Out of Sorts

Last night, I opened up SPSS, despite feeling really tired. The plan - I would do some revision by way of exercises, for this exam I have tomorrow. Ten minutes later, I was in dreamland and the laptop went into sleep mode. Six hours later, I was awake again. Two hours after that, laptop was off, I was back in bed, having done nothing really. Exhausted. A bit distracted.

It's not been a fabulous week, not only because of stats invading my life, but life invading my life. I just feel a bit out of sorts. It's not anything I want to put out in the cybersphere but I just wish things were different.

Thanks to two ladies for being so sweet - Carol for scouring her local markets for good Caribbean stuff on my behalf, without me even asking. lol. And Happy Anniversary to her and her hilarious hubby.

Shala for offering and promising to bring me a piece of NZ cheddar from Trinidad. If only she could also bring the sun. It's pretty dismal today after nice sunny intervals yesterday and Tuesday.

I took another day off and I am at home. I need to focus on SPSS and I was just too tired to go. Not to mention, the class was a bit pointless over the past couple days so I just decided to spare myself the hassle. Not doing any chores today as I normally would when I am home either. No laundry, no vacuuming, no cooking. When I cooked on Sunday, it was soul food. Comfort food. It's also great therapy for when things are not going as they should. It also makes the folks back home feel better that I am not simply eating a meal out of a plastic box.

Mixed vegetable rice, red beans, stewed chicken, pasta salad and fresh salad.

The rice was really great because I used all fresh veggies, including broccoli and cauliflower, which I first steamed before stir frying them with the carrots, sweet peppers, onions, ginger and garlic, with a dash of parsley and black pepper, before adding the cooked long grain rice. And I really missed having red beans and stewed chicken. I did good.

Pity it's a ready meal kinda day today.

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Exam One - Over. Time to Cook.

Well, the exams I have are not mid-terms but this was a funny image that I just had to steal.

I still have another exam this week. I am not one to gripe about exams, discuss exams, and I have ever only cried over an exam once in my life. A'Level English, Paper One. I will never forget it. My teachers all expected greatness from me in this subject. I was the Literature master. lol. I could dance rings around Jane Austen and T.S. Eliot. I love books. I love prose. I love poetry. This was a joy in my life - studying Literature at A'Level was a joy. This is how studying should be - not boring scales and validity and crap!

Paper One. Shakespeare, Bronte and Chaucer. The three books I was most prepared for. Hamlet. Jane Eyre. Wife of Bath, And then the unthinkable happened. My watch stopped. Then it re-started 30 minutes later. I was writing merrily, glancing at my watch, timing myself. There I was, this brown Caribbean princess, telling the little white man somewhere in Cambridge all about Hamlet and his issues, having already delved into the world of Chaucer and leaving the piece de resistance - Ms Bronte and her Ms Eyre for last. When the examiner announced that we had 15 minutes left, I could not believe it. I had not even started with Bronte. How could it be? My watch said I had at least 45 mins left. I scrappily ended the Hamlet essay and raced on over to Jane Eyre, holding back the panic and the tears as I scribbled my life away for the next 15 minutes but I would always need more than 15 minutes.

I remember my English teacher waiting for her girls outside the class and when she spotted me, she asked "how was it?" to which I could only reply "I did not finish". The disappointment on her face was too much for me to bear and I cried my little eyes out, and threw the watch in the dustbin, my Grade A going down the toilet. The Grade A I wanted more than anything. It was the only time I had ever cried over an exam.

So don't expect tears today. I finished the exam this afternoon at 12.30pm, and my next thought was - I am in the mood for a pelau, dread. A pelau being a wonderful and one of my most fave Trini meals - comprising of rice, chicken, or beef or whatever works for you, green peas, veggies, all cooked and simmered in coconut milk. Yummo.

And so I went to good ole Sainsbury's, got some chicken, some vegetables, a ready made cole slaw pack, minus the mayo, some mayo (cause the pelau gotta have the cole slaw), some juice. Got to the Caribbean shop and got some coconut milk powder, Maggi no less (pig in mud dance!) and come tomorrow, in between reading about segmentation and brand equity, I will have something looking like this on my table - the excitement!

Trini pelau - Photo courtesy the wonderful Trinigourmet

You can check out the recipe from Trinigourmet here.

But in case you were wondering about the Literature outcome way back in the day when I still wore a uniform to school, and my school had no boys, I was comfortable with Paper 2 - which included Hardy, Austen and somebody else I cannot recall at the moment, but Paper 3 was going to be an issue - Woolf, Eliot and Beckett and all this existentialism nonsense. I never got Woolf - thought To The Lighthouse was tats (rubbish) the first time I read it but in the week I had to scrape up some pride, I fell in love with ole Woolfie and destroyed that paper.

And despite crying non-stop over not finishing the first paper and seeing my academic life flash before my eyes, I still got my A from Mr Cambridge. This is why I don't fuss over exams. You're either gonna do well, or not. You either put it in the work or you didn't. Be real with yourself. You're either a star, or not. Don't beat yourself over it. Move on. Life is too short, man. Cook a pelau! Or go watch a movie. I cannot wait to see Black Swan. Looks like my kinda ting! The weekend cometh...the countdown to freedom is on!

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