Hallo

Hope your doing well. Im doing okay, and ill be doing much better once this week is over. 2 days (nearly 1 day) left until the math exam and a couple until physics, but the fact that ive been a leeds ISCstudent this long baffles me, I WANT TO BE FREE.

Hey, at least I finally fixed my sleep schedule. Admittedly it did take a couple of energy drinks and some perserverance to stay up long enough, past 1 pm since at that point id gotten used to sleeping in the late A.M’s (7-10) and waking up at in the mid P.M’s (typically right around 5), but now ive been keeping up some good momentum the right way round to solidify waking up in the morning in my brain, we’re good now :D.

Though on a seperate note, housing, goddamit is housing a pain.

Those few things are the major notes for the week but ill go into housing a bit more.

Since my tenancy is ending soon (by the end of the month), and theyre bumping up rent by like 200 pounds per month (the goddamn lunatics), ive been tasked with looking for a new flat thats ideally under 720 pounds per month. That’s… a bit of a tough ask as ive come to see.

There are three main apps you can use to email and call the flat owners, that being zoopla, right move and the worst of the 3 that I dont remember the name of.

Zoopla is the most polished UI wise, and is the easiest to navigate by far, but is annoying given the emails they send and the way you unsubscribe from them, AND the data they collect on you.

So not much better than every dirtbag of a tech company.

Right move is worse UI wise, but it does have a spot where it lists flats youve called or heard back from via email, which I think is nice. It helped me run through a bunch of flats when I needed to, but heres the thing,

THEYRE TAKEN, ALL OF THEM. Its so frustrating, they shouldve just taken it off of the listing if its been rented but there are several properties listed on sale THAT JUST ARENT.

IM IN A HURRY AND I DONT HAVE TIME FOR YOU DUMBASSES JUST TAKE THE LISTINGS DOWN THEN>:(.

That, and the amount of amazing flats that LOOK perfectly suitable for students, only to require FULL TIME, let me say that again because I DIDNT say part-time, FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT, IS, INSANE.

Given that, and how nobody in the under 740 pound range was emailing me back, I decided to go up to 800, and low and behold I actually did get an email back and viewed the place just yesterday.

…it was run down as hell. Honestly? I WOULD live there if it were cheap enough, but for 780 without all bills included or wifi basically just bumped it up to what my current flat used to bill us (900), and at least this flat is way better kept.

So yea, that ones a no-go. It paints the rest of the flats ill be looking at in quite a bad light honestly, since this was the one that cost the most so far, but im just gonna have to hope that other flats arr better and that that one was just some guy overcharging for a run down dump.

This search admittedly hasnt accounted for house shares or flats that dont come with all bills included, so once im done studying (preferably after friday so physics is done), ill start looking again and including those.

I dont actually mind a bill that matches the price my family wants, just with me having to pay some of it on my own via the utility bills being seperate than the bill for the flat as a whole (aka all bills not included), ive just been hesitant on that front since my dad seemed pretty adamant on it to start.

Now that I asked him though, and saw myself how relatively easy it is to pay for water and electricity (dunno about gas tbh), he seems up for it and im more than willing given this helps me actually find a flat to stay at.

(O btw, if your wondering how I viewed a house that wasn’t all bills included yet only searched for all bills included houses, only zoopla can reliably look for houses that are specifically bills included, rightmove CAN kinda but not really, and it limits the amounts of flats you see in both apps too, usually ending in a “we think you might like” section of sorts, or as with rightmove in this case, just not properly filtering for buildings with bills included)

Thing is, I cant quite say the same for a houseshare.

Look, I get maybe 1 roommate, that could work, but EVEN THEN I really dont want to :’).

I already love the amount of privacy ive got living on my own, and the freedom I have over every aspect of the living space. I can cook whenever, the fridge is all mine, same for the washing machine, I dont have to worry about disturbing anybody with the piano (though admittedly its not really an issue, I can play on low volume or just get my earphones back once a family member travels to see me).

All this, and any roommate issues are made MUCH worse if its a BAD roommate, I dont even wanna know what thatd look like in all honesty. It could just as likely be a good roommate, but hedging my bets on something so important, MY LIVING SPACE, is a scary proposition.

In all honesty, I wanted to do a house share before I came to leeds. Its not that I wanted to save money, no, I WANTED a house share. But that was only ever under the assumption that my roommate would be cool, or someone I knew, then id be more than willing. Hell, I was willing to risk getting a bad roommate if I had to bet on a stranger.

…But now? Ive already got so used to this, not to mention the horror stories from all my classmates whove done house shares.

“The kitchen is FILTHY”. “The fridge has no space at all, literally just a single containers worth is ever free”, “Its barely private; youll be walking in at the wrong times ALL the time”, IF THE FIRST TWO ARE TRUE, IM FUCKED. FUCKED >:O.

At least the third can be seen as a price to pay (one that id really rather not do) but I NEED my kitchen clean, and I NEED to be able to use it well. Im barely fitting stuff in my fridge AS IS, and its pretty big :v(like 1 row smaller than family size).

So yea, I wont exclude the house shares that come up anymore, after all I do NEED to see more houses, ive only seen one out of the MANY ive emailed and called so far and I only have 20 days left, on top of the fact that I could very well be overexxagerating and or meet a great roommate that makes life easy :p, but ive still got my eyes peeled for studios till its absolutely necessary to do a houseshare.

O yea, also not a single studio in leeds allows pets, bummer ]:<.

Anywho, im hungry, so lets talk food too.

