I found this one today. I couldn't figure out which website to give you, so...I'll just give you this one. This man is in Melbourne at the moment, living on the streets to raise money and awareness for the homeless. He sends letters to his cousin for each day about people's reactions etc.

Other than that, I'm loving itmademyday.com and givesmehope.com, which are lovely alternatives to fmylife, etc.

My siste rand I fully intended to go once a fortnight on this thing, but every week, we decide to make one. Last night we felt like dessert, so we were like "Let's break out the chocolate book." So we did. This was supposed to be split between four, but my aunt is staying with us, so we split it by five, and it was still too much. I would recommend eight, for anyone who makes this (the thing about recipes still stands - email me if you'd like it). That said, it was quite nice ;) It didn't have enough...taste for me, just sweetness, but my family liked it. We ate it with icecream, which was...nice :)



We were like 'it'll be done in like, half an hour' and my mum was like 'Yeah, right' so we made her time us. It worked out to 40 minutes, DARN, but still, that includes cooking time ;)



I'm sad because my tate tester can't taste test this one :(

I give this three out of five stars

(PS, these photos are much better, ya?)

I was a bit disappointed about this, because my sister wanted to make them for her friend's birthday last Monday, and we were gonna make them on Sunday, but we had no eggs! Oh noes! So we couldn't :( But she wasn't back to school till Tuesday, so she made them on Monday. Which means I didn't get to help. But here they are, none the less.



Anyway, my sister says they are not difficult to make, probably...average. As for taste - we keep them in the fridge, and my mum likes them better warmed up - she says they're very light. My sister and I actually prefer them cold, which makes them a bit denser, and not as dry.

The icing was awesome :) My sister was extremely disappointed, because the icing was supposed to be all fluffy and light, but it wasn't. It's true, the picture in the book looks a lot different, but it still looks pretty good, and tastes yummy :)

I give this three and a half stars out of five

There's this gorgeous little ad on recently for a bank, St. George, and there's a massive truck driving along at 100k on an empty road, then suddenly, it brakes to a stop, and you see this little echidna waddling across the road. Voice over: Just because you're big, doesn't mean you have to act like it.
Nyaw. It's the type of thing that, if you saw it in real life, you'd just go '*sigh* That's so sweet.'
Yeah but it's an ad. Still. I like it :)

Yay, recipe tiems! Firstly, one that I've given before (about three times, I think), lemon scented blueberry cupcakes, YUMMY. For some reason, this recipe was quite unlike most I'd done before - for a start, I'd never made cream cheese frosting before. But it was quite easy, and quite yummy.

Oh, and for those who don't keep buttermilk in the fridge, just put two teaspoons of lemon juice into the half cup, then fill it up with normal milk.



Next up, a new one buttercrunch toffee - I only made this for the first time only a week ago. If anyone's had Almond Rocca(sp?), it tastes like that. Namely, awesome. I mean, I accidently burnt mine (the recipe says 'stir as little as possible', but this does NOT MEAN do not stir. Just sayin'.) and it STILL tasted good! Also, if you don't want almonds in it, I don't think it matters if you don't have them, really.


Doesn't this photo make you go 'WOW. WANT.'?

Ok, so I know tomorrow's is 'a recipe', but I'll talk about my hobby today and just give you recipes tomorrow. (My hobby is cooking. I did not make that very clear.)

So this teacher asked me (well, a group of us) what our dream job would be, money aside, saving the world aside, blah blah blah, and I still think psychology wins out for me (or just...like, learning about psychology ALL THE TIME. That is not a job, methinks) but apart from that, to be a dessert chef, and just own a little cafe which sells sweets. Pretty much. My sister is also on board. ;) Maybe in retirement.

Interestingly, the teacher then asked why I couldn't do it. And there is no reason at all. (Apart from, you know, money, and the fact that it doesn't help anybody, not like psychology would. Although the group then pointed out that people enjoy eating sweets, so...)

As I mentioned yesterday, though, cooking is a serious cause of procrastination (or is it a byproduct?) This is not a good thing. But it is always fun to eat the stuff I make (which is actually the only reason I like cooking. The result. Otherwise I would find it a drag. But, um...I like cooking to eat it, or cooking to give away. What other results CAN THERE POSSIBLY BE?)

Procrastination is a skill I have honed over the years, but recently took up intense practise. Here is a dictionary definition: Slowness as a consequence of not getting around to it. I love how it's so colloquial and says 'not getting around to it'. In a nutshell, yeah, that's what it is.

However. An even greater skill is to be able to practise productive procrastination. Lordy, that was too much alliteration for me.

Speaking of which, just an aside - today I read a letter to the Green Guide (our TV guide) that goes "The last thing I want to think about on holidays is school, but there are so many Back to School ads on TV. It upsets and annoys me." And I was like "*nod nod* I feel for you. Also lol."

