Signs of life

Hey whaddya know?  I'm still alive!

Pastry school is done, superamazing stage is done, and vacation is done.  I rocked my exams:

 

 

and at the end of my stage my chef (who is one tough cookie, I'll tell you,) had some kind words for me.  Overall it was the high period of my year.  Of course vacation wasn't bad either.

 I still have a little vacation time left to use, so the boy and I are trying to figure out where and when.

In the meantime, Belgium has decided that summer is pretty much over.  While Belgium has been fairly decisive about this, I am still trying to make my decisions, about things like "what's next?"  I'm looking for work now that I have a few shiny new credentials, but also working on the "plan b" of what to do if I don't find a decent job before going mad.

It's been amost a year since I hurt my back, and the past 361 days since then have been quite the roller coaster, with great opportunities and awful surprises.  Most days my back is pretty solid, and it held up perfectly during my stage which was a huge test, and a huge relief for me.  What I'd really like now is to feel like I can have at least a year of something fairly stable, whether that be work, school, whatever.  I would like a routine please.  Ideally one that isn't as sucky as the one I have right now of checking the want-ads and trying to learn the rules for driving here in Belgium.

Like pretty much all the plan b's I've ever had for anything since showing up here, my fantasy plan b involves me fleeing the country for better education or work opportunities elsewhere.  (Don't all expats have a secret fantasy escape plan?)

It's the long stretches of day where I do very little of what I love that get to me and I now feel quite confident that it'd be easier for me to keep moving forward somewhere else.  But here I am, and I'm not a quitter, so I'm rolling up my sleeves and seeing if there's anything here for me first.  There are great things to be had and learned in Belgium, don't get me wrong... you just need to have a car if you live in Wallonia and you need to be willing to wrestle with paperwork every step of the way.  I keep trying to round off my "square peg" edges to fit into these round holes, but well... progress is slow. 

The Twist

Today I learned that my chef de pâtisserie represented France in the World Chocolate Masters a few years back (and came in a very respectable 5th place, despite his showpiece breaking during the competition!)  I'm kind of in awe.  Ok, I'm fully in awe.  That was a twist I didn't see coming.  Kind of like someone putting a cherry on top of the cherry of having the opportunity to stage in 'the house of fancy pastries'.

In other news my knee is still buggered despite horsepill anti-inflammatories, I have developed the ability to sleep at will (and sometimes even not when I will it,) and today was overall a better day in 'the house of fancy pastries'.  Meaning I felt ~slightly~ less goomba like, and got to do a few new things. :)

It's the hardest work I've done physically in pastry so far, as this place produces in larger quantities than anywhere I've ever worked before.  Larger batches of everything mean larger pots, larger mixer bowls (that weigh like... half what I do?) and so on.  Even though my bruised knee doesn't like it for the moment, fortunately my back is holding up through it all and I'm counting my blessings and feeling seriously grateful toward my physiotherapist.  It feels normal most of the time now, despite the strain I'm placing on it, which I guess means we did a good job bringing it back to health (yay.)

I feel like I have a lot to feel grateful for, and I'm just hoping things continue to move in this positive direction.

Now, I must sleep.

Off to a smashing start.

My stage has started.  Today was my 4th day at the "house of fancy pastries" (as we will call it,) in Verviers, and like every day I've been there, I still feel like a goomba in a place filled with ninjas.  The first days in any kitchen are always the most difficult, as you are learning how things are expected to be done, where things are kept, and how the machinery works.  Today I learned (I hope) to watch my step more carefully.

I can't bend my left knee.  A large black bruise is developing, and though I've taken a horsepill anti-inflammatory, it seems to have no effect.  Today, you see, I managed to crash to the ground while escorting a tray of creamy, crispy deliciousness designed to be hidden as a layer in a mousse-cake from the freezer to a work surface.  While carrying the tray I didn't swerve to avoid a low stack of boxes and metal in my path (which I didn't see since I was carrying the tray.)  This resulted in my falling forward, trying desperately to keep the wobbling tray upright as I fell, and then *wham*  The tray and I hit the ground.  Nothing makes you feel more competent than almost killing a tray of someone else's work by doing a belly flop in the kitchen.  Yes yes.

I'm just hoping by the end of my stage I feel slightly less like an elephant who has stumbled into the midst of a troupe of ballet dancers.

Oh, later in the day the vibration from the dishwasher sent the tray-loader (a metal insert we use to place baking pans and grills in the dishwasher,) toppling onto me from above as I dried and put back pitchers, bowls and other things.  It was totally my day.

Dreaming in cake.

Where were we?  Ah yes, I had just gotten into Pastry school, and then big ol' socialist Hollande became president of France, and then Angela Merkel vomited in her mouth a little.

And all the while as the news has unfolded, I've been blissfully, finally doing things I like.  Blissfully, finally.  School's been mostly awesome.  My understanding and technical execution of pastry is evolving waaaay faster than it would have if you'd left me in a room full of pastry books and food to survive on for the same period, which I think means the school is a decent one.

I'm incredibly excited and nervous for my stage (think: temporary "kitchen intern" placement.)  I kind of need to pinch myself when I think I'm going to be allowed into this kitchen for a month.  It's exciting because it's a pâtissier and a company I really respect and that I've always wanted to see the inner workings of, but it makes me terribly nervous because well... they're awesome and ninja-like, and I'm not a ninja.  I'm a grasshopper... larva.  Please god don't let me suck.  I'm like each character in "A Chorus Line" at some point in the day when I consider my upcoming stage.  Completely insecure and absolutely hopeful that it will work out.

I dreamt of cake for the first time last night.  Normally (if I dream) I dream of working with chocolate, but last night after googling "melon garnishes" and sketching a few mentally for myself, it was a REM construction consisting of layers of Biscuit Joconde, crème bavarois, and fruit coulis/gelee.  Pastry school is having it's effects on me, it seems.  :)

Lost promises, loose ends, and small triumphs.

First: let me be clear that I am no pro.  I don't have a 'blogging schedule' of any kind, I don't have a fancy camera, and... I can't even come up with a third excellent thing to round out this sentence nicely about how unprofessional I am as a blogger.

However as unprofessional a blogger as I am, I do strive to be a woman of her word, and I realize that faaaar too often while zipping around doing things in real life, I leave things hanging here in the form of loose ends, mentions of things not yet elaborated upon, and as-yet-unfulfilled promises (like the recipe for that cake, which is still coming - but can I just tell you how many sweets have fallen into our lives over the past little bit and how much attention I've had to pay to other things, and while we're at it, how expensive almond-powder is here? (because the cake uses it, and our grocery store seems to have mistaken it for gold-dust.)

Anyhow, the point is there are some holes that ought to be filled in, and I'm going to spend the next little bit trying to find them and fill them in and to tidy things up around here because I hate when my deficits of attention make me look like a liar.  It's a good time to fill in the holes anyhow.  I'm trying to tie up loose ends everywhere to make sure I have enough room and organization in my life for this new thing...

(No, not a baby if that's what you were thinking.  Who are you, my mother in law?)

That pastry program I wanted to get into?  The one that ought to help give me a little 'Belgian credibility'?  I got in!  My long division and multiplication stuck by me in the math tests, I did well in the French comprehension test, and I must not have come off so badly in the interview because I'm in!  I suspect the next few months are going to be very intense, and pretty tiring, but I'm also hoping they'll be worth it and will allow me to go back to living the sort of life where I come home from work covered in splotches of flour or butter or chocolate, and more importantly: a contented smile.