I'm typing this up as I digest the self-made lunch I had of chicken bites, salad and a Yorkshire pudding. Well, I say self-made. More on that later. I know if I don't do it now, I'm going to be putting it off and missing another weekly update. 

(let's take a moment to appreciate this epic postcard my friend up in Scotland sent Annie..the other half of the postcard is basically the same thing. I'm still waiting for mine to come - which is weird since they were posted on the same day. Come on, Royal Mail!) (Oops! Forgot to censor that rude 6-letter word )

The past week has been pretty mundane, but there are still moments to blog about. After 8 weeks, I'm finally entering the countdown of the term. Don't get me wrong, I love going to class and lectures and the reading assignments; it's just nice to have a break. Especially when I have massive amounts of reading that I should have to catch up on over the month-long break. But alas, the end of term also means the deadline for essays. I currently have two essays tapping their fingers, hurrying me to start on them. But as horrible as it is, I'm the kind of person that'll never start something until I see the immediate deadline threatening to crush me over. To add on top of that, the teachers for these two classes are pretty flex and their deadline for the essays are "some time around the end of term". Great. Someone push me to write up these darned essays! 

I spent two of my free days midweek planted in at Yumchaa and Costa. (I talk about these two places way too often) Is it just me, but I'm always hesitant to leave my seat when I go study in a cafe. The questions that arise: Do I leave my computer with me? Or should I take everything? But then what happens with my seat? Tell me I'm just overthinking everything. So after these two 6+ hours sessions, I always leave the cafe with a stomach full of coffee/tea and a sore butt. (Sorry, should've had a TMI alert before that sentence) But because of being coped up all day, I've also had my few share of walks in parks and along the canal. One of my favorite walks of the week was passing through a street that was completely blanketed by the leaves that were blown off from the storm the previous day. 

As a form of entertainment, I've been redecorating my bed. I got tired of the boring, cream-colored bedding and ordered some new ones when Debenhams had a huge sale a week or two ago. Let's take a moment to admire how pretty the pattern is, okay? And now I want to add fairy lights to the walls....someone talk me out of it? Or tell me where you can buy them for cheap. 

The staple part of my weekly update: food. My Korean flatmate, my fellow estrogen companion in the flat, made me and Annie a brilliant Korean dinner on Thursday. It was nice to see all the familiar asian ingredients in the soup that she made, and if you like beef, I'm telling you, the Koreans make beef like it's no one's business. I love talking to her, she's hilarious and will suddenly blurt out something completely left-field. You'd think that she's around my age when I talk about her, but truth is, she's nearing 40. That's something I've never been able to wrap my head around when she sometimes seems younger and spunkier than I am. 

Speaking of flatmates, Annie and my Belgium flatmate are the two that take it as their personal task to feed me. Unfortunately, they're both away for the weekend. The two of them have been huddling together and discussing what to arrange of me over the weekend. I don't know how I feel about that. On one hand, I'm touched at how much they care; on the other, I feel slightly like a puppy. But anyway, me and my Swiss flatmate (who levels with me on cooking skills) decided to partner up and survive the weekend; I'd say we did pretty good. We both prefer the oven over the hub; sausages, Yorkshire puddings, chicken nuggets have provided us well. Tonight we're taking up a new challenge and braving the hub. We're making mac and cheese (yes, from the box. Don't judge me - it's the best kind!), I don't think we'll fail at it, but fingers crossed and knocking on wood right now. 

Now that we're done talking about my retarded cooking ability, let's move on. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but the flat is having an end-of-term-slash-early-Christmas dinner this coming Friday and we're all allocated to a specific part of the feast. Naturally, I'm in charge of dessert. After combing through recipes and asking for opinions, I decided I'd make the traditional gingerbread cookie with an ice-cream-sandwich twist. I used Brown Eyed Baker's Soft and Chewy Gingersnap Cookies as a rough guide, but ended up tweaking the amount of spices. I ended up making a couple batches, adjusting something each time. I'm basically forcing the flatmates to eat the results and tell me what's wrong with them. I think I might have ended up with a mixture that I'm finally content with. The problem? I forgot to mark down the spontaneous "let's add a bit more of nutmeg/ginger" thoughts. Fingers cross and here's to hoping I'll be able to recreate the better version of these cookies for what I have up my sleeve later this week.