Today I Appreciate Cooking Pizza By Myself while Listening to Loud Music

There are some days when you just need to cook. Today's been a day of writing, writing, writing and memorizing French. Assuaging an exhausted brain can only be remedied in one way: with mindless activity.

Cooking may not be the case for everyone. Cleaning, gardening, and organizing all seem like approximately equivalent tasks in terms of the amount of mental exertion/energy it requires. Cooking requires some motivation, of course,to create and use the side of one's brain that says "OK, Jenae, take this recipe step one, two, three, four until completion."

Following steps is a beautifully mind-numbing yet all-consuming task. Simply focusing on stirring over the stove top or chopping up an onion is a perfect and simple way to relax. I've been wanting to make homemade pizza for ages, staring at the pizza pan thrown in the cabinet with the other pots and pans, debating what to make and how to make it.

I made a really simple recipe (and used pre-made pizza dough, which definitely does not make me a very legitimately gourmet cook, but whatever) and... it was fun. I cooked for myself by myself and it was probably one of the most satisfying experiences I've had in a long time. See, I love to cook for other people and I love to entertain, but I love the lack of pressure in simply experimenting on a recipe for me. There are no expectations when I'm cooking for me. If I mess up, it's my own fault and I'm the only one who really has to suffer the consequences. I don't have to justify any culinary choices to anyone but myself. Sure, it's a little lonely in the kitchen knowing that you're the only feeding yourself, but finding happiness in autonomy and realizing that being alone does not necessarily equate to loneliness is beautiful.

Doing something like cooking by yourself, too, provides an opportunity to just be and not worry about other people's expectations of how you should act, too. I didn't have to worry tonight about maintaining a conversation while attempting to pay attention to the stovetop. All I had to do was stir, focus on the Franz Liszt I had playing at high volume in the background, and... create great food. It's funny how simple life can be when experienced all alone every once in a while.

Now here's the greater question: to continue my culinary conquests (how's that for some alliteration) with a batch of sweet potato and walnut muffins or no?

Today I Appreciate Antonin Dvorak

The day before traveling anywhere always makes me feel anxious. It doesn't matter where I'm going, but I somehow always suspect that something on a plane trip home will go wrong.

I'm returning to UCLA to begin my winter quarter and all day I've been unable to focus on any one task, stay still for long periods of time, or settle my thoughts that keep racing over the same worries. Then, there is that distinctive melancholic feeling of plucking shirts off the hangers in my childhood closet and folding them back into the suitcase for the dreaded plane ride tomorrow, unsure of when I'll return to the comforts and freeing irresponsibility of being home.

Of course, I must remember that while nestling into home is soothing, it's not real life. It's not advancing who I am and it's not necessarily helping me grow. I'm returning to school! University! I'm taking an intensive course load, I write a column every week for the paper, I help run the literary journal, and I'm preparing to teach an undergraduate student-taught course in the Spring. I'll be busy. Exciting, I think?

Yet even with my bipolar feelings about change, there's one man's stable lyricism that calms me through everything: Antonin Dvorak, Romantic composer.

Classical music from the Romantic era is mercifully not the stuff of stiff-collared, wig-wearing European men, but rather is pulsing, alive, emotional, swelling music from the nineteenth century characterized by its attention to building tension and feeling in its melodies and rhythms. Romantic works are complex tangles of music, pulsing into crescendos in an instant then, often just as quickly, settling into soft, graceful lullabies. I often wonder why Romantic music isn't picked up more for movie scores.

Anyway, there are many Romantic composers from whom I could choose (Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Chopin, Schubert to name a few), but the charm of Dvorak never fades for me. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Dvorak's not a real show-off (my kind of guy. Too bad we're separated by thousands of years and continents). Sure, he creates sweeping stories and runs through the same gamut of rhythmical complexities as his mates, but there's a charm that underlies pieces like his "New World Symphony."

I'm with Dvorak and his orchestra all the way through each movement of each piece, following the story he constructs. The listener discovers whimsy in the musical creation of the "New World." I not only feel the emotions conjured by the melodies, but I also relate myself to the music and become lost in what it emotionally creates for me. It's a distraction - if you will - from the more pressing emotional concerns of my present and takes me to other imaginative parts of my mind and allows me to experience the beauty and joy of experiencing the range of emotions music can create.

Today, then, I appreciate Dvorak for the emotional support his music provides. Thank you.