Anyway. Productive procrastination. The act of putting off a high priority task to complete lower priority tasks. Actually, no. It's more the act of completing lower priority tasks to put off a high priority task. Slight difference, but an important one.

For example, I often cook when I'm supposed to be studying. Year before last, before my maths exam, I built a compost bin instead of studying.

I have not been practising productive procrastination recently (well, except with all the cooking I do). For example, I am supposed to be doing homework right now. And instead I am here. (It still feels more productive than youtubing funny cats, though.)

Don't they look scrummy? In honour of Australia Day (which is today, the 26th), our second recipe in The Chocolate Project, the ever favourite Lamingtons. They are apparently very Australian, I am not sure why. Oh, the Most Correct Encyclopedia says that they were named after an Australian lord (I was not aware we ever had lords).

But they are fun :) Sponge cake dipped in chocolate sauce-y stuff with coconut. Hands up, who's had lamingtons? I can't quite believe that they are a purely Australian delicacy, considering how commercialised everything everywhere is. We also altered the recipe a bit with half of it, and put jam in the middle of them. Mmm :) Some people don't like it, but Iiiii dooooo :D




Plus, they were AWESOME fun to make!

These turned out a little soggier than commercial ones, with the chocolate sauce soaking a liiittle too far in, and I think my sponge cake was a bit dodge, but the lamington recipe itself is awesome. We tried the left over chocolate-soaked-coconut, and it was YUMMY AND HAD ESSENCE OF LAMINGTON. It was just the complete product that was...meh. HOWEVER. While I give the product 3.5 stars out of 5, the actual recipe deserves at least a 4.8. Please note 5 stars is given to 'ZOMG AMAZING MUST EAT ALL THE TIME' recipes. While I wasn't so fond of the actual lamington, the chocolate-soaked-coconut definately makes me feel Australian for eating it XD And what more do you want in a recipe?

Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy

Today I learnt about sibling relationships. I was talking with my friend, and talking about how my sister and I suddenly became really close friends in the last couple of years, and she observed that my sister was in year 8 when I was in year 11, about the same time she and her sister developed a friendship, and about the same time her friend developed a friendship with her sister. We decided it was because, mostly, the younger girl (because in this case, we are all girls) may have caught up in maturity level to the older one, and this is certainly true of me and my sister - in fact, I think I regressed slightly.

Also, I told this friend about how I've learnt to do a lot of things differently, thanks to my sister. The most noticeable one is how, when we were younger, I used to hold grudges forever, but she would let things go. We'd have a fight, ten minutes later, she'd want to play a game, and I'd just glower at her. For like the next five hours.

But then I realised how nice it was to know that, even if you fight, she's going to still be your friend in five minutes. And how I had never given her that.

Something similar - if we were playing and she accidently pulled my hair, I'd yell at her and storm off. If I accidently punched her in the nose, she'd go "That's ok" and we'd keep going. You know that second when you're like "Shit, I made a mistake! God, I hope they'll forgive me!" and then they do, and it's all fine? I never used to do that. I used to get so annoyed. And again, I'd always taken it for granted that she would forgive my mistakes, and I realised that I never did the same for her.

I admire my sister so much, for teaching me some of the most important things in life.

This piece is called Anguish, oil on canvas by August Friedrich Albrecht Schneck, and I saw it at the National Gallery of Victoria - it looks a bit more impressive in real life, I must say.

Hmm...there's not really much. Maybe Angie Hart's cover of Picture of You by The Cure because it's used in a TAC ad about speeding, and has all these people holding up pictures of family members who died in car accidents. And it's a very sad ad *nod*

(If anyone wants it, let me know.)

Ok, so...I just had a look at my Favourites over at ff.net, and I'll just tell you about them. Mmhmm. I should be doing some homework now instead.

My absolute favourite is Pumpkin Goop by Squeeka Cuoma (also keeper_of_stars), a Wilson/Cuddy at Halloween. Very cute and fluffy :) My favourite kind!

But because I know most of you aren't Wilson/Cuddy shippers (but why not?), I'll give you some others.

Fireworks by enigma731. Interestingly, kaitmaree77 told me to go find it recently (after she REFUSED to write one of her own), but I forgot about it, but turns out it was on my Favourites list anyway :D New Year's Eve, early season 1, duckling style :)

Time For a Kiss by Daygoner (on ff.net), during the Casino night in All In, another one with a bet. (Chase/Cam)

And such an all time favourite, Deliberate Intention by bailunrui (on ff.net), which is the ultimate all time favourite for most long-time Chase/Cam shippers - very short, worth a look. Summary: Just killing time at the hospital.

Love at First Bite: The Unofficial Twilight Cookbook

Bahahahahaha. Click on the 'Take a look inside!' and you can read the index, showing you what you can COOK, Twilight style :D

Featuring: Bat Chips, First Love Chocolate Mousse, Forbidden Love Coconut Lemon Crumb Squares, and Apple of My Eye Pie.

