There's something about stressful periods that's just oh-so-conducive to food - both in terms of stress-eating, and stress-cooking. So picking up where we left off: on the 19th, I wrote my second exam in the morning. At night, we headed over to A, D, M, M, and J's apartment for a 'One Last Time' party, since they're moving out at the end of the month :( It was great to see everyone and catch up though!

Saturday was super unproductive, consisting basically of procrastinating, watching movies, and dealing with some administrative EC stuff. (There was an alien movie that I watched like a decade ago that I've been trying to find again for years - after watching it, I'm pretty sure it was Alien: Resurrection. Less scary now that I'm actually within the recommended age range, haha.) And then at 6pm I realized, uh oh, needed to get dressed/presentable and get over to Pickle Barrel for our 6:45pm reservation for our team dinner. (I made the reservation, and yes, sometimes I like to pick less common times, okay.) There ended up being 9 of us, and it was a pretty good time. I got the grilled turkey burger + sweet potato fries; it was good! No photo though.
Sunday morning A, M, S & I went for brunch at Rose & Sons, which was a super adorable venue and boasts "comfort food". S and I were feeling lazy so we decided to bus over instead of walking, but that turned into quite the debacle. First, the bus did not show up. (We were also waiting at two separate bus stops.) So we catch the next one, halfway through the trip, S panics and insists we need to get off the bus, we do so, realize we got off too early, I reacted pretty quickly and suggested we just hop back on, S insists we're only like 3 minutes away from the restaurant anyway. We weren't. It was more like 1.5km away (so about 13 minutes). The food (first photo) was definitely worth it though.

Afterwards, the four of us headed to Ezra's Pound, since it was such a sunny day (and we were all putting off studying). (I've also compiled a massive list of cafes I want to try, so it was nice to check another one off.) We left M at the coffee shop, walked A home, and then S and I spent the rest of the afternoon holed up in the library.
Soon, we were struck with hunger pangs and headed back out in search of more food. We ended up settling for Vietnamese food at Anh Dao. The dish I got (some sort of Bún thịt nướng?) reminded me of this one restaurant we used to go to all the time in high school. Haven't had this kind of food in a while now. Then it was back to the library, and L joined us (and the two of us went on a Timmy's run).
Didn't go out for prepared food today, but I did go grocery shopping - and ended up with 2 bags of Doritos and 4 TV dinners. Which is kind of terrible, because I've had adequate self-control up until this point to not buy any chips this entire school year (minus the 3 bags of Crispers, and the time I had to buy chips for an EC event). But I also bought lots of fish, which is supposed to be good brain food. May be wishful thinking that it'll pay off in time for my next exam... Anyway, collaborated with M on dinner; I made lemon herb salmon steaks. They turned out decently.
Also tried making chili in my rice cooker after dinner tonight; this didn't quite turn out looking like conventional chili. It tastes okay though, and for a first time (free-styling, no recipe), can't complain. So yeah, basically my last couple of days have revolved around food in a major way. But I also dragged myself to the gym tonight, so in the end, it all balances out :)

In hindsight, this past semester has been varied, and not what I expected (but then again, it wasn't like I went into this semester expecting anything in particular). Some things worked out better than expected, others didn't work out at all. There were missed opportunities, and unexpected opportunities. Highs and lows. Positives and negatives. At the end of the day, there's only tomorrow. And that should be sufficient reason to remain optimistic.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring...