After finishing up Baking and Pastries we moved on to Advanced Professional Culinary Arts. In this class we learned a lot about different cultures and their cuisines. It was a very interesting class and I wish we could have taken it slower...each day we were learning up to 10 new dishes! We ended this class with our Greek-themed capstone project. We planned and prepared a four-course meal and each student was allowed to invite two guests to come to the school during class time to enjoy our meal. Two of my good friends from my ward came - Kenley and Colin.
After APCA, everyone left school for their externships. I did my externship with Chef Detore at Emerald Cove Catering. It was so much fun, but also a lot of work. With my work schedule I was usually only able to come in the mornings for a few hours, so I did a lot of the preparatory work for events later in the day. They are located right next to the airport, so a lot of their events during the week are breakfasts and lunches for meetings and conferences at the airport. I was eventually able to work a few events at the airport and it was fun learning the presentation and service part of catering. And then I worked an 11-hour day one Friday...H&R Block was having an end-of-tax-season party. That was a long day and I just about died! There is a lot of standing and you don't really get breaks. Plus it's just stressful trying to make sure everything is put together and making sure you don't forget anything. It was crazy, but I enjoyed it a lot!
The graduation ceremony took place before we were done with our externships because the school only holds two graduations per year. So they just group all the classes together and have one big graduation. We were lucky that ours was happening right when we were finishing school. Some of the students had been finished with school since September! My mom and dad and Joni were all able to come into town for graduation, which happened on April 25th. And my good friends, who are like parents to me, Jeff and Daucie Willson, also came out to graduation. By this time everyone in my class was in the middle of their externships, and we hadn't seen each other in four weeks. So it was really great to see everyone again!
Two days after I finished my externship, I left for Missouri to visit my family in the Midwest. I finally got to meet my youngest niece, Payton!!! I was there for about two weeks; The second week I was there, my dad and Joni flew in. June 1st was Matthew's birthday and so we all drove up to visit with him and Christina and Xyrah. That was my dad and Joni's first time meeting Xyrah and Payton, so it was a special visit for them. I had a ton of fun out there and was really sad to come home. I'm usually a bit sad when I have to leave my family, but it's always nice coming home to your own things and sleeping in your own bed. This was the first time I really hated flying back into the city and I knew then that it was definitely time for me to move on to something new.
I spent the summer working part-time as an afternoon nanny and tried my hardest to enjoy the time I had left in Seattle. I didn't want to arrive in Mississippi and regret spending my summer just counting the days until I was going to move away. One of my favorite summer adventures was a road trip to the coast. My roommate and I both had July 5th off of work, so we made a very spontaneous trip out to Forks and La Push. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the drive. We ate at the diner in town and drove around Forks a little, but we were mostly interested in going to the beach. We both submerged ourselves in the ocean and then the ocean punched me in the knee - it was freezing and I was in so much pain, but it was totally worth it! Go to my Facebook page for a video! The rest of the summer was spent with good friends and family, doing all kinds of fun stuff around the city.
On September 2nd I packed up my car and my cat and drove away from Seattle. I'm making quite a few stops on my way to Mississippi to see some of my close friends and family. My first stop was in Gladstone, OR (which is near Portland), where I visited with my great-aunt and uncle, Ramona and Dennis Dalling. We had chinese for dinner and this was my fortune: "You will make many changes before settling down happily." This makes me laugh because it's totally appropriate for me right now. Then I drove another hour and a half to my dad and Joni in Brownsville, OR where I am staying until Saturday morning. I will be attempting to keep this updated as I travel and start new adventures in Mississippi, so stay tuned :)
No comments:
Post a Comment