of school.
how the hell that happened i can't quite say. Since i took weekend classes, between work and school it never seemed to stop, which I think contributes the feeling of everything flying by. In January I started Mod 1 at ICE with 13 other people. This Saturday I will be finishing Mod 4 with 11 others. A pretty successful graduating number, I think. Although I have an internship to complete before I get the gold-plated diploma, this saturday I will be celebrating my and the other students accomplishments. We did it baby!
I am so proud of all us who pulled together and worked as a close knit team. We were able to work flawlessly without much conversation, moving smoothly throughout the kitchen and trusting the others judgments and movements. However, gossiping at the sink while doing dishes, trips to Starbucks on a 12 minute lunch break, locker room chaos and an underlying feeling of camaraderie is what made the past 8 months tolerable, dare i say, a hell of a lot of fun.
Although I am very excited for a brief break from an unending 9-5 schedule (the internship will have me back on my feet at all hours of the night) I will miss school very much. Hungover mornings, dirty jackets, even dirtier dishes and disasters (how the hell did green spots end up in the cheesecake?!) aside, I truly made like-minded and generous friends. Friends who understand the pressure of changing careers, changing a life one has built. Friends who understand the true appeal of dive bars: we all have those pesky student loans. Friends who blankly stare at you while you are repeatedly dipping your sleeve in a bowl of melted chocolate, in awe at the mere sight of such a mess. I wish the absolute best of luck to them all, and I hope we can reunite in a year, in the same old bars, but telling new stories. Because we are constantly learning, constantly getting better at what we love to do. From that first day in January, to now, to our internships, to our new workplaces, we will always be improving. And then someday we will be old and gray, our knees will have buckled under the pressure of a lifetime in a kitchen, and I'll get a random email asking "hey remember when we used the bread hooks to pretend we had hooks for hands? Like Buster from Arrested Development!? you think chef ever saw that?" And I will respond, "yes, yes i do remember. and yes, they definitely saw that".
