This Day in History

This is going to be my new Friday thing, so each Friday look forward to expanding your history knowledge. I promise to keep it interesting :)

So on March 25...

• 421 – Venice, Italy is born at twelve o'clock noon, according to legend.
• 1199 – Richard I is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France, leading to his death on April 6.
• 1306 – Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scotland.
• 1409 – The Council of Pisa opens.
• 1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia.
• 1634 – The first settlers arrive in Maryland.
• 1655 – Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.
• 1802 – The Treaty of Amiens is signed as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace" between France and the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• 1807 – The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
• 1807 – The Swansea and Mumbles Railway, then known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes the first passenger carrying railway in the world.
• 1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.
• 1821 – (Julian Calendar) Greece revolts against the Ottoman Empire, beginning the Greek War of Independence.
• 1865 – American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces temporarily capture Fort Stedman from the Union.
• 1894 – Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C.
• 1903 – Racing Club de Avellaneda, one of the big five of Argentina, is founded.
• 1908 – Clube Atletico Mineiro is founded in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
• 1911 – In New York City, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers.
• 1917 – The Georgian Orthodox Church restores its autocephaly abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811.
• 1918 – The Belarusian People's Republic is established.
• 1924 – On the anniversary of Greek Independence, Alexandros Papanastasiou proclaims the Second Hellenic Republic.
• 1931 – The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.
• 1939 – Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII.
• 1941 – The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers with the signing of the Tripartite Pact.
• 1947 – An explosion in a coal mine in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.
• 1948 – The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
• 1949 – The extensive deportation campaign known as March deportation is conducted in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to force collectivisation by way of terror. The Soviet authorities deport more than 92,000 people from the Baltics to remote areas of the Soviet Union.
• 1957 – United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" on the grounds of obscenity.
• 1957 – The European Economic Community is established (West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg).
• 1958 – Canada's Avro Arrow makes its first flight.
• 1965 – Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.
• 1969 – During their honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono hold their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (until March 31).
• 1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War: Beginning of Operation Searchlight by the Pakistan Army against East Pakistani civilians.
• 1975 – Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by a mentally ill nephew.
• 1979 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
• 1988 – The Candle demonstration in Bratislava is the first mass demonstration of the 1980s against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
• 1992 – Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth after a 10-month stay aboard the Mir space station.
• 1995 – WikiWikiWeb, the world's first wiki, and part of the Portland Pattern Repository, is made public by Ward Cunningham.
• 1996 – An 81-day-long standoff between the anti-government group Montana Freemen and law enforcement near Jordan, Montana, begins.
• 1996 – The European Union's Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy).
• 2006 – Capitol Hill massacre: A gunman kills six people before taking his own life at a party in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.
• 2006 – Protesters demanding a new election in Belarus, following the rigged Belarusian presidential election, 2006, clash with riot police. Opposition leader Aleksander Kozulin is among several protesters arrested.

Special thanks go Wikipedia.org for all the info.

"The best thing about Wikipedia is that anybody can write anything they want, so you know you're getting the best information." - Michael Scott

Mexico fact and quotes

There is a more serious post to come later, but here is the lighter side of our trip :)

• Mexican vanilla is far superior to any other vanilla (and way cheaper as well) :)

• Roosters really crow at sunrise. And not just then either. Really they crow all day.
• "I don't know what that is on my plate, but it just jumped." - Logan Koontz
• Everything is very brightly colored. Say goodbye to dully colored houses when you cross the border and welcome the hot pinks and sky blues (with a very brightly colored orange sprinkled here and there).
• "Hasta Manaña" - Efrain, one of the kids at our VBS on the last day. I explained to him that we would be returning to the US the next day, so there would be no VBS, but still as he walked into his house he still called out "hasta manaña" to us.

this is me with Efrain and his cousin Thelma

• It can rain in the desert. It can also go from 80 degrees to 40 degrees in a matter of hours because of the rain.
• There is no such thing as OSHA.

very safe

• "We almost didn't make it!" - me, at the bucket list summit (how ironic)
• As soon as you cross the border, you can tell you are not in Kansas anymore...or Texas in our case (especially since Kansas does not share a border with Mexico).
• Just because you speak with a Mexican accent doesn't mean you speak Spanish...
• There are no driving rules. On our last day there I was driving down an un-striped highway and yes, I just drove in the middle of the rode. Also going 120kph in an 80kph zone is perfectly acceptable.
• Duck, Duck, Goose, or Pato, Pato, Ganzo is very popular across the border.

• You can run out of water. Girls were taking showers and the water just stopped. Also if you get a hot shower you are very lucky.
• You can't flush toilet paper (same as China)
• "Aunque no marche..." - Everyone, but especially Katie
• There is only 1 gas station - the Oxxo - and they have great coffee and Manzana (said in my Mexican accent!)
• Everyone, and I mean everyone, can cook good rice, beans, tacos and tamales. It is probably a requirement of being Mexican.
• They have advertisements (just like the US) to live without drugs (vive sin drogas!).

