Monday blues

Felt super tired and restless yesterday so I decided to skip lessons! Skipped both lessons that are taught by the prof I ranted about last week. Not that I am still unhappy with him, but I just really felt lazy to go to school. Since I'm on exchange, just slack :D For once, I don't have to pack my lunch/dinner to school on a Monday! 

It felt really awesome to be home alone for so long (about 9 hours), I could do whatever I want and I really like this feeling. So I took off my clothes and walked around like no one is looking, sang freely like no one is listening and danced like no one is watching. Okay, I am just kidding! I didn't anything crazy or wild, I just like the solitude and peace when I am alone. Wanted to do something exciting and I decided to bake some earl grey cupcakes to surprise my friends when they come back from school. I like to give people surprises! Used my Love Tea #7 (contains chinese black tea, dark chocolate, freeze-dried strawberry, red rose petals) from DavidsTea instead since we don't have any earl grey tea at home, so actually to be exact its just tea flavoured cupcakes. I have to stress that THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I'M BAKING ALONE, that's why it's exciting. Usually we would bake together and I will just do certain steps here and there. This is my virgin experience baking something all by myself! Another level up :D I felt that the tea cupakes were pretty successful except for the frosting which failed super badly. I think I added too much milk, it was so liquid that it doesn't look like frosting AT ALL. Oh well, I will try again next time! I choose to blame the ingredients because I didn't have everything that was required! 

Lunch: Dumplings, egg with onion, oven baked fish  

Love Tea #7 cupcakes

My super liquid frosting on top. Sigh, fail max. 

It's supposed to be lemon buttercream frosting by the way. WHAT A JOKE!

It's the thought that counts right?

Eat and eat only

Cooked vermicelli today! Apparently its sweet potato vermicelli as the packaging say so but it doesn't have the taste of sweet potato though! Bought this from the ONLY local chinese mart some time back and finally cooked it today. Another virgin attempt, so many virgin attempts on this exchange! Turned out very tasty, I really like it that I had 4-5 servings :O Love the chewy texture, like dong fen! Super easy to cook too, only added simple condiments like soya sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, pepper and chilli padi! Would love to have this again! 

Cooked chicken as a side dish! Okay chicken is boring now, I am pretty sick of cooking meat since I ran out of innovative ideas to cook them.

TY and G baked lemon bars! :D Doesn't look very presentable so I didn't take a close up shot of it. But it still tastes good! Love the lemon filling that is sour yet refreshing, perfect with the crispy and crumbly crust. Topping it off with B&J cookie dough makes it more awesome. Oh well, ice cream never goes wrong! 

Eat and eat and eat only. 

:8

We baked again yesterday! Okay actually only G and me baked. This time we baked banana chocolate chip muffins. I LOVEEEE BANANAS. This was so yummy I had 4 at one go. :8 I CANNOT RESIST SWEET STUFF!!

For dinner we had macaroni with salmon. It tastes much better this time! The previous time I forgot to drain the water away after cooking the macaroni so it was a little soggy :O

Feeling rather adventurous today so I decided to explore the West of Saint John alone! Was enjoying the pretty scenery along the way :D All taken by my iPhone so the quality isn't very good. Okay actually the quality is DAMN BAD. Photos don't do justice at all! It looks better on my instagram. It's been long since I last used my camera, oh my I really need to go travel!

YUCKS OKAY THE QUALITY SUCKS :<

Whipped up a new dish for dinner! Honey garlic pork ribs. So yummy! I love Lee Kum Kee premix but a pity I only had one pack of this. Need to make the sauce from scratch in future. :/

BEN & JERRY'S ICE CREAM :D :D :D

If I had 1,000,000 flavours was so good! Lots of ingredients inside SO YUMZ! (Y)

Woke up at 1111. It's been awhile since I slept in! But then again, I actually slept for 6 hours only, considering the fact I only slept at 5am. Spent the whole day slacking at home watching my dramas. Hooked on a new drama! Shouldn't be like this since I have TONS of work waiting for me. Hell week coming up :O But its exchange, chill first worry later. (Y) Need to stop stressing myself by comparing with people. I am thankful for friends who are telling me to slack, get a PASS not As. As are really motivating and addictive to be honest. Once I don't score an A, I actually do feel disappointed no matter how I tell myself I am just aiming for a pass. Pride I guess.

Brunch made by G yesterday! Sweet and savoury pancakes :D

Made brunch for everyone today. First time cooking scrambled eggs! (noob again)

Turned out good! I like creamy scrambled eggs!

