Work

Excerpts from today’s diaries: 12/5/2012

“…Tomorrow I will practice pummeling and bamboo flute. I am expectation."

“…In the study time, I blew ocarina.”

“…this place I grow my English skill and meet friends very fun!”


And a portrait of me. Clearly very accurate.

Delish

Carrot cake can you tell??

Pumpkin pie

I think I'm in heaven. insanely amazing :-)

On the grape vine

Heard tale of a math academy where they get hit with golf clubs for giving the wrong answer.

New Passport

I'm applying for a new passport. In the place it asked me to list the countries I'm travelling to I got as far as listing half of Asia before I ran out of space, so I just put ETC. I hope they get it. That's why I asked for the extra pages, and why I'm getting a new passport two years before my old one expire. I need more space!

Also if you wonder why I haven't updated in a while. I'm moving to wordpress. I'm a guest editor on Eric Pearic's blog,(which is actually super awesome and a bit life changing if you ask me) but I also have my own. I've been slow on doing anything about it. I feel a strong urge to focus on aesthetics instead of writing words. Maybe I'll put up pics then.

My New Blog

Wondergressive Blog

Marcin in Korea

Talking about a revolution

Let's start with the basics.

1. I want a cob house. Why? Its inexpensive, incredibly resilient, friendly toward the Earth (its made out of it!) it looks good, and it helps with heating (stays cool in summer and warm in winter). 

Check out this link to learn more about Cob Houses.

2. I want upcycled doors, windows, and furniture. That ought to give it character and reduce (even a trivial amount) some waste about to go into a landfill. 

3. I want an excellent outdoor organic garden. I want to produce my own food, and then eat most of it. This could have a whole post of its own, so I'll save all that stuff later, but this is important to understand for the next step of what I want. 

4. So what to do with what I don't eat?  I want compost heated water for showers and baths. I think we can consider it reasonable that here on my future property all earthly materials will be composted. So there are two really important things to think about with compost. The first is that it produces a crazy amount of heat due to all the decomposition it goes through when breaking down the things we put in it. The second is that this heat can be used to produce something useful, like hot water for my showers and luxurious baths. Check out this awesome youtube video about a guy who did it on his farm with outdoor showers. The shower runoff goes to feeding mushrooms which ties into #3. Yum!

5. What about my waste? I want compost toilets.< Here is an awesome link explaining more about compost toilets. This was in my last post, but its so awesome, how could I not talk about it again. Having just learned about this last night I already feel bad using flush toilets when I know this could be happening instead. I, of course, don't think I live in the right place to have a compost toilet, but that makes me feel worse like there are parts of the world where people shouldn't be looking out for the environment's best interest. Anyway, stepping down from my soap box, I'd suggest you go check out compost toilets and learn about how they don't actually smell bad!!

6. You may wonder how I plan to keep my house warm in the winter. I want to install a rocket stove mass heater. In addition to making the most out of your fuel source and creating great warmth it fits in perfectly with my desire for a cob house. Oh how things fall together!

7. Related to want #3 I want indoor gardens and plants. I think nature should be a more integral part of our lives. Check out these awesome devices to maximize indoor gardening space. You can even make your own at home. I checked out the designs and I can't figure out how to get the materials in Korea or I would have tried by now. 

I see all the above as possible and easy to achieve. They seem like very realistic goals. Of course there are still things I need to figure out to make it work, but these are things I haven't even looked into yet. I'm certain there is an answer waiting for me. If not now by the time I decide to enact this wonderful plan there will be a solution. So the main problem that comes to my mind right now is "What will I use as a water source?" Like I said I haven't even looked into this, so maybe the answer is out there right now, maybe you know it, maybe you'll leave it for me in the comments... or maybe I'll find it later when I look for it. So following is the "dream" I'm not sure its realistic. I think it's probably outside my budget, but I can tell you I would love it most. 

8. I would love a green house in the style of a botanical gardens tropical environment. I want to grow bananas and tropical fruits. I want Koi fish ponds. I want a pet snake that would love this place most. I  want frogs. I haven't looked into this one much at all, but thought I'd share. 

