week 8 is over!!! midterms are over!!! i'm alive!!! lol. it was a really stressful and difficult week but i am happy to say i did not fail either of my midterms, although during the practical i was envisioning less than 60%.

but i'm getting ahead of myself:

monday we did a dry run of the practical midterm, with 4 of us to a stove and dividing up a number of tasks that would be on the midterm. i took on too many things and had to hand some over in the midst of all the chaos which did not do much for my confidence. we also marked ourselves, and i didn't do that well :(

tuesday we went in for our written midterm starting at 8:30am, and we had 3 hrs to complete it. i finished around 10:00am and took the rest of the day to practice for the looming practical the next day.

wednesday: i practiced a few things in the morning, then headed to school for my practical, which started at 12pm (there were 4 waves of students so we would only be 2 to a stove at a time) upon arriving, i learned that the two waves before me had gotten trout and chicken, the two exam options i feared the most! which meant that i would be getting either consomme or quiche, which i was quite happy about. we were allowed to go in 10 minutes early to set up our station, pull out our knives, etc. this is the list of things i had to produce in 2 hrs:

1 bowl of consomme celestine (includes julienne of carrot, leek and crepe)
4 crepes on the side (make a whole batch)
1 ramekin of hollandaise
1 recipe of profiteroles
3 turned zucchini
1/4 cup of rutabaga, brunoise
1/4 cup of carrot, julienne
1/4 cup of potato, small dice

everything was going alright until i looked up and my consomme was BOILING! NOOOOOOOOO!! one of the chef's told me i had time to fix it but it was really hard for me to try to remember how to do that. i knew that i knew it, i just could not pull it out of my brain. about 10-15 minutes later i did, and i wasted about 5 minutes getting the ingredients and everything ready. then JUST as i was about to start, a different chef told me i didn't have a bad looking product already, and i should think about what's important to finish. ugh. so i discarded all that and focused on the other things. another frustrating thing was crepes, which i have made a bajillion times, and i could not for the life of me get the consistency or heat right! i finished 5 minutes late, and after i presented my tray and went back to do my dishes, i really almost cried. i felt awful. and very disappointed in myself because i KNOW how to do all those things, and well. the stupid time restraint got me. a few minutes later the chef's called me over for my critique. i would have gotten 83%, but because i was 5 minutes late, i got 78%. i miraculously managed a 26 out of 30 on my consomme (!!), and a 10 out of 10 on my profiteroles, which they said were the best they'd seen in a while! unfortunately my hollandaise was just about to split, and my crepes were not great, and i got 7's and 8's out of 10 on all my knife cuts. i felt better after my critique, but still really disappointed because i should've done better. they also mentioned that they knew the time would be hard for me, which is kind of embarrassing that it's that obvious that i'm slow :(

thursday we had the opportunity to redo parts of our practical for make-up marks. they had me do hollandaise, rutabaga brunoise, and crepes again (i was the only person that had to redo crepes!), and also a cream soup. i did everything better, and pulled my 78% up to 86%! unfortunately, if you do the math, i would've ended up with 91% if i hadn't been late :( but it's over, and for me, that's the important thing.

friday was back to normal, and we made mussels (very similar to the last time we made them) and french fries! which we ate at 11 in the morning and the chefs had some beer in the fridge which they let us have (my partner was very excited to have ours all to himself).


the second meal was Venison Steak with Garlic Flan (ours ended up more of a custard), turned vegetables, Blackberry Sauce and Parsnip Chips. i didn't mind the venison, but my partner didn't like the mussels and so i ate most of them myself, and was kinda full :D



Non-school events this week included:
- supper at a pasta restaurant on Tuesday with my cousin Matt and two of his friends (HUGE portions!!)
- i helped out one of my chef's with a private party at our school for some lawyers and insurance people on Wednesday (after my midterm!! i know i'm crazy). kind of a mini cooking class. it was fun and very tasty! the dessert was a chocolate mousse that was the chef's grandma's recipe. and when you freeze it it tastes like chocolate ice cream!
- supper at an african restaurant with our life group (or one member of it anyways) on Thursday
- thrift store shopping also on Thursday, where we got Scattergories, Whoonu, and a Harry Potter Scene It game all for $4 each!! also some 'new' jeans for phil whose pants are outgrowing him :P
- last night phil and I made brownies together while listening to Christmas music and then watched a movie :)
- i tried hot yoga today, which was 75 minutes long in a heated room, and i have never sweat so much in my life! like pouring down my entire body sweating! i was familiar with all the poses which helped, at least my brain didn't have to work as hard as my body was :P the only thing was that we did shavasanah in between 2 flows, which threw me off cuz i've only ever ended with that. so i was expecting us to be done, and then the instructors was like "and this will be our last flow" it was kind of downhill for me from there cuz in my mind i was done lol. i have a whole month free at this place though, so i think i'll try some not-as-hot classes next :P

alright, i think that's long enough for today!