family reunion and yosemite

Last weekend, Drew and I headed up to Bass Lake, California, which is about an hour northeast of Fresno. We went up for a family reunion, an occasion that occurs every three years. It was my mom's side of the family, and it included my great aunts and uncles, aunts and uncles, and many, many cousins. My maternal grandma has 7 brothers and sisters, and my mom has 45 first cousins. As you can imagine, family reunions are a pretty big ordeal. My grandma has two sisters who defected to California, one in Fresno and the other in LA. Apparently, those two were escaping the cold Minnesota winters, but the rest of them decided to tough it out.

My mom's side of the family is huge, and I don't know everyone. The nice thing about being in grad school at UCI is that I've gotten to know my family down in Oceanside, and I spend many holidays with them. This time, I got to meet many of my family members up in Fresno, and I got to see everyone from Minnesota. I had a lot of fun seeing everyone and catching up.

Family reunions can get particularly funny because the adults all start reminiscing and telling funny stories from the good ol' days. At one point, I asked my cousin Michael if this is what we'll be doing in 20 or 30 years, and I asked him what stories we'd tell. He mentioned the time that someone hid one of our cousins, Jerrod, in the dryer during a mad game of hide-and-seek (we were avid players back in the day). Michael thinks that I was the mastermind behind that operation, but of course I denied it and instead blamed it on Jerrod's brothers. Of course, hiding someone in the dryer does sound like something I'd think of, so I guess it could have been me.

It was really nice to get out of Irvine, and Bass Lake was really pretty. Saturday was the day of the reunion, and on Sunday, we went to Yosemite with my parents, aunts, uncles, and a few of my first cousins. We started off with a short hike, and this fallen tree greeted us near the trailhead:

Our destination was the tunnel tree, which is appropriately named:
Next, we headed to Inspiration Point, which had a splendid view of El Capitan, Half Dome, and the Bridalveil Falls:

I loved the trees, and the sunlight peeking through them!

There were waterfalls everywhere!
More trees!

3 days til china!

Drew and I have 3 days until we leave for China! I am pretty excited, but a tad nervous because I don't know how to say anything or read anything. It is my first trip out of the country. (well, not technically, but I don't count crossing the border to drink in Mexico as an official trip out of the US) It's been a busy few days lately. I've been wrapping up loose ends before we go, and we just got back from a family reunion near Fresno. (I will post an update and pictures about that soon)

strawberry, peach, and rhubarb!

Sometimes, common sense evades me. I found a recipe for a strawberry, peach, and rhubarb pie and I went on a proverbial wild goose chase looking for rhubarb. It took one hour and four grocery stores, but I finally found frozen rhubarb. Now, had I thought to look for the frozen stuff in the first place, my expedition would have been over at grocery store #1. Oh well. Now I have three bags of it in my freezer, which I am very excited about.

It turns out that pie baking might not be like riding a bicycle. I almost successfully made an all butter crust (I used more water than what the recipe called for), but it didn't bake up well and it was soggy. I think it was because I didn't use enough cornstarch to soak up all the fruit juices.
The pie was pretty good despite the crust issues. I've heard of combining rhubarb with strawberries, but the combo was even better with the peaches!

good eats

Are you hungry? Check out my guest blog post over at vegina. In "good eats," I talk about some of my favorite veg restaurants of all time. Happy eating!

rhubarb (and strawberry) crisp

When I was growing up, we had this huge rhubarb bush in our backyard. Have you ever had rhubarb? No? Well, come on over and pull up a seat at my table. Rhubarb looks like red celery and tastes tangy, tart, and maybe a little sour. Take a look:

I never knew I was such a fan of rhubarb. My mom used to make rhubarb crisp all the time, but then we moved out of the house with the rhubarb bush when I was 8. So I really haven't had rhubarb since then, but for some reason, I was recently hit with this craving. Rhubarb is in season now, and so I made a rhubarb and strawberry crisp.

It was wonderful. I just can't describe it. It was just really, really good. Rhubarb, oh how I have missed you.

wedding season

I went to a wedding last weekend. I was Drew's not-exactly-willing plus one, but when there's free booze and dancing, I can be convinced. I've blogged about my disdain about weddings and marriage before, whether it's about wedding-themed video games, diamonds, or women changing their names. And I've engaged in my fair share of mocking weddings. There are many reasons that I'm against weddings, and there are many things about them that I will never understand. Weddings make marriage seem less about love and commitment and more about ostentatious decorations, fancy food, excess and extravagance. I heard somewhere that the average wedding these days costs about $25,000. This is ridiculous. Who has this kind of money? No doubt, people probably go into debt financing weddings.

When we arrived at the church, I told Drew that I would refrain from critiquing the wedding until after we got home. And of course, I told him that any critique wasn't a critique of his friends; rather, it was a critique on weddings and society in general. Fortunately, he said that I didn't have to wait until we got home. Oh, and I didn't. I mean, I just couldn't resist when the stretch Hummer limousine pulled up to the church.

Let me first say that I understand that weddings are important to people, and it's an experience that they want to celebrate in the biggest way possible. Although I think that weddings are unnecessarily flashy affairs, I respect people's right to celebrate as they see fit. If this is how people choose to celebrate marriage, I can wholeheartedly support them even if I disagree with it.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, here goes. The ceremony was nice. Patriarchal, but nice. I'm always struck by how people romanticize about patriarchal practices. Like white wedding dresses, veils, and fathers giving away their daughters and handing them off to the groom. Some people like those traditions, but at the core, they are paternalistic. But oh well, the ceremony was nice and not too long.

