An all caps post.

I just got the COOLEST set book EVER.  It's for my Food Management course.  I am so freaking excited about this class that I was literally shaking while reading my set book.  There is the online programme incorporated with the book and you can invent your own recipes!  It's so amazing.  I want to sign up RIGHT NOW.  The book has pages and pages of recipes for all sorts of different things as well as history of famous chefs and their impact on cookery.  I've never wanted to read a course book cover to cover before in my life before this.  Needless to say, this is definitely one book that Varsity bookstore won't be getting back at the end of the semester.  

Alas, I have to wait six more days until I can actually go to the class though.  Typical.  I can't wait.  I've never wanted summer to end and classes to start so badly before.  I'm kind of wondering what's wrong with me.  I really hope I do alright in this class.  I'm starting to get afraid that everyone is going to be really ahead of me and that I'll have a long way to catch up.  I hope not.  I'm planning to work hard at it anyway.  This is something I really enjoy and I really hope I don't screw it up.  Honestly, I can't think of anything else I would rather be.  Wow, I'm going to feel really stupid if my career choice does actually change.  I don't think it will though and I really hope it doesn't.  It's either this or the swim school.  I. Do. Not. Want. To. Work. At. The. Swim. School.  Despite how much the rest of my family, and especially my father might want me to.  It's like he's a spider and the rest of us are flys.  He keeps trying to descretely (or not so much in his case) lure us into the web that is the family business and wrap us up tight and keep us there.  I don't want to be a fly in that web.  No thanks.  

I love getting excited about cooking though.  Cause then I actually believe that I might be successful and get to do what I want to do and go to the places I want to go.  And write in run-on sentences apparently.  I still claim that I'm undecided when asked what I want to do.  It's a need to know basis and not everyone really needs to know.  I think I'm just afraid that if I do tell them and then fail later on that they might think yeah, I saw that coming.  Why do I think so badly about people?  That's so weird.  I love people, but I'm also terrified of them.  Strange.  

I think I'm going to skip Arrested Development tonight and learn how to mentally convert ingredients into the metric system. 

Current song: 

Down by Jay Sean.  I think Lil Wayne gets really excited about the fact that he sings about the economy.  That line doesn't really fit with the rest of his part of the song, but I can imagine him feeling really smart and getting excited about the fact that he mentioned current affairs. Hahaha.  Silly rappers. 

The Blog of BHAGs

So I guess I should take this opportunity to talk about my goals.  Katrina left a video for VEDA talking about BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) and I left a comment which said that I wanted to get my culinary degree so that I could cook in a lot of different restaurants/ live in a lot of different countries around the world.  Basically, I want to travel.  I'm not sure where I want to live right now. The latest is Greece.  Maybe I'll live their for a while.  I definitely want to go to school in Italy though.  I'm hoping to study abroad at the Florence University of the Arts.  They have an AMAZING culinary school there.  I've looked at the brochure for the different classes so many times and I want to take every single class they have available.  There are like 40 something and I want to take them all.  One semester is definitely not going to be enough.  Maybe I'll accidentally-on-purpose lose my passport so that I can't come back in the summer.  Haha.  I don't think it would quite work out like that, unfortunately.  I'm hoping to go spring 2010 and then maybe tour Europe or something over Spring Break.  Actually I don't know if they will have a spring break.  Do they do the trimester thing?  I should probably research that.  I know that I'm not going to want to come back though.  I never want to come back after I go some place new.  It was horrible coming back from England and landing in Houston.  I don't think I belong here.  That sounded emo...

I really don't think I do though.  There are so many other places to explore and I don't want to settle.  It kind of pisses me off that I have to be in school for another 3 years.  I don't want to stay here.  It just seems like a waste of time that I could be doing something else like going to other countries and exploring different cultures and learning something new from them.  

