this time of year when the leaves change colour and it starts to get cold outside, and partially because I enjoy spending time with family.
But honestly, the main reason why I love Thanksgiving is because it’s one of three times a year where I get to gorge myself on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy.
Recently, I’ve taken it upon myself to improve my cooking skills. I’ve made a number of desserts and baked goods, and a few dinners here and there.
Yesterday, I decided to put my cooking to the test and make Thanksgiving dinner.
For dessert, I made a luscious four layer pumpkin cake, which was no piece of cake to make.
My relatives brought over the veggies, yams and potatoes: I took care of the cooking. I made candied yams, stuffing, gravy and of course, the turkey.
As a rule, I try to stay away from raw meat, mostly because the texture of which grosses me out, especially when it still takes the form of a bird.
But after popping a Gravol, and with my mom’s guidance, I managed to overcome my squeamishness. And after a while, manhandling the turkey stopped bothering me.
The worst parts: removing the neck, stitching the bird closed (I kept stabbing myself) and lifting the turkey in and out of the oven (it was just over 17 pounds).
A little advice: for anyone else out there who gets a little woozy dealing with meaty foods, pretending you are a doctor can help take the edge off of the situation. You could also pretend to be a coroner, but that’s a little morbid for me.
The dinner went off without a hitch (read nothing was burnt) and my dessert was a hit.
And the best part about Thanksgiving dinner is that there are always tons of leftovers for today, tomorrow and the rest of the week.
10 down, 91 to go.
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@HayleyWoodin
Headlines 01/10/10
Here are my thoughts on today’s headlines. Everything but the titles is written by yours truly.
For today’s headline; a look at China…
Building canal network to divert water to capital ‘on par with the Great Wall’ by Barbara Demick:
China’s capital is in desperate need of water, so the government has planned an elaborate system of canals to reroute the country’s entire water system to bring water to Beijing.
Opposition to the longterm project says that not only will the rerouting of rivers cause harm to the country’s ecosystems, but it will also “rob” other parts of China of their water supply.
And the project is expensive.
In recent years, water has been referred to as “blue gold,” hinting that because of its unequal distribution throughout the world and its necessity to survival, it will, like gold, become a highly sought after “commodity.” A present day example of the value of water: China is literally re-plumbing its entire nation, uprooting hundreds of thousands of people and spending $62 billion to satisfy Beijing’s needs. Now that is a lot of gold.
But is it worth it?
Evidently it’s not a matter of whether or not the country goes into debt versus mass de-hydration, but whether or not the project is more practical than “buying” water or trading for it.
Should the project not prove as successful as planned, the results could be disastrous. And not just because of the debt or lack of water, but because of the people’s faith in the government.
To quote the article in the Vancouver Sun, citizen Yao Ziliang said that “of course, [the project] will bring water to Beijing. The party would not lie to us.”
What will happen, to both the people and the government, if the party can’t bring water to Beijing?
Headlines 30/09/10
Here are my thoughts on today’s headlines. Everything but the titles is written by yours truly.
Mother, daughter strive to discover father’s identity by Neal Hall:
Olivia Pratten, born as a result of artificial insemination, has been trying to get access to the sperm donor’s records for years without success.
Along with her mother, she is trying to get the government to institute legislation that would preserve gamete donor records, and is trying to have the Adoption Act struck down as she argues it doesn’t afford children of gamete donors the same rights as adopted children (with regards to accessing their donor parents’ records).
According to the article in the Vancouver Sun, Pratten’s mother said that a psychology study showed that children of gamete donors learning about their donor parents is imperative to the formation of their identity.
While the issue discussed in the article focuses primarily on whether or not donor records should be preserved for patients’ access, not discussed was the issue of privacy.
I admittedly do not fully know the privacy rights of donors, but the problem isn’t just a legal one: it has moral implications.
It is important that offspring of gamete donors know their donor parents’ medical history, etc., but, to quote the article on what Pratten’s mother said, the point that “offspring of gamete donors have a need to learn about their donor parents in order to be able to properly develop their identity” was compromised 28 years ago when Shirley Pratten decided to use artificial insemination as a means of having a child.
It would seem as though sperm donors, who are donating and not signing up to have a child of their own, should have some privacy rights.
Au contraire, if privacy is a big issue for the donor, there is no obligation to donate in the first place.
The question that should be visited is whether any individual in general has any right to access information on another individual, regardless of parentage, as well as the concept of “parent responsibility:” what defines a parent, what are their responsibilities towards their offspring, and whether or not gamete donation is a no-strings-attached process where the one parent assumes all of the parenting duties.
