The other day I had a weird dream. My grandmother told me that I had to teach Geography in my school for the 5-th grades. I learned this half of an hour prior to leaving home in order to be on time. Like a crazy I was thinking over the structure of a lesson - for some reason my initial idea was to start with not very straight-forward example of how Geography works (but something that would fascinate kids) - to discuss mammoths - where and how they are discovered, how they look, how they related to other species, etc. I have found some pictures as supplementary material and have realized that I was being late. I have arrived to the classroom (the one that looked quite like my Physics classroom) - there were no kids, just some teachers of mine and former classmates (oh, God, people of whose existence I have forgotten). Before I could pull myself together they forced me to start, I was trying to introduce myself but they were interrupting me all the time and were very unfriendly. After 2 minutes they have asked me to stop and take my place. I felt confused, humiliated and totally unprepared. Someone was showing a trial Math class with a pupil solving something at the blackboard. I have seen disappointment in my high-school Math teacher (towards me, as it always had been), so I felt like apologizing: "Sorry, I didn't know it was a trial session, I've just knew I have a lesson 1 hour ago". She looked surprised and told that it would be fair to give me another chance. I couldn't recall the logical connection between mammoths and Geography, so I've started with asking the auditorium what they though Geography was. They were writing their answers on the chart and getting points for that - three points were equal to 1 excellent mark, three minus points for misbehavior and interruption - to 1 "fail" mark. Then I woke up and felt hungry like hell.
So, this half-failed mammoth intended but not realized lesson took so much energy that something large-scale had to be done. Imagine, cold autumn morning, urge to get/produce/share knowledge thrills inside and stomach is about to propose an ultimatum. Fast, infinitely warm, nutritious and healthy way to deal with it - a good old oatmeal porridge. Most of people use milk for this porridge and then hate it. Try both of ways and choose by yourself, but my way is "milk - no way!" Milk is for drinking it with cookies.
If you are very hungry take a cup and fill 3/4 of it with oatmeal (a full cup would do for 2 moderately hungry people), add 1 teaspoon of salt, sugar and some cinnamon. Turn on the heating plate (strong or medium power, depending on how much time you have and how fast you're ready to stir). Put the mixture to the pot, add some dried cranberries (matter of taste - apples, bananas, peaches, any dried fruits or pieces of chocolate will do) and half-cup of water. Stir in order not to let the whole thing to stick to the bottom. When you see steam rising add another half-cup of warm water (some people use milk at this stage), reduce the heat to the medium and continue stirring. When the porridge starts to form exploding bubbles it's ready. Best, if you can add a spoonful of butter, mix, close the pot and let it rest for some minutes (help yourself with coffee meanwhile). Personally I never have neither time nor patience or butter, so I eat the whole thing as soon as it's not burningly hot.
For aesthetic reasons I will not show you a picture of any porridge :)
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