Almost There

Well, yesterday I made my presentation in Nutrution class and got full marks. I had over 100% in the class so I don't have to take the final next week. I'm so glad. That class, despite the grade I got, was the hardest class I've ever taken. I worked my butt off studying for the quizzes, writing the papers, and doing the projects. Our instructor gave us plenty of breaks because the material was so difficult and only 11 weeks to cover it all. She gave lots of opportunities for extra credit and always reviewed for the quizzes for us. My presentation was on Osteoporosis becasue I'm Osteopenic. I also talked about my running injury and proper nutrition. One young man gave his presentation on Alcholism because he's a recovering alcholoic. I learned a lot from his presentation. We could write our paper on anything related to nutrition and everyone wrote about something they've either experienced or were passionate about.


I'll have my English final on Monday. That one will be hard I think, but if I do decently I believe I'll get an A in that class as well. It's the Skills class I'm really worried about. This past Tuesday I nearly gave up. I wanted to walk out of that class room, walk down the stairs, get in my car and just drive home and cry myself to sleep. Why can't I do anything right in that class? I've been cooking forever! I fabricated a chicken - the last one to practice on before the final on Monday and from the first cut I screwed it up. I couldn't believe it! It was like I've never done it before in my life! I just feel apart. I have no confidence about this final, none at all. I'm meeting two other friends on Saturday and we're going to open lab. We got together this week and came up with a game plan to go straight through the last 1 1/2 hours of production and see where we need to tweak things.  For this final, we have to:

• Fabricate one chicken into eight perfectly butchered pieces, leaving minimal meat on carcass
• Cut one carrot into 1/4" dice - perfect, exact, all the same size
• Cut one celery stalk into 1/2" dice
• Cut 1/2 onion into 1/4" dice
• Cut one potato into 2" x 1/4" x 1/4" Batonnet (like frites)
• Cut one potato into 4 Tourne's - seven sided "footballs"
• Tomato Concassee - score, blanch, shock, peel, quarter, seed, then cut into 1/4" dice
• Parsley dust - takes about 15 minutes to chop parsley until it's "dust"
• Prepare a batch of Hollandaise Sauce
• Prepare a batch of Bechamel Sauce
• Prepare a recipe of Coq au Vin
• Prepare a recipe of Chicken Chardonnay
• Green beans - blanch, shock, saute and have seasoned and perfectly al dente'
• Prepare a recipe of Spinach Gratin
• Prepare a recipe of Risotto (30-40 minutes of constant stirring for perfect, creamy result)
• Prepare a recipe of Mashed Potoatoes (no electric mixer - by hand!)
• Constantly show flawless sanitation techniques
• The two chicken dishes, the beans, and the mashed potatoes all have to be finished and presented at the same time

We have three hours to get this completed. It's worth 150 points - pass/fail. Each production is worth a certain amount of points. Please pray for me that I do well. Not only for the grade, but more importantly, that I'll have the strength and confidence to do this for the next four years.