Michael Bublé and the Fordham Ramblers

Tags

a cappella, Fordham, Michael Bublé, Ramblers

So long since I last posted!  I can only blame this on March 15-21 being a very busy week, and then March 22-29 being a very lazy week.

But on March 19, I went to the long-anticipated Michael Bublé concert in Worcester with my boyfriend!  It was absolutely incredible.  He’s extremely funny, an amazing singer, and likes sliding across the slippery stage in his super-shiny black dress shoes.  I was in charge of “dinner in the car”, since we had to eat on the 1.5 hour drive.  This is opportunity to plug one of my favorite new websites:  tastespotting.com.  This awesome website has links to tons of recipes, and is all user-generated.  From said website, I made spinach-parmesan balls, chicken salad sandwiches, parmesan-thyme crackers, and, for dessert, brown rice pudding!  All of the above were a huge hit with the boyfriend. 😉

The next day, my mom drove up from New York.  The occasion: my twin brother, who is president of the Fordham Ramblers, an all-male a cappella group at Fordham University, and the Ramblers were singing in the ICCA Semi-finals that night at MIT!  The ICCAs are the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella.  And you know what?  The Ramblers took third!!  Although this means they won’t be competing in the finals, it does mean they’re the 3rd best in the Northeast! Go Ramblers!  Here are the videos (taken by mom, who cut off Coleman’s head for most of the first song) from their set:

The Ramblers’ music director, Ram, also won “Best Vocal Percussion” and “Best Arrangement”!! 🙂  Yeah, I’m a wicked proud sister.

The next day – last Sunday – I drove back to NY with my mom.  It was Spring Break!  I spent the week lazing about, watching television (gasp!) and cooking.  Before leaving my place, I had my mom try the leftover spinach balls, crackers, chicken salad, and rice pudding.  The spinach balls and rice pudding were raved about, so I made both recipes a couple of times over break:  round one to bring to my brother at Fordham, and round two for my mom to keep and devour.  Both were happy.

Now I’m back at school.  And it’s raining.  And my fridge is pretty empty.  I did start a new class yesterday, though:  15.847: Consumer Behavior.  It seems like it will be a pretty sweet class.  I’m excited.  Goodbye, Geology!  I gave up hope of passing 12.001 a while ago, and managed to confuse myself even more trying to reread chapters over break, so I’ll try it again another year or find a different REST (restricted elective in science & technology) to pass.

English Country Dancing

This is me (blue dress) and one of my friends from class.

Friday night I went English Country Dancing.  What is this?  Well, it’s dancing that was done at country balls in England in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.  My Jane Austen Literature class joined in the fun!

Near the beginning of the semester, our professor told us she takes her class to this dancing event each year.  The dancing happens on the 2nd and 4th Fridays of each month, and she arranged ahead of time for the night we would be there to be “Jane Austen Night!”  The dances we did were all period dances that dear Jane herself would have done at the Basingstoke balls!

For my part, I made sure to wear a swirly skirt (That blue dress is from J. Crew and wonderfully swirly, and can double as a longer skirt or folded over to be a mini-dress! I do adore versatile clothing.).  It was incredibly rewarding.  The dances were fun, simple to learn and execute, and the exercise far beyond what I originally thought it could be.  But dancing up and down a set was so much fun!  My friend in the picture, from my class, and I plan to go back another night in April.

The night would not have been perfect without a wonderful dinner beforehand.  My friend and I went to Veggie Planet in Harvard Square. Carmelized onions, mushrooms, and a delicious red pepper pesto served over coconut rice with some feta cheese:  heavenly.  The vegan brownie with soymilk ice cream was a delightfully yummy treat for dessert, too.  I love Veggie Planet for their wonderful, healthy, organic food and amazing, student-friendly pricing.

As for dear Jane, our class is now reading Sense and Sensibility. Having not yet read Persuasion or Mansfield Park, I can’t judge what my favorite novel will be, but I think S & S will be very near the top of the list.  I admire Elinor Dashwood very much, although sometimes I wish she allowed herself more strength of emotion; yet I always love it when Austen writes that Elinor, once again, “retired to reflect on all that happened”, as she often does.  And I hope Marianne acquires some semblance of sense before the novel ends.  In that vein, I’ll get back to reading S & S now!

A Quick Note, and a Quick Dessert Recipe

This past week has been a blur. Homework, papers, tons of reading, work, hanging out with my boyfriend: it’s been nonstop. A few fun things: watching American Idol (don’t even get me started on how terrible most of this year’s finalists are…), a wine & cheese pairing party (details next paragraph), and creating a delectable dessert for that occasion!

