I love them.

While I was in culinary school, my view on the value of a bachelor’s degree went through some transformations. At first, I didn’t really care to earn one, and I hated the fact that so much was dependent on a sheet of paper. Although it doesn’t hurt to have a degree, there are plenty of people who have dropped out of school, or have never gone, that have become quite successful. All you need is some luck to get your foot in the door some times. That, or to be crazy-determined and hard-working to achieve your goals. I’m not saying either of these are fail-proof, or that people who have gone to school and earned their degrees wasted their time and money, but that emphasis shouldn’t be placed more on one than the other.

So after I graduated from culinary school, I decided to go back to university – back to one of the things I hated most, and which had caused me so much grief in prior years. All along I have felt disappointed at myself for spending so much time/money (they’re synonymous, are they not?) in school, but coming out “empty-handed.” I was afraid of hearing I-told-you-so’s for not sticking it out and finishing my degree before pursuing other interests, but I heard none, and if I did, I had already beaten myself numb with the phrase to have it even faze me.

The last time I posted here, I shared a bit about what going back to school was like. I was pretty optimistic life, and my classes, for the most part, have remained enjoyable. As this semester comes to a close though, I wonder if the decision I made was more to further my future career, or if I am just avoiding “real life.” Not that being a student is necessarily fake life (though it is easy to be stuck in this “bubble”), but that after all I’ve been through, I actually haven’t grown up at all.

If you’ve talked me over these past four months, I’m sure you’ve heard me complain more than once about the inadequacy of my school’s administration. Their lack of organization and care for students really made me consider dropping it all; why would I want to continue in a business school that doesn’t not demonstrate any professionalism?

Alas, I made a decision to stay. However, I also believe that the best decisions are ones that can be easily changed. So even though I’ve said I’m going to tough it out this time, I’m still giving myself the option to change my mind. It’s a question I wrestle with every day. It’s especially difficult when there are so many full-time job opportunities tempting me. Sure, I could work and do school simultaneously, but I’m not one of those amazing people. I know my limits, and I know if I do both, one of them will suffer tremendously, or I will only be mediocre in both. I don’t want to aim for mediocrity.

So where does this leave me? I’m already registered for classes for next semester. If I drop-out again, there’s no guarantee that I’ll get a job in my field of interest with my minimal experience. If I stay in school, there’s no guarantee that I’ll get a job either. But rest assured that I will never join the Occupy Movement. Haha.

If I don’t finish school now, will I regret it for the rest of my life? (Feel free to give your two cents, but this is more rhetorical question for myself).

So I’m back in school to finish my bachelor’s, this time in business management. The beginning of the school year felt a bit weird. This is the first time in five years that I’m not the one leaving home, so it’s been interesting to see the large void that college kids leave when they all go to college. I mean, I don’t think it was that bad when I first left for college, because only 2 people from my class of 4 went away, but add the current class of seniors with the classes after them and that’s at least 12. For a church community as small as mine, that’s a significant difference, maybe a third? So that’s what it’s like for a majority of the year…

I’m really enjoying my classes so far, except for maybe my writing class because my professor is like Umbridge. I’m taking Intro to Business, Microeconomics, and Psychology. Hasn’t been too difficult so far, but enough to keep me busy. I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s a CUNY school, or because after all my other schooling, I’ve become a better student. I’d like to believe it’s the latter. However, I think I’ve gotten spoiled by other schools’ administration. I know it’s the student’s responsibility to make sure all their papers, credits, etc. and stuff are in line, but man, I’ve never been so annoyed with administration before now. Everything is last minute. It’s like teaching a goldfish some tricks. They can’t do anything unless you’re physically there probing them; you walk away and they go back to their own mundanity. Taking what I’ve learned from economics, they are not running efficiently. Am I being too harsh?

In other news about school, I haven’t gotten involved with any clubs. Since majority of the school are commuters (limited dorms) it’s been hard to find a reason to stay on campus since I live so close already. It reminds me of being at LaGuardia; it’s so huge it’s easy to be anonymous. By the way, I had no idea the school had such a huge Asian population, and mostly AZNs, unfortunately. Okay, don’t laugh at me, but I sort of wanted to try out for cheerleading. Too bad they require experience.

Well, October is coming up soon. It’s going to be a crazy month: Two consecutive weekend weddings, midterms, graduation, and a whole lot of birthdays. Bring it on!

Back in high school my sister and I didn’t really have many friends beside each other (do you believe it?). I don’t think we meant to do this, but we ended up immortalizing or preserving ourselves in a couple notebooks like Tom Riddle did in a diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We kept notebooks in which we wrote notes and passed to each other in the hallway between classes. When I think back on it, it’s pretty genius and pretty lame at the same time because we knew each other’s schedule, and where and when would be the best time to do a hand-off. Some of the notes were written during our separate lunch periods in which we always went to the library because we hated the cafeteria or didn’t have anyone to sit with. Others were written during class when we should’ve been taking notes.

