The Film Noir Experience

Potato scones are the Scottish version of Aloo paratha.  Giving my family's Scottish origin, I suppose I should be a little embarrassed that I had its Indian counterpart first.  I'm not particularly bothered. The potato scone is a thin layer of potato in between a soda bread crust.  They can be fried or heated on a grill (or in a broiler).  I've been told that they are made to soak up grease, like the toast in your bacon, egg, toast and hash brown breakfast.  And, I say that's a good call because they are a bit dry on their own. 

So, I get up the day after my birthday and make myself breakfast.  I don't have bacon or hashbrowns, even though I did think about buying bacon yesterday.  So, I just have egg and potato scone.  I make  my eggs sunny side up so I have something to dip the scones into.  Also, I fry them because, why not?  You only live once.  They are nice fried and (even though I really don't have the patience to make an egg sunny side up) the potato scones are complimented by the egg yolk.  They don't overpower it and are salty without being overly salty.  We don't have a salt shaker in the flat yet, so this made the potato scone the perfect acompaniment to egg which needed a little salt.  I know, that's quite possibly the least helpful description of anything ever, but we are talking about something made out of potato and soda bread.

I rounded the whole meal out with a cup of day old coffee in the best birthday present I got yesterday: a new mug.  It has kitties on it.  Okay, now that breakfast is over, I should probably go finish cleaning out the house on Whitchurch Road. 

Posted by Kate at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have a Fall Out Boy song stuck in my head.  I'm starting to get hungry.  I have to go buy some veg before I go home.  My fiancee is ill and upset with his brother (with whom he doesn't get along with) I should be writing my dissertation and/or getting my stuff out of the house and into the flat. 

But, I have a flat with my fiancee.  We're going on holiday next week to see my family, my birthday is on Friday and I seem to be a good place with my dissertation, my advisor seemed pleased with the work I had done so far.  So maybe things are looking up.  I would sort of like to go back to bed, but I figure I'm up and I  have new books out from the library (and old books I'm still working on that are pretty decent as far as useful ideas are concerned) so I should probably just head home and focus some more on the tasks ahead.   Also, tomorrow I have plans to celebrate Liz being done with her degree.  We're going to have a Lost marathon and see the episodes we haven't yet seen.  Its oh so very exciting. 

Also, I will write a proper review of it here in the next few days but John showed me what is probably the best film about football hooliganism ever.  It is called The Firm.  It was a made for tv movie done by the BBC.  Its short, I don't think it was longer than an hour, and it has Gary Oldman in it being scary and headbutting people.  It was wicked and it had a shocking ending, which was excellent.  So, if in honor of the world cup you feel like watching a film about the idiots that like football (as opposed to the normal people that like football) I recommend watching The Firm.  Huzzah.

Posted by Kate at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our Oven and stove in the flat are broken.  Its a major bummer. 

Also, they sent my phone off to be repaired.  It should hopefully be fixed by the this time next week.  (Or, at the very least, before we go on holiday. 

Posted by Kate at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Figures.  In four hours I have a meeting with my advisor for my thesis and I am just now sitting down and figuring out what it is that I am going to say to him today.  What exactly will my project be about?  Which is silly, I know what the project will be about.  I am hoping to construct a small database of linguistic data, locate certain formulaic patterns in it and then compare these patterns and see if they support the notion that formulaic sequences have a specific and set phonological patterns as is suggested by previous research.  Originally, I had intended on doing this via methods of critical dicsourse analysis, but now I think that I may use a combination of native-speaker intuition and critical discourse analytical methods. 

I am sitting in a computer lab on campus right; I was the first one in the lab this morning.  And, let me tell you, its been amusing watching all these people come in and fiddle around with the mice trying to wake up computers that are turned off.  What is even funnier is the number of people that have fiddled with mice and then just left lab because they couldn't find a "working computer".  (Okay, so it was only one person that did that.  But, its still funny.)

So, if I do a combination of one and the other than I have to have my data sorted out before I head home for vacation because my access to native speakers of American English are quite limited here in the UK.  Go figure on that one.  Anyway, this thesis writing business is hard work.  Or maybe it just seems that way because I don't know where to focus yet because I haven't seen my advisor. Or maybe I'm just nevous that he's going to think I'm an idiot because by now he's at least looked at my coursework from last semester even if he hasn't graded it.  Oh my, oh my. 

 In other news, John and I found a lovely one bedroom apartment that is opposite the park.  We get the keys to it on Friday.  Do you believe that?  Its a cute little place.  Also, yesterday we went to the christening of John's friend Chapman's daughter.  She's a real cutie.  Plus, I got to meet more of John's cool friends (they contrast with John's not-cool acquaintances that I see rather frequently.) 

Posted by Kate at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is AMAZING out.  The temperature is just right.  Its not too windy.  The sun is out.  I am absolutely in awe of it.  Combine that with the fact that it seems to be getting light around 4:30 in the morning and still being light out well after 9 at night makes me think that summer here will be the perfect counterbalance to winter...a season in which I wondered, "What is the sun?"  (And, not in a philosophical way... In a, I'm not sure it exists anymore way.) 

In honor of the beautifulness, I am going to go sit outside and read and drink coffee now. 

Posted by Kate at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)