writing

Cooking Up Some Creativity

~ Alina ~ 5 Comments
Cooking, for me, is like writing. More than just a way of putting food on the table, it’s play: from visualizing a new dish off a recipe card to shopping for a tantalizing array of colors and flavors to actually transforming the textures and smells of the ingredients into a beautiful, edible finished product. I have a few staples that I make over and over for their yum value, but I really enjoy the discovery process of experimenting with new recipes.
It’s a good thing, too, because I’m on the last three weeks of a 2-month gluten-free, low-glycemic diet (“paleolithic” for those interested), which my doctor ordered for health reasons. That means no flour products of any kind, almost no sugar, and limited amounts of any starch (brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc.). Fun, right? It’s been tough to keep coming up with new recipes, but at the same time, it’s challenged me to try some dishes that push the boundaries of normal.
This week? Pumpkin soup. Normal was definitely pushed. 
I found the recipe in a stray copy of Sunset magazine. You can find it here (I skipped the pesto, though). 
The adventure started with the shopping. The Halloween pumpkins I was planning on using turned out to not only be the wrong variety, but were also all rotten and squishy on the bottom. Gross. Went to the store to buy a new pumpkin. While I was there, I also found a large nub of fresh ginger—something I’d never cooked with before! Threw it in the shopping basket.
Next up: no coriander in the house. Mom thinks it tastes nasty. So last Saturday, I made a visit to Penzey’s Spices in Palo Alto with my gourmet friends Whitney and Jordyn. What an amazing place! I’d never seen whole vanilla pods or knew that there were four colors of pepper before. When we were done making ourselves sneeze on the wonderful aromas of lavender, cinnamon, and ground ancho chilies, I came away with a mix called Balti, which included coriander and more ginger as well as some less familiar names, like dundicut chilies, fenugreek, and charnushka (hope you don’t get stuck with those on your next spelling test).
Assembling the ingredients felt like play, but the actual cooking felt like a long trek uphill: a bit like the writing process. It will be a long time before I attempt to peel and cube a pumpkin again. After an hour, I had a bowlful of misshapen orange blocks, but I also had a cramped right hand, two blunted knives and a peeler, and pumpkin shrapnel all over the kitchen. And I do mean all over.
Not to be beaten by a squash, however, I began to sauté the onion and ginger. Lots of ginger. Having never cooked with this science-fictiony brown root before, maybe I got a little over-eager. What was I going to do with a bunch of leftovers, anyway?
When the blended soup finally made it onto the table, the kitchen smelled great. That is, until the taste of gunpowder eliminated our ability to smell anything. All that ginger I’d gotten excited about? Plus the coriander-ginger spice mix? Whoops. Even yogurt couldn’t cool it down to safe levels.
I must say, my family is one of the most patient and longsuffering I know. They courageously finished their bowls, and didn’t even throw them at me. But the remainder of the pumpkin soup certainly traveled with me to Bible study on Wednesday night, where the adventurous Jordyn kindly took it off my hands.
I guess part of experimentation is making mistakes. When you try recipes that are off the beaten path, it’s a risk: not every one will be the next family winner, or even taste like human food. Some will be a constant circus of mishaps (e.g.: continuing to find flecks of pumpkin peel stuck to the window).
But it certainly keeps life from getting boring. Maybe I won’t be making this particular pumpkin soup again, but I’ll keep playing with flavors and textures. It keeps me from getting stuck in ruts (and certainly beats airline tickets for budget adventures).  
And maybe creativity feeds more creativity: the day after my pumpkin soup adventure, I wrote the first words of Draft 2 of my children’s novel!

What’s your latest creative endeavor? Successful or otherwise? I’d love to hear your story!

Measuring Progress

~ Alina ~ 6 Comments

In the academic world, progress metrics are plentiful. I think that’s why many people never leave school. You go to class, you put in the work, you get the grades, the grades become GPA. Boom, you can translate your effort into a percent, a couple of honor cords, a piece of paper on the wall. And you get some self-esteem out of it, too.

In post-academic life, however, progress can be harder to get your hands around. You can count the hours you spend working, but how do you measure the fruit of those hours? For smaller endeavors, it’s not as difficult. Summer working retail = money for study abroad. But when you’re working towards a more distant goal, one that requires immediate investment for a very delayed payoff, how do you tell if you’re moving forward?

For example, let’s talk about writing a book (how funny! something I’ve spent quite a lot of time doing this week). What do you have to show for 8 hours of completely internal concept work that doesn’t translate into a paycheck or even a page count? Not instant gratification, that’s for sure. But if I’m ever going to finish the novel, I have to have faith that it will matter, and that it’s worth the present sacrifices.

In fact, I think some of the most important things can’t be quantified at all in the short term. Think about growing a prayer life or spending time with friends and family. You can’t measure your investment until you enjoy the final result: a sweet relationship with God or other people. Even though it can feel like wasted time in the right now, it’s much more valuable to do things that matter in the big picture than to be able to instantly prove yourself by the numbers.