Anyway, the content of these notes to each other were pretty much the same thing in different phrasing. I’m not sure we noticed it at the time, but reading them now, we realized how dumb and repetitive they were and it made us laugh so hard because these were the things that were important to us then. BOYS, complaining about annoying people, tests, sickness, extra curricular activities…

There was a time period in which we didn’t know the whereabouts of our first notebook, and during this time we wrote notes to each other on random pieces of paper. So many of those notes said “Do you know where our notebook is? It’s not in either of our lockers, and it’s not at home…” As documented in the notebook after it was found, it was gone for at least 3 weeks. It was returned to my sister by her Spanish teacher who assured her that no one had read it. But C’MON! We know that was a big lie. Some student had returned it to the teacher after reading everything. I’m sure they got a good laugh at it. I think our identities were obvious in the notebook, but it’s a good thing we had codenames for pretty much everyone we wrote about. It was actually a challenge for us to decode some of the people because we have nearly forgotten, or want to forget high school.

Man, I haven’t laughed that hard in such a long time. I actually started wheezing a little bit, and I thought I was going to get a sore throat from laughing. High school was such a joke. I’m glad we documented such mundane day-to-day experiences. Journals are such great things. I’m sure we’ll dig out the notebooks again in a few years and still laugh just as hard.

• Bostonians suck at driving cars, and New Yorkers suck at riding bikes.
  • Even though Boston drivers will stop for pedestrians to cross even when they have the green light, they always try to race bicyclists or get pissed when they have to slow down behind one because some of those bike lanes just have waaaay too many potholes/broken glass. Also, Bostonians never look before they swing open their doors to get out of their parked cars.
  • So far New York bicyclists have annoyed me more than taxis or other drivers because they freakin’ ride in any direction they want! They love going down the opposite direction and making me swerve into oncoming traffic. Usually it’s delivery guys (haven’t seen any delivery girls…), or men/women with way too many bags and baskets attached to their bikes.
• Bike lanes in Boston are generally on the right, while in NY they are on the left – I guess it has to do with most big roads being two-way in Boston, and only one-way in NY.I like that bike lanes in NY are generally bordered or highlighted in green, and in some places we even have our own bike traffic light (though most people ride through red lights as long as there are no cars comings)! Both cities have become more bike-friendly and accommodating, but I feel like I had to try harder in Boston to make myself visible. Question: if there is no bike lane, is it more acceptable to ride on the right or left of cars? In a Triaminic bicycle safety video I watched as a kid, I remember them saying “Ride with the traffic and keep to the right!”, but now I’m confused…
• There’s not many, if any, bike messengers in Boston. Or maybe I’m just not on the road when they are. It’s not like NYC, where they are everywhere, squeezing through spaces you didn’t think was possible. It might be just the pace and size of Boston doesn’t require it. Boston is a running city…maybe runners can deliver quicker than on a bike. HAHA!
• Lack of poles/racks to lock bikes up in NY compared to Boston.

Okay, well actually those were the main differences I noticed. There might’ve been some more, but I forgot them.

Goal: I want to ride over every bridge that connects Manhattan to any of the other boroughs or islands.

1. There are a good number of tasty alternatives to animal products that I was not aware of before.
2. I can understand the ethical and health benefits of animal-free foods, but I hate when people get all pretentious about their diets.
3. Raw food is pretty good, but requires some pretty pricey tools/equipment sometimes…
4. I think I could go vegetarian, vegan would be more challenging, but a strict raw diet sounds horrible. No warm/hot foods!

So I am now in my last block of classes before I head out for my externship. This means I am in the restaurant now. I can hardly believe it. It’s been less than a year, and it seemed like forever, yet here I am. It really flew by. My last 6 weeks at school is split into two parts. The first 3 weeks I am working Front-of-House, and the remaining 3 will be Back-of-House. Today I was assigned to be a “floater.” I did a little bit of everything for FOH. Man, let me tell you, being a waitress is a lot harder than I thought it’d be. I really only waited one table, and even then it was hard for me to keep track of things and pay attention to the customer without being overbearing. We had few rude customers that didn’t care that it was all our first day on the job, but most of them were patient and understanding. I was really anxious about going down to the restaurant before because I felt so unprepared to actually start serving the public (there’s a lot more at risk than if you’re serving yourself or the instructor), but the chefs are really good about guiding clueless people like me and saying it’s okay because it is an educational experience; you’re not expected to know everything (which I was also nervous about because of classmates who have been in the food industry forever, and I feel like my questions have common sense answers, and I’m always afraid to ask). I just got to keep in mind that it’s only the beginning and not give up. I”ll get the hang of it soon enough. Need to not get defeated so easily.

With Valentine’s Day just yesterday, I won’t deny that I had someone special on my mind. Unfortunately, I missed an opportunity, and now he’s lost forever. Don’t you hate it when that happens? I do. It’s happening to me right now and making me sad. Although I know it’s true, I hate the saying “There are plenty of fish in the sea.” Well right now, there’s only one that matters! It’s like Marlin trying to find Nemo.

