These Hard, Hard Times

Fifteen-second commercial spots are always awkward. It's like a graduate student writing a five-page paper: there simply isn't enough time to do anything complex. That's why I'm always amazed by short commercials, like this one from Trojan:



The sex and alcohol industries are usually two of the last industries hit by a recession. Pornography sales are dropping, though. How does Trojan appeal to buyers in "these hard [hehe, hard] times"? Through the idea that buying condoms makes you patriotic! Wait, what? So, am I doing my patriotic duty by not bringing children into the world in its current state? If so, what does that say about where we're at as a country?

Seven Simple Steps to Chicken Marsala

1.) Go out to the store and buy a bottle of marsala, unless you are a freak like me and keep it on hand. The cheaper the better.

2.) Pound some boneless-skinless chicken breasts (BSCB) with the flat end of a meat tenderizer until no more than an inch in thickness.

3.) Coat the BSCB in a mixture of flour, coarse ground black pepper, garlic powder, basil, and oregano.

4.) Add a tablespoon of olive oil to a hot skillet. Add the coated chicken breasts.


5.) Cook on medium heat approximately ten minutes each side or until browned.


6.) While the chicken is cooking, mix together equal parts heavy cream and marsala wine. Whisk in a pinch of cornstarch.


7.) Add the marsala mixture to the cooked chicken and bring to a boil. Simmer briefly and serve over pasta.

Fondue for You

A thing of beauty, isn't it?

K. and I bought a Cuisinart electric fondue pot from a Linens 'n Things that was going out of business. We didn't want it to go to waste, so we invited five friends over to enjoy a three-course fondue dinner.

I only have photographic documentation of the chocolate course, but I'll walk you through the other courses, as well.

Our first course was, of course, cheese fondue. I've never done cheese fondue, but it was relatively easy. I deduced from recipes that cheese fondue has an alcoholic liquid base. For ours, I used some leftover Woodchuck hard apple cider (with a few squirts of lemon juice). Once you bring that to a boil (in the fondue pot or over the stove), all that remains is to grate some cheese into a bowl, toss it with cornstarch (to keep the grated cheese from sticking together), and add it to the boiling liquid. I used about 2 cups of Woodchuck and 1.5 lbs. of smoked cheddar cheese. We dipped all sorts of roasted vegetables: potatoes, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, and brocolli (the latter two kindly provided by A. Fiercehair). We also dipped a number of bread products, including croutons (yum!), croissants, and french bread. Everyone deemed it a succcess.

The face of contentment.
Our next course was a meat fondue. Meat fondues can be either broth- or oil-based. All my friends concluded that oil was too oily, so I went with chicken broth. I boiled about four cups of broth in the fondue pot, tossed in an ounce of star anise, and set the pot to boil lightly. We dipped raw shrimp (peeled and deveined), chicken breasts, chicken sausage, filet mignon, and mushroom caps. Everyone (except me) was scared of having to cook raw meat in the pot, but they quickly got over themselves and had a lot of fun. The shrimp cook quite quickly and dip well in butter. The filet also cooks quickly; the rest of it takes about two minutes to cook through.

I'm sure you're all waiting for the chocolate fondue, so I will not make you wait any longer. I've done chocolate fondue several times before, so I will provide my own recipe:

2 cups heavy cream
¼ cup skim milk
30 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon crème de cacao
1 tablespoon rum (optional)

Bring the heavy cream and skim milk to a rolling boil. Add chocolate chips slowly, stirring to melt the chips.


Ceremonially add the crème de cacao.


At this point, let your creativity take over. You can add anything you want to the fondue. Flavored liquers go particularly well. We took a vote and decided to do a relatively plain fondue. I'm a pyromaniac, though, so I added some rum to the top of the fondue and light it on fire. Fun.

We dipped some crazy shit in the chocolate fondue, including Easter Peeps and Twinkies. Yes, Twinkies are delicious dipped in warm chocolate. As various people said throughout the night, "It's _________ + chocolate. No surprises here."

We followed the fondue up with an embarassing round of Trivial Pursuit.


My team lost by one wedge. My teammate's roommate, though, won on "dental floss." We were all kind of pissed.