What's going on in my head

These are the tabs open on my computer, and I think it gives a good idea of what I'm into right now. I know I haven't been telling you much lately, but I work alot, and then I sleep when I can. I come home and look at things like this, and I'm inspired to continue saving exuberant amounts so I can have the financial ability to live the life I want when I come back. It's not easy. It's not hard. I got a notebook where I draw my house designs and I got some oil pastels for when I draw my dress designs.





Then there are the three story 5+ bedroom house designs I'm looking at ...






Then there's the rocket stove mass heater system I want in my future cob house when I make one.... This technology is more than amazing. It's insanely awesome, and I can't reiterate enough how much I want it.

And of course compost toilets =D

Of course I miss you, but today is a national holiday, and Eric didn't get the day off (somehow??) and so I have today finally to work on everything I haven't had time for (like my blog!) and my music class, and my Korean Rosetta Stone, and yoga, and making tomato soup. Well I just wanted to let you know life is good. I'm at my favorite cafe (there's no desk in our tiny one room studio, not even a real table) and things are about to get done!!

xoxo Claire

p.s. possibly later today I'll put up a post linking to all the technology/ stuff I want in my future natural possibly-off-grid super-green inexpensive cob house. Or all the tasty vegetarian recipes I've been making??

Beacheee photos

So pretty much the story is we went to Ilsan Beach and Daewangam Park. We had an awesome day. 

Coursera

So you know the other day when I was all like "I think we should educate ourselves! and the Internet has so many free resources so let's do it!" Well I recently learned that universities feel the same way, and wanted in on it. This website is full of free. FREE online courses accessible anywhere in the world with internet to anyone who knows the language its taught in. Major universities from all over America and several other countries have contributed courses to this massive endeavor. I can't even express to you how happy I am about this not only for myself, but for the whole world. People shouldn't have to pay for knowledge!!! Eric and I are taking the class on listening to world music. Follow the link, sign up and join us! Its free, and invariably awesome.

We haven't started (it starts tomorrow!) but the fact that Eric works 80 hours a week and still wants to make time for this is so amazing to me. No matter how busy we are we must continue to keep our brains active to grow and become better people worthy of this existence we so often cling so tightly to. I wish you all the best, and for anyone who is not a student (only students are exempt from this request) I really hope you look around that website and find a class that interests you that you can take to stimulate your beautiful mind!

xoxo Claire

I made Kimbop

Like a BOSS

What follows is my story of making kimbop with illustrations by NIKON Coolpix S600.

For those who don't know, kimbop is a roll with seaweed on the outside, rice on the inside, and various other things filling the center. This story is that of my first attempt at making it with no instructions.

My Ingredients:

Peppers, and mushrooms

 mixed sprouts

 chili paste, ground black pepper, and diced onions

 Rice, seaweed sheets, hemp seed, grapeseed oil

My Utensils:

Rice spatula, oil brush, cutting board and the initial knife I tried to use

 My rolling device

Here is what my first roll looked like before I rolled it.

The following picture is after several attempts to "roll" it together and make it stick. There was too much rice and stuffing and no way for the seaweed to stick to itself. So this is after I "rolled" it, but before I cut it using the knife in the picture.

 Here you can see that something went terribly awry. That is not how it should look.

Here is a picture of my second roll. You can see it is much smaller. I used less rice and applied oil with my handy brush to the inside of the seaweed to make it stick together. As you can see to the left hand side of the picture I switched to a larger more dangerous knife in hopes of scaring the kimbop into perfect little pieces.

 This one still did not cut well. I was beginning to get depressed.

 Here is a picture of my third roll. This was a very well rolled kimbop, tightly packed and gushing contents out each end. You can see to the right that I was beginning to get chili paste everywhere. As a side note, my camera now has a chili paste scent.

 I thought that I was a total failure at cutting these things, or that maybe I had the wrong seaweed, rice, knife etc. But I'm a risk taker so I cut it anyway. Below is the result and a picture of what it should look like. Since I succeeded here I stopped taking pictures, because my hands were covered in chili paste and rice.

I continued to make several more rolls, and eat what fell apart. Total win.