Happy August! And just like that a month has gone by since my last update. I have mostly spent a lot of my time working, but I did go back home last week for Sisi’s wedding! It was really nice to see everybody again and reconnect with friends back home. It also happened to be on my birthday weekend so getting to celebrate with family was really nice. It was a really really great way to break up the day to day of living alone. I’ve otherwise have been working a lot, sleeping a lot. Stuart invited friends over, then they went on vacation, then they came back, and then one of the spiders violated the treaty so I had to kill it. After that, Stuart moved out and I haven’t seen him since… I also made some yummy food, tried some yummy food, and met a new kitty friend in the unit next door. Also, I extended! Big news.

The last Stuart saga

So last time Stuart went missing, but he eventually returned, and just like how I invited friends over without consulting him first, he invited some of his spider friends over without consulting me first. T__T;; Stuart was keeping to his corner, but then a second spider appeared over the door frame. Then not long after, another spider showed up over the door frame! I got really nervous since I didn’t want to keep letting more and more spiders live in my bathroom…

But then one of the spiders migrated to the shower and then it came into the shower when I was using it. That’s it buddy you know the rules! I gave it a few warning splashes of water then smushed it in front of Stuart. It felt a little cruel, but I was not about to let there be spiders in my shower.

The next day all the surviving spiders were gone and they haven’t been back. I don’t blame them, though.

New bug problem

Unfortunately some sort of strange change in season has brought on a really weird new bug problem—crickets!! I don’t usually mind crickets, but the crickets here are MASSIVE. I remember coming home one night after work and seeing a big dark bug in the corner of my eye. It was so big I thought it was a cockroach! Turns out, it was a cricket, but like, super big.

Good thing I had ye olde trusty plastic cup to capture it and throw it back outside.

Sadly, that wasn’t the end of the saga.

I have since found multiple omega crickets both inside and outside the apartment. Mostly outside, but there was a night there were TWO. AHHHHH!!!!

Over the last week though, I’ve just been finding more and more crickets at my doorstep. I think they get stuck in the stairs going down and then they get trapped and aren’t very bright so they can’t get out and die. I already swept up like a dozen of them and there’s already 3 more dead ones at my doorstep.

There is actually an insane cricket population. I find them every single day. I wonder how long this will last…

Also, they chirp at night. But not enough to be annoying… yet.

Food related updates

Poor portion estimation

I made an enormous pot of fried rice by accident. I thought to myself, two cups of rice is about 4 bowls, that’s a good amount.

But I kind of didn’t take into account how that gets multiplied with every ingredient that I add.

I knew I had made a mistake once I combined everything and it was this much before I added rice. It ended up filling nearly my entire soup pot.

Now I know my lesson. I sent an email to my lab to help me eat it. And they did, very eagerly! And now when the church has a potluck I know how much I can reasonably make.

Ramen

I’ve now started dabbling in the appetizers available at the Ramen place. They’re not too bad! I think ramen is definitely their strength, though, hahaha. I’ve had their gyoza and shumai so far. I think they’re hand made, but they’re small pieces but many for sharing. They’re good extra filling if you want a little more than the bowl. I can barely finish them both then I am uncomfortably full for a bit.

Luckily it has been helpful to have that extra bit of fuel, my recent Thursdays have been really crazy at work, so having that extra bit of sustenance to get me by until I can get a break has been good.

Sushi

I hadn’t had sushi since my first day here, and it… wasn’t great sushi. HOWEVER Annapolis’s sushi scene has been redeemed. In any case, my coworker Christina recommended a sushi place near work called Yama Sushi, not to be confused with Yamazushi in Durham which is that $150/person sushi place. It was kind of an unassuming hole in the wall wedged between a yoga studio and a real estate office.

I got the chirashi, which is kind of my go-to when trying a new place to see how good their fish is. And it was good! Check this out:

Unusually though, it was served with 2 onigiri rice balls instead of over a bowl of rice. But you have to give it to them, their presentation was fantastic. The fish was really fresh and the rice ball was actually really good too! They put some furikake on top and it was still sushi rice seasoned. I’ll definitely be going back whenever I have the sushi craving, but since it’s kinda far from where I work I probably wouldn’t go unless I really really want some.

K.K.

Not much more needs to be said other than this photo:

Nobody knows who brought them in or why, but there were already two dozen that had been eaten because there were two more boxes in the trash from day shift. It lasted a couple days, and it helped me get through a night where I didn’t have much time to eat.