The entire ceremony and reception was videotaped. (is that what's it's called these days?) Anyway, there was a videographer at the ceremony and reception. We're not talking about somebody hand holding a video camera. No, we're talking full on videotaping. With a crane. I felt like I was an extra on a movie set. In a sense, isn't this what weddings are? The bride and the groom (mostly the bride) are the stars, and everyone else plays a supporting role on the big day.

Dinner was a five-course extravaganza. And being vegetarians, we hardly ate any of it. There were twenty tables, and each one seated twelve. Dinner was served family style, with lots of food at every single table. There was also a collection of liquor at every single table. Holy crap. And the servers were actually replacing the liquor throughout the night. It was insane. The cake was really, really good.

By my estimate, there were about 250 people at the reception. And this is something that I just don't understand: huge guest lists. At some point, it is impossible to spend any meaningful time with your guests. And what's interesting to me is that brides and grooms will always put on some song and dance about how much they appreciate your being there to celebrate their special day. Seriously, who are they kidding? With guest lists longer than Santa's naughty or nice list, it is functionally impossible to take note of or acknowledge the guests' presence in a meaningful way.

I am pretty sure that for the cost of the wedding, the bride and groom could have sent a future child or two to college. I'm not exaggerating. It was that fancy and big. There was actually entertainment, something I had never seen before. A dance troupe had been hired to perform for us. Insane. The cost of the wedding is unfortunate. We are socialized to believe that our wedding day is the biggest and most important day of our lives. Young girls and women are targeted more than boys and men. (ever notice how bride-centric weddings are? you have bridal showers, bridal parties, and bridal registries) The sad thing is that while we buy into the belief that this is our most important day of our lives, we go broke paying for it.

the sprinkles hoax

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I buy cupcakes. This isn't a habit, but sometimes I get a cupcake craving and I don't feel like whipping up an entire batch. (you probably wish I would though because you know I would share). When I break down and buy a cupcake, Sprinkles is my bakery of choice. Even though the frosting is a little dry, the cupcakes are moist.

I went to Sprinkles yesterday to try out the key lime cupcake. Drew and I also got a lemon coconut one. Here's the thing: the cupcake itself isn't flavored. The flavor comes from the frosting. Our cupcakes were really vanilla cupcakes with lime frosting and lemon frosting respectively. What a hoax. I feel like I just found out that Santa Claus isn't real.

I hopped on the Sprinkles website. Here's the deal: Some of their flavored cupcakes do purport to be a flavored cake and frosting. For example, the strawberry is apparently a strawberry cupcake with strawberry frosting. But the lemon coconut and the coconut are simply vanilla cupcakes. The key lime is supposed to be a "tangy key lime cake" but let me reassure you that it was straight up vanilla.

I am way bummed. Obviously, I mean, I'm blogging about it. But seriously, these cupcakes are $3.25 each. If I'm paying for a key lime cupcake, I expect more than just the frosting to be flavored. Who do they think they're fooling?

ph.d. candidate

It's about time that I tell you that I took my advancement exam and passed a few weeks ago. After filing the paperwork and forking over $90, I officially became a Ph.D. candidate yesterday.

Our advancement exams are oral exams with 5 committee members. The exam lasted about an hour and a half. It's tough and it's challenging, which I suppose is why it's called an exam and not say, a walk in the park. I'm not going to lie here, it was probably the least enjoyable experience of my life. I mean, if you gave me a choice between taking my oral exam again and say, being stuck in an elevator with George W. Bush, I'd probably choose the latter. I'm being a tad dramatic here; looking back, it wasn't so bad. It's kind of like a performance review, or an assessment. It's like checking in with your committee to see where you're at in the program, what you know, and what you still need to work on.

In my department, orals have been called a "black box." We've never seen an exam before, so we have no idea what to expect. We don't receive sample questions. Everyone has a committee of 5, so the chances that any two committees will have the same composition are very, very slim. (I wonder if it's ever happened) So, as my chair said, students' exams are really tailored to them. Thus, no two are alike and the standards are variable. The standards for the exam range from "a walk in the park" to "kick your ass." You can see why we call this a black box.

I don't think orals are something to be feared. Everyone has to do them, and everyone survives. I mean, they're called a black box, not a Bermuda Triangle. When I began grad school, the oral exam was something that was difficult for me to conceptualize. It was a mystery. What does it mean to know the scholarship in your field? What are my field/s? What do I put on a reading list and how will I read it all? Do I have to know every detail? Who should be on my committee? And so on. Here's the thing: strangely, grad school has made me more relaxed and calm. I have my moments, but overall I've become more laid back. And so I've trusted that things will come together, and I'll figure out who I want to work with and what I want to study. And it worked. Somehow, the pieces came together.

I got a lot of advice about orals, and many said that the best you can do is just be prepared. Sounds obvious, but it's true. I took notes, made flashcards, summarized the literature in my fields, and practiced aloud with Drew and some others. Other students said that I would reach a point at which I would "just know" (apparently, orals are like picking a mate) that I'm prepared and ready. This again is true. I did reach this point at which I knew that I was as ready as I ever could be.

Many friends passed along words of wisdom, and even though we all had different experiences, it made orals seem less scary. And practicing aloud was really important and really helped me prepare. (special shout out to Drew who listened to me and asked questions every night for 3 weeks preceding my exam. I don't know why I did that. He doesn't read my blog.) And, this might be difficult, but I think it's important to be optimistic and think positively. As a friend said, orals is like a diagnostic. It's like a check up to see where you're at, where you're going, and what you need to do. And remember, your committee is on your side and wants you to succeed. This is really difficult to remember, especially during the exam (and after). But you must tell yourself that they like you because at some point during the exam, you might look out and think to yourself "who are these people, why do they appear to dislike me, and why do they keep trying to throw me under the bus?"

So now I'm working on coming up with a dissertation topic. It can be daunting to think about how I've passed many small hurdles, but the biggest one is yet to come.