It occurred to me today that I haven't posted a new blog lately. Strange, because it's not like I haven't been doing anything blog-worthy lately. I guess I've just been busy with other things. No, not school things. Just other things, I guess. So an update is in order for all of my friends and family back home who are curious about what I've been up to lately.
Since my last blog post, I've attended a hilarious comedy show at the Half Moon Pub in Putney. If I had more information or a better memory of the comedians, I would dedicate a whole post to them. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of their names. I just remember laughing a lot. Apparently the Half Moon puts on a comedy night once a month for the whopping price of £5! I think we'll make that a regular monthly occurrence. Laughter makes the soul light, right?
Valentine's day has also come and gone. I baked fudge drop cookies for Patrick during the day. I forgot to take a picture of the final product, but they were delicious! Like brownies in cookie form. Nomnom. Patrick took me to a fancy French restaurant on the south bank for dinner. It was delicious and beautiful. We walked along the river for a bit, but then when it got too cold we just headed home and watched a movie. Relaxing and pleasant v-day.
I also adventured to Camden town market with Jessica last week. That was very fun and interesting! Camden is an up-scale hipster neighbourhood with lots of trendy shops and interesting, enlightened-looking folks wandering about. They've turned a large old horse stable into a shopping area that's full of authentic vintage stuff. I say authentic vintage because this stuff is actually vintage, not just modern-vintage-wanna-be stuff common in all the trendiest hipster shops. I'm not cool enough to buy vintage, but it's still fun to look at. There's also street food in Camden, so that's another win! The street vendors stick out toothpicks and forks of food at you, begging you to try their speciality. Not surprisingly, I obliged most of them. I also had a delicious crepe. Perhaps the most delicious crepe I've ever had. Strawberry, banana, Nutella heaven.
I've been cooking a lot lately, still. I've noticed a change in my general mood and sleeping pattern since eating well-balanced meals on a regular basis. Amazing. Here are some pictures of what I've been cooking up lately. Fish tacos, Texas Sheet Cake, egg McMuffins, turkey with wild rice and cream sauce, parmesan chicken with pasta, beef and mushroom stroganoff, BBQ reindeer burgers with roasted potatoes, and my very first meatloaf! My mother must be so proud.
This past weekend I had my first experience of hang drying all of my belongings in my room after the dryers in the laundry room decided to just roll my clothes around for an hour without any heat. Awesome. Of course this happens after 3 weeks had passed since the last time I did laundry - leaving me with no underwear, socks, pants, or bras. Oh yeah, and I decided why not wash the sheets and towels, too! Lucky for me, half of my stuff found a temporary home in Patrick's room to hang dry for 24 hours. So much for any plans I had for Friday.
Due to the laundry fiasco, I was unable to go to the grocery store on Friday. So, not only did I have no clothes to wear, I also had no food to cook. Ok, fine no food is a bit of an exaggeration. There's always a spare box of mac 'n' cheese or dried pasta with jar sauce (I'm my mother's daughter--I'm allowed to hoard food) but that just didn't sound appealing. However, this did present me with a very unique reason to try something I'd been wanting to try for a while: internet-ordered groceries! Sainsbury's is the store I usually visit in Putney. They've got a decent selection and generally the best prices (with the exception, of course, of ASDA which is owned by Wal-Mart so... not an option). Sainsbury's lets you type all of your groceries into an online shopping list. They then present you with a plethora of choices that "match" the item on your list, and you choose the one that you want. They then pick it all off the shelves, bag it up, store it neatly in the back of a refrigerated truck, and deliver it to your door. Now, living in dormitories, I was assuming the closest the truck would get was the front gate to the grounds. However, the truck driver drove right to the door of my building, loaded my food on a dolly, and brought it up to my kitchen. Talk about service! Ok, I'm a little more excited about this than I probably should be. But not only was it incredibly convenient, but it was cheaper than my going to the store! I have officially been converted to an internet grocery shopper. It sure as heck beets taking the bus to the next town over and hauling the food home in backpacks, reusable shopping bags, and whatever other means necessary. Silver lining to the dark cloud of laundry failure found!
Oh yeah, I've also been going to class. It's the beginning of the 4th week of classes for me. They're, thus far at least, much more interesting than the courses of last term. I can't believe it's pretty much time to start working on my dissertation! Time is flying! Oh, and I'm still waiting for grades from last term.
I think that's all to report for now. Hopefully I will do more exciting things soon so I can have more focused blog posts.