At least she seems happy.
There were a lot of dishes, but, all in all, it was a wonderful night of gluttony.

Thoughts on the Graduate Admissions Process

As anyone who has applied to post-secondary institutions can attest, the graduate admissions process is a trying one, and the best way to get through such a labyrinth can be open and honest lines of communication. Unfortunately, not all schools can manage that.

I have received four funded offers to PhD programs in rhetoric and composition (or some variation therein). Virginia Tech and NC State are at the top of my list, in large part because of their thorough, prompt, curteous, professional, and downright friendly communication. I get the sense from these schools that these are people I would enjoy working with and would enjoy working with me.

I cannot say the same about some of the other schools I have applied to. I have applied to 28 schools in a span of two years and have received only 6 funded offers. That leaves 22 schools that either offered me admission without an assistantship or fellowship or refused me admission at all. The vast majority of those schools have been kind and thoughtful, even if the only communication we've ever had is through form letters. A select few schools, however, have bungled what I would think would be a fairly simple process. I will share my stories from my most recent round of applications today, not because I mean to complain, but because I mean to open a conversation about how to improve a back- and often heart-breaking process.

My admittedly cursory research indicates that there is not a single definitive statement of student rights. What I can glean from various documents is that there are several basic rights: the right to information/statistics; the right to make a decision without being pressured (the linked document is intended for undergraduate students, but it talks of "high-pressure sales tactics"); the right to considerate and fair treatment.

Let me give an example of the latter two rights in action. I applied to Northeastern's graduate journalism program. They offered me admission with a full tuition scholarship. Now, that may seem nice, but for a graduate program, it is not enough. I'm extremely unlikely to accept an offer of admission without an assistantship or fellowship. So, you can imagine my surprise when I received a phone call two weeks ago from Northeastern, asking, politely I might add, whether or not I had made a decision. This may seem like an overreaction, but I was offended by the call. Virginia Tech has offered me a fellowship they've never offered anyone else. They have a very limited number of spaces in their program. And still, they have not once pressured me into making a decision. I respect that. What I do not, respect, however, is being pressured by a school that is only offering me a scholarship. So, if I make my decision sooner, they can give that scholarship to someone else?

I am, of course, making something out of nothing here. My second story is equally dramatized, but I feel that I have more of a gripe here. The University of Florida is one of the top three schools, in my estimation, of the thirteen I applied to. I really would like to go there. My close friend, M., applied there, as well. M. applied to a different part of the English department, and he received word that he was admitted almost a month ago. Of course, that worried me. Why haven't they contact me yet? I wondered obsessively.

As it turns out, they hadn't contacted me because they fail epically at basic communication. When April rolled around and I still hadn't heard the slightest word from UF, I e-mailed their graduate secretary about the status of my application. I politely waited another week and e-mailed again yesterday. So, today, I received the following message:

"We have had you on the waiting list but have now found that we will not be able to offer you admission to our program. Good luck to you in your academic future."

Now, this is couched in polite language, but the context is horribly offensive. Remember: they had not told me a single thing until now. Then, I discover that I was waitlisted and subsequently rejected without ever knowing about it. I was holding out on making a decision until I heard from UF. I e-mailed back expressing my discontent, and someone else sent me a note with a common excuse:

"We are seriously understaffed, which means we have one secretary handling about 700 applications."

Apprently they do not have any system in place to notify waitlisted candidates. Does no one see the problem here?

So, I sent them a letter expressing my problems with that system. The letter is overly dramatic, and anyone who knows me knows that this is not me. But I sent it anyway.

Kenneth,

Thank you for the kind note. I would agree; you obviously do need to implement some kind of formal process. I am less upset by the fact that it is April 7 (you're right, I still have plenty of time to make a decision) than I am by the treatment I received. I would not be upset were my inquiries fielded in a prompt and curteous manner. I realize this in large part because you are significantly understaffed, but I had to e-mail Kathy twice in the past two weeks before receiving even the brief response I did receive.

