In which we review some bento

I'm so glad it's August. The weather has finally started calming down, and I've begun to get those back-to-school-tingles that I love so much. Pretty soon the whole world will put on the most bewitching perfume, and we'll all start gathering "bouquets of sharpened pencils."

Here are the bento I've put together in the past two weeks. No need to squint at them, by the way, just click 'em to enlarge. 

Steak, rice, Nuts, cheese, and various veggies

Rice, egg soboro, cukes, cheese,  and zucchini cake

Rice, tamagoyaki, sausage, marinated cukes, and various fruits

You can see that I've used some unorthodox containers to accommodate my varying leftovers. I'm really happily embarrassed with my rice heart. Like a charaben bride . . . .  Anyway, to make it I placed the veggies around a cookie cutter before stuffing the thing with rice. And, yes, the rice held the whole day with the cookie cutter removed. I'm always interested in how other people's bentos hold up after being lugged to work, or even how they survive having the lid put on them – some people like to have everything popping out of the box when they take their pictures, which is striking but can hardly reflect what they see when they sit down to lunch. I know that when I use this particular bowl I have to be really careful about how I carry it, because, being a vessel of chinese take-out origins, the lid doesn't fit that securely. My other bento boxes I'm a lot more careless with, to the point where I have had to mop spilled vinegar off my blue case more than once.

Besides planning out my next round of bento freezer staples, and making an out-of-this-world study plan for my outer sloth's amusement, I've been toying with whether I should take an class at the community college. They have a folk dance class that would be a lot of fun, a digital photography class which I know I need, and various cooking classes. The cooking classes are easiest to say no to, they cost as much as seven weeks of dance class but only last one day. I can pretty much muddle my way through anything in the kitchen – though the canning and dumpling classes are really tempting – and I do need to be saving something for when I move out. More if I want to go somewhere on vacation next year. That leaves dance - bonus points for being healthy - and photography, which would benefit you all. Which would pick if you had to choose?