30 Days of Thanks

Although my favorite month just ended, November is going to be an exciting month. School is winding down, finals are approaching, the countdown until I see my family just passed the four week mark, and I realized I have quite a bit to be thankful for, and since Thanksgiving is coming, I felt it was appropriate to reflect on the things I sometimes neglect to appreciate as much as I should.

November 1st

This past Wednesday was my team's event for our On-Site Food Service lab class, and despite all the set backs, we id did! We planned, planned, and planned some more then executed our Celtic restaurant from concept to the final dessert that went out of the kitchen under our management, and the food was incredible! At least that's what all of our reviews had said, and that's the thing that mattered to us. So today I'm thankful for my two partners who believed in the concept I thought of, and ran with the idea, and collectively, the three of us  ran Failte, our way of welcoming guests to our home for the day. I'm so proud of my team, and without them we could not have pulled it off.

November 2nd

Today I finally got a chance to just relax after weeks of crazy projects, nonstop homework, and most days running on sheer adrenaline and copious amounts of tea and coffee. I'm thankful for having one day to get undisturbed sleep, hopefully kicking this cold I can feel myself catching.

November 3rd

I finally bought my plane ticket to spend Christmas with my boyfriend and his family tonight! I'm so incredibly excited! For as much as I'm really going to miss spending it with almost all of my family in Colorado, I'm looking forward to spending my first Christmas with him as we begin a new chapter together. I will still get to see my family here on Christmas, and also see my family in New Mexico too. Although I've never spent the holidays anywhere else but home, and I will definitely miss all the traditions I've grown up with, I'm excited to start new traditions and still keep the familiar ones. I'm thankful for the ability to travel out of state, for having an incredibly loving family at home who knows how important he is to me and for understanding why I want to spend Christmas away, though it is really hard for me, and for having another family who loves me and welcomed me into their home to share their holiday.

November 4th

I'm thankful for the person who came to fix the card reader for laundry machines so I can wash my clothes. I'm pretty sure I was more excited than I should have been to spend money on laundry, but I know I shouldn't take being able to do so for granted because so many others must find different means of cleaning their clothes. So thank you maintenance; I feel as if you don't get thanked enough for all the little things.

From Princess to Pastry Chef

Usually going to senior seminar isn't exactly the part of my day I look most forward to, but I left class today pondering quite a bit, which is unusual, given majority of the class is typically devoted to catching up on discussion boards for my HR class and figuring out what it is my partner and I are going to do for our cafe simulation. I had forgotten we were having a guest speaker, which was probably a good thing I had left Jeffery (my laptop) in my room, meaning I would pay more attention.

Our guest speaker posed an ice breaker question to my class: "What did you want to be when you grew up when were younger and what are you doing now or planning to do after college?"

Immediately I thought of several things: princess, pediatrician, secret agent, architect, professional soccer player. I giggled to myself, thinking how silly some of those were, and glanced to my friends sitting next to me, who looked deep in thought. One of my best friends said he wanted to be a lawyer, and I'm pretty sure I looked dumbfounded. I've been friends with him for going on four years and had no idea. But then again, when I met him he introduced himself as a culinary arts major, and I guess it was stuck in my head that he was going to be a chef, and never thought he might have considered a different career before that one.

Most of my classmates had quite different dream careers from when they were younger compared to the now more realistic careers they had chosen, probably 3/4 saying they were aiming for these top executive positions that'll make them huge salaries in these super well known hospitality or entertainment/event companies. And then she calls on me. I said I had wanted to be a pediatrician or professional soccer player, and that now I want to be a professional cake decorator. Our speaker actually asked me again if I had said I wanted to be a cake decorator. I'm quite proud of how much I've improved since I first started here and how confident that cake decorating is exactly what I want to do. But at that moment, I just wanted to disappear, the judgmental looks I was getting from some of the people in my class, and the speaker no less, was a bit overwhelming.

After I left class I thought about how I ended up choosing cake decorating, and how far my intended career path is from what I thought I wanted to be when I was younger.

I've heard a lot of skepticism from people telling me I can't make a career of out what I want to do, and that owning my own business is the way to go. Well, I disagree, and to everyone who didn't think I would make it through even my first year of college, let alone actually finish and be good at what I do, I have a degree in Baking & Pastry and a certificate of Professional French Pastry, and am five weeks from a Food Service Management degree with a job already lined up. So I think I'm doing pretty well. And I like decorating cakes. It's what I do.

Final Countdown

I woke up to that familiar autumn chill we'd been missing all month. The rather drizzly, overcast skies set the mood for a hot tea, snuggling, and good book filled day; I sighed and made plans for that later, getting ready for work, and headed out. I don't mind this weather, really I don't. Autumn is by far my favorite season; sweaters, cider, tea, crunching leaves in huge piles, the gorgeous array of fall colors sprayed among the fading green of the trees, my birthday of course is during this season, though I don't prefer autumn only for that reason, the gleeful shrieks of small children playing outdoors, and the last few months before I have to break out the heavy winter clothes. This version of autumn is definitely more Coloradoesque. Fortunately I live in Denver, where we average 300 days of sunshine a year, which makes the cold season more bearable.

I had the best intentions of starting a blog at the start of my college career of all my adventures. Alas, that didn't happen as I got caught up in the whirlwind of new beginnings, closing pages of finished chapters, and trying to "find myself" up here. I guess it's never too late to start, eh?

Senioritis is a real thing, don't let anyone tell you it's not. Mostly it's just a state of mind, procrastination at it's finest, a sense of urgency to finish school, to get out into the "REAL" world, the anticipation just building and building. I for one, am ready to begin the new chapter entitled "Post College: The Adult Life". I think. Maybe. In reality I just want to crawl back into my blanket fort, coloring pictures of princesses and the Madagascar penguins, pretending the world is my playground, and the blankets are my protected fortress, inside which I can be ignorant of the world and ignore all the not so happy parts. Honestly, I don't think it's all that bad, but it's just the comfort of childhood and all the innocence intact.

If I can survive the next eight weeks of projects, deadlines, and the seemingly endless piles of laundry, I can start what everyone tells me is the beginning of "the rest of my life." But then again, that's what they said about college, and so far, I think I've managed "the real world" fairly well.