Something That Makes Me Happy - Blog Carnival

Last August, I participated in Potentially Problematic Opinions Month. Alex Neill is basically my biggest blogging inspiration, and she's really good at things, so when she tells you to write something, you probably should. Last year, she was like 'write about your controversial opinions' and not only did I enjoy it immensely, I also wrote a bunch of blogs that took little to no effort to concoct AND got a bunch of extra views (and readers maybe?). What I'm saying is, always do what Alex says.

This year, she said 'join my blog carnival it's going to be great'. So here we are - at the blog carnival.

Each week a bunch of bloggers will write to a theme, the details of which live here. The idea is basically that we'll all share and enjoy each other's blogs, encourage each other to do the thing, and maybe write some good stuff while we're at it. 

For me, I'm really aiming to write blogs that inspire my readers to do something and share it with me. You don't have to blog, but I'd love to hear about your experiences, see your photos and generally share this month with you. To facilitate this (and to make my life simple, double win), I'll probably be choosing reeeeally easy ideas for us all to get amongst.

This week's theme is "Something That Makes Me Happy" and while I could've gone with big, important things, I ended up making a bunch of muffins, and now I’m going to blog about it.

First things first (I’m the realest), I’m no food blogger. In order to be one of those I think you need a few, important things. Firstly, you need to have good food presentation skills. Next, you need a clean kitchen. Finally, you need to write your own recipes. I don’t do any of these things. In fact, I’m not even that good at cooking.

But shit man, baking makes me so damn happy.

Step 1: Put all the ingredients out in a fancy way. Step 2: Move them all again so you can actually bake.

See, this is why I'm not a food blogger.

So today I made banana choc-chip muffins. They are made of deliciousness and wholemeal flour. 

Also sugar.

I tried to pretend like this is an actually fancy, pretty process...

But in reality this is what it looks like when I'm in my happy place...

So that’s what makes me happy. What makes you happy?

If you think baking might make you happy, why not give it a go this week and share the results? I’d love to see what you guys come up with. Feel free to use one of the recipes below if you would like.

I’m not particularly adventurous; I tend to make the same things over and over. But there is a certain comfort in doing this. At the moment, I tend to cycle between making these things:

Anzac biscuits (recipe is hand-written out of my dad’s cook book, soz)

Almond meal muffins

Banana-choc wholemealmuffins (today's happiness fodder)

Banana bread and

Gluten-free bread

I ate one just before and it was amazing.

 What else is happening this week in the blog carnival???

Alex is happy about outside and sunshine.

Jessica is happy about family and travel and ancestor hate-mail.

Britt is happy about music.

Noni is happy about her life right now.

Sanity is… Writing Lists and Baking

Hello my name is Lizzy and I’m addicted to writing lists and baking.

Around my house you will easily find up to five or six lists on any given day. Shopping Lists, to-do lists, goals lists, assignment lists… Basically if it can be listed, it *will* be listed, and if I haven’t written it out in a list, it probably won’t get done.

When a list is almost completely checked off, I’ll give up on it. It’s too messy now, too full of scribbles. I’ll take the one or two things I have left and start a new list with them - moving in a perpetual cycle of things to complete, of lists.

Sometimes I have to resist the urge to put “write a list” as the first item, because someone might see it and judge me. But apparently, admitting this in a blog is just fine, so there you go. Possibly more shamefully, sometimes I actually do write things in after the fact and then tick them off, just to prove to myself that I’ve accomplished them. It’s like they didn’t happen unless I write them down. Mental, I know.  

Today’s list* looks like this:

-       pencil case update

-       ironing

-       print forms

-       pack folder and notebooks

-       put oil and water in car

-       wash clothes

-       make lunches:

o   bread

o   zucchini slice

o   banana bread

I’m going on prac tomorrow, so today is the day I organise all the little fiddly jobs to make sure I don’t rock up in front of a class and realise that I’ve forgotten how to teach. No, I don’t have to write “remember how to teach” on a list; what I mean is that once all the tiny things are sorted, I feel infinitely more confident, more ready to try new things and be challenged. But if I’ve got the wrong pencils in my pencil case well then… god help us all, I’ll be balled up under my desk by 10am.

Also, that last item in the list is important. When I have a lot to do, I often take the time to make food. This seems bizarre, I know. I’m so busy I hardly have time for sleep and yet I spent two hours today doing nothing but baking. Is there logic to this? Possibly not. But there is something very comforting about baking, to me, anyway. I usually make at least a batch of muffins each weekend. This could just be because I really like muffins though, not sure.

