Fall 2023 winter break wrapup

2024-01-11

This winter break I did a few things.

Things I cooked

  • Made potato soup with mushrooms and broccoli
Three attempts

Potato soup with mushrooms

▲ First attempt with mushrooms

Gooey mixture of potato and broccoli

▲ This hardly looks like soup

Potato soup with broccoli

▲ Refined attempt

Note: I imitated the "cream of mushroom/broccoli soup" in dining halls but mine was less creamy, probably because I used milk instead of cream. I made it like four times in giant portions until I got sick of it and just cooked pasta.

  • Tried mixing corn with flour and frying a crispy "corn cake" but just resulted in very greasy corn (also caused kitchen sewage pipe to break because I poured hot oil down there)

PVC pipe under garbage disposal breaking at a 90 degree connector

  • Roasted tomatoes, carrots, and bell pepper, as well as leftover potatoes and mushrooms I couldn't cook because the pipe broke

Things I learned

  • How to ice skate
  • Rust
  • How the fork and dup2 syscalls work
  • How to open a pipe (POSIX, not physical)

Things I saw

  • A bunny

Grey bunny chilling in the grass

  • Steamboat Willie
  • Tom Scott's goodbye video

Things I gained

  • FCC ham radio license

I talked with a person over the W8UM repeater and later participated in the net. I was nervous as fuck but handled just fine

  • A free eggs coupon, when I came back home with a carton of eggs I just bought at full price
  • A jug of tea for $1 despite the $3 price because the barcode was missing

Things I lost

None to my knowledge so far.

Things I played

Things I read

  • Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. U of Chicago Press, 1987. Probably chapter 8-14

Things I wrote

Conclusion

I fulfilled a few life goals this winter (e.g. ham radio license). While some friends did, I never went out of town. Mostly I stayed at home and only took the bus to the supermarket or to the ice rink. I did absolutely nothing festive on Christmas or the new year. However, when winter break began, I cracked open a soda because I am not yet at drinking age.

Overall rating: 75/100