32 yolks

It's been a long time since I actually listened to this book since it was delivered in audiobook format but from what I can remember, it was a really interesting look on this author/cook Eric Ripert and his childhood and how he started learning how to cook.

Blogging for Books: The Dim Sum field Guide

My family and I love eating Dim Sum and having this book showed me all the different kinds of dim sum that surround me more than just the shrimp or pork dumplings and baby bok choy. While I liked the drawings, they could have been drawn more clearly.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review

It’s taboo to admit that you’re lonely. You can make jokes about it, of course. You can tell people that you spend most of your time with Netflix or that you haven’t left the house today and you might not even go outside tomorrow. Ha ha, funny. But rarely do you ever tell people about the true depths of your loneliness, about how you feel more and more alienated from your friends each passing day and you’re not sure how to fix it. It seems like everyone is just better at living than you are.

A part of you knew this was going to happen. Growing up, you just had this feeling that you wouldn’t transition well to adult life, that you’d fall right through the cracks. And look at you now. La di da, it’s happening.

Your mother, your father, your grandparents: they all look at you like you’re some prized jewel and they tell you over and over again just how lucky you are to be young and have your whole life ahead of you. “Getting old ain’t for sissies,” your father tells you wearily.

You wish they’d stop saying these things to you because all it does is fill you with guilt and panic. All it does is remind you of how much you’re not taking advantage of your youth.

You want to kiss all kinds of different people, you want to wake up in a stranger’s bed maybe once or twice just to see if it feels good to feel nothing, you want to have a group of friends that feels like a tribe, a bonafide family. You want to go from one place to the next constantly and have your weekends feel like one long epic day. You want to dance to stupid music in your stupid room and have a nice job that doesn’t get in the way of living your life too much. You want to be less scared, less anxious, and more willing. Because if you’re closed off now, you can only imagine what you’ll be like later.

Every day you vow to change some aspect of your life and every day you fail. At this point, you’re starting to question your own power as a human being. As of right now, your fears have you beat. They’re the ones that are holding your twenties hostage.

Stop thinking that everyone is having more sex than you, that everyone has more friends than you, that everyone out is having more fun than you. Not because it’s not true (it might be!) but because that kind of thinking leaves you frozen. You’ve already spent enough time feeling like you’re stuck, like you’re watching your life fall through you like a fast dissolve and you’re unable to hold on to anything.

I don’t know if you ever get better. I don’t know if a person can just wake up one day and decide to be an active participant in their life. I’d like to think so. I’d like to think that people get better each and every day but that’s not really true. People get worse and it’s their stories that end up getting forgotten because we can’t stand an unhappy ending. The sick have to get better. Our normalcy depends upon it.

You have to value yourself. You have to want great things for your life. This sort of shit doesn’t happen overnight but it can and will happen if you want it.

Do you want it bad enough? Does the fear of being filled with regret in your thirties trump your fear of living today?

We shall see.

—
You’re Not Making The Most Of Your 20s by Ryan O’Connell

All Under Heaven

Although this cookbook doesn't have pictures for it's many dishes, it never detracts from the sleek and well designed look to All Under Heaven: Recipes from the 35 Cuisines of China. Chinese food has always been a love of mine, always a constant source of warmth and happiness and having a cookbook like this is helping me learn how to create those dishes that I love.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review

Life: updated

its been a while since i've had a proper blog update

As I'm writing this I'm inside my printmaking classroom, where I spend most of my time at school now. Which is really fun, nontheless, and I have my friends in both of the printmaking classes to keep me company and keep me from making other friends haha. I finished my first relief project which was a picture of Jackie Chan from drunken master, one of me and my brothers favorite kung fu movies.

I've also got an online math class that I'm actually getting and understanding which me being horrible at math in general actually feels really good when i can solve a problem like linear programming or matrices and depreciation rates and break even points in sales, like, man does it feel good to write down a whole slew on information, be able to plug in the formulas, and find out just how to maximize a profit.

Working at paper source is really great, I don't have a lot of hours but I get paid really well and the atmosphere and my coworkers are really great and relaxing, and just recently one of my co-workers paid me 50(!!!!) dollars to cover her shift which means that for three hours on saturday, I am making 26 dollars an hour :D:D:D::D which is incredible becasue at my last job as a server assistant, I made a penance during the day when no one would eat lunch, and if I worked the night shift, I'd be so exhausted to work the next morning. But at paper source, I'm not running around clearing tables and rushing food out to people, instead I'm restocking in the back sometimes, or working the demo cart showing people how to make cards and use tools like the heat gun or the sticker maker.

Pretty much every night now I end by playing some Overwatch with my group of friends on ps4. I can't believe how tight knit of a group we are, like, I know about clans and other things like that for gaming but this really feels like a sort of family. We all care about each other and love each other pretty much all the time. Recently we are watching the Harry Potter movies in order and last night we finished up the Goblet of Fire. I was kind of embarrassed because yesterday night I fell asleep while we were watching the Prisoner of Azkaban and they told me that I snored, which made me turn really bright red. In the future, I'm actually thinking about going to go visit one of them up in seattle for spring break, then taking a train up to calgary and meeting another!

I guess things are going pretty good for me right now, not too much to complain about, but if there is, I'll be sure to post about it here :D

Blogging for Books: Kanye West owes me $300

First of all the typography on the cover is what got my attention. I had heard about this book before from one of the hosts of my favorite podcasts, Pop Rocket and I decided to get a review copy. This book taught me a  lot about the early 90's-2000's rap scene through the eyes of rapper Hot Karl, a white jewish male who found near fame in the west coast rap game. Definitely not a boring read, I didn't find my concentration on this book wavering in the slightest when I did decide to read it.

5/5

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review

Blogging for Books: Plated

Something I really love about this book is how deconstructed and easy the meals are. In addition to the main course, the sides are also explained which creates a ton of different options to pair with.

Very friendly for those who are novice cooks looking to step outside the basics and start cooking meals to impress

However I'm not super enthused about the cover, which seems a tad too simple.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review