But it goes back to the original point, I’ve organised my lunches now. I’ve got fancy bread and a zucchini slice and banana bread. I’m actually ensuring that in the middle of a stressful week, I’ll have at least one serve of veges in my lunch, I’ve got something sweet to push through that last little bit of the day, I won’t be hungry. But more importantly, I don’t ever feel stressed out when I’m baking. My mind goes blank, really, and I don’t think about any of the things I’m worried about. I just think about flours and cinnamon and whether I should use up the bananas in banana bread or if I should make them into muffins and how many chocolate chips are too many chocolate chips. Is that even an amount?

So yes, I’m addicted to lists and baking, but they keep me sane. And frankly, that’s very important right now.

It's possible that I only wrote this blog to show off what I made today... 

*One of. There’s a whole other list for assessment. Shhhh I’m perfectly sane.

Lizzyish gives advice: UNI1000

Hello and welcome to UNI1000 – Introduction to Surviving Uni

Following the success of my advice blog, where I gave advice on how to get through school, I have been inspired to write something similar for University students. In the following blog you will not find study tips, help with choosing courses, or suggestions for how to make yourself job-ready. What you will find is a series of actually useful things about surviving the other stuff, from making sure your tummy is filled, to making sure your social life is fulfilling. Enjoy…

Centrelink – Ah, Centrelink. The devil you must keep close. On the one hand, they give you free money, and you should never complain about them, on the other, they are a bureaucratic nightmare wrapped in a confusing website wrapped in a pile of contradictory mail. I have regularly received two letters on the same day, dated the same date, from two different Centrelink offices telling me two completely opposing and contradictory things. Like 1. “Dear Miss Ish, you are now eligible for payment, to be issued on the 1^st June 2007” and 2. “Dear Miss Ish, NO! NO MONEY FOR YOU, YOU MUST STARVE NOW AHAHAHA!”

When dealing with Centrelink, you must always stay at least 1 step ahead of the game. Study their website, read all the pamphlets, get to know their inner workings. Follow the rules, always report on time but always be on top of it. You should see one of your major occupations as “Centrelink Expert” because at any time they could do something crazy and cut you off. Exhibit A (from my own vault of experiences) – they may send a letter to your house, and it may not get to your house because Australia Post is in cahoots with Centrelink. They may receive this letter back marked “undeliverable”, they may send another letter to your house informing you that as they could not contact you at your house (where you are currently sitting, reading the letter), they have cut off your payments and you will now starve. The only solution to this was to call them up and cry. This worked quite well.

Finally, it is important to dress appropriately when going in for a crying session appointment at the Centrelink office. Your attire needs to say ‘I’m a responsible young adult who is taking care of themselves’, but also ‘I am so poor I’ve stopped using electricity to save on my electricity bills’. I would recommend jeans and a slightly too big tshirt, maybe with a few holes in them. Wear shoes, but only the ones where the soles are sort of flapping off when you walk.

Working – depending on what you study, it may be near impossible for you to maintain regular employment while at uni. Even if your contact hours are minimal, there’s still all the essays, exam prep, group meetings for stupid group assignments, and all the socialising you have to do. If you can manage it though, working while you’re at uni provides that little bit of extra cash Centrelink fails to give you, so that you are actually over the poverty line. Find something with about 10-15 hours a week. Never tell them when uni holidays are… they’ll give you way too many hours and it’ll dock your Centrelink and you’ll end up with less. See if there are any jobs at uni. One of the best jobs I had at uni was with the Support Services there. My job was to go to classes with students with a disability, take notes for them, help them to get to and from class, maybe get some books for them at the library, a bit of photocopying. It’s really easy and you end up going to classes that either you’ve already taken, or you were considering taking or are just generally interesting. Also you end up making a friend or two. And you get paid to hang out with them in the library. It’s win-win really.

Food – Undoubtedly, after you’ve fought with Centrelink and your job, you’re going to be hungry, and despite your best efforts, you’re not going to have much money for food. Here are a few tips to help you fill that studenty tum –

Gnocchi – it’s this pasta made from potatoes that you can buy in packets for about $3. There’s 2 – 3 meals there and once the water is boiling it cooks in literally a minute.