Honestly I never had such a good spread for breakfast at home ever when I was in Singapore.  

Unless I get macs breakfast or smth.

First attempt at sweet & sour pork! SUCCESS.

Peanut butter broccoli! Innovative and yum.

Other dishes: Sauteed mushrooms and brinjal with belachan!

Thank goodness there is chilli! C's mum sent her different types of chilli.

SHIOK!

So happy today! Scored an A for a 20% graded assignment and an A for one of my midterms! The assignment was due yesterday and the prof already graded mine today! SO EFFICIENT! Considering the amount of effort I put in, I am really thankful. A and A+ have different gpas here, unlike NTU. But I don't need an A+ to be contented. I'm glad I managed to score pretty alright. Getting back another 2 midterms tomorrow, hope it will be good as well though I don't have a very good feeling for one of it.

My lazy lunch for today. MAGGIE MEE. 

Brought 15 packets here and I am left with only 4 now :/ 

On a side note, it was my first time cooking a sunny side up today! Quite a noob I know. 

G just baked for us some chewy apple sauce oatmeal raisin cookies.

It's 1130pm now by the way! Late night baking and snacking session.

HOW CAN I RESIST THIS. 

Rage

So disappointed in this particular prof who is teaching me for 2 mods. I really liked him in the beginning and felt that one of his classes was pretty interesting. Plus he has lots of experience to share, so much better than profs who just teach from textbooks. Until one fine day, he kind of embarrassed us (4 of us from NTU) in class because we didnt read up on the case in advance. He probably noticed because we were busy flipping and highlighting. He grabbed my paper and said in a very sarcastic manner how could we have read from such small fonts, it's no wonder we didn't prepare. What's wrong with printing 2 pages on one sheet?! We do that often to save paper/money, and WE CAN STILL READ IT. And that was the ONLY time we didn't read because we only printed it right before class. I was so upset/angry because I bet not everyone read it anyway, why must he target us? This happened 2 weeks ago.

Today, he reminded the class to prepare the case for next week. He paused for a moment, pointed us out in front of the class and reminded us to read it. RAGE. BLOOD BOIL. Get over it dude, can you stop discriminating us? That's not all. He will also target specific questions at us when it's related to China. Wtf, we are from Singapore, not China. There are real China people in class why don't you ask them? Please don't make a fool of yourself by thinking we are the same. I felt so pissed, this China thing has happened at least twice. Lost all respect for him seriously. Doesn't make things better when I have to face him twice a day.

Super awesome aglio olio made by TY while I cooked the seafood!

It was spicy but shiok! Looks so appetizing right!

After dinner baking session. 

Peanut butter chocolate chip cookie cake!

We were too lazy to use a mixer so we used hands instead. 

Super amusing how they were trying to mix according to low, medium and high speeds manually!

Recipe: Creamy Garlic Butter Prawns

Decided to collect a list of recipes so that I can refer easily when I want to cook them.

TY this is for you too! :)

Creamy Garlic Butter Prawns (3 Servings)

Ingredients:

• 20 medium-sized prawns 
• 1.5 tablespoon butter
• 1.5 tablespoon sour cream
• 1/4 lemon, juiced
• 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• Parsley flakes

Steps:

1. Melt butter on medium heat in a medium frying pan.
2. Once butter has melted, add prawns and cook for about 2 minutes on each side.
3. Add finely chopped garlic and stir for 1 minute.
4. Add in sour cream, lemon juice and parsley flakes.
5. Toss for 1 to 2 minutes and serve.

As free as a bird

SO FREAKING RELIEVED NOW!!! I just submitted 2 assignments which are due on Monday. Submitted so early because I want to slack ASAP, and I know I will still keep checking and editing my work if I don't submit it. So I decided to just heck it and SUBMIT! I hope I won't do too badly, crosses fingers. 

SO YAY, I can focus on my dramas and chill the whole of Sunday before school starts again on Monday. SUCH A HAPPY GIRL NOW :D 

Had another investments group meeting this morning. They seriously last warning. Supposed to meet at 11am and I already went late (deliberately) at 1130am yet I was the second to reach -___- We have this simulator for this mod where we have to invest in stocks and maintain a portfolio for the whole semester. So we have to meet up weekly to discuss what to do with our portfolio. I think its damn inefficient to meet up and it makes it worse that they meet on Saturdays and even even worse that the attendance is always so bad. Usually 3 out of 5 people, including me. Hello, I exchange student also more hardworking than them. Sigh. So anyway I told them we should just skype or use google doc or smth, I really don't want to waste my time. We shall see what happens. Shall not let my mood get dampened by them! 

