Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 059 (Apple Curry)

Nothing too exciting today.

Leaf blower was going during Lectio... really distracting.

Did laundry.

Discovered a new use for apples.

Tried to study... failed.

Good episode of Glee tonight... which was good, because I was starting to get worried. Last week's episode was good, too. Maybe there's hope...

So, back to the apples. I know this isn't technically a "food blog" but food is a really important part of my life. And, since the current plan is to open a restaurant, it's important that I use my classmates as food guinea pigs... and it would seem they are only too happy to oblige. My next-door neighbor, Ryan, is allergic to onions, which forms the base of my curry sauce. I've been thinking long and hard, trying to come up with an acceptable substitute for onions, and the only thing that I thought would even come close is apples. Luckily, my parents brought a huge bag of apples from our backyard when they came up to visit. It was actually lucky on two counts, because I had no idea what I was going to do with all of those apples; they're not really the best for just eating.

I didn't do a full substitution, I kept in a half onion because I know Ryan can tolerate a little bit of onion, and I thought it was important to at least have some of the onion flavor. I made up for the missing 3 1/2 onions with 3 small apples and 2 asian pears, also from the backyard. The result tasted surprisingly like the original, if a little bit sweeter with a slight fruitiness to it. I'll have to let my mom know of my discovery so they can stop throwing away all those apples! Sorry, I forgot to take a picture; I'll try to remember for next time.

I already fed the apple curry to few people (not to mention eating a decent quantity of it myself) so Ryan, if you're reading this, you can claim the last serving for yourself, or wait until I make more. :-P

I have also discovered Marlboro pie, a delicious apple custard pie, but I'll have to save that for another post...

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 35 (B Average)

I'm trying to find balance in my life. At the risk of some of my professors reading this, I have decided to shoot for a B average. This is not going to be easy for me, because for the last 2 years, I did everything I could to get the A. Unfortunately, I have also found little correlation between the amount of work I did and the grades I got. I got 3 B's in undergrad, and 2 of them were in classes that I thought I did well in and put the most time and work into. This has caused me to become a little bit jaded, on top of coming to the realization that A's just aren't, or shouldn't be anyway, that important to me. Life is too short to be worrying over getting A's all the time. What does it really mean anyway? That I studied longer to memorize some things that I'm going to forget the next day? That I spent a few more hours over a paper that isn't going to help my spiritual or personal development any more than a B paper would? I didn't come here to slave over my homework. I came here to learn, and I don't think I have to run myself ragged to do that.

As Ryan likes to say, "What do you call a doctor that graduated with a C average? Doctor."

Not that I can imagine him getting C's.

I also came here to have a good time. This is, as far as I know, going to be my one shot at a "college experience." I've never been away from home before; even when I moved to Simi Valley for 3 years, it only took me 20 minutes to drive to my parents house. I want to experience new things and also spend time with the hobbies that I love.

When I thought about moving up here, I thought that because I wasn't going to be working, I would have ample free time to write and paint and explore the city. I wanted to find a coffee shop that had poetry night so that I could get back into that scene. I wanted to start developing relationships with people in my presbytery to prepare for the upcoming battle for my ordination. Heck, I thought I'd even have some time to market my book a little. At the very least, I thought I would have finished my inquirer essays and applied for a few scholarships by now.

So, I am actively trying to be a worse student. I have yet to see any fruits of that labor, but I am not a quitter! The one area that I'm not going to slack on is Biblical Hebrew. It may be a dead language, but so far I seem to be pretty good at it, and who knows, I may finally have a foreign language under my belt after all this time. Shalom!

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 33 (Balcony Conversations)

Friday's post comes to you an hour and a half late courtesy of Ryan, Gavin & Sam. We had some really good conversations out on the balcony tonight as the air cooled around us. Some of things we discussed: Gavin and Sam are a lot older than they look, conservative vs liberal theology, worship and politics, gay ordination and school politics. I didn't want to stop the conversation to blog; the conversations were just too important.

Today was the last day of the second week of the first semester of the year. We had quizzes on the Old Testament and Hebrew today, and I was not the only one that needed a nap afterwards. My study habits went totally out the window today. I don't know if it was the heat or that I've just been studying too much or the simple fact that it was Friday and I wouldn't have classes for the rest of the weekend, but after lunch, I got out my paints, painted for about an hour and then took a nap. After that, I went grocery shopping and we had the second night of our Firefly marathon. Then, it was back home for the balcony conversations.

That's all for now. I was feeling more ambitious when I started this post, but my bed would really like me to lie in it. More tomorrow, I promise.

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 29 (9)

Sorry folks, it's gonna be a short one today because I have A TON of reading to do and it's getting really late O_o

So, movie review time. Ryan, Julie, Amber and I went to go see "9" today, a movie that just came out about a group of little voodoo doll lookin' things trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world.

***SPOILER ALERT***

I wasn't all that impressed with the movie. It moved kind of slow, and considering what it was, there should have been a lot more action. The story line also left much to be desired. The concept was cool, but the writers should have realized from the get-go that they were basically painting themselves into a corner. There's not much you can do with a story when your basic premise is that all life on the planet is dead. Plus, they do some weird things with splitting souls and the main character has a pretty lame character arc. The director should have spent more time on the character's relationships with each other. It's obvious there's a lot of history there, so there were character arcs aplenty to choose from. I also didn't like the caricature of the strong idiot that is so prevalent in movies today.

Okay, I need to stop now and read about Drugs and Jesus. (otherwise known as "The Sacred and the Substance")

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 14 (First Forays into San Francisco)

I've been here for just over a week now and I barely made it into San Francisco today. After church this morning, my next-door neighbor Ryan and I decided we would try to figure out the public transportation and explore the city. We wanted to take the ferry across the bay, but we arrived 2 hours early because the ferry has a limited schedule on Sundays, so we sat at a bar and had some beer while we waited.

It took about an hour to get to San Francisco from Larkspur and cost $8.50 one way. We got to San Francisco around 2 p.m. The cool thing about taking the ferry is that you get a free two-way bus pass good for that day, but we didn't end up using them.

We went to chinatown and had a late lunch, then shopping so Ryan could buy some chopsticks. After that, we walked to Pier 39, which is a total tourist trap, but still very cool. They have a special section of floating platforms just for the sea lions to lounge on. There were hundreds of them, all piled on top of each other, barking away, completely ignoring the dozens of people gawking at them only a few feet away.

There a lot of extremely specialized shops at Pier 39; one store only sold socks, and another only sold magnets. We went to a chocolate shop where I bought chocolate covered marshmallows and chocolate pasta, which I am EXTREMELY excited about!

The weather has been really hot lately, but the heat wave seemed to let up today and it was pretty cold in San Francisco. I was so used to the heat though, so I neglected to bring a jacket. As the day wore on, it kept getting colder and colder, but we couldn't get back to the other side of the bay until 7:15 because of the limited ferry runs. The only other option we had that day was to go back at 4:40, and we didn't want to head back that soon. However we sort of ran out of things to do and still had about 2 hours before the ferry was scheduled to depart for Larkspur.

So, we tried to hide out at Sur la Table while we waited, but the mall was closing and we got kicked out. Because we were cold, we went to Peet's Coffee next for something warm to drink. Now, I have to admit, this was my first time at Peet's Coffee because I'm a pretty avid Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf fan, but Peet's Coffee may have converted me. Their tea selection is AMAZING! Today, I tried the Ancient Trees Organic Pu-erh tea, which was very rich and musky and fragrant. Next time, I'm going to try the Golden Dragon Oolong.