Mi Goreng – It’s like 2 minute noodles but better and it’s regularly on sale for very cheap. 2 minute noodles make you feel ill after a while, and Mi Goreng has fun flavourings in packets. Get someone whose made it before to show you how they do it, everyone has their own way. It’s like a special cult just for poor people, it’s awesome. Actually Mi Goreng makes you feel ill after a while too, if that’s all you’re eating. Maybe alternate?

Frozen veges – I know what you’re thinking… you’ve just moved out of home, you don’t have to eat veges anymore right? WRONG. I have one word for you: scurvy. Do you want your teeth to fall out because your gums have receded into your brain? No. So eat some goddamn vegetables. It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to afford fresh veg, so buy big packets of frozen veg and add to pasta/gnocchi/anything.

Red Meat – it is very difficult to be a vegetarian on a student budget, and you need iron for all that sleeping you’re going to do. You’re not going to be able to afford fancy steaks, but you can buy chopped up stir-fry meat for pretty cheap. Invest in a wok, home-brand soy sauce and some honey. Add in the frozen veges and bam! You’re a stir-fry wizard. Vermicilli rice noodles are very cheap and can be added to your stir-fry to add carbs. Or you can go with every student’s old faithful…

Rice – Rice can be bought in large quantities for not many dollars. Home-brand is definitely the way on this one. Rice is rice. You are literally paying for packaging on any other brand. Sunrice? Are you kidding me? There is no sun in that rice, not even a little speck of sunshiney happiness. Rice can be added to anything, and if you’re really poor, it can be eaten by itself if need be. It’s not glamorous, but it’ll get you through till that next Centrelink pay.

Also, learn to bake. Just a few simple things like scones, cupcakes, biscuits etc. Flour and other basics are all quite cheap and last for ages, and if you’re ever craving something sweet that you just can’t afford, you’ll have an endless supply of delicious baked goods. Baked goods are also an excellent way to make friends.

Furniture – beg, borrow and steal as much furniture as you can from family, friends and neighbours. After that, wait for the kerbside collections. These are a cut-throat business in suburbs with high densities of students. So you need to go out at about 10pm and do the rounds. People throw out all sorts of stuff – bookshelves, armchairs, milk crates… all useful in a shared student house.

Sleeping at Uni – this is one of the great pastimes of our generation. Got four hours to kill between classes? What better way is there to spend them except having a sneaky nap? Scope out the best spots, these may include the Z row in the library, an out of the way garden bed or an empty lecture theatre. I can only speak from my own experience at UQ but may I heartily recommend that amphitheatre type area near the lakes, the upper levels of the SS & H library and anywhere in the Great Court.

Your Social Life – making friends at uni can be difficult. The people in your classes one week may have all pissed off by the next. Just because you sat together in the lecture doesn’t mean you’ll ever find each other again. It took me a while, actually, to sort out how to do this but here are some of the things I worked out.

1.     Give it a bit of time. It’s not like school, you may only see people once a week or less.

2.     Be friendly to as many people as possible. All hierarchies you’ve ever known have just been thrown out the window, it is impossible to ascertain what kind of people are sitting in a tute room with you or whether or not they are ‘cool’ (in the popularity sense) or cool (in the actual sense). So just be nice, to everyone, and you’ll eventually work out who you actually want to be friends with.

3.     Be yourself (GROAN). I know how fucking irritating that is (who else are you meant to be, right?) but seriously, I made about 20x more friends when I stopped caring all the time and started just enjoying my classes, my lecturers and the people around me.

4.     Learn to bake. See earlier point.

5.     Join a society of some kind. Do you like something? A sport? Politics? The environment? Music? Dancing? Pokemon? Medieval re-enactments? Chances are someone else at uni does too and they’ve already started a group. On market day, sign up to as many things that interest you as possible and then, when they send you the first email ACTUALLY GO TO THE THING. Yes, it will be scary, yes, you may actually realise the whole thing was a terrible idea but probably at least one of the things you signed up for will be actually good. They will seem cliquey, they will all seem to know each other, they will forget your name but this is because they were just like you a year ago, and now they’ve found their niche and they’re so happy about it they sort of forgot what that was like. They will be your friends, they will remember your name, and you guys are going to have the best time doing whatever it is you do for the next 3-4 years. Just stick at it for a couple more weeks. Be yourself, be friendly, give it time, bake them a cake… you’ll be best friends by second semester.

I joined the Student Theatre Company, Underground, where I learned about 300 life skills, had some of the best times of my life, and made lots of friends, many of whom will be life-long. The other advantage was that eventually I got a key to the theatre, which really helped in the whole “sleeping at uni” thing.