Pardon my french, but I felt extremely moved to share this article written by a peer of mine.
I first met Hannah Billings during the time that I served as the Student Government’s Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion during my senior year (2011-2012) at Virginia Tech. She was also on SGA Exec, and while we didn’t cross paths often, I definitely knew who she was just by virtue of her exceptional work with Hokies on Fire, a student initiative to get students pumped up about Hokies basketball!
All of this was part of the reason I was kind of surprised but moreso honored that she Facebook messaged me one morning to see if she could interview me for an article for her magazine writing class. I was happy I had some extra time on my calendar that night, and I wasn’t sure where the conversation would go, but I wanted to help Hannah out with her article. If I’m being honest it felt a lot like sitting on Oprah’s couch:
Seriously…look at those orange heels. Mrs. Obama has my vote any day. And if I was President, my socks would NOT be black. Just saying.
He feels that he has been given an amazing life, and he wants to be the motivation for others to know that they can do whatever it is that they want to do. He wants some form of, “do whatever the hell you want,” on his tombstone when that day comes.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
-Calvin Coolidge
The 30th President of the United States of America
At Virginia Tech, a new Facebook page has really caught on for all the right reasons. Well, it’s actually been around for months but I’m really only just getting around to writing this blog post and taking the time to recognize someone else on it – I’m all about spreading the wealth.
The story that I’d like to share is depicted in the pictures below — Weeks ago, someone had made a post on VT Compliments about me. I’ve kept it saved on my desktop as a little piece of inspiration on tough, long days.
And, like I said before, I really felt the need to return the favor. I didn’t have an Actively Caring wristband on me this particular day, so I decided to return the spirit in a different way – via VT Compliments.
Well obviously to go along with the Homemade Chicken Curry recipe that Kristin created, we had to have dessert! This recipe was inspired by something I saw over Winter Break, and honestly – I can’t really remember where it was. BUT I do use an app called GoTasks to keep track of my day to day to-do list on my iPhone, and I even keep a running grocery list as well as a list of recipes that I would like to try. So one of the first things that I suggested we bake was this recipe!
We scoured the internet and found the recipe that we liked best, from goodcook.com. This was one of the more simple recipes that also included pre-made cake mix, but we still tried to jazz it up a bit, as you’ll see.
Prep Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 34 mins
Ingredients:
1 Betty Crocker Super Moist Chocolate Fudge cake mix (1 lb. 2.25 oz.)
1 1/3 cups Water
1/2 cup Vegetable oil
3 Large eggs
1 Butterscotch chips, 11 oz. package (divided)
12 tbsp Unsalted butter (room temperature)
5 cups Powdered sugar (more or less as needed)
1 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup Evaporated milk (more or less as needed)
Tips and Directions: Cupcakes
1.Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line two cupcake pans with paper liners and set aside.
2.Place cake mix in a large bowl. Add water, oil and eggs and beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 2 minutes, scraping sides of bowl if necessary. Fill cupcake pans 2/3 full. Place a teaspoon of butterscotch chips (about 6 chips) in the center of each cupcake, pressing lightly to cover with batter. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.
Frosting
1. Meanwhile, warm remaining butterscotch chips and evaporated milk in the microwave, stirring every 30-60 seconds until melted. Cool at room temperature for approximately 20 minutes or in the freezer for approximately 10 minutes. Place butter in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in butterscotch and milk mixture until well mixed. Add powdered sugar and cocoa powder a little at a time until light and fluffy but thick enough to hold its shape. Add a bit more powdered sugar if frosting is too soft or evaporated milk if frosting is too stiff. Cover until ready to use.
Tips You can bake all 24 cupcakes and freeze half for later. Cooled, unfrosted cupcakes wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in a resealable plastic bag can be frozen for up to 2 months. Extra frosting can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
After preparing the batter, Kristin had the great idea to pipe it from a bag so that it was a lot less messy. Obviously you cut the corner off for piping…GREAT TIP!The recipe calls for about six chips per cupcake but…Kristin thought they could definitely use a few more. ;) Make sure you put a bit of batter on top of chips, as the recipe calls for.While the cupcakes are baking, start on the frosting – melt the butterscotch chips with evaporated milk. Kristin didn’t follow the recipe at this point, but the frosting was WAY better for it by infusing the butterscotch flavor into the frosting.This is how the cupcakes looked after baking.Flip them on their sides so that they don’t keep cooking – this is a great alternative to not having a traditional cooling rack. While they are cooling, continue working on the frosting…“Where’s Charlotte!??!”
