Phew! This week was an intense one! I'm part relieved it's over and part sad. Basically, this week ending means I can finally catch a break from school, but it also means that half the flat is going home. *sobs* I'm going to be having friends over for the break, but I'm going to miss the guys. 

(this is what I've been looking like the majority of the week...)

 It was the last week of term and naturally, you have the term essays to hurdle through before actually getting the lovely taste of a much needed break. The past week was composed of me either confiscating a corner of the kitchen for the day, or perching out in a cafe. All depending on how decent I wanted to look (my flatmates have seen the sloppiest side of me. #notashamed), I'd move the papers and laptop to one of the two options as I'm just a person that can't concentrate on typing up an essay when there's a bed around. One small fright this week was my computer kept shutting down over the weekend because it wasn't charging. I took my macbook to the genius bar on Covent Garden after I handed in the last essay and in short, my computer is dying. Time for an upgrade maybe? I also got one of my essays from earlier in the term back and well, let's just say that I hope my other ones will be a lot better. It wasn't horrible, per se, it was just disappointing. 

(foggy days are either the setting for a periodic romance or for a eerie ghost story)

Anyway. Starting from near 11 on Wednesday morning, I confiscated a corner of the kitchen to write my essay till near 8. I think I can count the times I left the chair. I'm the type of person that'll spend weeks planning out an essay but needs to write it all down in one go. So that usually means 10 hours perched on a chair. I did take breaks - like when my Swiss flatmate who was also struggling with an essay came into the kitchen and we both helped each other structure ideas. Or when I did some online shopping. Namely, two palettes. I'll post details when my second one comes, so keep an eye out for that. I might have broke my spending ban, but I plead stress shopping! Plus, these palettes were both on my radar for quite some time and I didn't have to pay full price on either. Always a plus! 

One would think that with essays finished, one would get a better night's rest. Nope. For the first time since I came to London, I suffered from insomnia. I couldn't sleep till near 6:30 in the morning and I had to get up at 8 for an early class. So my Thursday was functioning on 90 minutes of sleep and little to no caffeine as I was sure once I got my first cup of coffee, I wouldn't be able to stop till the heart arrhythmias started.  

I've been craving to bake all afternoon and in need to keep busy to keep myself awake on Thursday afternoon, I made up a small batch of Spiced Nutella cookies. I based the recipe off of the Chocolate Nutella Cookies from Two Peas and Their Pod, but made a few switch ups. Including swapping the cocoa powder for my Chili Hot Chocolate Mix from Whittard, simply because I didn't have any of the former on hand. It turned out to be quite good actually and the crushed walnuts on the cookie added another level of nutiness flavor. Not only did my flatmates love it, the people at reception in my building loved them as well. 

You might have remembered the gingerbread trials I had last week. They were all test trials for the show this week. I came back from a last minute ingredient shopping trip with two of the flatmates and got cracking to baking. I'm not accurate at all when it comes to measuring ingredients so I ended up having to mix the spices together in another bowl, adding a pinch of this and a sprinkle of that to get the results I desired. I forgot to take track of the amount of spices I used in total, but I based the cookies loosely off of the Soft and Chewy Gingersnap Cookies from Brown Eyed Baker. Again, I took some down to reception when they just came out of the oven and I think I just made it to the top of their favorite-list in two days. At one point there was a conversation that went something like this:

A: When are you heading home? 

B: Stop encouraging her to go home! 

Me: No, I'm staying here for Christmas. I promised Ivana (one of the reception people) that I'd bring her cookies on Christmas eve.

B: I work on Christmas eve AND on Christmas. 

C: I work on the 21st and 22nd. 

A: We should just email you our schedules. 

Like I said, people at reception love me. Which is brilliant because the amount of times I forget my key is embarrassing.  

Anyway, dinner that night was absolutely brilliant. We had the full entree - main dish - desert course meal with amazing wine and beer. Plus the amount of laughs that went around and the intense pingpong battle we had upstairs afterwards was one of the best endings to a term that I've had in a long time. 

(we all had a festive 20s tinsel boa style photo taken...the flatmate seemed to have a really fun time tying it up bunny-eared style for me) 

(I've never seen a wet pigeon before????) 

(We spent a good 10 minutes in front of this as my Swiss flatmate identified all the counties of Switzerland for me)

(My flatmate told me the official ball for the Brazil World Cup 2014 was already out and he took me to see it in the Adidas shop where we both had a little freak out moment)

Believe it or not, I've never been to Selfridges before this weekend. I just never managed to make it past House of Fraser on Oxford Street. So when one of the flatmates mentioned going there over the weekend because he had to do last minute christmas shopping for the girlfriend, I immediately tagged on. Annie was terrified that I'd lose control of my wallet and repeatedly warned Simon to not let me go loose. It was an understatement to say that he was wry of what kind of mad woman I'd turn into the next day. But when we hit Selfridges when it was barely 10am (we both wanted to beat the crowd), I only spent around 10 minutes quickly browsing through the counters. Stopping only at the MAC counter to ask if Riri Woo was still in stock for the flatmate, and Laura Mercier to check the price of the eye brightening powder. When I announced we could go, the flatmate asked me three times "are you sure?" "are you really sure?" like he couldn't believe the casualness of my shopping. The next four hours was spent with me following him from shop to shop, half of helping him to locate the perfect scarf for his girlfriend and half because he was in the mode to do some gift shopping...for himself. Overall, I spent four hours on Oxford Street and only spent £12 on two River Island tees. Literal self-pat on the back. 

I think it's safe to say, one of the highlights of my year so far has been Saturday evening when I GOT TO SEE DAVID TENNANT IN RICHARD II!!!!! I didn't think that I could love a man more, but then there was the second row live performance of Shakespeare. Yup, that's right. You read it right. SECOND ROW. My friend got an extra ticket so I tagged along for the show and I'm telling you, YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING FROM SECOND ROW. The man is absolutely brilliant and the play was near perfection. I'm not saying this just because I love David, but the cast was genuinely brilliant! There was not a dull moment in the play and each actor was fantastic! My friend and I rushed out right after the play was finished to the stage door. We were quick, but we weren't fast enough to get to the first row. David was a complete doll and tried to get as much autographs out as possible and even took several pictures with the people in the first row. I've stroked David's autograph a couple dozen times since last night and I'm a girl on a mission when I go see the show for the second time Monday evening. If you're in London and can get your hands on tickets for the play, it's totally worth it! 

To end this insanely long weekly update, my desk needs a good cleanup. It was bad to a point where my flatmate walked in, looked around and asked, "why are you packing your things?" Oops! 

The next month is going to be slightly weird without the guys, but on the bright side, ASIAN TAKEOVER OF THE FLAT! Haha, how was your week?