Cinnamon-Bread House - the Pictures

I uploaded the pictures of the Cinnamon Bread House on my Picasa Web Album, they are on this URL: http://picasaweb.google.com/i.z.naja/CinnamonBreadHouse#

Also, another special addition to Gassia:
How to make Cinnamon Rolls: (courtesy Sheena & Lindley)
go to this website: http://www.gordonfamily.com/Recipes/cinnabon.htm
and also to find the unit conversion guidelines http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Cup-to-Gram-Conversions/Detail.aspx
They are not as difficult as they seem. And they don't have to be as perfect as the ones described; the ones Sheena and Lindley made were really really good and I don't think they were that picky on details. Just know that you should divide the work into 1. preparing the dough 2. preparing the filling and 3. preparing the icing

I want to see pictures of you Gassia making AND enjoying Cinnamon Rolls :)

Later entry: Gassia Anoshig, Sheena has uploaded the pictures of the Cinnamon Rolls and Cinnamon Bread that she and Lindley made :) She named the album "Cinnamon Rolls and Cinnamon bread for Cinnamon Girl !". They are on this link: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5528777&id=286103961#/album.php?aid=167690&id=286103961.
Have I told you that Sheena also loves Cinnamon rolls and Cinnamon bread - and in fact she is nicknamed Cinnamon Rolls :) And I have of course told her about you and she likes you because you are THE Cinnamon girl! :D

Lots of Updates

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY
Exams are over .......
so here are some updates of what has been going on since my last blog about Christmas dinner
Fleur came back on Friday Jan 2nd WITH A HAIRCUT lol her hair had grown and she waited till she went back home to have it cut
Sheena had her birthday party on Saturday Jan 3rd - I got her a neck key ring holder because she could never find her keys lol and also a cute pink bracelet ... I bought them off amazon before the Christmas vacation because I was afraid that they won't be delivered on time during the Christmas/New Year days off ... but I didn't have time (nor the wrapping paper) to wrap them properly :$ so I hand-made a wrapping package :D thank you Internet :P
Lindley left on Monday back to the US
I went back to uni on Monday 5th as well .... I wasn't that into going back because I had 3 weeks of vacation but also I had so much coursework to submit
Tuesday Jan 6th: I had a small quiz but it was worth 4% of a 20 credit module "Foundations of AI"- but it was about logic so it was easy and I got an A on it :)
Wednesday Jan 7th: I had to submit a program that is a 'medical expert'. It is worth 20% of a 10-credit module. We were supposed to acquire some medical knowledge and formulate it in rules and facts so that the program can deduce what disease a patient has given the symptoms. Of course I "elicited the knowledge" from my dad - which basically meant that I spent loads of money on International phone calls. I actually ran out of credit in the middle of a phone conversation so I emailed Tarek asking him to SMS dad and tell him to call me LOL. Also, every time I call home my dad asks about "his grade" and I keep telling that the grades are not out yet and that the knowledge is only worth 5% .....
Thursday Jan 8th: I had a group presentation which was worth also 4% of the Foundation of AI 20 credit course. We did better than the previous presentations but we still got a B ... Our group was so inefficient in all presentations, we were never able to produce any proper work and our meetings were very unproductive. Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes: "If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings”"
Friday Jan 9th: I had to submit a 2000 word essay on a topic I chose. It was worth 80% of a "Research Methods" module. I worked hard but kinda messed up the final part because I was sick of it. I chose Biometrics as a topic; something I was always interested in learning about but never had the time/bothered to actually do the reading. We had to use a 'professional' format so the final report was really cool, with an abstract, appendices, and a proper font! Made me feel like a true academic LOL :P
Monday Jan 11th: I had to submit a program and a report worth 25% of a 10 credit module. I worked on that a bit but the results produced were not as expected. I was very frustrated and sought the lecturer's help. We emailed each other a bit until he finally helped me sort things out and I was less frustrated. I submitted it but I wasn't very happy with it but I was glad it was over and done.
Tuesday Jan 12th (are you still reading? :P): I had to submit a report and a programming assignment worth 30% of the Foundation of AI 20-credit-module. That was the neglected coursework. I mean SERIOUSLY how can anyone cope to do all this. We had to do background research and write 1000 words about it then program something related to the research then do some reasoning about the topic. I worked on the background research and chose to code the simplest thing. But still, I didn't manage to finish it on Tuesday so I decided to submit it the next day even though I would be penalized 5%. I finished it and submitted it on Wednesday but I thought it wasn't that good. It is very clear that I rushed through it. Also, the 'reasoning' part was worth 35% of its grade and frankly I wasn't able to do any reasoning about the topic.

Oh well, done with the coursework ... on to the final examssssssssss

I had four final exams:
One on Wed Jan 21: was very long so there were some parts that I didn't manage to answer but was OK
One on Thurs Jan 22: was good, it was the easiest module so better results are obtained for less work :)
One on Tues Jan 28: was tricky, we were supposed to answer 2 out of 3 questions which I thought was soooo unfair given that we had to study 18 lectures!!!!! I was so pissed off the whole time I was studying it. Darko and I expected that we will get a Search question and a Probability question. I was 100% sure we will get a Search question and 90% sure we would get a Probability question. There were 5 lectures I decided not to study, two which I decided to read only, and the rest I studied but not that well. We did get Search but we DIDN'T get the Probability question!!! We got a Machine Learning question instead! But for me it was OK though it wasn't OK for Darko. He just told me that was the worst exam he ever sat for ... but I think he will survive :P.
The last final exam was on Wed Jan 29: That course was the hardest course. I was very very worried about that course since the first lecture. It was all about Maths. I was very good in Maths in high school but I kinda wasn't that interested in it in uni AND after four years of not taking any Math courses I had totally forgot EVERYTHING. So, I had to work double for that course, first refresh my high school Math knowledge and second try to understand the Chinese being spoken in class. But by the time I got to the exam most of the Chinese had turned into comprehensible English and there were only a few ideas which I didn't understand. I did OK on that exam. There were a few things which I didn't know. But, to my bad luck I noticed just about five minutes before the time was up that I copied a function from the test paper to my answer sheet incorrectly Oh NO! ... so instead of solving for a function I ended up solving for another function :( I hope not a lot of marks are deducted because of that !

