Song of the Week

Hi there! Another busy week, full of quizzes and lab reports. Two midterms next week too - yay!
Sometimes I get a bit fed up of how big my university is. In some ways it is great because there is a huge variety of people, and it means that we get some really awesome facilities. However, on the other hand it does just make one feel completely anonymous sometimes. I've had over 25 professors in the past two and a half years, but a maximum of 3 have ever actually learnt my name, some of the classes are so huge. It was quite a big shock in first year. I came straight from my sixth form, where the biggest of my A-level classes contained only 17 people, and where almost all of the teachers in my school knew who I was, sometimes even though I had never been taught by them.
Thank goodness, then, for my swedish class. Our class only has about 30 people, and our professor learnt all of our names within a week. Learning a language makes it easy to get to know people in the class because we are all struggling through conversations in swedish together.
Every Friday, we finish the class by singing a song in swedish. Last Friday we sang this song, and I really liked it so I have decided to make it my song of the week.

Satan i Gatan by Veronica Maggio
(if you don't speak swedish, there is a helpful translation of the lyrics here)

Song of the Week

Happy thanksgiving! We are having a rather non-traditional dinner today - Turkey chili and treacle tart! We did make up for it by having the proper thanksgiving meal upstairs with our landlords and their friends last night - my first proper thanksgiving - which was lovely.
I'll tell you all about today's dinner soon, but in the mean time, here is the song of the week for this week!
This week's song is "Cat in the Hallway" by Tiny Ruins, from her debut album Some Were Meant For Sea. I bought her album after hearing "Old as the Hills" on the radio a few weeks ago, and I am besotted with it.
Tiny Ruins, aka Hollie Fullbrook is a musician and songwriter from Aukland, New Zealand.
I've heard that Hollie was recently involved in a motorcycle accident in Zanzibar and has had to cancel her tour dates, so here's wishing her a speedy and complete recovery :)

Song of the Week

Well, my computer is finally fixed, and just in time too, since I have a lot of work to do on it at the moment!
For this week, I have chosen a song which I must have listened to on average at least three times a week since I first heard it.  As well as being amazing to just sit down and listen to, it is perfect for playing when doing homework or trying to go to sleep. It is chilled and relaxing, but with an interesting complexity that you can tune into if you so choose.
The song is "Child Song", by The Cinematic Orchestra, from their 2007 album Ma Fleur. If you like this at all, I urge you to seek out some more of their music, they really are great. You'll probably have heard at least one song before.

Song of the Week

I am having quite a lot of problems with my computer at the moment, and I am taking it to the repair place tomorrow, for the second time in two weeks. Since I don't know when I'm going to get it back, I thought I would post the song of the week today, then I will be back with a new recipe when my computer is (hopefully) fixed!

This week's song of the week is "Bubble" by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins. I bought their album, Diamond Mine back at the beginning of June and I haven't stopped listening to it since.  It is just stunning. They were nominated for the Mercury Music Prize this year, but were pipped to the post by PJ Harvey.

Take a listen, and enjoy the beautiful video :)

Lorra Lolly Lentils

It's starting to feel a little autumnal here in Vancouver, and by that I mean it's raining. Standing at the bus stop in the rain is not a particularly heartening experience, so I like to have something warm, tasty and filling waiting for me at home. Today's recipe fits that description perfectly.
The dish I went for was Tarka Dal, following Anjum Anand's recipe. We have Anjum's book I Love Curry back home, and the dishes in that were delicious, so I had high hopes. I was not disappointed. This dal is warming, moreish and as a bonus, healthy! I served it with this zucchini rice, minus the cheese!
You can find the recipe here.

In other news, do you know how hard it is to make daal look nice when it's dark and you just want to devour it?