27 and no PhD *sob*

I offered to cook lunch the other day for the boy and another friend, but not knowing his kitchen very well nor having the comfort of all the herbs etc in my own kitchen, I made do and tried to come up with something quick and simple, while suited for a cold winter afternoon. A quick shopping trip and I came back with ingredients to cook a very easy chicken stew.

Yet another one of my cook-yourself-without-me-slaving-away concoction I guess, lol…

Ingredients (enough for 4):

• 4 chicken pieces, cut up into big chunks
• 2-3 carrots, peeled and cut into big chunks
• 5-6 shallots, peeled and halved
• 1kg baby new potatoes, peeled
• 1 pint chicken stock
• 1 can of green peas, drained
• 1 bouquet garni

In a casserole/heavy saucepan, lightly sauté the chicken pieces with a little olive oil. Then add in everything except the peas, and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Season with some pepper, and add in the peas. Leave to cook for another few minutes until the potatoes are tender. Fish out the bag of bouquet garni and serve the stew/ casserole with some baguette or French bread.

Note 1: I may try to cook the chicken in sesame oil next time, or at least marinate it in sesame oil to give it a tad more flavour, and hopefully softens the chicken more. Boiled chicken is never quite as nice in my opinion.

Note 2: In order to cut down cooking time, which is largely dependent on the potatoes, get those nearly-ready-to-eat type, which is normally indicated on the packaging as suitable for microwave cooking. With this, you can have the meal ready in about 15 minutes top!

So I had a relatively short week last week to complete a whole lot of tasks, but I did manage it quite well (or so I think anyway). In which case, I also cheated a little as I continued to work on the items while I was in Paris. Not much, just a couple of hours in the morning, to check on my script etc.

It feels good though, to cross out the tasks as I go along.

It was a little bit of a nightmare though, working on the boy’s Macbook with azerty keyboard instead of qwerty AND having to hunt for various keys - it is a Mac afterall, who doesn’t seem to believe to show all the vital keys and I had to search high and low for the combinations to get a tilda, curly bracket etc. Gaaaah…

Now, arriving back after a few days away, somehow the progress from last week seem insignificant again. My boss had just piled on more stuff, after a short discussion with him this morning on all the different projects etc. *gulp*

I used to carry around a Filofax with me at all time. Less nowadays though, even if I still use it on a regular basis, as I have my contacts contained within, along with some task lists etc. I have however stopped using Filofax as pages for bouncing off ideas and thoughts.

I have swopped to using Moleskine instead for all my scribbles on the run.

Maybe it’s because it’s light and easy to carry everywhere, especially on days when I use only a small bag and need to limit what I have with me. Particularly if I don’t need my filofax, then it’s best to just leave it at home anyway. It would have been awful if I lose my contacts etc, along with my scribbles. By splitting the two parts into two books, the loss is somewhat minimised.

I use Moleskine with just blank pages on them. No lines, no boxes. It’s great this way because not only I can write in whichever way or orientation as I wish, I can also draw and doodles as I go along. And I jot down all sorts of rubbish in it.

Ideas for work that came suddenly to me.

My thoughts as I mulled over certain events of the moment.

Potential blog entries.

Sketches of thing that I see and liking them on sight.

Notes and reminders to myself.

Calculation of household bills.

Shopping list.

…

…

The list is endless. Afterall there is no limit to how I use my Moleskine. It’s a great way to track all the different aspects of my day, no matter how little. It soothes me to put things into words or pictures.

I guess you could say this appeals to the controlling facet of being me…

More importantly, for a graduate student, it lets you see through your own life as you grow up and develop over time,  and to track how you progresses through the course of your study.