When did you last sit down and think about what your passions are? Is it baking, cooking, writing, teaching, helping people or creating? And then comes the question “what is a passion”? Is it merely a more extreme version of a hobby? Is it a cause you align yourself with? Is it something you’ve been fortunate enough to work into your daily life and maybe make a career out of?

I work in digital, but can I really say that my “passion” is the internet? Mine and everyone elses on the planet, or is it just something I “get”? Is my passion communication, and how to convey messages best to people? I like to think a huge focus in my life is being a God friends, and being reliable to never let you down – but that’s more of a value, I guess, than a passion.

Anyway, I have a friend and she inspired all these thoughts and questions. She doesn’t even know it. My friend writes a blog entitled “Women and the Art of Change”. She is deeply interested in issues of gender equality, women’s rights & opportunities, education of women and children

She’s currently studying at UCT

There’s nothing like having something to look forward to.

The one thing currently on my mind is our upcoming trip to Israel. I’m asking everyone I know for tips and ideas of things to do – you wouldn’t think I’d been to this country, many, many times. My parents are taking the very relaxed route about their schedule, but I’m in full planning mode. Good money has been paid to travel overseas, and I literally don’t want to waste a second!

The thing is, I’ve done most of the tourist things. In grade 10 I went on a 4 months programme, I spent my gap year in Israel on an organised programme and went on another 2-week tour in 2010. I’ve been to almost every place listed on tripadvisor and other such sites, places I don’t even know the names of – so I’ve taken to asking my local friends for ideas, as well as naturally trawling the internet.

The thing with planning an overseas trip – it’s so costly. When I look at all the tourist attractions and activities (museums, camel rides, bedouin tents, jeep rides etc) I can’t believe the cost of it – and I’ve done all these things! I guess it shows that the high cost of the programmes I’ve been on were well spent!

Naturally I have to go to the shuk/markets in both major cities – Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They each have very different energies. On top of that, there is a arts/crafts market running alongside Shuk HaCarmel in Tel Aviv called Nachalat Binyamin – I stumbled on it by mistake once on my gap year, as it’s only open on Tuesdays & Fridays. I never landed up in the area again on those days, so I can’t wait to go back – especially actually with my own money! There’s a similar market now in Jerusalem once a week with work of the art students in the area, we checked it out the last time but I stupidly didn’t buy anything.

Top: Shuk HaCarmel (Tel Aviv). Bottom: Machane Yehuda (Jerusalem)

I can’t express my excitement for Nachalat Binyamin. Sticking to a budget is going to be difficult…

We’ll walk the streets of Jerusalem, looking into the shops in the different nooks and crannies. We’ll walk to, from, and all over the beautiful old city and chill out by the Western Wall. I’m going to buy tons of beautiful head scarves (and finally feel at home wearing one!), spices, sweets, pastries, perfume for ridiculous prices, jewellery and eat tons, and tons of kosher food. I have no idea what my waistline will have to say by the end of it!

The country really just has everything – beaches, the religious, the old, the modern and metropolitan, the artsy, the historical, among so much more. I guess those who haven’t been or don’t have much relation to the country thinks of it as war-ridden, and while there are those elements in certain areas, there’s really so much more.

I’m still fine-tuning our schedule, as we also have tons of friends to see. Having met so many Israelis who come work in the Jewish Community in Cape Town, we’ve really made a large amount of friends that need to be seen! Lucky us I guess I foresee plenty fun, laughs, shopping, friends and food in our near future!

Superheroes are just that – super.

I’m not sure what it is about the allure of super heroes. Their strength? Crime fighting? Super-powers? Good-doing? Awesome costumes? Perhaps it’s a bit of everything. I didn’t grow up loving superheros (OK, I really miss the Power Rangers, but I don’t know if those count), I wouldn’t even say that I love them now. But Greg really does, and occasionally I’ll watch a superhero movie with him. We’ve even had real discussions about superheroes – like, spiderman is far superior to batman. Batman is just a rich guy with a fancy car. Spiderman swings from buildings. I mean, come on. He’s totally my favourite.

I guess this is the type of thing that happens when you live with a boy.

So even though I don’t love and live for superheroes like a lot of people do, I usually find them graphically inspiring. They just look good. They really do. So I saw a bunch of art “pieces” (can you call these digital artworks “pieces”?) this morning and thought I’d give you the round up for some Tuesday smiles.

The “Like” Button reimagined: move over “dislike” button, I’d much rather have these gracing my facebook timeline.  Jaime Calderón, you legend, you.

Justice Families: I just love how Andry Rajoelina reimagined our favourite superheroes as moms and dads with their own little mini-sidekicks. It’s like the big fighters of crime and evil are also normal guys with responsibilities, little ones to look after and take to school. Ag, sweet man. I can’t decide between Bat-, Super- or Arrow- man as to which is my fav!

