Cornell Girl Meets World: A Holi Easter

For anyone who regularly reads this blog, I apologize for the infrequency of my updates. I've had seven essays and one problem set due during the last three weeks of class, so my life has been insanely busy as I try to balance getting all my work done with having fun too. Aside from the disgusting amount of essays I've written recently, I thought I would give a semi-interesting update on what has been going on.

Wednesday was Holi, the Indian Festival of Color. This festival essentially entails lots of people throwing colored powder at each other. I've seen the festival every year at Cornell, but have never gone, so I thought I would take the opportunity to go while at Trinity. The aftermath of the festival is very visible--loads of people who look like very sick Martians walk around campus as though this was a normal occurrence. On Wednesday, I was one of those people.
On Holi, people wear their oldest clothes, because you can be guaranteed they will be destroyed from all the colored powder. Not wanting to trash any of my nice clothes, I decided to go in an old T-shirt and jeans. The only problem was that it was a shocking number of degrees below freezing. But hey, I thought, I'm practically an adult now. I can totally handle it. So I stood shivering in line for twenty minutes until they finally let us in, handed us bags of pink powder, and told us to wait.
Of course, nobody really waited; instead we used the powder to give each other war paint. My application was not entirely successful.

We counted down until we could throw all the powder, and then the madness began.

Then I got trampled. While I usually exaggerate for the sake of humor, in this instance I am telling the complete truth--I was trampled. Indian music started playing, and everyone started to dance. Somehow I got shoved and fell down (this is my pride speaking. Technically, I just fell over.) and people started stepping on me and crushing me. It was surprisingly frightening; I just curled up into a ball until someone noticed that the exceptionally soft cobblestones they were dancing on was actually a girl.
After I was rescued, it also started to snow, which seems cool but was actually agonizingly cold. The crazy Dublin weather did not put a dent in our spirits, though, and we danced and threw colored powder like nobody's business.

Before.

After. The mud stain on my shirt is the product of the trampling incident.

Dancing to Bollywood music.

More dancing!

Yesterday was also an important day. Sunday, March 31st, 2013 marks the day that Lauren officially transitioned into adulthood. It was the day I cooked my first roasting meat by myself. Now, for someone who cooks far too often, it sounds strange to say that I've never really cooked meat, but it's true. Aside from fried chicken and the occasional meat in soups, my dad has always cooked the pot roasts, turkeys, hams, and every other "big" meat for holidays. Now, however, I can officially join the ranks of adults worldwide after I cooked the ham for Easter.
My study abroad program had decided to do a potluck for Easter, and I foolishly agreed to do the meat. The second after I volunteered, I realized that despite my cooking experience, I actually had no idea how to cook that by myself. So I frantically emailed my dad, asked him every sort of question on how to make roast beef, and filled my Google history with queries like "how to cook beef" and "what spices to rub on roast beef." Then I went to the grocery store and got ham instead, because I had waited too late and they were out of beefs. This led to another furious hour of googling "how to cook uncooked ham" and other such questions. Usually, the ham we get in the US is precooked, or at least partially cooked, but this baby was completely raw. If even my father had never done it before, how on earth was I going to cook this ham and still have it be palatable?
Thankfully, Google turned out to be the best resource in the world, and the ham was fantastic. Amazing. Better than any precooked ham I've never had. I am so glad the grocery store was out of roast beef, because that yummy ham has gotten me admission in the secret club of adults. I can now walk down the street and think, "Yes, yes I can cook a large roast of meat by myself. I know you're impressed and probably envious. You should be." (Disclaimer: I am not actually that arrogant.)
Unfortunately, I forgot to properly document this great endeavor, so I only have slightly blurry pictures of a piece of ham on someone's plate. The memory is enough for me (along with all the leftovers!).

My triumph.

The potluck was amazing. We had so much food--ham, biscuits, scalloped potatoes, sheperd's pie, green bean casserole, mac & cheese, pasta salad, quiche, bruschetta, Caesar salad, cheesecake, chocolate cake, apple pie, and cookie dough that never quite made it to the oven. It was incredibly yummy, and when we all finished eating we lay there like bloated slugs. I never wanted to move again.