confections

Another day, another cup of tea.

Plus a matcha dark chocolate piece (thanks to Dave to brought it back from Vancouver, and thanks Gilly who originally introduced the shop to us).

And another chapter finished in Xillia. Muzet is creepy and Alvin is still my favourite.

ultramarine

 Gyugyuya curry, I quite like it. Slightly more expensive than the shop under Aura.

 Creme brulee, having a torch would really make getting a sugar crust easier. (I didn't make this)

Nearing the end of my moonlight pu-er after almost a year. Tempted to get another cake this year at the Tea Festival (excited!)

almonds

Oolong haul from Tao Tea Leaf, a local tea shop. Hurray for their boxing week 50% off.

A couple of wuyi yancha to start seriously seasoning my pot, but after sampling some oolong from other places (phoenix dan congs, baozong, and a DHP). Still waiting for Eco-Cha's winter teas to come in before hauling some taiwanese oolongs for the (still very far away) warmer season. Though I have already had their indiegogo campaign dongding, but waiting to take nicer pictures before posting here. Instead see my first reddit review!

First up is the classic Phoenix Dan Cong.
I followed the suggested brewing parameters (excepting upping the dry leaves to 5g) with boiling water, rinse, 30s, 10s then adding 5s. Started to add significantly more time each subsequent infusion past the 6th.

The leaves were also rather broken up, which is not a sign of great quality. There is also a fair amount of stems in the tea, not sure if this is normal.

Taste started off rather woody and transitioned to ever slightly floral in the later infusions. Never tasted any of the nuttiness or almond that the website stated. Also had a very dry aftertaste.  Overall not really impressed with the tea, but this might have been because my pot wasn't suitable for this particular tea. Hopefully the higher grade version will taste better.

a secret that nobody knows

Mr. Savage

Finally read Brave New World over the break, unfortunately I didn't find it that impressive. Compared to Nineteen Eighty-Four, it wasn't...as cruel? Rather, John's suicide was foreshadowed the entire latter half of the book, whereas there was hope for the two main characters even while they were being reeducated in Nineteen Eighty-Four. In fact I don't find the two books similar at all aside from the dystopian setting. They are more like 2 sides of the same coin, as I read somewhere that in Nineteen Eighty-Four people are controlled by fear, whereas in Brave New World people are controlled by pleasure (which is more fearsome imo).

Also finished reading Galapagos, another one of Vonnegut's books. Coincidentally, this is similar to Brave New World. The improved human race in both books renounced their "big brains" and associated arts in favour of infantile behaviour. Both books also use a lot of quotations to highlight irony.

Al

Disappointed that I'm unable to marathon game anymore :(
Still not done chapter 2 of Xillia, but really enjoyed the few snippets of Alvin's background so far. Of course I then went to read the spoilers for his story. He's definitely my favourite character, quite close to Balthier level of awesome.

image via.

2015 resolutions

Let the theme of 2015 be maintenance, aka taking care of myself and everything I already have.

The biggest is exercise. I've never liked it (including sports) so hence never did much of it.
Baby steps:

1. For the months of January and February: 2 hour of DDR per week. This looks laughably easy written out, but we'll see ahahahaa. 

Also to get up and stretch during long periods of sitting down. This is much easier accomplished by not having a thermos as to force myself to get up and boil water every time I run out of tea. Might as well do some stretches as the water boils.
My method is to link everything I hate doing to something I enjoy and is already a habit

Next up is to clean the kitchen area everyday, which mean wiping the counters, floor, and table after dinner everyday. This also looks laughably easy but never underestimate laziness or rationalization.
Will couple this with showering right afterwards so a) I have enough buffer time between the various pH dependent products that I apply, b) I'm more awake to do work afterwards, and c) will hopefully sleep earlier.

Keep in touch with friends more (especially ones that I don't see). I can't think of any effective strategies for this, use snapchat more? Will try to meet up with at least one friend that I don't regularly see a month. Also talk to parents more, call at least once a week.

Smaller goals:

• Work through Washoku and be able to cook some Japanese dishes.
• Draw & photograph more.
• Read throughout the year instead of just binging during the holidays. Will try to leave half an hour to read every night before sleeping.
• Make my wok non-stick! It's getting there *u*
• 100% xillia, this shouldn't be very hard.
• Explore more of Toronto.