New Leaf for 2010

[AnqeiicDemise]

I figure I better jot this down somewhere, put it out there and have as many people in the 'know' as to make sure I am held accountable for my plans.

I want to get out of the cube farm. I love helping people and sending them on vacation but really, that's not what I yearn. I CRAVE something more and I think it is about damned time I start doing something outside of feeling sorry for myself.

So I don't have my degree. I don't have my AoS in Culinary Arts because I got kicked out two weeks before graduating. That's TWO fucking weeks and I went through the whole goddamned program. I'm stuck with a 50k bill for a degree I never got and I'm not doing SHIT with the knowledge I acquired and my dreams are just rotting away in that stupid little cubicle while I send people off on *their* dreams.

I'm not going to throw away those two years of my life because I missed fourteen fucking days.

I'm fat. I'm out of shape. I can hardly stand an hour in front of a stove in my own teeny little kitchen. But ya know what? I love it. My heart soars when I'm busy doing what I love.

So, FUCK YOU naysayers and SCREW you CCA for making me feel like garbage. I'm not paying you another 11k to repeat the stupid internship. Instead, I'll make it back out there and I *will* proceed in owning my own bistro. It will take time and it will take patience but one step at a time, no?

..

If I can't leave the cube farm by Dec 2010 altogether, I'll still be cooking for people, even if it means making wedding cakes from my own kitchen or catering small parties. Because, goddamnit, I have to start somewhere.

[SengaKitty]

Good luck! You can do it! I'm having kind of the same issue with my degree in web design, but like you, I've decided I'll do it on my own! You don't NEED a degree to succeed in either of our fields, it's just a damn piece of paper that says you know how to do what you know you know how to do. So while you're making wedding cakes from your kitchen and catering small parties, I'll be building my website portfolio. Need a site? Your designer's right here!

Good luck hon, I wish you all the best, really. And if you want someone to talk to while you're fighting the "elite", let me know.

[Evil Queen]

When I open my hotel in Utah (still a dream right now) I'll need an executive chef, sous chef, the whole nine yards. Wanna work for me?

[AnqeiicDemise]

When I open my hotel in Utah (still a dream right now) I'll need an executive chef, sous chef, the whole nine yards. Wanna work for me?

I would have *no* problem, m'love, at being your Excutive Chef but I do have one condition: please do not kill me. I see that my culinary (although obnoxiously pretentious and goody-two shoe divas) counterparts have and will be slain to death at your hand.

I promise, my taste of 'fancy' and 'chic' for a wedding cake i a lovely off-white cake with deep purple and black trim with a tombstone for a topper reading ''till death do us part'.

Does that give me a ten year relief from the threat of death?

[Amina516]

Good Luck Angeiic. I really hope it all works out for ya.

Do u mind me asking what happened with your school? 2 weeks before graduation is HORRIBLE!!

[AnqeiicDemise]

Due to various circumstances beyond my control, it took me too long to find a place that would grant me an 11 week externship to complete my course. When I *did* find one, three weeks before the damned thing started, the Executive Chef that hired me quit and took most of his staff with him. The new chef was not intersted in keeping me around even though I had never worked under the old chef.. and since I was a student, he didn't want to deal with it. The restaurant manager, of course, had no jurisdiction over the kitchen staffing.

So cue my pleading with the school for help and I was granted to have an externship at the school cafeteria (much to my shame!). I was okay with it because it meant I'd still graduate, its okay.

THEN my room mate went crazy. I was living at the dorms at that time and this was my third roomie.. and the absolute fucking craziest. She was a violent, tempermental pot-head (she did more than smoke pot) who was prone to having fits if she didn't get her way. She also was always short on cash and kept asking for loans.. which I flat out denied as I was basically living off my stipend at this time. (I had been working for the school up until the bistro closed down). Since it was so close to graduation, I stupidely figured I could live off my stipend for the remaining month and a half. I didn't bother to find another job. I was fine.

