Chef/Chair?

I hate this, this whole getting stuck at a crossroad that is your life and with a whole shitload of baggages, mental and physical and without a fucking clue what to do to move on. I had a 2 weeks holiday from school and I took that opportunity to working in the kitchen at my first hotel, the Four Seasons Hotel, Singapore. Initially I was excitied and anticipative, the way I always seemed to start off by but by the end of the stint, which was officially today at 6pm, I'm left with questions that I do not have any fucking answers for.

I always know how inadequate I am, in terms of competencies, knowledge and skills about the culinary world. I am just playing whatever hands I'm dealt with by J himself. I know that if I wanna get a headstart, now's a good time for I have an endless stretch of road to be embarking on. During one of my Wine and Beverage tutorials, the tutor was shooting questions regarding the previous chapters and with most of us not having the answers for, you could see how despondent he was. And quickly with a rebut that I pretty much just shoot off from my mouth, I told him we'll be armed with whatever vital knowledge by the time we're his age. And as quickly, he found hope and I saw it reflected in his eyes. It's amazing what I can do.

I don't know if I'm on the right track, I don't know if i'm a chef by career and by life. I like to cook, I just don't like being told to cook, the way I don't write for competitions. I am still lacking in my fundamentals and I really need the whole 'practice makes perfect' biblical crap. I am willing to do it, I just need space. I didn't have a good time there at the hotel because I am still so new and well, incompetent. I kept getting into people's way and I can't get myself in the usual rthym for things to naturally happen and progress like I could in school. And that is one of those things that I couldn't get around and it haunts me. I wanted to be happy with what I do so I have to be good. Right now I am not happy nor in any way good. And that's when the thought of quitting culinary and getting into psychology came in majorly. It's almost as if a ram has ran into me and not by accident. I've been thinking about it for days and I am still looking at the cons and not weighing the pros as yet. My school is offering a Diploma in Pyschology and I took the fundamentals of pyschology at the end of my first year and I have loved it like a second nature. I was kinda mad when I realized the school was offering a new dipolma and by some wicked twist of fate, I would have been otherwise eligible and I could be doing what I really like. It's no longer 'I'm doing this because I have to', you know? And the cons weigh heavily on my frail heart.

Taking on a new semester meant retaking every bloody module I've so narrowly passed in my freshman years and I'm not looking forward to doing Economics, Marketing, and Fundamentals of Whatnots again. Right now where I stand, I'm left with until March where I would start my 5 month attachment and then be graduating in 2009. And I would be officially working then. I would then earn whatever I have to pay for my degree course in whatever it would be, or if that doesn't happen, I would working in a restaurant that is privately owned by some risk-taking individual who happened to have some dough to spare. I don't like dealing with corporate politics and degressions in ranks at international hotels or restaurants i've just worked at. If I am cooking, I am only cooking for pleasure, in monetary units and spiritual. And then I'll travel, take off into a new world I know nothing about.

On the other hand, I think I like pyschology and a lot. I'll get all researchy-mode to remember and understand all the theories and hypothesises and such. I'll talk to a person whose life's temporarily or permanently derailed in a chair. I really don't know. I hate to think I'm just feeling these shit because of a temporary setback...that I know I can overcome with time and
practice.

It shook me up badly when people would call me Chef Ashley, because I wouldn't have a clue if they are calling me.