Ginger and Coriander Tea

For half of this past week, I was stressing about a presentation for my final production project.  I've always been nervous about presentations, but whereas previous presentations that I've done at university have been for projects that I have done during that past semester and a demonstration of what's in the website and how it works, this presentation was a pitch to a class of about 21 for a website that I was proposing to make as part of a group for our final projects.  In the past couple of weeks, I've also been worrying quite a lot that my web design skills are not sufficient and that I'm not getting enough good grades.  The former may be helped via a series of tutorials on YouTube that one of my coursemates has now suggested, and the latter has now been helped by an unexpected good grade on a project I'd thought I'd done really badly in.  During the presentation itself, I was very nervous and my prepared speech did not line up very well with the detailed Powerpoint presentation I'd produced, but one of the others said that I'd had plenty of information in the presentation.  To recover afterwards, I went to Elina's for lunch (some very nice tomato pasta) and curled up for a bit.  On Thursday, I was then placed into a group to create a website called Brass Band Live, which will be a hub of resources, news, interviews, reviews, etc. for brass bands around the country.  My homework for the weekend is to learn how to use the Bootstrap framework, watch lots of tutorials on YouTube, and make a draft visual design template for the front-end of the website.

At BUSOM this week, I continued to try to sort out costumes on Tuesday and extracted a few items from the society's costume boxes, including two Muse skirts used in Little Shop of Horrors (main show, March 2014) and a pair of sunglasses with sideburns used in The Rocky Horror Show (24 hour show, October 2014), and acted as a stand-in on Thursday during the acting rehearsal.  The scene where I cameo as a "Minion" (no, not the annoying yellow thing), who acts as a computer mouse/cursor and moves characters around the stage during a dream sequence, was in the scenes rehearsed last night, but I'll only be learning my choreography for this when another song is learned.

At Archery yesterday, I learned from Owen that because I'm using a lower poundage bow (18lb 66in), I need to aim higher when shooting.  Normally, a lot of my arrows end up going under the target and onto the floor, but after this tip, a lot more of them hit the target yesterday, and I even scored a 3, 5 and 8 in one end!  However, I also need to learn to bend my arm more and move my armguard higher up my arm because the bowstring slapped my arm a couple of times and I now have a couple of bruises on my left arm.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Anna's birthday party which is a tea and craft party at another friend's house (the friend whose birthday it is has already graduated and lives in another town).  We've been told to bring a cup, a teapot if we can (so we can have several different teas going around the group), a type of tea, and a craft to do.  If there's the space available in the kitchen, I'm thinking of making this super-simple tea recipe that I found in Hidden Kitchens of Sri Lanka by Australia-based Bree Hutchins, a freelance travel and food photographer who travelled around Sri Lanka for 2 months in 2013 and took up residence in many Sri Lankan locals' kitchens to learn recipes from them and about their individual cultures and traditions.  Later this year, I'll be discussing Sri Lanka more and finding more curry recipes, but this is the only one for now.  This tea is said to have health benefits, including as treatment for colds.

Ingredients (serves 4)

50g (1.75 oz/heaped 1/2 cup) coriander seeds, washed
40g (1.5 oz) piece ginger, roughly sliced
sugar, to taste

Instructions

1. Mix together the coriander seeds and ginger in a saucepan with 1 litre (35 fl oz/4 cups) water.
2. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
3. Strain and add sugar to taste, stir well and serve.