clean linen

I thought I'd better check in just before I go to bed... Firstly, my health. Yesterday I was feeling quite terrible from a very sore throat and lungs that felt like they were filled with phlegm, right? Well, today I feel much better, after all the sleep and water I got yesterday while staying in. I could talk normally today without suffering from a terribly pained throat afterwards. The phlegm would often get in the way so I'd have to clear my throat regularly, but I definitely feel better than yesterday. So, PRAISE THE LORD! I'm still drinking loads of warm water and steering clear from unhealthy foods... both tonight and last night, I cooked porridge for myself as dinner... I'm quite pleased with myself for being able to cook edible porridge!:) Secondly, school. Today felt like the first real day back in school as I had 2 land law lectures and 1 criminal law lecture. I've also started up active reading of all the modules I'm taking this year. Tomorrow, I'm...

I've been keeping mostly to myself this whole weekend, choosing to skip attending church today because I wasn't feeling well. I woke up today having a very sore throat and I could feel the phlegm in my lungs. I could not stand the thought of having to meet and talk with people when I was feeling like that, so I decided to stay in and sleep more, constantly drinking warm water throughout the entire day. On Friday night, the usual big group of us met up for a dinner to celebrate PY and Hong Zhen's birthdays. We had dinner at Café Rouge, this French place in the city. I won't talk more and just show you photos with some added comments. Throughout the dinner, there would be an exodus made by all the guys so that they could have a smoke. It happened twice, if I'm not wrong. The girls took our group shot the first time round, and I took a photo of the empty end of the table after the exodus took place: Here are the guys: I had tasty penne pasta with mushrooms and chargri...

I went supermarketing with Janice and Hong Zhen this morning before hanging out at The Four's house for awhile during lunch time. Each time I have a meal there, the guys in the house, John especially, never fail to amuse all of us. It's as if there must be an after-meal entertainment... One example here in this video clip that I recorded today: Explanation: The girls in the house are in the habit of folding their plastic bags into a neat 'samosa' looking thing but the guys can't be bothered to fold it that nicely. Just before this clip was recorded, someone complained about plastic bags lying around the kitchen. So John took a plastic bag and showed us his way of folding a plastic bag... Ok, maybe it's not that funny just by watching this video clip when you, the actual person, weren't at the actual situation. Anyhow, that house is one very noisy, mostly happy house mostly thanks to the nonsense that the guys never fail to come up with. Last night after dinn...

So I actually cooked some campbell soup (cream of chicken) and dumped some pasta into the pot to boil together so that my dinner will be more substantial and won't be just soup. It turned out edible but the bottom-most layer got burnt and I ended up with a crusty base in my pot. I had my dinner then proceeded to stand at the sink with the pot in one hand and a butter knife in the other to scrape the crusty bottom off for the next 20 minutes. Then I emailed my mum to ask for help and tips to prevent this from ever happening again in the future. Here's what she wrote: "I told Aida and Jiejie re your soup and burnt pot bottom. All 3 of us have ideas and we are all in agreement over many facts and tips. They are listed below! --We suggest you quickly go pick up a non-stick pot. Then there will be less chances of burnt bottoms. --Aida said you can use your rice cooker to cook but please leave the cover open so that it will not boil over. --Stirring is important and fire sh...

I arrived back in Nottingham last Friday late afternoon and stayed the night at the house rented by Hong Zhen, Angie, Po Yew (PY) and John [Get used to these 4 names and do remember they stay in the same house. I think I'll call them The Four for convenience sake]. The traveling between Birmingham and Nottingham was smooth and without hiccups. I met quite a few kind British gentlemen who offered to help with my big heavy luggage, also had enough time to walk the extra few metres to use the lift or escalator so it wasn't a panicky trip back. Saturday morning, I went to Broadgate Park (BGP) to pay the housing fees and get my room key, then met a whole group of Freshers (I've juniors now, I can't believe it. It feels like I was the Fresher just yesterday) for lunch in Beeston before making the first of many trips to Wilkinson, Argos and Sainsbury's with Hong Zhen. I stayed the night in my room at BGP - all was dead silent as I was pretty much the first person to move...

I woke up early to meet Joanne at Kovan MRT so we could head down to Vivocity for breakfast at Wang Jiao House of Toast (I think that's the full correct name). It was really nice spending time with Joanne just talking about things here and there... After walking around post-breakfast, Jolene met up with us at Vivocity, but not before long Joanne had to leave for school as she had a class to attend. Jolene and I then proceeded to meet Amy at Taka for dimsum lunch with Amy. Of course, Amy was late in her usual Amy-lateness-fashion (wow I just made up a new phrase), but we still had a great time eating together. I pride myself on introducing them to... oh dear I've forgotten the name of the dish, but basically it's 'you tiao' wrapped in the 'chee cheong fun' skin - picture here: A few of the other dishes we ordered: I headed home after dimsum with the two of them to finish up the first round of reading I'm doing for Land law. My aim this break was to finish...

On 10th September, it was my sister's birthday. We had a very nice family dinner at Wild Rockets at Mt. Emily. What I like the most about that dinner was the dessert, specifically, the tiramisu and the lava cake (shown respectively below) Thank God for the person, or people, who first made these desserts. Then thank God for creating the chefs of Wild Rockets who can make such fabulous desserts. Well, parking was quite terrible, what with the narrow streets and measly number of carpark lots. However, the restaurant was quiet and cosy. The food was good, interesting to a certain extent for a few dishes. The company was the best and irreplaceable. After dinner, we all returned home to, what my sister thought, was an uneventful evening that would end with the family gathering around the dining table to cut the cake for her. What she didn't know was that Edmund had arranged for some of her close church friends and cell mates to come over to the house. The plan was that we would be a...