Too much of a good thing?
Well since my last post I decided not to go to George Brown. I'm not sure exactly when the decision to not go came about. I think it was more a gradual realization. But one night I was sitting in the kitchen listening to my mom talk about their trip to India and how the plans had been coming along, when I got a strong desire to want to go and travel. It was probably caused by a mixture of being scared to be jumping into the program and feeling like once I finished in pastry arts I would be poor and not be able to travel anywhere. My last semester was pretty stressful in terms of the classes I was taking and I was hesitant on going into another program without any type of break between. Also, I had been denied ontario student loans and had no money saved up. All together, I think I was too excited by the idea of an entirely different way of learning and being able to make amazing pastries that I jumped in even though I knew it wasn't practical. So after much thought I decided to go to India rather than college.
After making this decision, I just continued on in the semester, trying my best to study and leave university with a good GPA. I think it may have been best at this point if I hadn't set my mind against going to George Brown, because it really didn't help with concentration. I kept getting stressed about what I was going to do, and whether or not I'd made the right decision. I wrote some of the worst midterms I've ever written. It seemed like each mark I got back was a new low. The worst part was that all I was doing was going to school and studying, so I should have been at least getting decent marks! Even if I didn't feel like studying when I got home, I had even less interest in playing games or doing something fun to relax. You'd think not having a job and or a boyfriend would free up a lot of time, but I think for me it just made it more difficult because I wasn't happy. Pretty much all I was looking forward to each week was hanging out with Sylvia.
Fortunately, I had a great final exam schedule. Everything was spaced out so that I had enough time in between exams to concentrate on one at a time. And I knew I had to do well if I didn't want to fail some of my courses, so that fueled the studying. I looked back at my marks a couple days ago and thought "Huh.. I remember being so happy when I got my marks in April, but these aren't that great" But now after writing this I realized it was because they were pretty great considering the marks I went into final exams with.
Anyway, after I finished writing exams I took some time to relax. I also decided it was time to start losing some weight, so I started up weight watchers with my mom. This time though we bought a good scale so that we could weigh in each week. I started to get excited about India and my mom hatched a plan to have Sarah come with us, by getting inheritance money early from my grandma. My grandma was all for that, since she thinks we will have a great learning experience. So she ended up giving all her children some inheritance money early, meaning the trip to India for Sarah and I is pretty much paid for! But even still, I didn't want to spend the summer at home, so eventually I decided it was time to search for a job. I didn't feel like going out to apply in person (since those are mostly minimum wage type jobs I figured), so I just applied to jobs on job bank and kijiji. I hadn't heard anything for a while, but wasn't too worried since I didn't feel rushed to make money.
Mid May I got a call back from a restaurant called La Cucina in downtown Guelph. Looking at the website it seemed pretty fancy. They called themselves "slow food". I was pretty excited just to have gotten an interview. So I went in, and ended up having a really great interview with the chef. Her name was Becky and we just seemed to have a good connection. She called me back to have me come in for a test run one evening. There I met the pastry chef named Liz. The test run went pretty well, Becky seemed happy, but said she had more people coming in so she had to give them a chance first. Liz even said I could come in the next week to learn what she does as a pastry chef! A few days later I got a call back from Becky offering me the job! But when I came for my second shift, I found out the pastry chef had taken a job at a bakery and this was her last shift. I would be taking over for her!! She spent the day showing me how to make each of the desserts and I wrote down all the recipes/took notes. The main desserts were Tiramisu, Vanilla Pannacotta, Lemon White Chocolate Semifreddo and Flourless Chocolate Torte. What a dream come true!
Becky said she thought it was perfect timing that I had arrived then, but I felt the exact same way. So I've been working at La Cucina for a couple weeks now and absolutely love it. I'm nervous about making desserts that people will be actually paying for, but I just need to work on my confidence and I think it will be fine. I haven't had any complaints so far! It doesn't pay that well, but better than minimum wage and I don't expect that restaurant jobs will be high paying. I'm not sure what's going to happen when I go to India... but it would be amazing if I could still come back to work there after. Either way, I'm really grateful that Becky gave me this opportunity. It's such a small restaurant that I feel close to the staff (there's usually only 4 other people in the entire restaurant when I work). The only problem is that we don't have a sous chef at the moment, and we aren't getting any people applying. I'm trying to learn quickly to help ease the stress, but there's only so much I can do having just started.
Aside from work, weight watchers has been going really well. I've already lost 10 pounds and can definitely see a difference. It's surprising how easy it is when you get serious about it. I'm hoping to have lost about 30 pounds by September, and so far I think I'm on track. Also, I went on a date on Monday with someone who was in my program at university. In my opinion, this was the first real date I've ever been on. I was so nervous beforehand but I think it went well! He came over in the evening and we made chocolate chip espresso cookies, which were okay but a little too sweet for my taste. We then went to the Fat Duck for supper. I had a tofu feta burger and it fell all over the place! I've never had that much trouble eating a burger before. I think there was just too much sauce on it. But we had a lot to talk about, which was my main worry. We're going to go for supper again after work Friday and he'll introduce me to his dog. But with everything going so well right now, I keep expecting something horrible to happen! I'll just hope not.
