Classes and foo.

[camwyn]

Yesterday I had a heretofore-believed-impossible event happen: someone at Kean University called me back, spontaneously, without my even leaving a message - and said that a bureaucratic procedure had been taken care of without my even asking it! Holly in the MIS department had gotten my Petition to Take MIS Capstone signed by a department head and registered it in the computer, and I could register for the class. I'd been planning on making an assault on the Garden State Parkway's bottlenecks next Tuesday, when they said that the department heads would be on campus, so I had assumed I wouldn't be registered until Tuesday at best. I've had other people in the MIS department call me to say that this or that thing had been done, but almost always, it's been because I left a message about it or asked them directly. She just went ahead and did it. . . I thanked her profusely.

I have no proof of this, but my private belief is that this happened because I made her laugh. Real laughter, not ha-ha-ha-no laughter. See? Make nice to the people without an expectation of reward, and it'll do you good somewhere down the line.

That having been said, I have successfully registered for MIS Capstone (Mondays, 5 PM to 7:40 PM), Dr. Chang's course in bio-informatics (Tuesdays, 7:40 PM to 10:30 PM), Mandarin Chinese (Wednesdays, 7 PM to 9 PM, at a local high school) and karate (Thursdays, 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM). Mandarin doesn't start until 2 October, though.

I've also got three Saturdays' worth of class at the Culinary Institute of America this September - Flavours of Southeast Asia. I've got to find my hat. The CIA issues everyone in these hands-on courses an apron and a paper hat - three paper hats if necessary, one for each class session. I don't like the paper hats. They bang into things and I never get them to stay on properly. I have the hat I had to buy for my cooking class at CCM, and I wear that. Cloth, floppy, and traditional. Keeps the hair out of the food, which is the critical thing about a chef's hat, and allows me to scratch my head without contaminating my hands, which is the other critical thing about the hat. I have to admit I'm a little attached to that hat, the way a karate student is supposed to be attached to their belt. (I am assuming here that the belt has been issued by a school that requires you to wash it once a week.) My cooking instructor, Professor Cosgrove, believed strongly in professionalism even during practice sessions in class. We had to wear our hats and our white uniform jackets, because that's what we'd have to wear if we were working in a restaurant kitchen, and no argument about the uniform was permitted. Either you wore the hat and the jacket and the black and white checked pants, or you didn't participate in the cooking class. The only exception he ever made was if you had jacket and pants, but not the hat. . . he had some spares on hand. And they all had 'I FORGOT MY HAT' written around the bottom in huge black letters of permanent marker, just to make sure you remembered next time. So. . . this is why I insist on using my own hat. It just wouldn't be right otherwise.

For those of you familiar with my Akashic, Ho, I want it noted that I took the Food Prep and Hospitality Management courses at CCM in fall of 1999 and spring of 2000. Hsiang Ho came out of my experience in cooking school, not the other way around. The fact that I got an A on my practical at the end of Foods II, and that my practical took the form of a ginger-mushroom-sesame-rubbed chicken breast with peanut satay sauce, khao pad, snow peas stir-fried with dried shrimp, and homemade nam pla prik that made Professor Cosgrove's face turn red and steam come out his ears, may have influenced my decision to play someone like Ho just a bit. (Hey, the professor said the practical had to be two plates of a meal that included a boneless skinless chicken breast, a sauce, a carbohydrate, and a vegetable. And that it had to be from published recipes, either in books or on the Web. He never said it had to be Western recipes. See? I've always been this way.)

Comments

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I have no proof of this, but my private belief is that this happened because I made her laugh. Real laughter, not ha-ha-ha-no laughter. See? Make nice to the people without an expectation of reward, and it'll do you good somewhere down the line.

Over in Obsessively Norse Land, they'd say, "A gift requires a gift." Not like a commandment or anything, but generally the Way Things Should Go.

You made her laugh. She probably forgot that, but still remembered you fondly enough to see your name and the class name and apply one to another like so much Velcro. 8-)

-- Lorrie