Spaghetti and Meatballs

This recipe is courtesy of the Pioneer Woman, I was too lazy to take photos, so I 'borrowed' the final picture from her, and if you want more you can just visit here. These are probably the best spaghetti and meatballs I've ever had :)

picture courtesy of the pioneer woman

Ingredients

• Meatballs:
• ¾ pounds Ground Beef
• ¾ pounds Ground Pork
• 3 cloves Garlic, Minced
• ¾ cups Fine Bread Crumbs
• 2 whole Eggs
• ¾ cups Freshly Grated Parmesan
• ¼ cups Flat-leaf Parsley, Minced
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper
• Splash Of Milk
• ½ cups Olive Oil
• Sauce:
• 1 whole Yellow Onion, Diced
• 3 cloves Garlic, Minced
• 1 whole (28-ounce) Can Whole Tomatoes
• 1 whole 28 Ounce Can Crushed Tomatoes
• ½ cups White Or Red Wine (optional)
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• 1 teaspoon Sugar
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper
• ¼ cups Flat-leaf Parsley, Minced
• 8 whole Fresh Basil Leaves, Chiffonade (optional)
• 2 pounds Spaghetti, Cooked To Al Dente

Preparation Instructions

To make the meatballs, combine meat, garlic, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, eggs, salt, pepper, parsley, and a splash of milk in a mixing bowl. Mix together well with hands. Roll into 25 1 1/2-inch balls and place on a cookie sheet. Place cookie sheet into the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes to firm up.

To brown the meatballs, heat olive oil in a heavy pot or large skillet over medium-high heat. Add meatballs 8 at a time, turning to brown. Remove and drain on a paper towel after each batch. Set meatballs aside.

In the same pot, add the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes, or until translucent. Pour in whole tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, and wine, if using. Add salt, pepper, sugar, and parsley. Stir to combine and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes.

Add meatballs to pot and stir in gently. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, stirring very gently a couple of times during the simmer.

Just before serving, stir in basil if using.

Serve over cooked spaghetti. Sprinkle with extra Parmesan.

Fried Egg Sandwich

So I'm back! Mexico was awesome and I'll post about that as well, but I'm doing thing in order, so this comes first.

Ingredients:

1 Bread

1 Egg

1/2 slice of cheese

Chipolte Mustard

Ranch Seasoning

Butter

This is usually all I use for breakfast in the morning, but you can always use more if you'd like.

1. Melt some butter in a pan. After it's melted fry the egg (good luck not breaking the yolk, I always suck at this) and season with the ranch seasoning (just use however much you want/need).

2. Toast the bread with the cheese on it.

3. Spread some Chipolte Mustard on the bread.

4. Then after the egg is done cooking put it on the bread and eat it. Easy and delicious :)

Adios!

Or maybe "hasta luego" is more appropriate because I'm not leaving for good, but only for a week.

¿Why? (¿por que? I'm promise not to do this the whole post...)

Because...porque...

Estoy yendo a Mexico! (or I'm going to Mexico)

That's why I won't be here. But be prepared when I get back (Friday, March 19) for lots of pictures and stories.

70ish of us from CBC are going are going to partner with a local church across the border, and I'm really excited to see how Father is going to use me and our team during our time overseas.

During our time there we will be painting the church in the morning and in the afternoon we'll be holding a VBS, or EBV en espanñol =), for orphans in the city we´ll be in. It's gonna be a great trip, and interesting because I've been practicing mi español and it usually only comes to me in Chinese.

So, you have a week of waiting, followed by lots of posts (there are several things I've been needing to blog about but haven't had time/have been recovering from my school death week). I hope everyone enjoys their spring break and I´ll see y´all in a week!!!

So I should be writing a paper...

Ugh! School has taken over my life these last couple of days (thanks to my surprise Chinese midterm), hence the lack of posts. Tonight, however, I was desperate to get away from the books for just a second (probably because if I don't, I will lose my mind, or it might explode from all of the info I've been cramming into it in the past two days). So I'm writing this blog/making coffee in a french press/chasing roaches with a broom and locking it in the bathroom until Shane comes over to kill it.

Here is what my life has been filled with for the last 48ish hours:

Pocket dictionary? Really? I'm not quite sure who's pocket this fits into, but certainly not mine (extra perky/drugged look thanks to all the caffeine I've been inhaling to keep me awake)

Sarah hard at work making money off surveys :)

Ingrid Michaelson station is the best. It's the only thing (other than the caffeine) keeping me awake/motivated.

French press coffee with Dulce de Leche creamer...nothing better. Well, maybe an oreo java shake from Sweets, but nothing else...

Flash cards to help me memorize all my vocab words. Special thanks to Chelsea P. Thomas for quizzing me on every single one of them.

Writing characters...right now I hate Chinese. At least until tomorrow and then I'll be over it (unless I failed my test then I might be mad again).

What I'm working on right now. At least this paper only needs to be 4-6 pages. I can totally pull that off in one night...

a Michael Scott experience

Let me just say eating a lot of carbs before a run is a bad idea...

for those of you who aren't familiar with the office here you go:

In my previous post I gave you the recipes for pizza and macaroni casserole that my roommates and I made for our roommate dinner. Shortly following our dinner (like 30 minutes later) Sarah and I headed off to campus to participate in a 5K fun run, GLOW, to help support an orphanage in Honduras (actually a real charity and not a race for the cure of rabies...). At first we decided to walk, because we had just eaten, but then for some unknown reason (actually I remember now, Texas weather is bipolar and it was freezing!!!) we decided to run.

And we start. After stocking up on some free emergen-c and checking in to get our shirt and number, we head off. 1st mile: done! And easy (it was my first real run back after my marathon and I was so glad to be back and in my new running shoes!)

Well, if you do watch The Office, and happen to see what happens to Michael later on during the run, you know it's not pretty. Combined with his carbo-loading, he also didn't drink any water. Similar to his experience, we drank Dr. Pepper beforehand with our dinner. Needless to say our stomachs hated us about a half mile later and it wasn't the best 3.1 miles ever run (although we did make pretty good time despite our amateur mistake...).

So word of advice, don't follow Michael Scott's example.