What else?
Fleur's parents were here last week. They invited us over for dinner. Sheena and I couldn't stay long at Fleur's place because we had to study which was a shame because her parents are really nice and they are a great company. The food was good and the desert was GREAT :)
Speaking of desert, yours truly has gained A LOT of weight over Christmas and exam period :( :( :( All in all I have gained 5 kilos since I came to this country....SHSHSHSHS don't tell Mom and Dad!!! Dad would go crazy and Mom might end up crying. But, starting tomorrow NO MORE EXECUSES ... no exams and exam stress so no more binging on chocolate and loads of time to cook healthy and walk around for a bit ... keep your fingers crossed for me

Cinnamon-Bread House

Thursday Dec 25th: Sheena had been looking forward for Christmas Dinner for a long time now. She had decided that she wants to bake a Cinnamon-Bread House for Christmas for a while as well. I was also very excited about the idea because I have never seen anyone make a cake-house before. Sheena and Lindley cooked their Christmas Dinner and I cooked mine (oven-cooked chicken breasts and potatoes and if you must know I think I added some un-needed extra lemon juice :P lol). We all had dinner together with Arabic music playing from my laptop. Sheena loves listening to Arabic music but Lindley wasn't as impressed. Then it was finally time to put the dough in the oven and prepare the icing. The dough was baked in no time but the icing took at least half an hour of mixing (electric mixer) before it was ready to act as the glue of the house.
Lindley held the pieces together and Sheena applied icing between the 'walls' of the house to stick it together - and I was the designated camera-person. You could tell I had never seen anyone attempt to build a cake-house before - possibly because I took a little more than seventy pictures LOL. The house wouldn't stand still even though Sheena was very generous with icing - a bit too generous as she also iced Lindley's hand, the dining table, and the kitchen floor hehehe. It did stand short enough for us to take more pictures. We also decorated its surrounding, we made a garden using sugar candy and the fence using finger chocolate. Soon enough the house collapsed so we started eating it and it was GOOD! I think Sheena is a talented baker- so does she ;) she even joked that she wants to name her children Cinnamon Roll and Moldy Bread - or maybe it wasn't a joke :D

Lebanese Food :D yeeey

If you've never had Lebanese food then you don't know what you are missing. Our mezza and our variety of grilled meat makes up the staple Lebanese food that everyone adores. Apparently some English people know some of the mezza dishes but have no idea that it is Lebanese.

So, I have been here for three months and the only time I had a mezza dish was when I bought canned hommous (your hearts go out for me - I know :P). It was OK but not as good as the real thing. The reason I didn't have any Lebanese mezza dish - even though I love it so much - is because there are no Lebanese retaurants in Southampton :(. I had been nagging about it a lot lately and I even showed some pictures to my flatmates. They got interested in trying some out so we looked for Lebanese restaurants online. We found that the nearest one was in Bournemouth. We agreed to go during the vacation on the 23rd of December because on that day Lindley - Sheena's boyfriend - would be in Southampton. For the past few days all Sheena and I have been talking about was Lebanese Food. We were SO excited. I couldn't believe I was finally going and Sheena couldn't believe she was gonna be trying new food. I was hoping that the food would be good because it would be such a disappointment and waste if it weren't.

On the 22nd, I called the restaurant and made reservations - not that any was needed because it was a weekday but I wanted them to know that a real Lebanese was coming :P. I told some of my friends and Sarah we would have to drive to Bournemouth to have a meal, she answered 'Bournemouth, that's in the middle of nowhere England!" hehehe
The 23rd finally came. George asked me to check Google maps and see how long it will take us to get there. I did and it turned out that Bournemouth was 45 minutes away! "That food better be good", Sheena and I commented. We agreed to leave the dorms at 7:20. As always, we left 15 minutes AFTER the agreed on time - my Lebanese lack of respect to appointments was not the reason behind it :P. My flatmates and I never leave on the agreed on time :D
The car ride was quite. Everyone was quite and secretly hoping the food wouldn't turn out to be a disappointment. We got there and were seated. The manager was Lebanese but our waiter was Syrian. I handled the ordering because my flatmates wouldn't know anything. I ordered hummus, mtabbal, tabbouleh, vine leaves, fatayer sambousek cheese, and kebbi. I also ordered a mixed plate of grilled kafta, chicken tawouk, and beef meat. As Lebanese we always refer to these as: chicken, kafta, and meat. So when they asked me what I ordered and I replied meat I unconsciously thought that was clear enough. They had to ask me two time what I ordered before I realized that answering meat was not sufficient hehehe
The food came and it was amazing :D they loved all of it. George and Lindley didn't like the vine leaves but Sheena and I thought it was well nice. Then the grills were served and everyone was impressed as well :D By the time we finished we were very stuffed. To end it nicely we also had baklawa, it was amazing AND on the house - how cool was that? We decided we should go back there once again and Sheena and I agreed we have Valentine's meal there :P hehehehe

One last note, after the meal was over Sheena commented that Lebanese food is so good and that she couldn't believe I made it through three months without having any "I can now imagine how you were feeling. It must have been torture" she rightfully stated