By the way, if anyone wants a great lunch deal, Technique (LCB school restaurant) has a 3-course meal for $10. (Dinner 3-course $12 and 5-course $15). Come see me in action at lunch time! (11:30am-1pm)

I’m a little disappointed in myself. I still have very low confidence in my cooking skills. It doesn’t help that the chef instructors think I’m “great.” Apparently, from what one of them told me, they all had a pow-wow one day about me, and now my current chef instructor sort of plays favorite with me, and it makes me really uncomfortable. Worse so because I’m the only girl in my class. Even though I know I’ll probably cry, I wish a chef instructor would yell at me or something. Right now all this “encouragement” is only making me more unsure of myself. I’m struggling with finding a balance between using my sense and following directions exactly as they are given. My human and robot self won’t get along.

On a brighter note, I’m really enjoying my Wine and Beverage class. I was never really a drinker, and didn’t have my first drink until three months after my 21st birthday, but now I want to try everything. If I wasn’t frugal with my money and have better sense, I think I could very possibly become an alcoholic. Beer still tastes bad to me, but I’m not opposed to it. I’m really interested in mixed drinks, and I love the smell of most wines. Generally, I think I like the taste white wines more, but maybe I just need to have some kind of food pairing to better enjoy red wines.

I’m going to write a separate post on this, but lately I’ve become fascinated with vegan and raw diets. More later.

• Get to know people on a deeper level, and allow others to get to know me as well – not put up so many walls
• Complete a 1000-piece puzzle
• Go skydiving
• Donate blood
• Graduate
• Read the entire Bible
• Be able to do 5 consecutive pull-ups
• Run a 5k
• Travel to a country I’ve never been to before
• Take more pictures
• Sketch at least once a week
• Relearn music theory
• Brush up on ASL, Spanish, Chinese (relearn?)
• Learn Tagalog
• Journal everyday
• Cook for more people
• Go on a culinary road trip
• Make more youtube videos
• Snail mail more
• Go on a missions trip
• Learn to handstand
• Milk a cow

The list may grow, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Todavia estoy en Boston. Termine escuela viernes pasado, y originalmente iba a volver a casa pero necesito quedar a trabajar. Mi hermana volvio a casa ayer y todo mi familia fueron comer barbacoa corea sin mi! Estaba muy triste. Hay mucho que quiero escribir. No se como todo en espanol pero voy a intentar mi mejor.  Este ano fue muy interesante con mucho cambio personal. Al principio, estaba deprimido y furioso con todo el mundo, pero especialmente con cristianos. No ayuda que fue a una conferencia de misiones con mas de 20,000 cristianos antes el nuevo ano. Me volvia loco! A comenzar el nuevo ano, mis amigas, mis hermana y yo fuimos a una viaje por coche a Nashville, Tennessee, Atlanta, Marietta, y Savannah, Georgia, Wilmington, Carolina de Norte, Washington DC, un pueblo pequeno en Maryland y finalmente de vuelta a Nueva York. Fue divertidisimo. Quiero hacerlo a otra vez!

Estuve a casa solamente para dos dias antes volvi a Boston. No se por que volvi tan pronto desde no teneria clase para una semestre. Empece a buscar trabajo pero no tenia suerte. Mientras, yo applique a dos escuelas; uno para carpinteria y otra para culinario. Ultimamente decide ir a escuela de culinario. Aunque penso sobre el otro camino a veces con deseo intenso, estoy contento donde estoy.

Muchas cosas pasaron de inicio de escuela culinaria y ahora, pero no voy a hablar aqui (puedes pedirme si estas curioso). Si pudiera describir este ano en una palabra, diria LUCHA. Ha fue una lucha con mis companeras de cuarto, una lucha con Dios, una lucha con buscando significacion de mi vida, una lucha con enamorarse con idiotas y indisponibles, y mucho mas. Siento que he crecido y aprendido mucho mi misma, todavia tengo los mismos miedos sobre el futuro.

Una cosa que ha cambio mi mente acerca es la importancia de un titulo universitario, particularmente licenciatura. Antes no creo que obtener una licenciatura fue importante, y que fue una pieza de papel carisimo para mostrar a otra gente que eres inteligente. Ahora, despues de muchos de mis jefes de cocina dicen que desean volver a universidad para ganar una licenciatura, veo que tan tonto que mi salir de la escuela. Supongo que necesito una opinion externa. Ojala que el proximo otono estare un estudiante a una universidad en nueva york.

He estado pensado en resoluciones de ano nuevo, pero voy a lo escribir luego. Hasta entonces, Feliz Navidad y Feliz Ano Nuevo!

1. Clean my room.
2. Go snowboarding
3. Roast marshmallows and make s’mores outdoors
4. Learn to cook some Korean dishes
5. Go hiking
6. Go to the beach
7. Take a picture in front of Rockefeller tree
8. Eat at Keens Steakhouse
9. Watch “Bill and Ted” (both of them)
10. Watch “How to Train Your Dragon”