110 words

Typing Test

However, I do feel I got a disproportionate number of two- and three-letter words...

What does that even mean? Like a fiction book? (As in any random one you can think of?) Or a fictional book? I will go with the latter. (This meme's getting a little boring.)

The Playbook, written by Barney Stinson of How I Met Your Mother fame, houses all the "Plays" Barney has come up with - that is, situations to seduce women into bed. One of my favourite is where he dresses up as an 80-year-old, stumbled in to the bar he frequents, goes up to a girl and goes "What's your name?" in a desperate voice. After she tells him (I forget what it was now), he goes "Yes! You're the one! I'm from the future, and you must sleep with Barney Stinson tonight so that he can solve global warming!" and then he staggers out again. After he dresses, um, back to present day, he strolls in, and she's all over him. Wtf? Awesome.

Please tell me innocent_soul is not the only one on my f-list who watches HIMYM?

(Also, after trying to cut down on TV this year, I've just started watching The Middle (mainly because the Janitor's in it), but it's pretty awesome. Fun to watch :) I recommend it (yes, over your studies, people.))

Today I would like to launch The Chocolate Project. My sister and I recently acquired Donna Hay's recipe book entitled, simply, Chocolate, which was actually quite expensive at Borders (and we found it for about half the price at Big W the next day), but there was a sale on, and it looked so chocolatey.

Anyway. There are 60 recipes - we plan to make something once a fortnight (we started for once a week, but thought we might be dead from diabetes after a couple of months of that. Or eating too much chocolate to the extent that we don't like it any more, which is even worse) which means it will take just over two years. So we've decided - by 31st December, 2011, we want to have made all 60 recipes. A big ask, yes...but we'll push through. *Heroic look*

Today we needed something that we had all the ingredients for, obviously, and we chose the first one in the book, because they looked so amazing. My photo is not quite as professional (and even after I changed it to a white plate, the photos were all blurry). I clearly do not sell it as well.



Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Considering I googled these and didn't find any (legal) copy of the recipe on the internet, I don't feel particularly good about putting one up here. However, if you want them, let me know, and I can email you :)

These cookies were...not as good as the picture in the book, I will have to say that. They were, however, worth the time. For such a gooey looking picture, I expected a gooey-er (that word just looks WRONG) texture when they were hot, which didn't happen. They felt a little grainy. However, when they cooled down, they definitely had a softer texture than most cooled-down cookies, and had a delightful burst of melted chocolate in every few bites, which I think made them quite yummy.

I think, also, they weren't up to expectations because expectations were so high. They were pretty easy to make, and did taste good.

This recipe gets 4 stars

It was really lovely to hear about all the tennis players at the Australian Open giving up their last day of practice to instead put on an exhibition match to raise money for Haiti victims. Only a small sacrifice, but one that contributes a lot, and of course, means a lot to those who it helps. It definitely helps bring hope back.

Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently

Hmm. I'm bored of photos. But here you go:



This was taken at camp yesterday, at the end of the day when my hair was falling out of the pony tail (which reminds me of how I was such an annoying sod in junior school, when my friends would say 'My hair is falling out' and I'd go 'Falling out? That's worrying' and they'd go '*eye roll*'.)

( You wouldn't expect me to leave it at just ONE, would you? )

Yaaaay, I have one :D



Also, I'm tired.

Wtf mate? So there's a KFC ad, right, that shows a white cricket fan offering the bucket of fried chicken to a West Indies cricket fan...and it was posted on YouTube where a ton of Americans decided it was racist and complained.

And do you know why it was considered racist? Because it supports the stereotype that black people like to eat fried chiken. WHAT THE HELL? I was no aware that a) this stereotype existed, b) it is a bad stereotype, or c) THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD THAT MAKE UP THESE STEREOTYPES, JUST WHAAAAT? I am amused that this exists.

But anyway...geez. For one thing, it was again made for Australian eyes, where we do not see racism in things like this. For another thing, a guy on a facebook group about it (mm, there is a facebook group about it) wondered whether the KFCs in America don't serve chicken to black people because it would be supporting a stereotype. I lolled a little bit. Would that not be hilarious?

But it's like...an ad showing a Chinese person eating noodles is racist, because it supports the stereotype that Chinese people like noodles. Showing an ad with an Australian having a barbecue is racist because, well...it supports the stereotype that Australians like barbecues. I'm having a big o.0 moment over here.

Meanwhile, we are being called racist because there have been a lot of attacks on Indian students. While there is controversy over whether these attacks are racially motivated...I will accept that as a perhaps-we-may-be-a-little-racist suggestion. BUT OVER KFC, JUST WHAT??? You gotta laugh ;)