Now, with all that said, this week God has given me some progress signposts that give me hope. My big-picture goals may still be far in the distance, but these are good reminders that I’m at least on the way.

1. Adding some great resources to my collection at the library sale

2. Applications from 2 new tutoring students (hopefully this isn’t what my hair looks like!)

Free Student Clipart
Source: Clipart Pal

3. Having lunch with my mom in mid-November rather than taking midterms

Source: Aqui

4. Writing “owner” after my name on an application for a tutoring business license


5. And last but not least, finding a perfectly-sized coffeepot to fuel my continued endeavors! 

Living with Bifocals

~ Alina ~ 1 Comment
Those of you who spend time with me in person have probably heard too much of this analogy, but I like this one. I keep thinking that living life is like wearing bifocals.
Bifocals give you the ability to see at two distances. When you’re driving, they allow you to both scan the road and check your speedometer. When you’re speaking, they help you see both the notes in front of you and the audience you’re there to address. Things that are right under your nose and things that are more distant.
http://www.eabco.com/images/Neoptx01.gif
What brought this up is my job search. I’ve known I wanted to be a writer since I was fourteen, when I started composing my first novel by hand in a purple journal. When you’re fourteen, it’s easy to follow the advice “dream big!” because you live in a state of sweet ignorance about things like bills and taxes and insurance. My plans were purely long-term and big-picture.
In college, though, the message changed. Be realistic. Get a job. Interviews. Resumes. Monster.com. There are things called rent and health insurance and groceries that actually cost money. Ack! My focus shifted to the immediate needs of a self-supporting adult.
After graduating, I was blessed enough to be able to move back in with my mom, relieving the immediate pressure of bills while I searched for work, although I still felt the tension of long-term versus short-term concerns. It was the headache in every decision I made. I was presented with a full-time teaching job, some technical writing opportunities, and the opportunity to be a private English tutor, among others. Status symbols and material luxury aren’t important to me, but becoming financially independent and “proving” that I’m not going to be the 30-year-old bum in my mom’s basement are.
For me, the temptation to grab at instant security was almost overwhelming—is almost overwhelming, daily. Teaching full-time would pay my bills and then some. I could move out, get my own apartment right now. Tempting. But spending all my time on that would leave none for writing. Moving out immediately isn’t worth that sacrifice.
How do I not lose sight of the dream, the long-term goals, while still providing for my immediate needs? Do I have to choose between them? Is there a way to do both?
Here’s where the bifocals analogy comes in. Focusing only on the now would preclude following God’s will for my life and take away my sense of long-term purpose. But focusing only on the dream in the distance might make me the bum in my mom’s basement.
So I said yes to tutoring. I started working with my students this week. They’re a lot of fun, each one different. Yes, it is a time investment, especially now as I scramble to understand lesson plans, curriculum, and educational philosophy, but I think that will level out with time. Other than that, it takes care of my immediate bills and also leaves some time for writing, which is where I want to be in 20 years (though hopefully less J). It’s a bifocal job.
In Matthew 6, Jesus weighs the near-far tension like this: “So do not worry, saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well.”
I read this to mean: don’t run after temporary things—don’t cop out on the dream of being a writer for the security of an immediate teaching job. This doesn’t mean ignoring the necessity of immediate things—even God knows we need them. Just put him first. First. Put the farsighted bifocal on top. He’ll take care of the rest. 

Illuminations

~ Alina ~ 7 Comments
Why am I starting a blog?
Well, there are the pragmatic reasons of wanting to build a portfolio (almost required for someone seeking writing/editing work, especially freelance) and wanting to keep my writing muscles in shape in a forum that doesn’t print rejection letters.
Besides those, I guess the reason I write anything to publish, rather than just journaling privately, is because I’ve been given a candle to carry, a gift of words to share. I didn’t earn it or ask for it. I’ve worked to hone it, but the gift came from God, as did the responsibility to use it, rather than hide it under a bowl.
It’s scary for me to share my work, because it puts my deepest thoughts and feelings, my very self, up for criticism, which stings bitterly. But really, it’s not supposed to be about me.
Yesterday I was reading an illustration in Soren Kierkegaard’s Purity Of Heart Is To Will One Thing, about a woman who stitches a decorative altar cloth. She puts great care into her sewing, but is “deeply distressed if someone should make the mistake of looking at her art, instead of at the meaning of the cloth.”
Like that woman, I want my work to be a window, not a mirror. My writing shouldn’t draw attention to itself, reflecting your gaze back to me, like a mirror. I want it to be a window: sometimes it is smudged, cracked, fogged, or streaked with condensation, but if it is sometimes transparent enough that you can catch even glimpses of distant illuminations through it, I will have succeeded.
I hope that my words and thoughts—surprises gleaned from writing, reading, cooking, praying, hiking, doing laundry—will somehow be of help or hope to you in your daily walk.