CHICKEN ALFREDO PIZZA, SPRINGTIME AND TIMORESE POETRY

Well, I am working at 5 Buck Pizza again to earn some spending money for Brazil! I work Wednesday from 3:30-8/9pm, and Friday from 3-8/9pm, and sometimes a little later if it gets busy. I thought after being gone so long that my shift would go by really fast on my first day back…it didn’t. Time went just as slow as or even slower than I remember. Oh well. Really good people work there, and as long as you keep up with the pace of things, it is actually a pretty laid back atmosphere. As odd as it sounds, the smell of the freezer is actually quite nostalgic. Smelling pizza all day long makes you kind of hungry, especially when the Chicken Alfredo pizza goes through…mmm..mmm!!! It has to be the best pizza there (well it is there only specialty pizza). Every now and again they will let me put through a pineapple cinnamon/sugar pizza that we then drizzle cream cheese frosting over. I keep telling them that they should put it on the menu. Everyone loves it!! I really think it would boost their sales.

The weather has been in the 80’s here! I have loved it. My freckles are of course becoming less shy (they like the sunshine I think more than I do!). I haven’t killed my 4 potted herbs which is a miracle! The smell of Lilacs in full bloom brings back some wonderful youthful memories, and makes me long to walk for miles through the colorful fields of them at the Lilac Festival back in New York. They come in a variety of soft-bold cool toned colors. I walk a little slower down 800 N past a bush of them to and from church just so I can inhale them! Not even the best aroma therapy products have ever captured the true subtle yet intoxicatingly divine essence of this flower.

I have started jogging again. I do a figure 8 from our house (800N), past the hospital to Bulldog, State Street, 800N, Freedom, 500N, and then back to State and then to home (for all you familiar with Utah). That used to be a challenge to go the whole way and not stop. It isn’t that far, but I can finally jog the whole thing!!!! I think I am getting faster, because I have been finishing before I get to a song or two that is on my i pod, that I used to jog right through. I took a little break due to some colder weather, but since it is beautiful again I am happy to start up again. After 3 years of living in Utah, I have finally become acclimated. They say that it should only take 2 weeks, but just until recently it has been hard for me to exercise. It hurt my lungs way too much and made me faint. I have always been an active girl with a lot of stamina, so not being able to be as active as I would like has taken its toll on me. It feels great to be able to just go and feel the burn, and keep going! Anyway, unless I am pregnant, I plan on losing weight so I can go to the beaches in Brazil with more confidence. The white line is my jogging route, starting from the tac in the center of the picture and going up to the right, then over to the left, down and around to make the 8... It is 2.25 miles I just found out !! YAY...that is good for me! I of course am the “office manager” of the business. Ryan has been patient with my learning how to deal with everything. Things have been crazy with the business! We have had requests for Ukrainian, Farsi, Punjabi, Korean, Romanian, Vietnamese and Tagalog!!!! The hardest one to find was Punjabi. We “contracted” another agency of translators in New Delhi, India. If we like them, we will be working with them in the future to meet our client’s needs. They are cheep, and so far we have had no complaints from our clients. We also have had to bring on 5 more Spanish translators in addition to the 2 we already had besides Ryan. So that is 14 translators to pay!!!!!!!! HOLY COW! They help the business, but my goodness the price of them adds up!! That is only a problem when the schools are flaky and do not pay us on time. I also have to train (starting the 7^th of May) the new office manager, Becky, who will be holding down the fort while we are in Brazil. CRAZY!!! I now understand the stress that Ryan has been going through.

Ryan finally mastered a curry dish that we have been working on. We found that the secret ingredient to getting the coconut flavor to come out is ---Drum roll please---….coconut extract. The coconut milk just wasn’t enough; you could never really sense the presence of coconut. Anyway, the extract along with not cooking the mixture so long and adding some other ingredients that we have observed to work made for a Lamb Coconut Korma Curry that is comparable to that of the Bombay House (which we frequently crave). Less money, just as much satisfaction! YAY!!

Well, that is enough for me I guess. I didn’t even think I had anything to write! Here is my sweet Ryan:

I am truly pleased with myself for figuring out that curry recipe. I’ve been making decent curry dishes for the past couple of months but this last one turned out great. Although it has been a little crazy dealing with translation requests for languages other than Spanish, it sure has been nice to only have to find the translators and not do all of the translating myself. I’m going to check up a little more on the quality of this new Indian agency; I really hope that they produce good quality material because they’re quick and inexpensive enough for me to keep my rates down.

Grades are in for three of my classes and so far things are looking really good. I’m anxious to see what I got in my other classes. Taking so many literature classes this semester was really fun for me. I ended up really getting into the poetry I studied this semester. In fact, I’ve decided to include two poems, translated into English by professor Fredrick G. Williams. This first one was written by Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, an eighteenth-century poet who traveled all over the Portuguese empire (then spanning from Brazil to Indonesia) and often got into trouble for some of his poems. This short and simple one is a favorite of mine:

Epigram X

Here lies at rest a wealthy man

Within this costly tomb secure:

He’d have escaped the malady,

Had he not died first from the cure.

This other poem was written by Xanana Gusmão, the current president of East Timor, while he was a prisoner of the Indonesian government. Portugal officially withdrew from East Timor in 1975 but Indonesia invaded later that same year. The occupation lasted until 1999 when, under pressure from the UN, Indonesia let East Timor vote on whether or not it wanted to return to the Portuguese, remain with the Indonesians or become independent. They chose independence.

Country

A Country, yes, is sun that gave us being

It’s drama, verse, it’s time and space assigned,

From generations past, it’s ties that bind

It’s living truths around us we are seeing.

A Country…is our suffering…and our dying

And marking, with our lives, new steps ahead.

For people – Country – well, quite simply said

It’s…Independence or it’s death while trying!

It’s peace and storm, it’s where we scrape and bow,

It’s life and pride, it’s family ties, our mate

It’s joy and love, all that our hearts allow.

A Country…is tradition, past, estate!

The sound of bullets is…our Country now!

But Country…is our hope and future state!

When I came back from Chile, my GPA wasn’t that great so I focused on taking classes I could get good grades in. Along the way I didn’t take care of a few generals so, starting Tuesday, I’ll be taking two P.E. classes, a religion course and a science class; not one class having to do with my major. My college career has hardly been typical. In closing, I would like to remind you about the videos under the "links" section of this blog which I think are quite funny.

P.S. Thanks to Deb (my aunt Debbie Boothe) for her enviable trip to Italy and to Tui for telling us about her trip to Hawaii. I hope that someday I'll be able to visit those places as well.