So, some 30 years after I last did this (to this extent... I took and passed a Canadian Red Cross Emergency Medical Responder course that involved some 130 hours of classes, spread over three months, a few years back), I am back to school with all the rest of the kids.
In my case, I started chef school last evening. The course, given by the St. Pius X Culinary Institute, will keep me busy five evenings a week until the fall of 2011, a total of 1,400 hours of study. It’s funny to me that I am back in school again... so funny I half expect late comic Rodney Dangerfield to appear and start taking jabs at me. When I was last a legitimate student, back in university, I wasn’t a particularly good one. I skipped classes, studied for exams and wrote papers the day before... in short, I was more of a failure at it than a success. My one joy was writing for Concordia University’s since-defunct Loyola News, which helped propel me into a long-lived career as an oft- published freelance writer, so I guess that was something.
But school? Never grabbed me.
So here I am, the ultimate poster boy for adult ed... and living proof that education is wasted on the young. As my brain ages, it yearns to suck up information like a sponge. Now THAT part I understand. I was always eager to learn in my youth, it was the constant battle to prove oneself via exams that I detested. I suppose the pressure was too overbearing for me, but leave me to my own devices and allow me to simply learn and I was great at that.
I discovered last evening that our leader, Chef Richard, would be testing us from time to time and that we had, horrors of horrors.... an oral presentation next week. We have to interview a local chef of our choosing and then report out findings back to the class. Oral presentations were once anathema to me. I would actually drop classes if I found out that there was one hidden away in the class curriculum, like a panther waiting to pounce. But as I get older, that doesn’t scare me anymore.
There are far worse things in life than oral presentations... like oral cancer! I jest here, but when you think about it, it’s true. When you are a teen, everything on the horizon looms so large and you take everything so seriously. After marriages, a plethora of bad bosses, daily life struggles... hey, an oral exam is a downright pleasure.
And you know what? So is school. Now, I take courses that will benefit me and that I WANT to take. Gone with the wind are peer and parental pressure, battling my fellow students for grades and all the various stresses that come with being young and uncertain. Now, I am subjecting myself to this heavy schedule of work during the day and classes till 10 every night, five days a week, quite willingly. It’s a chance for me to assume a new career once I graduate, a second chance, really.
There’s only one thing that could possibly happen that will take everything I wrote
above and toss it out a window. Chef Gordon Ramsay.
If HE shows up at some point as a chef/teacher-in-residence, all bets are off.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
When the going gets tough...
This has been a very humbling period for me. Without going into the sordid details, it is likely the most challenging period of my life. Having led a more charmed life once upon a time – and having experienced moments where my youthful ego took the wheel of the sports car – I can honestly admit that I have come crashing down to earth.
Some people may have given up by now, thrown in the towel, slumped over in a vegetative state. I’ve had 53 pretty good years, right? Why fight it? We all need to go sometime.
I think it’s times like these that really teach you what you are made of. I’ve faced moments of hardship before, but there was always a safety net, someone to bail me out of my impulsive actions. There is no one of that calibre now. Yes, I have friends, loved ones, but no one who is going to write me a blank cheque and offer to bail me out. The onus to fish or cut bait is solely on me.
The biggest change is that I am learning to adapt, to do with less, to alter my wasteful ways. The problem with luxury – and that can be as small a diversion as a mobile phone plan that’s chock full of goodies – is that it’s toxic. It corrupts you, makes you lazy and spoiled. That’s where young people are NOT to be envied. They didn’t grow up during an era before home computers, Wii, or cell phones, for God’s sake.
I bought my parents our first colour TV in 1973, when I was a teen working at Eaton’s (yes, the apostrophe was not yet an official eyesore the separatists could squabble about). Till then we had an old black and white box, with vertical and horizontal controls and that Indian picture that faded to a small dot and then blinked out when you turned off the set. Remote control? I got my first remote, attached with a cord to a Phillips box that sat atop the TV, in 1978 or so. I figure people were not quite as fat yet, because they had to get up off the Chesterfield (a brand of couch for newbies) 20 times per night to change the channel.
So, we all went without a lot of what we take for granted today. I called Rogers this morning and told them I was going to stop paying my contract AND cease to be a Rogers client unless they broke my $100 per month Blackberry plan that went
till 2012.
The secret here, I learned, is using the code words “will stop being a Rogers client.” That gets you into the VIP customer service suite. I am now paying $40 per month for a modest plan that includes basic phone service – bye bye voice mail and Caller ID - email access and 500 texts per month... for $40 tax in. If you call and I don’t answer, try me at home, because I am likely busy. OR I am at chef school.
