For the past week I've been working on homework, strengthening friendships, baking batches of delicious cookies, meeting new professors/chefs, and trying to figure out how to balance school with everything else I have going on. I started four new classes: Food Safety, Culinary Math, Freshman Seminar, and Baking Ingredients & Equipment. All of the instructors I have for these classes seem stern, but entirely willing to help out the new students. Their helpfulness did not, however, deter them from assigning copious amounts of homework for us to have completed by the next class.
For those of you who know me, you know that I'm "allergic to math" (my professor's words). I was deathly afraid to take the culinary math class, and I'm still a little bit nervous, but all of my classmates who understand the material have been more than helpful to those of us who are even the slightest bit behind. I've completed homework (CORRECTLY!!) assignments and anticipate my continued success in this course.
All I'm going to say about my BIET (Baking Ingredients & Equipment) teacher is that she's very intimidating. She will be the professor that yells at our class for even a hint of laziness. I have a feeling we're going to butt heads, but we'll just see how that goes.
I believe that I talked to a few about how much I was DREADING taking the Freshman seminar class, on account of being nearly 23 and having graduated from a 4-year University before my arrival to the CIA. I'm not going to say that after sitting through the first class that any of the material will be riveting, but something awesome did happen. We're required to document an "Exploratory Interview", which obviously means we will need to interview someone who inspires us, or that we just think is interesting. My motto for life (typically) is "Go big or go home", so in true me-fashion, I raised my hand and asked the professor if he knew of any way that I could get in touch with Anthony Bourdain to interview him for the assignment. Instead of the response I expected him to give, ("No, shut up, sit down, idiot.) he said that he had never been asked about that before, and that he would make some calls. WHAT IF I GET TO INTERVIEW TONY-FREAKING-BOURDAIN?! WHAT IF?!??! I may die. At least I'll be happy when I go though.
Yesterday, in order to get away from all of the stress of school, a few of my friends and I decided to go to NYC for a day. We caught the 8:40 AM train out of Poughkeepsie, and arrived to the city a little before 11. We spent most of the day visiting epic food locations and enjoying moderately-priced NYC cuisines. My favorite place of the day was Katz's Delicatessen, by far. I have never had meat that was THAT good. The pastrami that I sampled literally melted on my tongue. It was perfection. So obviously I ordered a pastrami on rye, and split that and noblewurst on rye sandwich with my friend Mary. They were the best sandwiches I have ever ingested.
Today has been extremely successful as well. I woke up early, went to breakfast at the Eveready diner (look it up on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives), and then drove to Rhinebeck for the farmers market. Since my return to campus I have done laundry, hemmed two pairs of pants, repaired a friend's chef coat, cleaned up the room, and organized all of my clothes into their designated drawers. Makin' progress, for real.
I will try to post more frequently so that all of my posts don't end up being this long and drawn out. I miss all of my friends in Knoxville terribly, but I am having the best time of my life being up here. I really wish some of you were here to experience this with me. I at least hope that all of you get out and do something epic with your lives. Please don't slump into complacency! There are awesome experiences for you to have, and I am the poster child for that right now!
Love all of you!
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