One of my boyfriend’s neighbors (he lives in an apartment building) on the same floor was having a small birthday party. The theme was wine pairings. The birthday girl requested that each guest/couple bring a wine and a cheese or dessert to pair with it. As each guest arrived, the wine bottles were covered up in a brown paper bag and labeled with different letters. The bottles for cheese pairings were all opened and arranged in a row behind a long cutting board, where all the cheeses were laid out with their corresponding wines. Each guest received a wine glass, as well as an index card and pen to notate their opinions of each pairing. About an hour or so into the party, the desserts were spread out with their covered-up wines, as well. Everyone voted for their favorite wine and cheese pairing and their favorite wine and dessert pairing at the end, with the winners taking home small prizes (i.e. a small cheese board or wine bag). It was an incredibly good idea, and one that I will certainly be using for a future birthday of my own.

For our part, my boyfriend chose a South African red wine, and it was my job to find a matching cheese/dessert. I went with dessert: I made small tarts with a whipped strawberry filling, topped with sliced strawberries or blueberries. They looked delectable when finished (my boyfriend was pretty proud of me for making them). The filling is extremely simple, and you can make one large pie, fill small tarts, or freeze the filling for a frozen-yogurt-like treat. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients
1 packet Jell-o (any flavor you’d like – I used strawberry)
1 8-oz tub of Cool Whip (you can use Lite, Sugar Free, whatever), softened
18 oz of yogurt (get a smooth kind, unless you want the fruit chunks in your pie, and get it in the same flavour as the jello, or a complementing flavor)
1/2 cup water

Boil the water in a small pot. Add the Jell-o mix, turn off heat, and stir until all the powder is dissolved. Pour into a medium-sized bowl and mix with Cool Whip. Then add the yogurt. When all is well-mixed, pour mixture into pie shell or tart shells. Place in fridge for at least 2 hours to set.

Ta-da! Of course, I added the extra bit with the fruit placed on top, but that was just as an accent. I wish I’d had the foresight to take pictures, because they looked very pretty.

Any and all future culinary endeavors will have pictures, though, because I ordered a new digital camera last week from woot.com and it arrives on Thursday! À bientôt!

Class of 2011 Leadership Dinner

Earlier tonight, I attended a formal dinner at MIT President Susan Hockfield’s house.  The premise:  getting together with other leaders in the class of 2011, local involved alumni, and faculty leaders to discuss leadership and our lives at MIT.  The food was not only exceptional, but the overall experience was, as well.

I can honestly say I truly enjoyed myself.  And, I happened to look absolutely stellar in my business suit.  There is a funny story associated with my invitation, though:

Initial invites went out to Class of 2011 “Leaders” about a month ago, via email and a special physical invite delivered via mail.  I was not on this invite list.  Usually, the people planning the dinner ask one of my bosses, who works in the Alumni Association, who to invite amongst the current junior class.  They forgot to do that this year.  When my boss happened to see the invite list just one week ago, she asked, “Wait, why isn’t Tina on this list?”  Apparently, inviting the Class Chair for the Underclassmen Giving Campaign and a supervisor at Tech Callers slipped their minds.  Not to sound egotistical, but I had been expecting this invitation for the past few months (I happened to know the dinner existed and what it was for).  But from a basic political standpoint, it’s simply common sense to invite the student who has a leadership role in fundraising for the school.  Well, I did get my invite, and I did heartily appreciate it.

As it turns out, President Hockfield is a rather funny person when not being totally formal.  Her words of wisdom to us, delivered between the amazing chicken dinner and delectable chocolate cake and coffee ice cream dessert, were light and funny, but still meaningful and profound.  One thing she said struck me:  She thanked all of us for being leaders in varying capacities at MIT;  she has this dinner with juniors every year because if they are already leaders on campus, then they will continue in that role beyond MIT; those juniors who have not seized leadership opportunities on campus probably won’t ever seek out leadership roles beyond MIT.

I think she is perfectly right:  if by now we haven’t tried to get involved and be leaders in our own right, then when will we?  It will only become more difficult and rarer that these myriad opportunities are presented to us, and those who have seized them now are far more likely to even try to seize them in the future.

Just to list a few of the higher-ups at MIT I hobnobbed with:

Susan Hockfield, President of MIT

Judith Cole, VP of the Alumni Association

Julie Soriero, Dept Head of DAPER (she was at my table!)

Don Shobrys ’75

Kirk Kolenbrander, VP for Institute Affairs and Secretary of the Corporation

Phillip Clay, Chancellor of MIT

Jed Wartman, Asst. Dean for Student Activities

Katie Maloney, Associate Director of Student/Alumni Relations

Paul Spangle, Asst. Director of Student Activities

…and many other local alumni who are very involved with the Institute.  It was, all in all, an excellent event and great networking opportunity.

All the students who attended the dinner received a book:  Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard, co-authored by Susan Fowler and Laurence Hawkins.  The subtitle:  Increasing Effectiveness Through Situational Self Leadership.  I fully intend to read this book, and hopefully before Tuesday!  The reason:  co-author Laurence Hawkins will be visiting MIT this coming Tuesday for an educational workshop based on the principles in this book.  I am, of course, planning to attend.

I’m curious: Where would you want to go?