Lunar Week

おはいよ！！！

I'm having some feels to do a proper weekly update so thought I should hurriedly do up one before this motivation fades off. Would say I had a very eventful week, but am only going to talk about the highlights! 

TUESDAY 

Headed down to Luton which is located off central London at night for my assessment centre the next morning. To paint a clearer picture of what exactly is going on, the assessment centre is the final stage of my interview for placement (aka internship). While I am really keen to go for placement to get the exposure and experience of 'working' in another country since I probably won't do something similar in future, the application process is such a dread. Maybe it is just for this particular organisation, because I know of friends who just had to submit their resumé and cover letter, whereas I had to go through 4 stages that goes like this: 

Do up an online application which asked me tons of situational and other related questions, as well as submit my CV > complete and pass a numeracy test > telephone interview > assessment centre 

I honestly thought I could have possibly flunked the numeracy test because they only gave you 70-90 seconds to solve each question, didn't help that there were reading involved too so I had to miss 2 questions hahaha but okay thank goodness I passed. No let me correct that, I am just so very thankful that I even made it this far. Apparently, there were 250 applications initially and the company narrowed that number down to 20 to come down for the final stage (and I'm one of them), in which they will finally only pick 6 to successfully join their placement scheme. It would be really wonderful if they give me such an opportunity, but even if I don't make it, I am just really really glad I managed to at least reach the final assessment! 

Anyway, back to what I was saying. Had a rushed dinner before taking a 2.5 hours train down to Luton. Wore my interview outfit (blazer + shift dress) out because I can't be bothered to bring tons of things since I am just heading there to crash and genius me decided to be a smart aleck and not wear tights/stockings lulz BAD DECISION TO BARE MY LEGS felt the cold to its fullest damn it. Wanted to walk to the house that will shelter me for the night but I just couldn't deal with the cold, it was dark and late and it was a 20 minutes walk so I gave in to temptation and Uber-ed HAHA. Okay la but in my defence it was only £5 ya I know in Sg I can take a cab from Bishan to somewhere near Ngee Ann for about the same price but I am in bloody London everything's painfully expensive so cut me some slack thank you haha. 

Was pleasantly surprise and satisfied with the house I found off Airbnb though! Really cosy and the owner provided me with everything, even offered to wake up and make breakfast for me so sweet of her :-) Though I accidentally stabbed her cat's leg with the gap between my toes the next morning HAHA guess cats and I are not meant to be friends lulz. 

On a depressing note, I spent a good £50 just on the train rides and accommodation for this darned assessment thing so I really hope it was money well spent haiyaaaaaaa. 

WEDNESDAY 

Decided to walk down to the train station instead and I got to say, I fell in love with Luton ever so slightly. The area was very peaceful and picturesque, kinda gave me this sense of tranquility. So I basically spent 6.5hours at the organisation going through 4 different kinds of tests.... well at least lunch was free! Definitely glad I got this opportunity to go to an assessment centre and also have a lookaround of the company, it really is a pretty office, definitely an eye opener :-) 

Okay la this picture doesn't do Luton any justice.

Let's not forget that this day was also the eve of Chinese New Year!!! You have no idea how pleased I am at the fact that I still get to celebrate cny and eat my all-time favourite goodie - PINEAPPLE TARTS in the UK. Let's not forget the kueh bulu, prawn roll crackers and kueh lapis SEDAP MAXIMUM. Since the Chinese tradition is to have a reunion with your family and relatives over a steamboat dinner, that's what my Asian Invasion family did!! Took the train back down to Gford to celebrate this tradition at JH's place wow so satisfied okay so damn long never eat steamboat already. We even had tang yuans and liu sha baos (that unfortunately didn't liu but ok beggars can't be choosers) to end off the night mehehehehe such a great way to end a hectic day! 

THURSDAY 

No way the Asian Invasion Gang (AIG) is going to let off 初一 so we had another reunion dinner, this time at Manor Park and pot luck style. When we first state what each of us are going to cook, I didn't really had much expectations for the food since majority of us never really stepped into the kitchen to do the real deal when we were living in Singapore haha. But hot damn, we were all impressed man! Everything on the 12-course meal was made from scratch so proud hehehehe. Sally and I stayed at Casper's place for more than 12 hours that day lulz broke our record, spent our entire afternoon prepping for the dishes we were going to cook. Was good fun, doubt I will ever forget this hahaha.

I apologise for the very bad positioning and quality but I was in a hurry but anyway the dishes are:
Ngo Hiang | Eefu Noodles | Cereal Prawns | Bak Kwa | Sweet & Sour Pork | Spinach w/ mushrooms | Steamed Fish | Fried Rice | Yu Sheng | Braised Pork | Chicken Soup | Sweet Potato Dessert 

Had some drinks and then the Manor Park family only called it a night at like 3AM. I died the next day lulz age is really catching up le sigh.

FRIDAY 

I really died in school. I don't know how I managed to survive on 4 hours of sleep every single day during my second year in Poly *pats own back*. I was dozing and zoning throughout and was so glad when the clock hit 4PM cause yay can go home. Crashed immediately till it was time for dinner gosh felt like crap NEVER GONNA DO THAT AGAIN. 

SATURDAY 

Had my usual weekend market routine and ended up chilling at Casper's place again with Marcus since Sally went to Durham to celebrate her sister's birthday! Downed a tub of Häagen-Dazs with the help of the 2 boys jialat my appetite is jialat, watched Spirited Away again and dozed off during the second movie so we called it a night HAHA gosh I'm so old. 

VALENTINE'S DAY

OH. I would like to talk about last weekend as well, where some of AIG travelled down to London on Valentine's Day to try and soak up some cny festive vibes at Chinatown but it was very saddening because there were no festivity or the likes of it at all. But okay our dinner at Misato and all the food we had at Camden Town market made up for it so all's good all's good.

Fish & Chips

Shrimp Burger

Seafood Platter

DUCK BURGER OH HOT DAMN.

And here's Casper having some sort of identity crisis. 

Okay that's about it. I am still in the holiday mood jialat very jialat, haven't even start on my assignments and I'm thinking about the places AIG will be going during our Easter break. I am so stoked for all the fun stuff it is making me so unmotivated for the new semester I NEED TO SNAP OUT OF THIS SHIT. 

Bye bye 新年快乐!!!!!!!