SuperCats: Ok, so this one is a little more strange than cool. I don’t understand the internet (and people of twitter)’s obsession with cats, you can’t tell me that LOL Catz really is the source of all this nonsense. But I thought I’d share the work of Jenny Parks. Avengers – assemble!

Source (1), (2), (3).

Mother’s Day, Shavuot & other admin.

Thing have been pretty busy recently. I guess it’s hat we’ve been keeping busy and just hasn’t left me much time to post on here. That and I’ve had a bit of “writers block” if you will.

IT was Mother’s Day this past Sunday (as everyone already knows and has written about) and instead of missioning to go see each of our mom’s separately (everyone has their own schedules and things to do) we decided to have our families over for breakfast. It was really chilled, relaxed and informal. We bought yoghurt (too much), muesli (far too much of it!), croissants, fruit juice, there was fruit salad and teas and coffees – I even attempted to make scones! Well, I did (twice) and everyone said they were delicious (who knows, they could have been lying to make me feel better).

You know when a recipe says “makes 12″ and only makes 5…? Well yes, that happened. Lucky Greg was at the shops so he could buy more baking powder. I didn’t really know how they’d go. How flat did you have to roll them? How round should they be? How much do they rise?? Too many questions. But everyone enjoyed, and we even have a lone one left in our freezer (along with 2 croissants). We actually have a lot leftover, just shows again our inability to cater successfully  No matter, we’ll learn, right?

The afternoon was spent doing some very important admin work. And by admin work, I mean that we went to Canal Walk. Because we needed shoes. Maybe not so admin, but terribly important. When the sole isn’t connected to the bottom anymore…? Yeah, no. Shem. after going into every store and saying “OK, I’ve looked, we’ll come back” I landed up at the very first store, bought a simple pair for the price I wanted. Bingo.

Sunday evening I spent making Challah – it was weird doing this on a Sunday and not a Thursday night for shabbat. It’s Shavuot tonight, where we celebrate receiving the Torah up on Sinai. It’s meant to be fun and joyous and all that. But I’m getting tired of taking off from work, and don’t get me started on September… it’s going to be – interesting. Anyway, my challot (plural of Challah) looked delicious. I made half whole wheat-half white flour. I can;t ever seem to make plain challah and this time I flavoured the individual strands – zaatar, paprika and plain. If anything, it makes them look super pretty. The other half of the batch were onion flavoured; savoury goodness. So if anything, I’m looking forward to eating these

The next few weeks are also super busy. We kind of count our “weeks” by “weekends” and where we’re spending Shabbos, for the next 6 weeks we’re only home once! And then after that… we’re flying to Israel! It’s a short trip, only 10 days but I’m looking so forward! Aside from living in Israel, I’ve been on three different organised tours/programmes (2 weeks, 4 months, and a year) so I’ve done most of the tourist things. This trip is likely going to be filled with seeing my many, many friends living on that side of the world and eating kosher food. I’m a very happy girl knowing that Turkish Airways let’s me take 30kg

Chag Shavuot Sameach to all the Jews – let’s go get that Torah!

When your kitchen smells like chocolatey goodness.

Now, I’m really no expert baker, and far from a domestic goddess. I’ve tried my hand at brownies many times, and failed miserably at each (how I can get such a simple dish so awfully wrong, I still don’t know). I can kind of make cupcakes, I can kind-of-less ice them nicely. I’ve tried some fancy cookies off pinterest, but those never went as well as I would have liked either (Though Greg always seems to like them). The only thing I seem to bake well, is Challah. But it’s not quite a cookie, or a piece of sweet goodness.

So I’m not entirely sure what made me decide to make biscotti last night. I pinned the recipe ages ago on pinterest, the social network has somewhat lost it’s appeal to me, yet I stumbled upon it yesterday afternoon while debating what to bake for mothers day. It seemed easy. I had the ingredients. So I decided, “why not?”. The fact that we were having friends for dinner sure didn’t get in the way.

It wasn’t difficult, though I managed to make quite a bit of mess. How wrong can you go with a biscuit that is meant to be a little harder and dryer than most? I managed to find almonds hidden in the cupboard (I will not divulge on how old I think they were…). I don’t think I got the consistency quite right though. It called for 3 small eggs (I’ve never seen “small” eggs) so used 2 large ones instead, maybe I needed more. The mixture seemed a bit too dry and I was left with a small mound of cocoa/flour/sugar/choc-chips/almond (non) mixture at the bottom. It was a little difficult to form into logs, but they turned out really well I think!

Greg wasn’t as “overjoyed” as he usually is, it’s because he “didn’t know what to expect” in terms of texture. I guess it’s just a dry, yummy biscuit. But I really liked it. And so did my friends, who helped me polish most of them off

Chocolate Almond Olive Oil & Whole Wheat Biscotti

(see, it’s even kinda healthy)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cups top-quality cocoa powder {I’m buying Nomu cocoa from now on!}
•  1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 small eggs, at room temperature {I think next time I’m just using 3 eggs, regardless of the size)
• 1/8 cup extra light olive oil
• 3/4 cup vanilla sugar, or plain granulated
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped {optional}
• 1 cup almonds, toasted and very coarsely-chopped
• 3/4 cups chocolate chips 
• For the glaze
• 1 egg white
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar {I didn’t have this, so I just sprinkled some icing sugar over}

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a cookie sheet with baking parchment.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a bowl.
3. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, olive oil, sugar, vanilla beans and vanilla extract.
   
4. Fold in the dry ingredients, followed by the toasted chopped almonds and chocolate chips until well incorporated, and the cookie dough comes together.
   
5. Divide the dough into half, and form into logs using slightly damp hands. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with vanilla sugar. Bake for 25 minutes or until the dough feels firm. Remove from oven and cool for 15 minutes.
6. Slice and place sides down on the cookie sheet and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the baking sheet midway during baking, until the cookies feel mostly firm.
   
7. Cool completely and store in an airtight box.

I’m really looking forward to trying these again!

(source)

When your feelings after a movie confuse you.

Last night we took a night off to see a movie called Identity Thief. Reading the description it was about a man who’s identity is stolen by a woman across the country, who lavishly uses up his credit cards and he eventually goes out after her. I was expecting a cool, racy, thriller, but somehow missed the “comedy” label of this one.

Either way it was actually a good movie, if you’re out there to just relax and not think too hard. It was funny, drew emotion to the characters, a typical “hero’s journey narrative”. I’m not going to give away the ending, but it left me feeling a little unsettled and confused.

Let me say this – it was a happy ending. You know how a movie is meant to direct your emotions in a certain way, makes you feel things towards particular characters etc. It did that. And I thought this Identity Thief woman was a complete psycho for most of the movie, and I seriously couldn’t wait for him to get home, turn her in, and sort this whole mess out that she created.

Somehow, at the end of the movie, and how the end of the narrative goes – I felt sorry for the “psycho” lady (who no longer seemed so psycho). Shame, she had a bad childhood and upbringing. I actually landed up feeling sorry for her. And I was just very confused by the feelings Hollywood made me feel. When you watch this movie, and the crazy things this woman does, the amount of money she spends, how she just doesn’t care and how she speaks and treats people… it didn’t correlate how suddenly we like her.

I know it’s just a movie. I know it wasn’t real. But it was interesting to see how movies can guide your thoughts and feelings, even if it’s just towards their characters. I was just annoyed to see how my view of this woman, despite the things she’d done, had changed. I still like the ending! But somehow don’t like myself for liking it. Interesting, I know.

I’m sorry if this comes across as confusing. Has anyone else seen this movie, or understand what I’m talking about?

When people deserve your undivided attention.

There is one thing I have a very low tolerance level for: and that’s people sitting on their cellphones in a social setting. It happens far too frequently and I was reminded how much this bugs me the other night.

At university, studying media and digital what-not, we often discussed how distracted society is and how different media forms literally have to fight it out for our attention. You could be watching TV, the adverts in between, all while browsing facebook on your phone and still whatsapping a friend at the same time. It’s one thing for “the media” to fight for our attention, but your friends really shouldn’t need to.

I see it so often, usually in larger social gatherings vs more intimate ones where so many people are sitting on their phones.  It stands to reason that you have agreed to go out with your friends, you obviously wanted to see them, talk to them, to hang out. Is hanging out just to “be in their presence”?I sometimes find it rude and insulting when out with friends, and those in your physical company aren’t as important as those living in your phone. I sometimes find it offensive. Is the company you’re in not good enough?

This isn’t a “never use your smartphone” rant. If I’m out and need to message Greg, ask a question or let him know when I’m going to be home, I’ll do it. But that’s not the same as sitting and having a conversation about my day when I’m out with other people. I’m out with someone else and they deserve my undivided attention.

This isn’t to say I’m not guilty, or that this isn’t a difficult game to play. I’m often the one to sit checking facebook or twitter before bed, while Greg is next to me doing the same. Or doing the same while we’re watching series. Sometimes, when I’m more conscious of this and I’ve made a point of putting my phone away, I’ll ask Greg to put his away too. I’m not always good at this, and it’s something I definitely need to work on. If there is anyone who deserves my undivided attention, it should be Greg.

Technology today is such a blessing, enabling us to chat to those far away for practically nothing. It makes them feel so much closer to us. It just makes communication that much easier. Maybe it makes it too easy, when you think about these situations of being with friends in real life. I don’t know. This is just what I’m thinking currently.