Saturday, March 28, 2009

Tastes of Home

As first semester draws to an end I decided to reflect over my experience of college overall so far. Classes have been a new and interesting, I've learned a lot and have enjoyed most of it.


  • I'm in a math for the real world class, which is basically a class where you learn about stocks, banking, stats, and such, it's been a little helpful, but not the most intersting class I've taken.

  • Art 2-D, I've learned officially how to do 2-point and 1-point perspective, how to draw boxes, and we went over water colors. I'm loving doing my art final right now... I've spent about 16 hours on it so far and I have more to do.

  • American Foundations, we've gone over a lot in American history very loosely though... I really enjoyed the first unit but overall I'm alright without this class.

  • Farewell to Art? 20th Century Propaganda, this is a second block class and I LOVE it. We went over the different "isms" and applied them to America and other nations and the propaganda they use to promote these "isms", we study poems, poetry and other ways they use propaganda. It's been so interesting and so much fun.

  • Country Line Dancing/Square Dancing, well there's not much to say about this class... we do line dancing and square dances... keep in mind this is all country too. Yeah thought I knew the Cott'ni Jo before, not so much. It can be fun, but most of the time I wish it were a much shorter class.

  • Book of Mormon, has been a wonderful class. I've learned SO much and I'm actually getting through the Book of Mormon which is awesome. I can't wait to take the second half next semester with my teacher.

Well that's the actual school stuff besides the devotionals... a lot of them have been very good, filled with great spiritual context, and have helped and inspire me.


The social life of BYUI... well I still pretty much have the same friends now that I did at the begining of the semester. I love spending time with Josh and Moo and it's fun to be able to talk and see otehr friends as well.


My love for cooking has increased so much while out here. I've tried to cook so many different things just like my mom and they haven't reached that level yet, but most of my things have been pretty good which is very exciting. Especially since I couldn't cook at all back home. Well that's about it for right now.... here's my mom's Apple Pie Recipe:


Crust:
1 ½ c flour
1 ½ t sugar
1 t salt
½ c oil
2 T milk
Filling:
4 Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced (enough to equal 6 cups)
½ c sugar
2 T flour
½ t nutmeg
½ t cinnamon
Topping:
½ c sugar
½ c flour
½ c butter
To make the crust, mix the ingredients together. Press into a pie dish and press dough up the sides as well.
To make the filling, first stir together the dry ingredients and then add the apples. Mound apple filling into the crust-lined pan.
To make the topping, mix the ingredients together until the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle over the apples and pat down a bit.
Place pie in medium-sized brown paper bag and fold over edges. Put this on a cookie sheet. (Pie makes a sticky mess on the bottom of the cookie sheet and pie dish but it comes off easily after soaked in water.)
Oven must be completely pre-heated to avoid burning the bag. Make sure that the bag does not touch the sides of the oven. Bake at 350* for 1 hour 10 minutes.
Remove pie from oven, tear away top of the bag and return pie to the oven for additional 10 minutes to crisp the top a bit.
--gabrielle jean

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

St. Patrick's Day - With my hands I give you my heart, and crown it with my love

I'd just like to list out my favorites that involve Ireland in any way, shape, or form...
Music-- Bryan McFadden, U2, The Corrs, Celtic Woman, High Kings, The Irish Rovers, The Clancy Brothers, Van Morrison, Danu, The Pogues, Flogging Molly, Natalie McMaster, Liz Carrol, Dubliners, Meav, Three Irish Tenors, Celtic Spirit, Gealic Storm...
Movies-- The Quiet Man, Waking Ned Devine, Widows' Peak, The Secret of Roan Inish, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, Tara Road
Books-- Fairy & Folk Tales of Ireland, Irish Poem, Brida, Grace O'Malley: The Pirate Queen, My Ireland, Oscar Wilde... I hope to read Samuel Beckett books one day
I LOVE my Irish heritage so much and I'm very proud of it. I have a claddagh necklace I wear pretty much every day that my Dad gave me. I hope to live in Ireland for atleast a year in my young life. I research it often and talk about it a lot.
Incase some of you didn't know St Patty's Day deals with the patron of Cathalicism in Ireland so that's the reason we wear green... it's the color that represented the Catholics while if you wear orange it represents the Protestants... Plus if it were a true Irish holiday without every being affected by the Catholics or the Protestants then it would be spelled differently (Padraig), but the old Irish didn't have Saints anyways... Well that's my little dedication... Happy Patty's Day
--Gabrielle Jean

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Put Into Words



This is a really cool thing you can do on Wordle where it takes the words you repeat the most and put it together like this for this blog:

This one's for my photography blog: