First Week of Class Stirs Up Some Emotions..

Yesterday began Junior year! It was exciting because I started a brand new program, but at the same time it was sooo boring - like ridiculously boring. I had three classes - 2 of which were 2 hrs blocks and the last one was 3.5 hrs (thankfully only once a week). Plus I am still working full time and on certain days I have to put in a full work day (5am - 1pm) before I go to class.   

I'm at a different campus ( although still in Providence) and I feel like a freshman all over again. For the past 2 years I have been set in my little comfort zone - everyone shares not only the same interests, but the same uniform as well. Don't get me wrong..I'm all for nail polish, jewelry and individualism, but uniforms set everyone at the same level and gave everyone a sense of belonging - knowing that they were not the only crazy's who has been a self-proclaimed "foodie" since birth.

As much as I am excited to move from the technical side of the culinary industry into the business side of it, there is still a small piece of me that aches for the 7am lab class - for getting up at the crack ass of dawn to go into a freezing cold bake shop and learn in a truly unique and hands on way how to create art with food. I still have one of my housemates in the Baking & Pastry Bachelor's Program. I ask her everyday about what she did in class, and not just out of good manners - I really want to know! I feel like I still have that link to the food world. 

You may be asking "Why did you leave then??" and here is the answer...FEAR! I would go into my lab class always scared to mess up, even though I knew what I was doing and I always felt like it was not my place to be in the bakeshop because that was not the type of person I was brought up - education wise - to be. I also had a ton of self-doubt that I was in the completely wrong field. I even feel that way now when I am work -which brings me to believe that I have just not yet found the perfect outlet (i.e. hotels, restaurants, bakery). 

  I have always thought about myself as an academic person - sitting in a lecture, taking notes, doing  homework. I have come to realize though that maybe everything I had thought about myself is different. Maybe all these years that I thought "If I wasn't so lazy and applied myself I could have easily graduated top of my class" was wrong. Could it have been that all along I am a "hands - on" rather than "visual" or "auditory" learner? I'm not sure to be perfectly honest and I may never know. What I do know for certain is that all this emotion about being away from the baking world just shows me that I really do have a passion for this industry and one day I will find my perfect little place where it won't be a job anymore and I will be able to get rid of all the self-doubt and anxiety and just do what I do!