Julie and Julia

The other night a few friends and I had a Julie and Julia night. It was the best tasting cooking adventure I've had in a long time. We made chicken seasoned with herbs (I can't remember all the seasonings involved but we did have to go buy fennel seed), peas (I know this sounds simple, but they were really, really good), tiny little vanilla souffles, sponge cake, and of course french bread and cheese (Boursin to be specific).

My friend Emily found this amazing blog where we got all the recipes. It's called Whisk: A food blog and it features an online guide to Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." The best part is we had like four people working together to cook one meal so it wasn't that hard to put together. It made me want to cook more often! Especially French food. I even have my own little ramekins now :) Which is actually a lot of progress for me since I didn't even know that's what you called them a couple days ago.

We had planned on finishing the evening by watching the movie Julie and Julia, but sadly the DVD we rented was scratched. Instead we watched Whip it, which was a great way to finish the night (When is a competitive girl roller derby movie not a good way to finish your day? lol).


Currently watching: Psych
Picture source

Fragmentation of the Human Soul

Ok so every year BYU has a hunger banquet. The banquet raises money for community and international developmental causes. I've never been before but from what I understand everyone pays the same amount to get in, but when you get there you are divided into different "social classes" and get different meals depending on what class you are in.

Anyways this year they are having a creative competition to help raise awareness for the cause. You can submit videos, artwork, essays... anything creative. They display them to help advertise the event and then they select a few to display at the actual banquet. I decided to submit a collage. It's not much, but I thought it would be fun to participate. The theme for the competition is celebrating human dignity. My mom told me this quote which ended up being my inspiration for the collage:

“Most of us feel for the suffering child but can’t see the child in the adult who, soul fragmented and isolated, hustles for survival a few blocks away.” - Gabor Mate

I really like this idea of the fragmented soul. I think it's very easy to see one piece of someone or one side, and forget that there is more to them.

My collage:



Close ups:







Currently: Thankful for discount valentine candy, lol

Cost of Education

About a week and half ago I read an article in the daily universe that BYU was changing its international student policy. According to the article, international students will have to pay a $4,000 deposit to attend BYU starting summer 2010 semester.

This has sparked a large debate. Some people are saying the deposit is a positive thing. It seems like it was designed to help students deal with the financial problems they may face after coming to BYU. Others say the policy is discriminatory and that people are being punished for not being American (1). Before you form an opinion, you might want to know what exactly this deposit is.

Well, according to the daily universe the deposit will be used in this way:

"Before graduating, international students may use $3,000 of the deposit money after demonstrating financial hardship; the remaining $1,000 will be held and used for a plane ticket to return home, Westerberg said. While the money is held by BYU, it will accumulate interest in an escrow account returned to the student upon graduation."

Apparently the previous policy allowed students to access their deposit after their first semester at BYU (2). There is no mention in the articles of whether or not the deposit itself was higher before.

BYU is not the only school doing this. Many schools require international student deposits. From just a few minutes googling I found schools with international student deposits ranging from $1,000-$5,000 dollars. But is it fair? It's hard to say. I can see the advantage of being prepared for unexpected financial responsibilities. Many international students are limited in the amount that they can work here (for instance students working on campus often can't go over 20 hours a week) and learning to manage money is something most students deal with when they enter college. However on the other hand I know if I had been asked to pay $4,000 in addition to all the other fees I had to pay when I came to BYU it would have been difficult for me. I know there are people out there who get by one semester at a time. Could this policy take a chance away from a deserving student? There are many students that think so. In fact, there is a facebook group protesting the new policy. They are proposing a $1,000 flight deposit instead and requesting people to sign an online petition (3).

I'm not really interested in writing a big, loud opinion about this. I just think this is an important issue. It's amazing how much can be going on in your own community without you knowing.



Currently: Nervous about midterms!

1. Read the full Daily Universe article here.
2. Read the Daily Herald article here.
3. View the petition against a new BYU international student facebook group here.

Harvard

My mom showed me this announcement earlier this week, and it made me so happy. Why can't more schools do this?

Harvard University announced over the weekend that from now on undergraduate students from low-income families will pay no tuition. In making the announcement, Harvard's president Lawrence H.. Summers said, "When only ten percent of the students in elite higher education come from families in the lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing enough. We are not doing enough in bringing elite higher education to the lower half of the income distribution."

If you know of a family earning less than $60,000 a year with an honor student graduating from high school soon, Harvard University wants to pay the tuition. To find out more about Harvard offering free tuition for families making less than $60,000 a year, visit Harvard's financial aid website at: http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/

Currently: Eating Cheerios

Acrobatics, future robots, and Lonely Island?

Ok so here is my condensed version of the Grammys, which actually turned out to be not all that condensed, lol:

Classiest Winner in Attendance: Beyonce, she deserved all 6 awards

Made my day: Seeing Colbert opening the show AND winning a grammy

Best back up dancers: Only the Black Eyed Peas would bring their own dancing robots.

Unexpected surprises: Stevie Nicks performing a Taylor Swift song and Pink, flying in the air, in a strange jumpsuit no less (although I heard she did something similar at a diff. awards show that I missed)

Lady Gaga: Jilted. She should have been in and won best new artist of the year. Even if you don't like her you can't ignore the impact she's had on the music industry this past year.

Unexpected cover: Beyonce doing Alanis Morisette

I had no idea: Green Day is on Broadway now?

Best Collaboration Performance: Elton John and Lady Gaga. I think Lady Gaga is overhyped at times, but it was actually really fun to see these two together.

Amazing: All the Haiti support!

All around entertaining: I loved hearing the Bon Jovi Set, oh and I also really enjoyed T-Pain and Jamie Foxx during their performance of Blame it on the alcohol

Wish they could have won somehow: On a Boat, by Lonely Island and T-Pain

Needs to Share: Taylor Swift. She's adorable, but really, did we have to give her EVERY award? Ok but seriously she is adorable.

Most laid back acceptance speech: Kings of Leon

Loved it: Beyonce getting into the Michael Jackson tribute while wearing 3D glasses



Currently: Eating Boursin and pondering the Academy Award Nominees.

All images are from www.grammys.com