Gyudon

My old roommate, Eileen, used to make gyudon when we lived together and it was sooooo yummy. Probably like two months ago I asked for the recipe she used and she sent it to me and I FINALLY got around to making it! Behold:

It was so yummy! It’s probably the first time I cooked something for myself and I really (I mean, really) enjoyed it for how it tasted and not just because I needed something palatable to eat. I think a lot of the food I cook just doesn’t have a lot of heart in it because I’m just cooking for myself, because I have to eat, and not because I really enjoy it. But I think when I was making this I was really trying to channel my good memories of living with Eileen and really enjoying and loving the things she made and it really came out! Either that, or gyudon is just a lot easier to make ^^;; maybe both. I also added some gailan with a special oyster sauce my dad makes to really pull the meal together. The video recipe I linked above also shows you how to make the eggs in the dish! They’re really important for some extra flavor and eggy goodness. They’re onsen eggs and kind of like the Japanese form of poached eggs. Give it a try! Everything is really easy to do and come by in the Asian grocery store. I just used hotpot beef and it worked great.

Only minorly related

One of my coworker’s dad has a fruit and vegetable garden and she brought in this chonkin’ zucchini. Shenise decided to take the baby home (pictured here).

She said she was gonna make veggie noodles with it. I bet it made a lot.

Wedding!

Oh no I’m writing about a wedding and I still never published the wedding post for Justin and Lucy. I wonder if I’ll ever get around to finishing it or if it’ll just be a permanent draft. Or if I should just like publish it and just make it a huge photo gallery or something.

But anyway, I went home for Sisi & Matt’s wedding!! It was my first trip home since moving to Maryland and wow, it’s really a different feeling returning home than it is just living there… It was really wonderful to just see everyone and be with everyone again, something I think I really took for granted when I was at home. My brother also came home as well, for a wedding, but not the same wedding as the one I came home for. So it was good to see him again, however brief it ended up being since the weddings we were attending were on different days.

I don’t actually have any photos from the wedding besides this one:

Oh, and this one that I took of Howard “reheating” his steak over the candle flame…

It was a beautiful ceremony and just a nice reason for everyone to get together. I also got to spend time with everyone at PSALT the next night for a game night with TONS of new faces! And later Jasmine came over to hang out and see me off the next morning as I drove back to Maryland. It was just really really nice to see everyone and catch up in person, even though I do see some of them over Zoom fellowship when I am able to attend.

Birthday fun!

It also happened to be my birthday that weekend, so I requested my favorite dessert: Goodberry’s frozen custard cake! I usually get chocolate and raspberry half and half cake, but they didn’t have raspberry during the month of July so I opted for a chocolate and strawberry cake.

Now, when I say “half-and-half chocolate and strawberry cake,” I normally picture a two layer cake, with chocolate and strawberry layered, but clearly the cake maker that day used to work in a pizza shop, because when we opened the cake we were presented with this absolute masterpiece:

It made me laugh because we’ve gotten this cake before for the last two years and both times the cake has been layered chocolate and the second flavor. But I like to think the maker had a really heated argument on the interpretation of “half chocolate and half strawberry” and decided to make it like when you order “half pepperoni and half sausage” on a pizza. We had a good laugh, then cut the cake so we still got our half and half by cutting everyone a slice of chocolate and a slice of strawberry.

PSALT also surprised me with my favorite things: steak, sushi, and a Nantucket strawberry shortcake! They didn’t have a “9” candle, so I guess I’m 20 years old again. The sad part was I was still so full from a birthday lunch with family at Coquette I could barely eat it! I felt so bad, Tiffany even sous vide the steak… T__T;;

What else

How’s Tobi? He’s good. :) He’s really clingy now that I’m his only human. He always asks for some love and attention whenever I get home from work and it makes me feel bad that I want to just go to sleep by then!

And another friend! The unit next door has a kitty. I met it when I got home from work one night. It was standing in the window watching the world go by. I haven’t seen her since but she is really cute. She even had a cute little collar with a tiny bell on it. Hehe.

I was talking to her and then I realized their window was open, lol. The frame in front is a screen, and the frame behind is the actual window pane. So maybe some people heard me talking to their cat randomly in the middle of the night. But I think they were only here for a short stay, so they’re gone already. :(

Other than that, I think life is pretty good. I just have that feeling that I’m just where I need to be right now. I did find an opening for kind of this dream job and I applied to it today, but well the big news…

I EXTENDED MY CONTRACT

Took a while to decide but kinda going off that point from before, I definitely feel like I’m in the right place in this season. I think extending was the right thing to do, and I’ll just have to leave the dream job in God’s hands for now. Hopefully they don’t mind waiting until December for me to be available to work… The new end date for the contract is December 11! Then spend a few days packing and saying goodbyes, then move back home. Well, that’s the idea at least. We’ll see where we are when the time comes. :)

Until then,
Jasmin