You can imagine that it would be such a shock to me, since all the other schools I applied to have kept in contact thoroughly, promptly, and professionally. I can say for sure that a program's lines of communications speak volumes about the program itself and have played a major role in my decision-making process. I would hate for any qualified candidate to not choose Florida because of poor communication. I know that your communication with accepted candidates is likely much more streamlined; I also know, though, that how an institution treats even those who fall through the cracks, the marginalized in any bureaucratic system, in part defines that instiution.

I recognize that the process of graduate admissions is hard on everyone. I'm sure you all have had to endure mistreatment. From my vantage point, I have encountered a number of issues, including being pressured to make a decision by the end of March to attend a program that did not even offer an assistantship. I can unreservedly say, though, that being given the qualified honor of being on a waitlist to a prestigious program, then simultaneously having that honor stripped in a brief (two-sentence) e-mail, one that required what I would consider undue prodding on my part, is the bitterest pill I have had to swallow in the whole process.

Such is the plight of the waitlisted candidate, I suppose, but I do hope you will see this as a chance for improvement. That is what I intend my comments as: not as complaint, but as opportunity.

Best,

Evan

The response I received was, as I expected, tepid at best. Kenneth says,

"Thank you for your input and concerns. Difficulties aside, we are
pleased with our incoming class, and we hope you will be pleased wherever you land."

I may be expecting too much from schools. I consider myself blessed to have four funded offers. I consider myself blessed that two of those schools really, really want me, and I really, really want them. I feel like this decision will be the hardest of my life; I feel like the child befeore King Solomon, ordered to be torn in two.

Nevertheless, I know several people who have been mistreated in the admission process by even the best schools. This is never a case of bad or malicious people; rather, it is, almost always, institutional. I feel like Joel Bakan of The Corporation fame, arguing: The people are well-intentioned, but the organization itself is designed to do bad things!

Of course, all this might just be jealousy that M. got into Florida and I didn't. Would I be above such a thing? Not today, my friends, not today.

Boothier and Bonesier

I am fully convinced that Bones is the coolest show on broadcast television. It's a crime drama, which is good for ratings. It is part-CSI: ("the squints") and part-Law and Order, and those parts work in equal harmony. It embraces the constant sexual tension between the male lade, David Boreanaz, and the titular character, played by the beautiful and talented Emily Deschanel*.

Why do some families get all the talent?

*It's like a modern day X-Files in that regard. Even the promos for the show recognize that the as-yet-unfulfilled sexual tension between them is at the heart of the show. One spot claimed that new episodes would be even more "Boothier and Bonesier." Could they possibly have found a more akwardly goofy word in the English language than "Bonesier"?

All these things, alongside snappy writing and good acting, make the show successful. They don't make it cool, though. What makes the show cool is the fact that the writers seem hyper-aware (at least for the writers of a Fox crime drama) of the diversity of the world around them.

I have always thought this about Bones, since one of the motifs in the show deals with Bones, the hyper-rational anthropologist, becoming more and more like her partner, Booth, the irrational, hunch-following type. The writers of the show recognize both the value of scientific rationality and the need for emotional connections, as well as the paradox that those two worldviews often inhabit the same individual.

Recently, though, Bones has cemented its status as the coolest show on broadcast television with one of the only lesbian relationships on broadcast television. Grey's Anatomy and a few other shows have flirted with lesbianism, but few have what it takes to keep a lesbian relationship going. I'm not saying that Bones is one of those few, but it has the potential to be.

Even more recently, the writers of the show gave a nod to hipsters everywhere. All sorts of shows are borrowing music from indie bands, but rarely do those shows actually reference said bands. In an episode from a couple of weeks ago*, Bones's Muslim assistant** makes a "break-up" CD for the bisexual lab worker, Angela. The first song on the CD? "Hope There's Someone," by Mr. Antony and the Johnsons (the lab assistant actually says "Mr." in his cute accent, later explaining that "Mazzy Star" is a band, not a person). Of course, the one song from the CD we actually hear is José González's cover of the Knife's "Heartbeats." Small steps, people, small steps.



*I'm behind on my DVR watching. So sue me.
**The writers are doing an experiment in which they change Bones's assistant every episode. Some people come back, but each assistant has his/her own quirk. This is after her first assistant was brainwashed into being an apprentice for a ritualistic cannibal serial killer. The experiment, at least in my opinion, is not working.