Chef school has been the one thing that has kept me going through trying times all summer long. In just 10 days, it is finally happening. I have my chef uniform and my tool kit, which I need to get engraved. I am ready. I watched Master Chef last night and had tears in my eyes when the wannabe winners were praised by Gordon Ramsay and the other judges, no easy task. I want to be that good. I guarantee that I WILL be that good by the time I am done in 14 months.
See, I may have challenges before me, but none of them are deadly and I can unlearn some of the spoiled patterns I have acquired. Not having caller ID will not end my life. Moving to a smaller apartment will still leave me with a bed to sleep in, a roof over my head and a bathroom with a modern toilet. I mean, they had outhouses once and, yeah, they survived.
Getting myself a $500 jalopy, which I plan to do soon... hey, as long as it gets me where I am going, am I worse off then you are in your gas-guzzling monster truck SUV, which seems to be as necessary as breathing to most of the people in my neighbourhood? You may THINK you’re better than me and if you do, I’m really sorry for you. It’s all inside that matters and, other than heartburn now and then, in THERE I am doing mighty fine.
See, we can all also use the spiritual connection and that’s a mantra that is also worth repeating when you find your life slipping in the other direction. It’s all in the attitude. Stay positive and good things will eventually happen, I promise.
Vaya con Dios, y’all.
Some people may have given up by now, thrown in the towel, slumped over in a vegetative state. I’ve had 53 pretty good years, right? Why fight it? We all need to go sometime.
I think it’s times like these that really teach you what you are made of. I’ve faced moments of hardship before, but there was always a safety net, someone to bail me out of my impulsive actions. There is no one of that calibre now. Yes, I have friends, loved ones, but no one who is going to write me a blank cheque and offer to bail me out. The onus to fish or cut bait is solely on me.
The biggest change is that I am learning to adapt, to do with less, to alter my wasteful ways. The problem with luxury – and that can be as small a diversion as a mobile phone plan that’s chock full of goodies – is that it’s toxic. It corrupts you, makes you lazy and spoiled. That’s where young people are NOT to be envied. They didn’t grow up during an era before home computers, Wii, or cell phones, for God’s sake.
I bought my parents our first colour TV in 1973, when I was a teen working at Eaton’s (yes, the apostrophe was not yet an official eyesore the separatists could squabble about). Till then we had an old black and white box, with vertical and horizontal controls and that Indian picture that faded to a small dot and then blinked out when you turned off the set. Remote control? I got my first remote, attached with a cord to a Phillips box that sat atop the TV, in 1978 or so. I figure people were not quite as fat yet, because they had to get up off the Chesterfield (a brand of couch for newbies) 20 times per night to change the channel.
So, we all went without a lot of what we take for granted today. I called Rogers this morning and told them I was going to stop paying my contract AND cease to be a Rogers client unless they broke my $100 per month Blackberry plan that went
till 2012.
The secret here, I learned, is using the code words “will stop being a Rogers client.” That gets you into the VIP customer service suite. I am now paying $40 per month for a modest plan that includes basic phone service – bye bye voice mail and Caller ID - email access and 500 texts per month... for $40 tax in. If you call and I don’t answer, try me at home, because I am likely busy. OR I am at chef school.
Chef school has been the one thing that has kept me going through trying times all summer long. In just 10 days, it is finally happening. I have my chef uniform and my tool kit, which I need to get engraved. I am ready. I watched Master Chef last night and had tears in my eyes when the wannabe winners were praised by Gordon Ramsay and the other judges, no easy task. I want to be that good. I guarantee that I WILL be that good by the time I am done in 14 months.
See, I may have challenges before me, but none of them are deadly and I can unlearn some of the spoiled patterns I have acquired. Not having caller ID will not end my life. Moving to a smaller apartment will still leave me with a bed to sleep in, a roof over my head and a bathroom with a modern toilet. I mean, they had outhouses once and, yeah, they survived.
Getting myself a $500 jalopy, which I plan to do soon... hey, as long as it gets me where I am going, am I worse off then you are in your gas-guzzling monster truck SUV, which seems to be as necessary as breathing to most of the people in my neighbourhood? You may THINK you’re better than me and if you do, I’m really sorry for you. It’s all inside that matters and, other than heartburn now and then, in THERE I am doing mighty fine.
See, we can all also use the spiritual connection and that’s a mantra that is also worth repeating when you find your life slipping in the other direction. It’s all in the attitude. Stay positive and good things will eventually happen, I promise.
Vaya con Dios, y’all.
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