Early Spring

Yesterday, I went to my very first Yoga class. It was difficult, but I liked it. The teacher was very helpful, and I learned a lot. He spoke mostly German, but when I was exceptionally confused, he used English too. I'm going to go to Yoga every Friday evening. I'm thinking about adding it to my Wednesday too, but right now it's so exhausting that I don't know if I can do it more than one day a week. I already run about 10 miles a week on the elliptical and strength train 3 times a week. I really like that gym. I would also like to take the Stretch class on Mondays. I want to start out slowly though. I am not a crazy exercising machine, and I don't want to injure myself by being overzealous.

This week I made the most delicious stir fry. I started with a large head of broccoli, 2 carrots, about 250g mushrooms, 2 small onions, 2 large garlic cloves, 1 pound chicken breast, 1 bell pepper, ground black pepper, ground red chillies, cumin, olive oil, Indian curry paste, peanut butter, and soy sauce. It was phenomenal!!! I chopped up everything, which took forever, and then started cooking. I started by heating olive oil in a wok. After it was good and hot, I tossed in the chicken and cooked until white on all sides. I added the mushrooms and garlic and let it cook until the mushrooms released their water. In case you didn't know, mushrooms squeak a lot when you cook them without oil. I had a very squeaky pan until they released all their water. I let the chicken and mushrooms cook in the mushroom water for a few minutes. I added the black pepper, red chillies, and a bit of cumin and stirred it all together and let it cook a bit longer. I then added all the veggies and let it cook for a little bit before adding two heaping spoons of Indian curry paste and a big spoon of natural peanut butter. I stirred it all together and let it cook until the broccoli was a lovely green and the carrots were just starting to soften. It was heavenly. I do believe the peanut butter was the key to that dish because, I've made it many times and never has it tasted so good.

I realized yesterday that I went to my final class of winter semester. I remember when I thought the end of this semester would never come. I've learned a lot about myself since then. I remember when I met Jay in Holland, he said that I seemed different somehow. He couldn't point it out then, but when we met in Frankfurt, he knew what it was. I had matured considerably while away. I have learned to accept failure. I will not pass my classes from this semester no matter how hard I work. I'm okay with that because I would prefer a quality education, and I'm not getting one of those here.