113: Senses 6

Why do my photos always come out blurry?! The above looks like a still from a poor quality 70s movie. 

I thought I'd mix the header situation up again and include a snapshot of my week - this was taken on my phone whilst the boy and I were sat outside the student union, drinking tea and having a biccie (ok, that was me, the boy just had coffee!). 

On to this week. Only a day later than it should have been but, as the saying goes, Tori is lazy and un-organised.

As ever, expect lots of rambling and links...

Tori Saw, Read, Watched Etc.

Credit: Luke Sky

Reading has completely fallen by the wayside this week. I've made it no further through 'How To Be A Woman' and I'm not sure I'll actually finish it. Even though I like her style of writing - chatty, informal, familiar, funny, uninhabited and the rest - I tired of it fairly quickly. I've recently started 'Snow White Must Die' and took a dislike to something (one of those I-can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it uneasy feelings that make you not care to put any effort in. That and the fact I can't pronounce the German names which, really, shouldn't bother me but I feel like an idiot for not being able to!) therefore I've found it a struggle to make it through the first few chapters. I've thought about cutting my losses and starting another book but the three I have waiting for me are memoirs and a feminist text, which I'm more than certain I'll need my brain for, so it's probably best I keep at it for a while longer!

I watched the second episode of series three of American Horror Story (Coven) the other day and am sad to say it has yet to really grab and take hold of my attention. It took me ages to get through the episode because I kept pausing it to do other things (make tea, faff about, read things) and that is NEVER good - I should really just be sat there, enjoying myself and taking it all in. There's something about the casting that just doesn't sit well with me and that story seems a little rushed and thrown together. And random. Really random. I'm having the same problem with New Girl too. I'm not enjoying this series at all thanks to the uncomfortable-ness that is Winston's whiny, unfunny character development (why?!), Schmidt's general annoying-ness (he was SO funny too, what happened?) and Jess and Nick's awful together-ness! Lots of nesses. Not so much laughter. 

Internet stuffs

• This week I've been scrolling (and scrolling, and scrolling) through the backlog of Humans of New York photos I've yet to look at. If you don't already, be sure to follow along HERE. To find out more about the man beyond HONY, you can watch THIS VID.

BREAKING: Crime plummets as mysterious new crimefighter hits the streets.

• 10 YEARS OF MCFLY PEOPLE!! I remember seeing them, for the very first time, as support to Busted at Wembley (Belle was so little I picked her up so she could see!) at the mere tender age of 18. Crazy. Times. Here's 21 Reasons To Celebrate

• Deliciously Ella's very first cooking vid is up and it's a delight! Sweet Potato Brownies (I know, obsessed much with sweet pots, Tors?!!)

• As we are on YouTube (in case you didn't click, the above link takes you through to YT, I'm not just randomly throwing that out there), I must inform you that I spent much of Saturday evening trawling through it (properly, for the very first time) and came across the vlogger Bunny aka grav3yard girl. Now to those of you who are profesh YT'ers I'm sure you're already aware of her, but I've never seen anything of hers before and I think she is bloody fantastic and completely HILARIOUS. Not to everyone's tastes, I'd expect, but do give her a watch if you haven't before!

• I'm going to definitely be following this Kickstarter project - Equal Means Equal. Self-explanatory but please do head over and watch the trailer if you have a spare couple of minutes, it's a good make-you-think-er. Excitingly the project has already reached it's target which means Kamala has a chance to head to a few others places in the US to see what people there have to say about subject matters such as healthcare and female poverty (amongst many others). Can't wait to see the result. 

• 30 Non-Americans dish on the American norms they find to be (of course, charmingly!) wacky! (yes to the toilets, so bloody strange!!)

• Jamie Foxx. Many of you will know him as the guy who sang Gold Digger. Others might know him as the guy who won an Oscar for portraying Ray Charles in Ray. I know him as the guy who did this marvellous thing to the not-so-marvellous Brady Bunch theme song (and let me say, if you don't know the original, click here before you listen to his version!) Note to Dodge - hang on for the Luther and Prince impressions!!

• Buzzfeeds 'Kid who are being raised right'. Ummmm, YES number 14!!!

• Having joined Stop The Traffik at university I'm more aware of, and also tend to now search for, on a regular basis, articles about modern slavery. These are the ones that made their mark on me this week:

• This Study On Modern Day Slavery Will Enrage Anyone Who Cares About Human Rights

• Every Good Father - Anti Slavery Day 2013 (video)

• Police failing to deal with human trafficking misery 

• New global index exposes 'modern slavery' worldwide

• It's Friday in a Preston chicken factory...

New blogs found this week:

• Coco/Mingo (beautiful photography)

• Dipped in Rococo (oh wait, more beautiful photography!)