I have some larger and more complex theories about the show, but I'll save those for another day and "Another World."

Double Lemon Poppy Seed Cheesecake Muffins

Let me begin by saying that I fail epically at using mixes to make something more complex. I can make things from scratch. I can follow box instructions. But when I try to combine the two and make alterations to a box mix, my world falls apart quicker than a nymphomaniac at a prison rodeo.

Thank goodness I have the Cake Mix Doctor to help me out. My friend A. has made numerous recipes from the Cake Mix Doctor's cupcake cookbook. She lauded them to me, saying that they were delicious (I tasted the results, so I could not object) and, with only a few ingredients including box cake mix, oh so easy to prepare. I borrowed her copy of the cookbook and made Double Lemon Poppy Seed Cheesecake Muffins for my hungry first-year students.

The recipe, for those of you baking along at home:

Cheesecake Filling
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
1 large egg
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated fresh lemon zest
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Muffins
1 package (15.8 ounces) lemon poppy seed muffin mix
1 cup milk
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 large egg

The Cake Mix Doctor is a little too verbose for my taste, so I won't copy her instructions verbatim. Basically, all you do is combine the cheesecake filling ingredients


And blend them together using a hand mixer.


If you're me, you try to grate the lemon zest using a cheap, battery-powered food processor you bought at Goodwill for $2.


You realize that it runs at approximately 7 rpm, which means that nothing gets grated. So you pick up the grater in the food processor and use it to grate the lemon zest, since it's the only thing you have in the house.


Then, since you don't want to throw out a perfectly good lemon, you squeeze half a lemon's worth of juice into the cheesecake filling and muffin batter. Then you eat the other half for breakfast. Did I mention that I was baking this at 7:00 in the morning?

Once you're done mixing the cheesecake filling, do the same for the muffin mix.


I'm sure you know this already, but muffin mix need only be thoroughly combined, so there's no need for a hand mixer.


Again, if you're me, you remember to "preheat" the oven to 400°F just prior to putting the muffins in the oven. Drop the muffin mix into each muffin cup and top it off with a heaping tablespoon of the cheesecake mixture.


This recipe is supposed to yield 12 muffins, but it made more like 11 gargantuan ones. Also, my oven is hotter in the back than in the front (don't ask my why), so some of them were burned while a few were undercooked.


All the same, they were a hit with my students. Granted, that doesn't say much, since first-year college students are part-Gremlin and part-tribble. In other words, they multiply like crazy and consume everything in their path. Still, they enjoyed the muffins, and so did I. So there. Thank you Cake Mix Doctor for keeping my world together.

Racquetball Lessons

I'm fairly decent at racquetball, but I want to get better. This desire was sparked when I was absolutely destroyed by a semi-pro player I found online. Dana is sponsored by Head and plays consistently in tournaments around the country. He recently won the men's "B" bracket, so he has moved up to the men's "A" bracket, the highest competitive bracket. I don't understand the structure of professional and semi-pro racquetball, so I may be butchering what he told me.

Point is, Dana is good. Very good. And he's trained and practiced. That, I am convinced, is the difference between us. I picked up racquetball a year and a half ago, and I've never been told anything about my swing. I know to swing with my wrists and let the ball get between my knees and the floor before I hit it. Other than that, though, I'm flying blind. I hit what I think are good shots.

When we played, Dana gave me a few pointers about my swing. I really want to be extremely good at racquetball, so I took his pointers to heart. I've been experimenting with my swing, both on my own and in games with my poor, unsuspecting friends. I played around with a new serve on Wednesday, and A. said that trying to return it (and often failing miserably) made her feel "legit."

I don't know what else to do, though. I can't afford racquetball lessons. Everything I found online looks like it was cobbled together by a 13 year-old kid using Geocities. I can find detailed images of stretches to do before and after racquetball


but no definite resources for various types of racquetball swings and shots.

Any suggestions? How does one get better at a sport without knowing the proper technique? Where could I go to find out more without having to pay for lessons?

I'm playing this afternoon, and I'll keep experimenting. Hopefully I'll continue to get better. At the very least, I'll look damn good while doing it.