I can’t seem to find my rhythm

Lately I’ve been finding it hard to juggle my work and studies. I don’t know but it seems that the a certain subject from last semester has really disheartened me in continuing my Masters. It has made me to think that it might not be worth the trouble and time to continue it but on the other hand, I’ve been too far enough to stop it. I think there’s a part of me regretting taking up the entire program when I could have gone for something that I would really enjoy.

I really feel that my life is off my rhythm. It could be just stress or it’s just a general feeling of dissatisfaction with life. I’ve been always feeling that I don’t belong to this generation. I really envy the previous generations because they were able to enjoy life at a much better and enjoyable pace. I’m talking about how they enjoyed life that doesn’t care about instant gratification nor about small trivial problems. Life for today’s generation is really just full of crap, seeing everyone else doing something that seems stable makes me doubt  about my own future and my life in general.

This feeling that I have may be attributed to a quarter life crisis that most people my age could be experiencing. It might be that I really don’t know what I must do in the real world. Every time I try to set a goal, I usually get discouraged because it seems so impossible to achieve especially with my current situation. I just hope that I find more satisfaction in life and see things in a better light soon. For now I’ll leave you with some music that hopefully could put you into the right mood, just like me.

I Wish to be Claimed…

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The series Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Heroes of Olympus build up a good part of my good collection. I really don’t know but I was drawn into the series a year ago when I got The Lightning Thief from a book fair. Adventures into the realms of heroes, gods and goddesses is not new to me since I’ve been reading about Greek Myths since I was seven and I practically grew up watching Hercules and Xena, The Warrior Princess.

I really loved the adventures of heroes (Odysseus was actually my favorite then Hercules and Perseus) and the Olympian gods. Having these books makes it easier for me to relive these stories that I had enjoyed in my childhood, since back then I only learned about these tales from encyclopedias (Yes that’s how geeky I am, I read encyclopedias like they were bedtime stories).

Yes, I know I am really different from all the normal kids my age during that time, this goes the same with my family. I really looked differently from the rest of my siblings and I had always been the butt of jokes when it comes to being adopted. It has been a running thought that I might be a long lost heir to a billionaire or something and the family that I had been living with was not my real one.

That thought is still in my head but it is a little different now after reading the series. If I were really an adopted son, I wish that one of my parents is a god. It would have been cool to live the life of adventure for a demigod, which is something that I really want to experience even once in my life. I’d like to go on a quest to meet the most unusual and experience new things.

The life that I am living right now seems to lack a certain spice. Things are slowly starting to become a routine and maybe I really need a break to find back that certain spice. Maybe I’ll go to find my own golden fleece to heal these feeling that seems like a dip from the Lethe. Or better yet, I’ll go to find the Oracle to give my life direction once more. The best thing to do maybe is to kill the monster that is terrorizing my thoughts with some magical weapon from my immortal side of the family.

I still don’t know who’s my parent from the immortal side of the family, but hopefully soon I’ll find out, so that I know where I am really good at and bring back the thing that I may have lost. So please claim me now!

Lessons from the Kitchen: Make the Most of What you Have

I just made a semi-experimental chicken meal today. I would like to call it Coq au Cognac but duh better call it Chicken in Soy and Brandy Sauce.

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The usual question of what’s for lunch always had the usual answer: it’s either chicken, pork or beef. It’s up to us to choose what kind of cooking should be done to those meats to make it a meal. As for me, I try to get creative and raid first the refrigerator before I do my cooking.

If you’re wondering, this is not adobo. I based the recipe from the Honey-Chili Chicken that I know how to cook, this one though has no honey or chili, instead it has brandy as its acidic component. Plus doing a flambe on the brandy makes it more exciting.

Anyway, it’s just that I really love to experiment with food and make it more interesting. It may not always work right but I am happy that I learn from it always.  It’s like doing a McGyver thing on the food, it’s taking what you have and with a little creativity, turn it into something awesome.

Well just a lesson learned from the kitchen again… We can turn the things that we have into something awesome if we put our imagination and creativity to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons from the Kitchen: Give me Bananas and I’ll make Crepe

It started with pancakes for afternoon snacks, I had 2 or 3 when I saw the bananas and an idea came to me. I took the bananas, sliced them and placed them on a thin sheet of pancake. After putting butter and letting it cool a little, I added some peanut butter on top and here is the finished product.

A little artsy fartsy on the presentation but I think it tastes  just as good as it looks. Actually it was the same plate that I used for the first 2 or 3 pancakes and some crumbs are really noticeable. So excuse the crumbs and let me talk about this.

Cooking is actually one of the three things that I really enjoy doing (the other 2 being drawing and magic). It is really some sort of therapy for me for boredom. The heat of the kitchen, the aroma of the food, the tastes and the way things go together. create this multi-sensory experience that I couldn’t find anywhere else. I don’t think I can get the same high with any other activity.

I love to cook because I love to eat and I think the kitchen has taught me a lot of things that helped me deal with life, the simplest being, “If you can’t stand the heat of the kitchen, leave it”. I had a lot of moments in my life that I learned to leave the places or the situations that made me realize that the heat is too much for me to handle. It’s not that I just give up easily on things, it’s just  when things aren’t right already, I will not spend another second trying to make it right. It is best to get out for awhile, let it cool and try fixing it again.

A lot of things could be solved better if we lower down the heat. Just like in cooking, a very high heat could make food cooked on the outside but raw inside. High heat solutions to problems usually just tackles the problem on the outside but leaves the inside still problematic. Taking it slowly makes you sure that everything will be done just right.

The kitchen is one of the few places where I can exercise my creativity and whenever I exercise it I feel really good. How I wish that soon enough I can exercise this more often. Well enough of the reflections and maybe more on the cooking soon.