I wish I spoke more languages.  Spanish in high school was a bust.  I didn't learn anything.  I hated those 2 years of class that I had to take.  They were miserable.  I also wish Rosseta Stone wasn't so damn expensive.    I want to learn Italian, Spanish (but the kind they speak in Spain), Dutch, French, German, Chinese.  That's probably a BHAG right there to want to learn that many different languages.  It's probably pretty unrealistic.  Unless I went to the country and was forced to.  That's probably the only way it would happen actually.  

Countries I want to visit include: Italy, England (again), Ireland, Scotland, France, Holland, India, China, Thailand, Russia, Poland, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Argentina, Kenya, Madagascar.  That's all I can think of right now.    

Places I want to live as of right now: England (probably somewhere in Northern Yorkshire.  Maybe Middlesbrough or Whitby), France (the countryside), Holland (I have family over there and it would be neat to meet them), Poland (maybe?) Spain (find me a Prince Caspian to marry), Greece, New Zealand, Western Australia.  Wow... another BHAG.  

Places to visit in the forseeable future: Italy (Spring 10), Florida (Infinitus with friends in July 2010), and London (for the summer Olympics in 2012).  I suppose I should talk about the last of these.  You see, my dad has BHAGs of his own and likes to talk about big plans he has to go to all sorts of amazing places and do all sorts of amazing things.  Now that's all fine and good except that he often doesn't follow through.  "After your brother graduates from college we'll go on a cruise" my dad said after I whined that a lot of people my age have already been on cruises (this was in middle school, I think).  This 'news' of course got me all excited so I went on the internet and started researching the different kinds of cruises we could go on, got as many brochures as they would let me take at the Carnival kiosk at the mall, bought a book on cruises from B&N.  I was pretty pumped.  That was nine years ago.  No cruise.  

This year there is a swim school conference in Australia and my parents were going to go.  They were really excited about it and I was really excited for them.  My mum loves to travel and I was so happy that she would get to have that experience again.  But of course, they decided not to go.  They decided that it wasn't a good idea because of the recession and all that.  I'm really disappointed.  Before these Australia plans and while the Summer Olympics were going on, my dad said that he would like to go to London 2012 with the whole family.  He said that if I graduated on time that we would go.  Now, I fully intend on fulfilling my end of the bargain, but I have no trust that he will keep his.  I know that sounds kind of harsh.  I don't mean it to.  I don't want to say that he can't help it because I think he can more than he realises.  He has the ability to take off of work sometimes.  He isn't a machine.  He is a human being and he's falling apart and making himself miserable by working so much.  It really makes me mad.  Sorry, off topic.  So anyway, when he said this I got excited again, even though in the back of my mind I knew they were just words.  It wasn't really going to happen.  I even asked him about it over spring break when we were driving home from the airport and he said that "we will just have to see how things turn out with the economy".  That means no.  For him anyway.  For me on the other hand... well that's a different story.  You see, I fully intend on enjoying my life.  I also fully intend on going to England again and what better time than the Olympics?  

Another thing about me is that my faith in the American banking system is really starting to wane. I have an idea that I really like.  I'll buy a safe, fill it with 3 jars and line the walls with pictures of different countries to act as enticement.  The jars will be labeled with the name of a country or place I want to visit.  I will put money in those jars and not touch it until it is time to go on that trip.  I will also keep my passport in that safe as well as envelopes full of different currency.  The only flaw I can think about is that the money wouldn't gain interest.  I like interest (unless it's being used against me).  So to solve this problem I was thinking about opening a separate savings account from the one I already have/ the one my parents know about.  I don't know why, but I don't really want them to know about this.  I think they would think it was really weird and be worried for me and wonder why I wanted to leave the country so badly.  I like the idea about having loads of different currency.  I could just leave whenever I wanted to.  It would be great.  I think that's a freeing feeling all in itself.  Just knowing that you could leave.  It also kind of makes me feel like a secret agent.  All the secrecy from my parents and the foreign currency and the safe.  It's kind of cool.