I’m flying home to Beijing on Wednesday for winter break! (And then flying to Okinawa the following day and staying for a few before going back to Beijing to spend the rest of my winter break??) Just got my last thesis presentation to do tomorrow and I’m done. Is it crazy that I’m looking forward to a break from socialising rather than from academics? Everyone has been feeling the end of the semester closing in and wanting to hang out all the time. We just need to chill out.
Friends at the apartment
That said about all the socializing, I did enjoy the cooking parties in the past week.
Had Georgina, Victoria, and Grace over. We made honey mustard salmon (from The Starving Artist Cookbook by Sara Zin, which Georgina had gifted me last year) and pumpkin bread (good ol’ Pillsbury), and accompanied it with sparkling red and moscato. We also watched the last episode of Zumbo’s Just Desserts because Grace hadn’t yet seen it (poor girl doesn’t have Netflix; Georgina, Victoria, and I finished the series as soon as we got back from Thanksgiving break) and proceeded to take a nap on my carpet until it was time for them to catch the bus home. So basically, we had Thanksgiving break part two.
Had Louise and Steph over. We made creamy mozzarella sun-dried tomato basil spinach tortellini and gingerbread parfait, and then watched a ton of talent show videos on Youtube. It was pretty cool to have them over since they spend all semester in the city all the time at UPenn. When they got off the train, they couldn’t help but comment on the small town life haha. I was sure to point out my favourite places on the way from the train station to my apartment, my favourite places being Green Engine Coffee.
Mentor
My winter externship supervisor (from two years ago) emailed me out of the blue. She’s mailing something over that I haven’t yet received, but wow, I just really appreciate her ya know? I really lucked out with this externship experience with her, because I know not a lot of supervisors are that invested in the externs/interns they supervise, and so these externs/interns don’t get much out of their experience, but that definitely wasn’t the case for me.
Spotify
I finally got Spotify premium. Spotify’s 2017 recap told me that I listened to 72000 minutes worth of music, and I didn’t understand the significance of that until I saw friends sharing their recaps on Facebook, which had significantly lower counts. And then I kept seeing Spotify’s ads about 99¢/month for the first three months for premium if you subscribed before 2018. So I did.
It took me so long to get around to it because subscription services scare me. I knew that once I subscribed to premium, I wouldn’t be able to stand going back, which meant that I’d be hooked onto premium for the rest of my life. $!!! But anyways. Now I’ve done it.
I can finally listen to show tunes in order when I’m on the go! Listening to them out of order from how they are in musicals is too confusing; I’d rather not listen to them at all. But no worries now.
Funny story. When I had Georgina, Victoria, and Grace over at the apartment this past week, I was playing my Spotify Christmas playlist in the background (duh), gloriously ad-less. Then all of a sudden I thought I heard an ad and couldn’t believe my ears. I asked my friends (in retrospect, rather aggressively), “DO YOU HEAR AN AD?? IS MY SPOTIFY PREMIUM PLAYING AN AD???” At which point, Georgina pointed out that she was playing a Youtube tutorial on her phone. And all peace was restored.
Christmas
Does anyone have light Christmas recipes? Does such a thing exist? I’m feeling quite lethargic from all the heavy Christmas baking I’ve been doing. And it’s definitely been catching up to my stomach.
I prefer whipped cream to marshmallows. In regards to my hot chocolate, but maybe also in general.
How was your week?
PPS: Help. I wrote this whole post whilst rewatching several episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, which drastically increased the amount of time it took to write this post. I should go to sleep.