Oh and it was raining pretty heavily this morning with strong winds. It's so embarrassing how I had to hold my umbrella at weird angles so that it does not get overturned by the wind and I don't get wet. It was almost never right above my head. On the last stretch home, I held the umbrella BEHIND ME when the wind was pushing me forward. Lucky that I was alone if not I would look so silly walking like that.

And now for the food galore as usual!

Had a good breakfast this morning! 2 rounds of breakfast actually. :8

My new favourite bread: Cinnamon raisin bread! 

Dipped in vanilla soy milk topped off with cereals. 

My favourite combination for now. :D

.

G made pancakes for us! 

She always makes it a point to present food nicely before serving.

For dinner, I cooked garlic butter prawns and a stew BECAUSE TY REQUESTED FOR IT. 

I am such a good friend I know. Hi TY, where's my tips? (just kidding)

Pretty proud of this creamy garlic butter prawns. It reminds me of those creamy prawn pastas.

Tastier than the one I cooked previously since I have more ingredients now!

Chicken and potatoes in oyster sauce + dark soya sauce

Oven baked chicken wings by TY. 

Marinated with garlic, salt and pepper, it was good!

G made avocado milk shake for us after dinner. 

Of course she made it with soy milk instead because I don't drink milk at all. 

Totally fell in love with this drink! Love the creaminess and small bits of avocado inside:D

TGIF

Despite 2 assignments due this Monday, we decided to put aside everything and enjoy our Friday night! I think this is the first time we headed out on a Friday night. We have been stuck at home for too long so we treated ourselves to LOBSTERS today. It all started because we did a case study on the fishing industry in class and the prof went on to talk about lobsters. Got me craving for lobster so badly! I think it is my first time eating a lobster like this.

Three of us shared a set of lobsters for two! It costs 32 cad each after taxes and service charge!

Started off with mussels. Pretty surprised that it came in such a large quantity!

It was so fresh and good I ate one after another!! 

Clam chowder. OMG this was the yummiest clam chowder I have ever tasted.

Thick and creamy with bits of seafood in it. Already missing this now :O

We had a choice of 2 side dishes as well. Chose a baked potato as one of it.

Was initially disappointed that it didn't come in mayo and bacon bits like how it will usually be served, but it actually tasted good on its own! The potato was sweet! Pretty healthy with all the veggies and tomatoes. Even the cherry tomatoes was good!

For the second side dish, we picked mashed potato! 

This was special because you can still taste bits of potatoes inside.

Finally the main dish!!!  Virgin experience eating a lobster. 

Love the meat!! Super fresh and succulent. YUMS. It was definitely worth the money! 

After dinner, we went to another place for drinks! Ordered some desserts as well. Really splurging like free.

Seasonal crumble cake with vanilla ice cream.

This was good, but we can make it ourselves too! Tasted somewhat similar to oatmeal bars which we baked before.

Chocolate guinness cake with whisky caramel in it. 

Couldn't really taste the alcohol, was more of a typical chocolate cake, still yummy nonetheless!

My St. Ambroise apricot ale. Couldn't finish it because I was pretty full by then. 

The fruit beer wasn't as sweet/fruity I expected it to be. :/ 

This beer only cost me about 6 CAD. So cheap compared to Singapore, will definitely want to go back there again for other drinks!

After waiting for so long, my exam timetable is finally out! All along we only know that the last day of exams would be 18 December so we only booked our US trip from 19 December onwards. Was secretly hoping that I will end much much earlier so I could travel around Canada more. Now it just seems so impossible. I haven't gone to Montreal and Quebec City yet :< Got to squeeze some time out somewhere. I really really want to go!! 

For the 3rd time, we baked egg tarts again! 

But this time it failed, it wasn't sweet at all. :(

The recipe I always used was only enough to bake 10 egg tarts, when I tried to bake 12 it just failed. 

So disappointing.

Resorted to adding sugar on top. 

Tried a poppy seed bagel. 

Poppy seed is an oil seed obtained from the opium poppy. Poppy seeds eaten in large quantities can lead to impaired consciousness, lightheadedness and complications with the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. 

Hmm, I think I just took drugs.

Cooked beef for dinner! My first time cooking beef! 

The taste is too strong for my liking :/

I am not a fan of beef, my favourite is still chicken and pork so I ate really little of this. 

Spicy tofu! 

Strawberry and banana yoghurt with berries.