After I woke up one night to my room mate throwing a shit fit and punching out a wall because she couldn't get pot, I decided I couldn't handle it anymore. So while I'm scrambling to find an externship and stressing out over my cooking finals, I had a spychotic room mate whom I did NOT trust at all. I ask you, would you trust this person who moved into the room on an 'emergency' (she said her boyfriend's mom tried to beat her up, I quickly learned it must have been self defence), proceeded to get drunk, get high and then SELL ALL HER TEXTBOOKS in an effort to get money for pot, at all?

In the three weeks I lived with her she:

*Called me all sorts of names.
*Attempted to get into a fight with me.
*Consisntently 'borrowed' my text books and tools (i.e. things like my steel, peeler, serated knives, spatulas, etch) without asking. I would not have caught this if a) I didn't see her sell all off her books and b) my tools were not clearly marked. [ The first thing I did was engrave my name on all my tools and wrap the handles in bright blue electric tape at the beginning of school]
*Was often drunk.
*Didn't bathe (gross!)
*Stole my clothes [yes, ladies, I caught her wearing my underwear and uniforms. I told her to keep my panties but told her she'd either have to pay me for my uniform replacements if she didn't immediately take them off, wash them and returned them to me.]
*Almost got me kicked out of school once because she had hot boxed our room when I was away for the night. No drug paraphanelia was found in our room.

I couldn't handle her bs anymore so I went up to the dorm director and told her I wanted her out. She told me I only had a little over a month and a half to deal with her and said I should just suck it up. I said no. I wanted her out.. or I wanted my own room.

Unfortunately, getting my own room meant I'd have to pay more in rent (which I could not do comfortably but was willing to do). And I would have done that if there HAD been a room available.

So talking it over with my sister she offered me to move back in with her. So, there I go, packing up all my things and moving across the bay. This now meant I had to buy BART tickets or pay the toll fee (and parking!) to go to school/externship.

I was fine, as long as I got my stipend settled.

-.-

But the stupid Dorm Director and the Financial office screwed up. I don't know how it happened or where the mix up started but one office knew I moved out and the other thought I hadn't. Stipends came at a certain time in the middle of the month and I was running low on cash. By my calculations I wouldn't have money at all to come into San Francisco when the check came in (they were shipped out from New Jersey, I think) so I asked to have the check mailed out to my new abode. (Now that I think about it, I don't know why it wasn't direct deposited to my account. o.o)

So, I'm waiting. And waiting. And Waiting... and borrowing money from friends and family to kep paying this toll to cross the bay. I call the financial office and one lady tells me the check was sent out. It didn't arrive. At this point, my cell is about to be shut off because of non payment, my car payment is late and my family./friends cannot loan me money anymore.

So I find myself stuck. On the East Bay. With no gas to go across the bridge and even if I did I'd have no money to park/pay the toll. I then miss one day of class.

Then another.

And if I had three unexcused absences (per term) I get kicked out of school.

So I frantically call the Executive Chef of the school and I explain a) my check was to have been mailed and I had no money to get to class. He says he'll see what I can do.

I call the office every day and I check in with the EC every day to tell him still no cash. At this point phone got shut off. I'm using my sister's house phone. Nothing. I somehow scraped up the money to go to the office to find out what happens and I'm told that my check had been mailed out...

TO THE SCHOOL.

And since I hadn't picked it up in a week and a half, it got sent back to the bank.. so now I had a six hundred credit to the loan I was living off of.

And since the Excecutive Chef had found out that I had just not shown up to pick up the check, he called my week's absence and unexcuse absence and I was out on my hiney.

Basically one hand didn't know what the other was doing and I was on a fools errand for about a week and half. I should have fought harder and made EC understand what happened but he didn't really care and I got so fed up I just went into a depression for a while.

I just remember sitting there on the living room, bawling my eyes out and begging my sister not to tell my folks I got kicked out of school. I should've told them. I know they would have fought to get me back in but.. I was just so heartbroken.

All I kept thinking were mom's bitter "You better not fail, Demise, this is my house I'm signing over for your tuition" in my mind.