After making this decision, I just continued on in the semester, trying my best to study and leave university with a good GPA. I think it may have been best at this point if I hadn't set my mind against going to George Brown, because it really didn't help with concentration. I kept getting stressed about what I was going to do, and whether or not I'd made the right decision. I wrote some of the worst midterms I've ever written. It seemed like each mark I got back was a new low. The worst part was that all I was doing was going to school and studying, so I should have been at least getting decent marks! Even if I didn't feel like studying when I got home, I had even less interest in playing games or doing something fun to relax. You'd think not having a job and or a boyfriend would free up a lot of time, but I think for me it just made it more difficult because I wasn't happy. Pretty much all I was looking forward to each week was hanging out with Sylvia.
Fortunately, I had a great final exam schedule. Everything was spaced out so that I had enough time in between exams to concentrate on one at a time. And I knew I had to do well if I didn't want to fail some of my courses, so that fueled the studying. I looked back at my marks a couple days ago and thought "Huh.. I remember being so happy when I got my marks in April, but these aren't that great" But now after writing this I realized it was because they were pretty great considering the marks I went into final exams with.
Anyway, after I finished writing exams I took some time to relax. I also decided it was time to start losing some weight, so I started up weight watchers with my mom. This time though we bought a good scale so that we could weigh in each week. I started to get excited about India and my mom hatched a plan to have Sarah come with us, by getting inheritance money early from my grandma. My grandma was all for that, since she thinks we will have a great learning experience. So she ended up giving all her children some inheritance money early, meaning the trip to India for Sarah and I is pretty much paid for! But even still, I didn't want to spend the summer at home, so eventually I decided it was time to search for a job. I didn't feel like going out to apply in person (since those are mostly minimum wage type jobs I figured), so I just applied to jobs on job bank and kijiji. I hadn't heard anything for a while, but wasn't too worried since I didn't feel rushed to make money.
Mid May I got a call back from a restaurant called La Cucina in downtown Guelph. Looking at the website it seemed pretty fancy. They called themselves "slow food". I was pretty excited just to have gotten an interview. So I went in, and ended up having a really great interview with the chef. Her name was Becky and we just seemed to have a good connection. She called me back to have me come in for a test run one evening. There I met the pastry chef named Liz. The test run went pretty well, Becky seemed happy, but said she had more people coming in so she had to give them a chance first. Liz even said I could come in the next week to learn what she does as a pastry chef! A few days later I got a call back from Becky offering me the job! But when I came for my second shift, I found out the pastry chef had taken a job at a bakery and this was her last shift. I would be taking over for her!! She spent the day showing me how to make each of the desserts and I wrote down all the recipes/took notes. The main desserts were Tiramisu, Vanilla Pannacotta, Lemon White Chocolate Semifreddo and Flourless Chocolate Torte. What a dream come true!
Becky said she thought it was perfect timing that I had arrived then, but I felt the exact same way. So I've been working at La Cucina for a couple weeks now and absolutely love it. I'm nervous about making desserts that people will be actually paying for, but I just need to work on my confidence and I think it will be fine. I haven't had any complaints so far! It doesn't pay that well, but better than minimum wage and I don't expect that restaurant jobs will be high paying. I'm not sure what's going to happen when I go to India... but it would be amazing if I could still come back to work there after. Either way, I'm really grateful that Becky gave me this opportunity. It's such a small restaurant that I feel close to the staff (there's usually only 4 other people in the entire restaurant when I work). The only problem is that we don't have a sous chef at the moment, and we aren't getting any people applying. I'm trying to learn quickly to help ease the stress, but there's only so much I can do having just started.
Aside from work, weight watchers has been going really well. I've already lost 10 pounds and can definitely see a difference. It's surprising how easy it is when you get serious about it. I'm hoping to have lost about 30 pounds by September, and so far I think I'm on track. Also, I went on a date on Monday with someone who was in my program at university. In my opinion, this was the first real date I've ever been on. I was so nervous beforehand but I think it went well! He came over in the evening and we made chocolate chip espresso cookies, which were okay but a little too sweet for my taste. We then went to the Fat Duck for supper. I had a tofu feta burger and it fell all over the place! I've never had that much trouble eating a burger before. I think there was just too much sauce on it. But we had a lot to talk about, which was my main worry. We're going to go for supper again after work Friday and he'll introduce me to his dog. But with everything going so well right now, I keep expecting something horrible to happen! I'll just hope not.