Victoria Age Championships

...Are less than 2 weeks away!
I've entered the 69kg class so I have to lose around 1.5kg to make it. FINGERS CROSSED!

Heavy week this week, I did big squats (for me) on Tuesday which was surprisingly easy.

S is coming to visit for a week! Looking forward to it!

I've develped some sort of RSI in my indx finger from too much typing/mouse clicking/writing which is making it hard to take notes :/

Gap Year and stuffs

Wow, another post! I must be procrastinating!

Ok so, I'm feeling a lot better because I've been talking to some to the faculty co-ordinators and stuff and I've worked out that the best thing for me to do is take a gap year next year, go home and do some light research work, get a part time job and study at my own pace for a bit :)
That way I can be totally refreshed for third year in 2014 and I can also have a life for once!

Also, I got a high HD on my latest assignment :3
I got a rubbish on one of my other assignments but that one was highly subjective (reflective piece) so apart from that, I have gotten HDs on all my assignments so far in both years :D

Exhaustion

I feel mildly bad about my lack of posting, I was supposed to be doing this blog shebang more often and while I have plenty of things I would love to write about, I just don't have time.

I am currently about to start my third week of semester, we are currently in the thick of haematology AND pelvis and franklin, I'm dead. Absolutely exhausted. I have around 30 contact hours per week at university and spend a good 25-30 hours studying outside of uni and I am so tired.

I might not have time to post for a while, I might find time tomorrow. Who knows?

If you're reading this, whoever you are, wherever you are, I hope you are well :)

Cupcakes Galore!

I admit it, I have a baking addiction.
Like, seriously. I can't stop. I have made four batches of cupcakes in the last week and luckily, living in a household of six (I'm home for the holidays - yay!), they get eated really quickly.

So I'm going to post so photos of my creations!

Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream

 I didn't realise at the time but the reason my buttercream split so badly was that the cream cheese I used was low fat (30% less) and the extra water in it separated out and wouldn't combine.

Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese buttercream

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

Chocolate Cupcakes with a Chocolate ganache glaze

Chocolate Cupcakes with Piped Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate Cupcakes with Piped Chocolate ganache

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache and white chocolate buttercream topped with chocolate lattices

Soups and Cakes

Today was a busy day for baking and cooking, I made a 'Red velvet' chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting and two soups!

I made a basic chocolate cake, sliced it in half and while it was cooling, I made Italian meringue and cream cheese frosting. I used Whisk Kid's cream cheese frosting recipe and modified it to make Italian style buttercream as opposed to Swiss, which is a lot heavier and not so popular in my house, and slathered it on (smooth, fluffy deliciousness!) I then grated a piece of 70% Cocoa Lindt over the top.

Lets just say it went down rather well :p

(My iphone sort of killed the colours)

After dinner I decided to start on my soups, the first is a basic 'everything' soup so, onion, cabbage, carrot, parsnip, swede, celery, bacon bits and the leftover roast lamb, pumpkin, parsnip, potato and sweet potato from dinner as well as a litre and a half of chicken stock, large pinch of salt and lots of black pepper.

I am also making Ham stock for another soup. I got the massive stock pot and placed two massive ham hocks, 6 onions (in halves), 5 cloves of garlic, two huge pieces of celery, a carrot, a bayleaf and a sprinkling of black pepper corns and then overed it all with water. This is simmer gently for most of the night and I will strain and concentrate it tomorrow. :)

So much food! I am loving being back home!