The end of the beginning

Today is the last day of B-block and considering I just finished my last final (which I owned) it is over. For those of you who do not know, the CIA, at least for the time being, is a block system instead of semesters or trimesters. This means every 3 weeks or so you jump to the next class. It is one class at a time so you can be in the kitchen that is set up for whatever class you are taking. If you are in the Asian cuisine class then the kitchen has wok burners etc.

Back to B-block. B-block is all classroom time and nothing that physically involves cooking. For that reason we have to dress in business clothes and not our whites. Well you can wear your whites, but that is just disrespectful to the uniform. A-block most people just test out of and it consists of a math and writing class. B-block consists of Product Knowledge, Food Safety, Writing, Intro to Gastronomy and Culinary Mathematics. None of these classes are hard, but you would be surprised how many students have real problems with them.

Anyway, I am actually sad to see them go. Most people just want to get into the kitchens and I do too, but I am still going to miss these classes and being able to get dressed up every single day. I had some great teachers too. I have nothing bad to say about any of them. My Product Knowledge teacher is an organic farmer. Who better to teach you about produce than a farmer right? He also had some really interesting stories that related to the area which makes it more interesting. My Gastro teacher was great too and is actually involved in the food world. She is extremely smart and even though she has a bad rep, I think she was very mind opening and what I learned from her will relate to a lot of what goes on in my future. Although math was really easy, I still liked my teacher a lot. He made class interesting and was rather funny at times. Food Safety, well I am not sad to see this one go, but I still had a good teacher who at least tried to make it interesting and when the Servsafe exam came around it was cake. Considering that she did her job very well.

Writing is a much longer course than the rest since we have a writing practical, but I don't mind that much. It sucks having more work on my plate going into my next set of classes and that is something I don't want to deal with. On the flip side, I do enjoy the class. My teacher is a bit of a character and sometimes I wonder where her head is at. At the end of the day she makes class fun and leaves our writing pretty open so we can really get into it.

Gastro is what I am really going to miss. I really hope that I will have a chance to learn more from these teachers during my time at the CIA. We really do have some top notch people at our fingertips and this isn't like high school. Teachers want to educate you here and will take time out of their day to help you learn and grow. There are people who would disagree with me on many levels and to them I say, "Get the fuck out of here and go to another school." More on that later.

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