Controlling Chaos

So this is obviously long over due. These last two weeks have been full; full of stress, full of work, full of life. Skipper came in to town last Saturday and we tore Luzern up for a night, my parents and (surprise!) my sister also came to Switzerland, and a day later I was busting my ass for The Bake-Off. I've been busy, and haven't really been dealing with it all to well. It's hard to go through ten months of pure solitude, and then be blown out of hibernation and into clubs and BBQs. I spent today going through my closet and bookcase, dividing what to take and what to leave. It's crazy and chaotic and overwhelming, days keep rolling by and my life is starting to quickly twist and change. Ending and starting new chapters has never been a favorite of mine, I am just trying to stay positive about this one though, I am slowly starting to get the feeling that life has everything to do with perception, and I want this next chapter to be a brilliant one.

The Bake-Off was a fiasco. I started prepping at 5:30 am and the clock stopped at 5:33 pm. From start to finish I was lagging behind my time plan, and ended up tacking on three minutes that I charmed my way out of being penalized for. The whole time I was baking I felt like everything was going to shit. By the time the experts were done going over my products all I could do was go over to Chef Doug and cry into his shoulder. I was beat, I was in shock, and I had gotten through alive. It felt wonderful. Now that a few days have past I feel a lot better about how the whole thing went, and the reaction from my family and friends, hearing how proud they are and how well they thought I did, it doesn't make me care too much about the grade. I mean that. I spent months saying that I would just "do the best I could," mainly to cover my ass in case it all turned to shit. But I can tell you, I have NEVER in my life given as much of myself as I did for The Bake-Off. I busted my ass, and feel confident in saying that it showed in my work. I am officially a Confectioner, and it feels really good to be able to say that.

I have lived a good ten blogs in the last week, and have no idea where to even start. The next couple months are going to be just a continuance of chaos and life, so I hope to get back to the blog. I am in the process of changing somethings up before I return to the great CA, so I hope that you bare with me here.

Whew, ok, I just wanted to check in real quick. Change is coming...

Radiation

I am currently sitting in the living room of my parents chalet, an hour up a very large mountain outside of Luzern. I have come up here for the last four weekends, mainly just to get as far away from work as I can, the farther away I am, the better I sleep. I also like to come up here because the chalet is three times the size of my apartment and is surrounded by rolling green hills filled with cows, which are then protected by snow-capped alps. It’s a lot like spending your weekend in a Bob Ross painting. Not to mention Dr. Sylvia put in a Nespresso machine. I have really needed these weekend trips up here and am definitely not taking it for granted that I have a place like this to come to. It’s hard not to recognize that in two months weekend escapes to the Alps aren’t going to be possible, so I am trying my damnedest to suck in all the serenity that these weekends allow me.

I am pretty sure that the beginning to the end of my time spent here happened a while ago, but I am really just starting to realize it now. This is actually my last week alone, which is so crazy to me. I have spent this last year in solitude, more or less a semi-hermit, and now, in six days it call comes to an end. Next Saturday Skipper and I rejoin forces, on Sunday my parents fly in from San Francisco, Tuesday is The Bake-Off, and at six o’clock that evening my life gets a whole lot easier, kind of. Dr. Sylvia doesn’t leave until the end of July, and then August is going to be spent with Chung and my grandparents in Basel, with a guest appearance from MFP. It’s going to be nice not to be alone.

As for the absence of the blog these last couple weeks, well, simply put, I haven’t had anything to write. The last two weeks have been dedicated to all my written final exams and building my showpiece. Exams went the way I thought they would, I kicked ass on the decoration exam, hopefully passed my food science written exam, and am pretty sure I failed math (I would like to note that I am not bad at math, just not great at German word problems). I charmed my way through my Food Science verbal exam, and left with the experts shaking my hand, and telling me how well I had done (which is proof how far a smile can get you seeing how I didn’t even know what the make-up of milk was when they asked me).
My Politics, Law, Economics and “Culture” finals didn’t go too well (the assholes wouldn’t let me use my English-German dictionary), but that was expected and I have no regrets. So that just leaves The Bake-Off, and this next week is just prep, prep, prep, and then just hope for the best.

In regards to my showpiece, I am surprised to say it is actually turning out to be pretty awesome. I have also decided to dedicate it to my sister, Dede, since she won’t be able to make it to The Bake-Off, and is for sure the first person to support the whole pirate life-theme from the beginning. I hope you feel special Dede, it’s not everyday that you get a two-foot chocolate pirate sculpture dedicated in your honor, and to be honest, I think I might have just broken even with the scrapbook. Ok, maybe not even.

I get the feeling that my life is about to swell in the next couple of weeks, and I think I am ready for it. Time has pushed me this far and I am ready to just push through this next week and rock the hell out of The Bake-Off. A couple of weeks ago I realized that there is no time like the present to start being the person you want to be. In the next few months my whole life is going to change, and there seems to be no better time but now to step up and radiate.