update from Washington

Aug 16, 2007
Sorry I haven't written on my blog in a while. Sometimes, I didn't have access to the internet and most of the time, the internet access was dial up which was really killing my patience. I had to wait until I got to a location with high speed access.

Things at work are going ok. Just a few more days left before I move on to California. When I first got into town I was working from 830am-11pm… then my schedule changed to 3-10pm… then it changed to split shift 1130-130 and 4-10… then it changed from 1130-1 and 430-10pm. It’s a good thing that is my only job! But working split shift kind of ruins your whole day since you can’t sleep in and you really can’t do much in between. I think I’d rather work 16 hours straight than work a split but that’s just me.

A friend of the family comes in almost everyday either for lunch or dinner. She’s a massage therapist. We had set up an appointment for me to go in. I really didn’t want to since my only day off is Sundays but we had scheduled it for this morning. She’d been wanting both my dad and I to stop by her store but we seem to never have the time. Anyway, wow! I didn’t realize I had that many sore spots until she was rubbing on my back! I was ready for a nap after that but I had to get going to work.


Aug 17, 2007

Oi! I’m such a nerd! I just got this notebook gadget. It’s way cool and I can’t wait for school to begin so I can take notes and play with my new toy! This clipboard holds normal paper but you use a special ink pen to take your notes. Then when you are finished with your notes, you hook the clipboard up to the computer and it transfers all the notes, graphics, and etc straight into a Microsoft Word document. You can also edit it to change the font and colors. Isn’t that awesome?

I saw this contraption a few years ago while attending culinary school but didn’t think much of it since I was a “good” student (hahaha!) and transferred my written notes to the computer everyday. But after awhile of course, I stopped transferring the notes because it took too long and I couldn’t get my graphs and hand drawn pictures to turn out. So pretty much the first couple of months I have really good type written notes and the rest of my notes are still in notebooks and now I don’t even remember what half of that stuff means since I can’t decipher most of my handwriting. Huge bummer! Then by the time I really thought about getting it, school was over and there wasn’t a need for it.

This will be such a time saver! It’s user friendly too – at least so far.

I’m really looking forward to school! My last day of work is tomorrow. Then I’ll be packing all day Sunday and leave out early Monday morning. I’ll take a few days to see my grandmother in northern California and some friends. I should be in Los Angeles by Wednesday and school begins the following Monday. How exciting!

I only wish I could take my bike with me. I have some friends in LA that also ride and wouldn’t that be great - to have fellow Harley riders to ride with all over southern California? But the bike is returning to the dreaded storage and I’ll be driving supposedly more safely in a 4 wheeled vehicle. At least the mother will be happy and not worry as much.

Plans after school are still unknown. Oh! So for those that didn’t know… I’ve chosen to specialize in sushi. It was a huge toss up between pastry school but I think I’m going to focus on this for awhile since I’ve been working the past few years in the pastry/ baking field. It’s a change of pace and the school I’ll be attending teaches pretty much everything you need to know about traditional sushi. It’s a 2 month course so I’ll be finished with schooling in October.

It’s amazing to think that I’ve grown up with sushi and have been making it on occasion throughout the years and am actually going to school to re-learn how to make it. Even with working in restaurants making sushi, I really don’t know the names of the ingredients… or at least the English translation and it kind of flusters me when people ask what some of the food items are and I just tell them the Japanese name. Then they still ask what it is and I have to reply, I have no idea. Take for instance inari… been making it for years and really like it. But I didn’t know it was fried tofu. (As far as personal consumption, when you purchase it at the grocer, there isn’t a label on it. You just look at it and know it’s inari. I guess for bulk restaurant purchases they have to put the label on the package.) I wonder if that’s personal complacency. Or perhaps ignorance? Hmmm. Makes me kinda have to think.