Police reprimanded for 2005 tethering of drunk teen in cell by Sandra McCullock:
I am including this article in today’s headlines because I remember hearing about the incident when it first happened about five years ago.
An adjudicator ruled this week that two Victoria police officers committed an abuse of their authority when they tethered Willow Kinloch, 15 years old at the time, in a cell, hands cuffed behind her back, and legs tied together and strapped to the door for four hours.
The incident baffled me then and continues to baffle me now: why is it that two fully-grown police officers felt the need to completely immobilize an intoxicated 15-year-old girl? Could they really not handle her between the two of them?
The way they dealt with the situation would suggest that they were dealing with a 250-pound, armed, dangerous and extremely volatile individual. But that simply was not the case.
Broadcast debut
For this week’s Kwantlen Chronicle submission, @JSaggau and I decided to put together a video on student parking.
Last year, it cost students $95 per semester to park at one of the four campuses: this year, it costs students $125.
Like true journalists, we did the math and found out why there was a $30 parking pass increase from 2009-2010.
Putting the video together was a lot of fun: we took turns reporting facts on camera, and caught students’ reactions to the price increase on tape.
The fruits of our labour were not, however, acheived without difficulty, or should I say, difficulties.
The majority of the audio from our first day of filming wasn’t recorded. We still have no idea why, but we figured it was due to some mechanical incompatibility between the mic and the camera.
On the only other day we had to re-shoot the video, the weather was terrible, which meant that we would have a lighting inconsistancy between the first day we shot (which was bright and sunny) and the second.
Finally, in our first shoot, I had done all of the reporter on-camera work. Since half of the clips didn’t have any audio, they needed to be re-shot. But I was wearing different outfits on both days, which would have made for a lot of wardrobe changes back and forth in a two minute video.
The project was a great learning experience, as we had to really work together as a team to overcome the many obstacles thrown our way.
You can check out the parking video, which marks my first broadcast debut, at the Kwantlen Chronicle online.
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@HayleyWoodin
Famous people
Late last week and early this week, I had the opportunity to interview two “famous people.”
One of my second year courses, News Production, is designed to teach the class the practical side of working in a newsroom. Each week, we pitch our own story ideas pertaining to Kwantlen academic and student life, and submit pieces of journalism, be it in the form of articles, photo stories or videos.
Through a Kwantlen press release, I found out that a Kwantlen student had danced her way to the top 22 on CTV’s So You Think You Can Dance Canada.
With the help of social media, namely Facebook, and being able to contact the right people at the times, I was able to secure an interview with Nathalie Heath, a 23-year-old dancer from Surrey, B.C.
As a semi-regular viewer of the show, it was a great and extremely surreal experience to be able to have a conversation with someone I had seen on TV a couple of days before.
While emailing back and forth with the show’s publicist, I’d asked if there was anyone else affiliated with the show who was willing to comment on Nathalie’s success. Not sure about the show’s policies, I had been hoping for an interview with one of the judges, but wasn’t expecting one.
But I was fortunate enough to snag an interview with Jean Marc Généreux, arguably the show’s most outspoken, heartfelt and enthusiastic judge. Outside of the show, he is an accomplished ballroom dancer: he won all of the major ballroom championships in North America, and danced with his partner as Canada’s first ballroom representatives in 10 world championships.
So while he may not be a common household name, he is a well-respected and well-known individual in certain circles. And I got to interview him.
Both Jean Marc and Nathalie were personable and funny individuals, and I am thankful for the chance to have interviewed them.
To read Nathalie’s story (with quotes from the one and only Jean Marc), check out the Kwantlen Chronicle online.
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@HayleyWoodin
Bucket List #61
#61 Buy a MacBook
I am no longer a PC, because Windows 7 was not my idea.
Despite being socially connected and Internet savvy, the actually workings of a computer are lost on me, and my cluelessness (read ignorance) about how computers work has led to much frustration over the years.
After some hardships encountered with my previous laptop (mostly revolving around transferring files from my Mac at school to my Dell at home), I decided to make the switch to Apple.
And even though I still have lots to learn about using a Mac, I know my new 13-inch MacBook Pro and I will become great friends.
I’ve also ordered CS5 through an Apple retailer, so hopefully sometime within the next two weeks I will be hooked up with the latest versions of Photoshop, In Design, Illustrator and Flash Catalyst.
Now, while I find Macs to be extremely convenient and user-friendly, they are certainly not the cheapest of machines, which would have made this an expensive goal to complete.
However, I am very fortunate to have generous and loving grandparents who treated my sister and I each to a MacBook Pro.
Needless to say, yesterday was a great day.
9 down, 92 to go.
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@HayleyWoodin