Tori Smelt

How beautiful is this image?! Credit: Kelven Ng

This section each week tends to coincide with my 'Tori Tasted' section below. Cooking new foods has meant lingering smells of squash (yum) and Madras (not so yum the day after!). 

I honestly have nothing else to talk about! 'Smell' is certainly the one sense I'm not very connected to. I don't tend to notice the scent of things - maybe I need to train myself to do so?! Oh hang on, apple crumble! Will that do?! The warming scent of cooked apples and sugar. Nom nom.

Do any of you find one sense isn't as attuned as the others you have? I really do find this a tough section to fill out! Maybe I should keep a smell diary? Would that be totally weird?! 

Tori Tasted

This week I tried out three, count em', THREE new recipes and they all turned out rather well! I didn't manage to get a snap of each one, but two out of three is better than nothing (although from the quality of those above, I'd say maybe that isn't actually true!). The picture on the right (I probably didn't need to point that out!) is of yesterday's baked asparagus risotto, adapted (as mentioned in my snapshots post yesterday) from this A Beautiful Mess recipe:

• I don't have a skillet so cooked it first in a normal frying pan and then transferred it across to an oven-safe dish

• I grated the garlic because I have no idea how to mince it and I don't have a crusher!

• I didn't buy parmesan (veggie) so I chucked cheddar in which is not the same AT ALL but did actually work!

• Oh, and I unintentionally cut the wrong end of the asparagus off *facepalm*

The other recipes I 'followed' was this One-pot Mushroom and Potato Curry (I didn't use the coriander, bleurgh!) one and this one for Roasted Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Lasagne. Now, the latter could have gone a lot worse than it did because this happened:

• I thought it said whole wheat lasagne sheets when what it actually says is whole wheat lasagne noodle sheets. No idea. 

• I forgot the shallot so used a red onion instead.

• I forgot the sage (I sense a theme) so used, well, nothing instead. 

• I didn't have parmesan (for the same reason as above) so used cheddar (again!)

• I guessed with timings. I hate waiting forever for food once I've started cooking so I popped the oven on 200C and took the squash et al out of the oven after 30 mins, mashed it and then used it straight away instead of waiting for it to cool (tut tut, such a recipe-ruiner).

• Oh, and I didn't pre-boil the lasagne because I hate doing it so the sheets were, ahem, a little crunchy!

Tori Felt

A pretty pattern atop Lucy's coffee yesterday at Divine, in the Galleries of Justice

• All kinds of body-temperatures thanks to the random weather we, in Nottingham, were met with this week. Rain, cloud, sun, sticky blah temps. How is one supposed to know how to dress?! Come on weather-gods, sort it out!!

• Confused by the over-my-head Psychology reading we've been set for my Cognitive Psychology module. Never having done any of it before, and being met with 120+pages of technical/scientific textbook pages (well, that's how it seems to me!), has made for a very overwhelmed Tori. I have no idea how to tackle it!

• Happy to have had the chance to meet up with two university friends for coffee on Saturday. Now the new uni year has begun we've realised how little time we get together (Lucy and I have no modules together, Jess and I just the one) so it was really nice to have a good old nattery catch-up about our courses and lives beyond them for the first time in months and months! I also got to meet Jess' daughter for the first time and, I have to say, she was a pleasure to spend time with. It's so long since I've been in the company of children (Jess' little-un is 3) and it is honestly something I miss. Their enthusiasm and zest (not to mention energy!) for life just can't help but be infectious! 

• Interested to see where my Physio is going to take me. I've recently started with a new physiotherapist and I can't tell you how relieved I am to have finally found one who understands my condition and can actually explain it. With real words and pointing at skeletons and everything! I've seen her twice now, last week and the one before, and am seeing her again next Wednesday, which is fantastic because regular appointments are SO important. The moves I've been given are tiny (my core and overall body strength, thanks to my having JHS, is pretty much zero) but I definitely have got muscle ache so I'm taking that to mean they are working (and that I'm not just doing the moves wrong. Again!)

Tori Listened To

Credit: Li Hui

Alongside many, many AM listens (preparing ourselves for the gig next Saturday, London here we come!) here are a few songs I've had on repeat this week:

• Frank Ocean - Super Rich Kids (for me the best thing to come out of The Bling Ring!)

• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Same Love

• Lorde - Royals (still can't decide if I like this or not despite the multiple plays!)

• CHVRCHES - The Mother We Share

• Pj & Duncan - Let's Get Ready to Rhumble (a bit of a joke but I had to include it because my boy, although he knew that PJ & Duncan and Ant and Dec are the same people, he never knew they were the 'rappers' behind this 90s 'hit')

• Morrissey - To Me You Are A Work Of Art (tribute to the boy, who this week bought two copies of Mozza's autobiography!)

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