A part of the impetus for making these cupcakes was as part of a thank you to Karen, Julianne, and Rachel for dog-sitting Charlotte while I was in New York for four days last month. Julianne already got hers and verified their awesomeness. Karen and Rachel: you better hurry up before Kristin, myself, and Charlotte eat all of them!
Kristin in the process of piping the frosting over the cupcakes…that frosting is AMAZING, ps.
The final product!
Not quite as awesome as the peanut butter banana cupcakes we made last time around but…still worthy. :)
Well, we are finally getting the food blog rolling! Any recipe that is shared here is going to focus on either one of two things: either it was a meal that my girlfriend and I REALLY enjoyed (probably at a restaurant) OR it’s something that we both just had a taste for and wanted to try. Either way, we are going to try to make things that are EASY and don’t take a whole lot of time. We are both pretty busy and don’t have nearly as much time (as we did in the summer, for example) to kill in the kitchen, so we gonna try things that are pretty quick.
I’m not really THAT big of a fan of Indian food, which is where I’ve most commonly had any kind of curry. For the most part I really enjoy Naan, but that’s about it. Over Winter Break, Yen and I tried Rasika in Washington D.C., but I have to admit – they were a bit more pricy than I really thought it was worth. So when Kristin recommended that we have a chicken curry dish for dinner I was ecstatic – here’s the recipe for the Thai (Pineapple) Chicken Curry recipe that we tried. It’s adapted from a recipe we tried earlier this summer, except this time we left out the pineapple.
Thai Pineapple Chicken Curry
Ingredients:
¼ cup red or green curry paste (and more to taste)
1 can coconut milk
1 boneless chicken breast halves cut into cubes
3 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs brown sugar or ¼ white sugar
bamboo shoots or diced celery
red bell pepper diced
green bell pepper diced
carrots diced
½ onion chopped
1 cup pineapple chunks drained
Prep Time (cutting chicken, whisking): 10 minutes
Cook Time (boiling, fine tuning): 25 minutes
Coconut milk and curry is the base for the recipe, but once you have these two you can really add any kind of protein or veggies that you would like (for example, we wanted it extra spicy so we added red pepper flake and ground red pepper).This is what we added – chicken, steam fresh asian veggies, fish sauce (common in Thai food), and some other spices).
Instructions & Tips:
1. Stir together curry paste and can of coconut milk until well blended. Add to saucepan, then add chicken, fish sauce, and sugar. Bring to boil 15 min
The curry paste & coconut milk boiling.You actually add the chicken raw, and it cooks as the rest is boiling.Then add the vegetables – we microwaved them while chicken was boiling so they wouldn’t be so cold when you add them.
2. Add vegetables to pan. Continue cooking another 10 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Stir in pineapple. Serve over rice.
As you can see, we omitted the pineapple (we just didn’t have any) and served over rice (pictured below).
Libraries really aren’t just a place where you go “shhh!, it’s a library!” Over the past year I’ve had the fantastic opportunity to work with Brian Mathews, Associate Dean for Virginia Tech University Libraries, on providing input on what will result in a dramatic transofmration and renovation of Virginia Tech’s main library, Newman Library. I didn’t really have much experience with university libraries as an undergrad but realized that I would be utilizing their services much more as I transitioned into becoming a graduate student.
I didn’t spend a whole bunch of time there until an old high school classmate, Alisha, told me about how she wanted to major in Library Science. I had no idea what library science was so I decided to look up more about it and thereby get more engaged with the libraries at my university.
Libraries really are transitioning into a place that is all about services. They used to be a place that primarily consisted of stacks and stacks of books, but now they are becoming a space and place that must be comfortable and user-friendly. As I wrote in a paper for a class, Assessment in Student Affairs, last semester (Fall 2012), the real transformative libraries are beginning to benchmark themselves against spaces that, on the surface, have nothing to do with education – like hotel lobbies.
