That They May Know: Saturday Before D-Day: Fun and Relaxation

School's about to start in just 1 day - Monday marks the start of my M.Sc. programme and I guess I kind of took Saturday to just bum around a little and chill before the school term begins proper. I had a really pleasant surprise when Phillip Chan (Dr. Phil Chan's son) emailed me, suggesting that we should have lunch today instead of tomorrow after church - he goes to St. Ebbes as well, what a coincidence! Lovely.

So I finished up some readings and prepared to meet Phillip outside Boswell and Co. (this departmental store just outside of my college) for... guess what? Chinese food! Yup! That's right, Chinese cuisine! So at about 12:15 pm, Phillip and I trooped down to this restaurant called Wok & Roll, and there we had:

Crispy Fried Wantons

Egg-Fried Rice with Chicken Curry

It tasted more like Japanese food to me than Chinese cuisine because of the sweet curry, but the curry was fragrant enough to satisfy me. And the rice! Man! It tastes like proper Chinese rice we have back home in Singapore! Probably some Thai fragrant rice or something. Man, I miss Singaporean rice dishes! The whole course came with a Fanta orange juice drink, for only £6, so it wasn't that bad.

I forgot to take a picture of the restaurant, but I did take a picture of the window view since we were by the window:


Window View, Wok & Roll

Well, not much of a spectacular sight, but never mind anyway. So Phillip and I chatted about various things, from our faith, academic rigour, relationships (I was surprised this popped up in our conversation) and also his Dad. Haha, I never expected that I would get to chat with Dr. Phil Chan's son, never ever in my life! Wow. Amazing. :)

So he brought me around, and we went shopping around a little bit for his groceries - I might just do the same tomorrow after church! Oh yes, and then we got to see some of the buskers and performances along Cornmarket Street:

A Church Brass Band

A Lovely Couple

Isn't this sweet? Haha, my heart melts everytime I see a couple together enjoying an activity in unison. It has got to be one of the loveliest things ever. :)

And then we got to see this Jamaican troupe, or at least I thought it was Jamaican:

Some Jaimaican Dance and Music Troupe

They had some funky dance moves, but I don't think the graduate students appreciated the loud noise right below their flats, haha!

Phillip and I bade farewell soon after, and I went back home to finish up non-degenerate Perturbation Theory, which was a compulsory pre-requisite for my course, so I finished up some calculations:

1st Order Perturbation Theory

1st Order Perturbation Theory (Continued)

I think I'm quite used to the mathematics, but I'm still not really used to the derivations and all - you know, I have a knack for doing courses in University that I don't fulfill the pre-requisites for, and I guess now I'm suffering the consequences, because my Professor stressed that I should go acquaint myself with the pre-requisites. Oh well, I'll just plough through it all with time! And with God's help! Haha.

Later that night, one of my college friends invited all of us for this 'parenting' dinner, a welcome of sorts; it was down at Herbert's Close, Cowley Road, which was a forty minute walk from Jesus College! I was really bushed when I got there, and starving! And what awaited me was well, a lot of beer, a lot of gin & tonic, a lot of red wine, a lot of alcohol, but thankfully, also a lot of food!

There was well, I don't know what to call it.. bruschetta? But I know bruschetta has nice sun-dried tomatoes on them - so let's just call it toasted baguette with mozarella:

Toasted Baguette with Mozarella, Lemon Zest and Olive Oil

And here were the chefs of the night, all members (well most of them) of the Middle Common Room (MCR) committee:

Emma O'Brien (left) in a Frenzy

There was a lovely salad tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and I think they used feta cheese with spinach, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and dates (or were they cranberries?). In short, it's Greek Salad, haha!

Greek Salad

And then there was also penne pasta tossed with parmesan, olive oil, pine nuts and some italian herbs:

Penne with Parmesan and Pine Nuts

The pine nuts gave it a real creamy texture - it's what they use in pesto in case you didn't know! And I loaded my plate with these two dishes (I had two servings!):

My Dinner Plate

And here was the party crowd with their drinks; and nah, I didn't drink anything but orange juice:

Party Crowd at Herbert's Close

And some of the busy people again:

Busy People

And for dessert there was this blueberry cream cheese pie and some toffees:

Toffees and Blueberry Cheesecake

I didn't have too many or too much because I was really feeling full already, but I figured since it'd be a forty minute walk back home to Jesus College anyway, I'd might as well eat a little bit more! Heh.

So I left the party earlier when they got down to drinking at the pavillion because I was really exhausted and I didn't really want to drink either, so I walked back down Cowley Road to Jesus College, and on the way I took some photos for all of you to see - the night scenes at Oxford: