Sunday was our first free day of the semester, which was a bit weird. I slept in until nine o'clock (!), and did a bit of work for the rest of the morning. I spent all afternoon in the kitchen with Hannah, baking a red velvet cake for Drew's birthday. Drew is the baby of the group, and he just turned twenty last week. We're all juniors and seniors in school, though. The funny thing was, the Greenhouse kitchen doesn't actually have an oven. How, you ask, did you bake a cake without an oven? Well. We grilled it. No joke. There's a flat-topped grill that has a little rack under it, maybe four inches of space beneath the cooking surface. And that's where we put the cake. We actually had to cook one side, turn it over, and cook the other side. And we beat the cream cheese icing by hand. That's love, for you. In the end it came out beautifully, but it was certainly a struggle. I'll post a few pictures, to satisfy your inevitable incredulity. I think we should buy a cake for Shannon's birthday, though. We had a little party for Drew in the evening with Carl, the Greenhouse's Kiwi bartender who teased us about grilling the cake.

Monday through Thursday we stayed at the Greenhouse, having lectures in the morning and wearing ourselves out on schoolwork in the afternoons. We cooked some meals (I discovered that kangaroo is quite nice when marinated in soy sauce á la Dave Sloan and seared on the grill) and ate some out, especially at the falafel joint on the next block. I'm a bit sick, unfortunately, for the first time since parent's weekend my freshman year. Lousy timing. But nothing too bad. I mostly just feel lousy in the mornings and evenings.