Embarkement

Ok, it has been a long long while now and I thought it's time changes come into play. Believe it or otherwise, this is the 5th time I'm trying to update my blog and I hope something good would come out of it. I had to satiate the burning desire inside of me to write somehow.

The first couple weeks of the new semester has started and ended. I am officially going into the last semester of my junior year in TP as a Culinary and Catering student and you can give me money and free tattoos and still I wouldn't believe how fast time has actually passed. I still have no clue why I'm even part of this whole adventurous and downright fucked up but merticulously planned plot of churning the cream of the crop of the absolutely booming hospitality and tourism industries that are going to last for God knows how long. I'm already working towards my end of the 2nd semester of my 2nd year and next semester, it's but the 3 to 4 months SIP (There are already 3 overseas companies expressing their interests in us!) and it's good bye to poly life. And it's high chance I'll go right back to that particularly hazy crossroad that I had been 4 years ago, having to make the right choice for my future, where to go, where else to be, what else to get my hands dirty for and if I afford to. I mean, I still think I'm that worried 18 year old kid who wouldn't stand a chance to go to a polytechnic because it was just so damn unpredictable then. Now I'm on my merry path ending exactly that journey and hopefully a new exciting one would commence.

I've been trying and learning to adapt and that including sleeping in a little bit earlier. Well, for one thing, a good 8 to 10 hours of sleep quickens the metabolism rate and makes me look thinner and two, it takes me like 2 hours just to fall asleep. This semester, unlike the last, I'm no longer a chef. I am but a staff who needs authorization to enter the kitchens. I am now the headwaiter, assistant headwaiter, captain, bartender, waiter, runner, cashier and the steward for a 80-pax/cover casual café and a 69-pax/cover formal dining restaurant 2 days out of 5. And on top of that, I had to think in a triangle; as the Boss of the restaurant who just wanna cut losses and make profit, the Staff who is just surviving, getting along and the Patrons who wanna have a good time because apparently they had money. I would literally be running the 2 outlets on my own. That's hardly even register. Nonetheless I was freaked out and tired out. There are so many things my fingertips and brain have to hold and yes, literally. I have a near-broken last finger on my left because we have to hold everything with our left hands. You name it, we hold it. And like most people on the planet, I'm a right-hander and I have often neglected my left. We will be having 2 proficiency tests next week and the week or weeks after respectively and I don't think I'm prepared. I hope I am then. I'll get through this. I have to, I'm designed to.

And not forgetting I'm taking Accounting. Again and again and again and again, because I took it for 4 years. For the last 4 years, I have taken the subject in 2 different schools and I've managed to get a C in my last year simply because I had to. I wouldn't be able to graduate if otherwise. Right now, I'm starting a new slate. I wouldn't know anything about Accounts except for the 4 Accounting Assumptions and Balance Sheet because those were what I've learnt so far in 2 lectures. The pretending came like a breeze; I didn't even have to try. The other subject include Wine and Beverages which got the attention of a couple real affluent entrepreneurs offering scholarships. One of them being a Mr. Keith Mugford of Moss Wood Vineyard, Margaret River, Western Australia. The Aussie flew here and gave us a sensory workshop which is extremely rare and a honored experience according to our moody lecturer. We tasted his wines, white and red all of at least of a 5 years vintage and using our senses, scored them according to its color, its aroma, and the palate. Those bottles of wines are really of some quality, a bottle easily costing S$135. Maybe it was really an honor. Someone so experienced this willing and enthusiatic to share and all expenses paid for the lucky 2 who gets the scholarship. Spending 2 to 3 weeks just being where it all would start and perhaps ends although hearing that we would be spending that amout of time with the lecturer I've just mentioned probably just kill it. Everyone's less enthusiatic and driven somehow. I wonder why :P.

I've jotted some recipes and I really hope I'll get to try them out somehow because God, do I miss being in the kitchens or what?! Perhaps I could give you guys the recipes.

Ok. I've written, all right. And I didn't expect it to turn out the way it did. It has been all about school which I've portrayed in an almost perfectly positive light. Rare, some would say. Rare indeed.