This Monday, there was a **fantastic article in the Roanoke Times about the renovation that has been happening with Virginia Tech’s University Libraries. I definitely invite you to check it out. The article highlights some of the great work they’re doing, especially the fact that it’s now 24 hours M-T, which I really take advantage of (shout out to the SGA (Student Government Association) Leaders that helped to make that happen!). They also have some very eye opening statistics along the left side bar.
I really don’t.
To learn more about Brian, who I’ll also be working with this summer in developing a library-services based curriculum, visit his blog through the Chronicle of Higher Education here.
** At the time of publishing this blog (March 6th) the link to the article is not working for some reason. I’m not sure why, but I hope it works soon – I’ve even tried accessing the story via Google search and it appears to be an issue on the Roanoke Times side.
“The things we see everyday are the things that we never see at all.”
WHAT A QUOTE.
I was really impressed by the power of that quote which was just shared with me through a group presentation during my Tuesday class, “College Student and the College Environment.” Think about that but more importantly, FIGHT IT. Try to break out of it. Like that Coca Cola video I shared a few weeks back, try to take a moment and recognized the environment around you.
When you really appreciate what’s around you … that’s when the magic happens. That’s when you live life. But that’s just my opinion.
This blog is dedicated to the students in Montgomery County Public Schools. I’m hopeful that some of the students from the schools I’ve been able to visit read this (Blacksburg Middle School, Auburn Middle School, Christiansburg Middle School, and soon, Shawsville Middle School). To you students who read this post: think about the importance of friends, community, caring for one another (even strangers, too!), and following your passion, no matter where that may lead you and no matter what others may suggest.
——–
One thing I can’t get over is how often people suggest, to me, that I just stayed here in Blacksburg for graduate school because of various reasons:
You drank the Hokie Kool-Aid
You wanted to continue your undergraduate experience into graduate school
You knew nothing else – why would you move on? It’s all you’ve ever known
When I hear these things, two things are very obvious: they don’t know me very well, and they don’t understand what I value in the least bit. As of late, I have been even more likely to share, gladly, proudly, and widely, the reason I wanted to stay here.
Community.
When graduation came last May, I was living strongly and confidently in my motto, “life is all about what you do for other people.” I was continuing to not just meet one new person everyday, but to engage with them and learn about them. I truly felt as if I had more to offer this community that was fantastic, amazing, and beautiful.
I’ve said before, in a previous blog post, that my primary reason for staying at Virginia Tech for my Masters in Higher Education was one thing: community. And to be honest, it’s not even the Virginia Tech community. It’s the community that I get to see when I walk into Harding Avenue Elementary School every week. It’s the community that I got to see by sitting on the couch of a local family last Sunday talking with them about adopting their future daughter from the Dominican Republic. It’s the community that I got to see at Auburn Middle School in Riner last semester.
It’s the community that I get to FEEL and see when I walk into Kroger to just grab a gallon of milk, but get stopped by two parents who are thanking me for speaking in an assembly at their kid’s school. It’s the other parents who are colleagues at the university who thanked me for my service to their children at another school. It’s the relationship with my little brother that I got to establish through Big Brothers Big Sisters. And it’s the community that I got to see last week in Blacksburg Middle School as I spoke to them in another assembly, about not bullying, understanding the differences of others, and appreciating them all at the same time.
In a perfect world (at least what is my ‘perfect’ this week, because let’s be real – it changes on the daily) I would get to travel the world and speak motivationally about not letting my disability stop me and about Actively Caring. But since you don’t get to make a living off of that (yet), my sights are currently set in providing leadership training and service orientation to students in higher education who don’t yet understand the power of those two ideas.
But even as I position myself to be able to speak in an informed way to others about those ideas, it’s messages like those below that remind me that, even still, I’ve got much to learn about the impact that you can truly make on other people when given the opportunity. It can be a small gesture, or it can be a big gesture but little things like taking the time to say thank you, and genuinely caring about someone’s emotions and feelings are paramount to making others feel included.
Amy’s e-mail made my day and made me even more excited to talk with the kids at BMS.
One word: inspired.One more word: inspired.
Over the past week, I have had numerous Virginia Tech staff, Tech students, community members, and otherwise approach me about the talks at the Blacksburg Middle last week. Needless to say, I am so appreciative that the Actively Caring team chose ME to help continue inspiring these students toward leading their lives in an Actively Caring way.