The other day (like a week and a half ago) I made some fettucine alfredo

I bit earlier than that, by a week or so, some chicken lentil curry.

Theres 2 more main meal thatve been a cornerstone, but we’ll get there l8r.

In an attempt to eat healthier, ive been trying to find meals that I can keep in the fridge for long, and just generally making those meals healthier, as to stop eating outside as much and have a way to more reliably eat less as well. Not necessarily meal prepping, I dont have containers all containing a meal’s worth of food with exact calories or anything near that, and I dont have the time or patient for it (id rather throw my kitchen OUT OF WINDOW than calorie count). Instead, ive sort of just been doing what my mother does (and basically what all moms do), which is make a big portion and keep it in the fridge for everyone to eat for the next couple of days.

I do two of those every 3-5 days, and alternate depending on what I most feel like eating, usually with a side of frozen vegetables to help up my veg count for the day. That, and if theres too much of whatever I make I can put some in the freezer and unfreeze it, essentially completing a weeks worth of meals in a day. The idea is to (at some point) have enough meals that have a healthy nutritional profle that I can cycle through them every week or so, that way I dont get bored. Plus, by the time a system is set up itll be easy to just pick and choose meals im tired of and swap them out.

Now I KNOW your yelling in your head at me right now that fettucine alfredo ISNT healthy, at least the image I showed wasnt. To which my dear friend, I have to say your totally right :v.

Yea, I was just really craving it that day, and ended up making the whole 3-4 days worth. Honestly? It was delicious, but am I ever doing it again (at least, without adding some vegetables like corn and whatever else?)?

HEEEEEEELLLLLLL NO. You really test the limits of whether or not you like a food once youve had it that many times a day and let me tell you, that plus the garlic-y aftertaste just killed me x). So yea, im doing stuff more in line with the chicken lentil soup from now on, though probably not with the potatoes(I sort of forgot there were enough carbs as is with the lentils before prepping 4 the meal).

It tastes great btw, and even after eating it for so long it really held on strong. Its not as easy to go crazy for like with the fettucine alfredo, but its something you can end up eating a lot more consistently over the course of several days.

As for the other recipes? Well you might already know the mongolian beef rice from previous posts, but did you know that the time I made it last sunday was the closest i’d managed to make it out of the 3 times ive made it in the past 30 or so days ive made it?

Yea. THREE, TIMES.

Im gonna be honest, I dont even care to tell you how good it was, maybe because the mushrooms I added this time or the long grain brown rice I switched to ALSO excacerbated my need to NEVER EAT IT AGAIN, HOLY HELL.

Again, you REALLY test the limits of whether or not you like a food once youve had it that many times x)).

Honestly though, its a good recipe, and ill share all the ones I tried at the bottom of the post by the time im done writing this if your curious.

Ill probably be replacing it with beans and rice and beans btw, much cheaper and pretty healthy. That, and ill be looking to add a recipe involving chickpeas since I already have some I ought to use :v.

O, and the last recipe was oven salmon. Not much to mention there, tastes good but it really is just salmon thats seasoned, some asparagus and potatoes thrown in the oven, dead simple. Honestly love salmon for how easy it is not to fuck up, cant help but appreciate that <3.

Anywho, its recipe link time.

Heres the mongolian beef https://youtu.be/ImEDbyWuswU?si=g3dO8ZjubbHGpKbQ

The chicken lentil https://youtu.be/rAO8uWWsP_U?si=fHeyHrgVMis11UY2

The fettucine alfredo https://youtu.be/F7CU0qBdj04?si=0XPuANc2dgS9xZ5A

And the salmon https://youtu.be/FQQpIUaSqY0?si=VNflw8mqkNOlis1v

And now its time for my ass to go back to studying.

Again, feels way too early, and now that I have a good sense of when I actually said everything that ive wanted to say im DYING having to keep the past couple of posts this brief, but I promise you I will do better soon. Just in a bit of a rough patch rn given the STILL ONGOING exams and having to move out >:[.

Id be remissed if I didnt at least mention one more thing on the way out though. Im still, completely and utterly obsessed with kitchen fork :p.

Yea idk I just felt like that needed to be said, the amv I sent a while back is amazing, the song itself is amazing, jack conte’s other song is great “yeah yeah yeah”, GO ENJOY THEM.

https://youtu.be/QXh5rG1hQCo?si=IqoLN2PKAizzSRYW

https://youtu.be/Dzr32OqGlOA?si=WpDHS21D51Pc3w6H

https://youtu.be/6CZr3F4OXnk?si=rjprk9AnXOZ6BU5l

I love how silly jack conte can be, juxtaposed with just how BRUTALLY, PAINFULLY melancholic these songs are to me. Genuinely, I cant describe it any better than that, but in trying to put it into words on a screen, id say that its as though you took everything about littlebigplanet and all the memories I have of it and condensed it into one infinitesimally small yet super dense ball of melancholy, lodged straight into my brain.

Especially for yeah yeah yeah, kitchen fork still kills me everytime but its less lbp melo nostalgia and more-so as dramatic and bitersweet victorian nostalgia.

I know, really silly wording, but goddamit its my post and fuck it, if you get it you get it, thats genuinely the best way I can try to translae my feelings about these onto the post and its the feeling I get from all the cool sounds in both songs, I hope your able to get something similar yourself :)(please do I dont wanna seem like a lunatic).

So yea, that really is all for now. See you next week, once these exams are over, once and for all. Have a good week ya goober :).