Hey ev’body. I had a (rare) moment and thought I’d post something.
I’ve been home from school about an hour now, need to take a nap before getting up to study for Monday night’s class. Also trying to catch up on some football. Go figure the year I’m too busy to see either my alma mater or my favorite pro team, they’re not playing half bad (which also means they’re only half good).
Well, I am tired beyond belief and I’ve got another 9 months of school to go. Weekend culinary arts classes are an information dump. You show up at 9:00 on Saturday morning (really 8-ish; class starts precisely at 9 and you are marked late if you aren’t dressed and ready to go) and for the next 8 hours get your head filled with information to the point of migraine. Then you go home to do reading, answer study questions, before doing it all again Sunday. Then work Monday-Friday.
I used to think I knew something about food, but I know nothing. Nothing at all. These first few weeks have been about the basics: culinary history, kitchen equipment, health and sanitation (trust me, your home kitchen is a breading ground for microorganisms), fruit, vegetable, cheese and herb identification (can you tell chervil by sight), knife skills (we take potatoes home to cut up and bring back), and most recently meat and fish fabrication. (You know how meat is wrapped in plastic at your supermarket? It comes in half cow size at restaurants and you have to learn how to cut it into those dinner size portions.)
I’m not complaining at all, because this is what I want to do. But I feel like a first grader all over again. It is disorienting being a beginner at anything at this point in my life. My classmates (there are 15 of us) all get along well and support one another in this effort. We’re all working adult career changers in the same boat.
Last week, my culinary management classes started. That’ll be Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, 6-9 pm. It already looks to be an interesting one. The instructor has worked in every aspect of the food industry, and is also a regular contributor on the local CBS tv station. Probably because management thinking is already a part of my day-to-day life, I’m less intimidated by it. But time management and fatigue are serious issues. HR on my job sent me a memo last week telling me to use my personal days or lose them at the end of the year. I’ll happily comply.
Some brothas get it. Others don’t. Maybe they should read more .
I am a student again. My employer is paying for me to take a ten week non-credit course in human resources policies and practices in preparation for an expansion of services in our department in coming months. It’s only one night a week, after work on Wednesdays, but each week there are at least two chapters to read from the textbook, questions to answer from case studies, there will be a mid-term and a final, as well as written and oral class presentations to give. All for a ten week, non-credit course.
Now it’s been a good 21 years at least since I was a serious student, and even then I wasn’t a serious student. College was a four-year drinking binge for me, with occasional interruptions for vomiting and going to class. I may still have a few old textbooks that crackle when you open them.
With parents who were both educators, I fully understand the value of education. I was just not very interested in it. I was the chronic underachiever in school. From K-12, I got A’s with very little effort. Studying in front of the tv, last minute homework assignments, pulling all-nighters, those bad habits started early.
I was largely unmotivated by school, always wanting something more interesting and exciting to do, and also a bit rebellious. Don’t force me to take a mandatory subject. I was quick to ask, “When am I ever going to use this information?” And quite accurately, I have never been called upon to figure out the circumference of a circle or dissect a frog since high school. I knew early on my interests were related to communication and social issues, politics and history. There was no need for math or science, and you can hire people to fix shit, so no industrial classes either.
I tried those tricks in college, with less success however. College professors all had the annoying habit of heaping the work on you, so that if you fell behind at all, it was hell to catch up. To a large extent I never did. I was a journalism major. Real journalists write and drink, and I was already skilled at both. I got A’s and B’s in my major, but it was those damn electives that tripped me up. I flunked macro and micro economics, eastern religions, 18th century English lit, and a bunch of other bullshit classes I never wanted to take anyway.
It is a little known fact that I actually flunked out of college, but talked my way back in. True. I was on the Dean’s other list since sophomore year, and the beginning of second semester senior year, I got a letter telling me I should leave and not come back. I panicked. It was those damn electives again! I presented a case in both written and oral form, that my grades in my major were consistently at 3.0 or better, but those outside courses were pulling me down. He bought it, and let me back in, and I graduated on time. In hindsight, it was also great training for later careers in public relations and acting.
So here I am back in a classroom. I’m older now, and supposedly wiser. I took the pledge years ago, so I’m sober as a judge. Because this class is work-related, I know full well when I will use this information again, so I am more accepting of the circumstances that place me here.
I am what’s called an adult learner, which means that my life experiences must be factored into how I will learn and comprehend information. I also understand that I am a visual and kinesthetic learner, that is, I learn by seeing and doing, less from reading texts. I guess I’ve always known that. If you show me something once, I have it. But if you ask me to read a book or manual, forget it. It won’t sink in, or not without difficulty. This class that requires me to read each week is making the learning somewhat difficult, but not intolerable. I now have to fit study time into an already busy life.
Seven more weeks to go. Wish me luck.
