The Apprentice: Chapter Two

                Morality is a question pondered on every inch of this earth involving every facet of life, we take for granite the ability to freely express this natural liberty. But how can humans even be capable of this kind of reasoning? Through transition of nature to civil society we’ve experienced changes in our consciousness because of the groups we migrate to as social animals. But these groups, although an expression of our personal opinion and migrational tendency, skew the lines of how we perceive our own morality. No were more prevalent is this than in the food industry, for example, Fucking vegans. The original moral migration begins on the premise of killing is bad, then it moved to saving the environment. These vegans piss me off, that is not a good reason to subject the world around you to a completely arbitrary opinion. Though, now more than ever, the moral reasoning is reaching its intellectual highpoint that is relatively sound. The premise is that this world cannot support the higher consumption of animals, it is not economically sound to give 5 pounds of hay for every pound of meat. I highly respect this, almost as much as I respect the other basis that inquires to the life’s it ruins as a job and a duty of farmers to upkeep these factories. The main issue here, I believe, is that we need arguments that make sense to the larger population. As Rousseau reasoned, the common man is a criminal hidden among citizens, so obviously we cannot appeal to the hearts of those around us, on the possibility they might not even exist.

                I’m typing this from history class at the moment, and I suppose the reason is to save my attention. I’m more likely to stay awake in action than in- Let me rephrase: Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Not to say that I don’t enjoy history, but it’s a very straightforward subject, its mostly just memorizing dates, facts and reasons. There is no opinion except for those in theory, what happened happened I suppose. Whatever, today I received an email from those in Argentina (the place I wish to volunteer at eventually) I was given the choice of 165 farms or something, which id quite a lot of farms to begin with. I’ve been noting and categorizing these options by travel distances, dates available, and conditions of stay. I’m very happy to say that 2 years in Argentina is not pushing it.

                I’ve found relaxation among the thoughts of an organic farm where I can go and learn about another culture in a completely different environment other than my own. The thoughts are more relaxing than the thought of my restaurant at the moment, which is just now peeking into the summer months. This means bad

                Well, I’m sure I’ve had worse days somewhere in my life. Like that one time I messed everything up, pissed my chef off to the point he started cussing and walking away from expo. Oh wait, that was today.

                I swear to shit, if it isn’t someone leaving a mess on my table its someone taking up my entire table and commenting on how dirty I’m working. It’s not that I don’t appretiate the criticism, but can you layer it a little better? Like maybe throw in a fucking “good job” every once and a while? It’s like I live in the beginning of a Disney movie sometimes, with the social scarring and mental burning and yadda yadda. More than anything I just wish I could take the insults and yelling better, it’s hard to be human in a kitchen sometimes.

                I have a lot of trouble walking around in todays society, It’s like every time I have to go somewhere like downtown (which is like everyday) I can’t help but grot my teeth. Because all I see is leather coats, sagged tight pants, obese children, and loud dropout cheerleaders. In a way though I suppose it’s not all bad, it makes staying in a kitchen all day seem very appealing.

                In recent news, I developed a very appetizing chiffon double layer cake recipe with banana jelly and minced rhubarb. I guess “developed” Is the wrong word, I combined different reciped to form one single compilation of the three. It has a slightly bourbon flavor because of the shit ton of fucking bourbon I loaded into the jelly, though, I’m having trouble finding color in the desert, it all just kinda looks brown except for the rhubarb which gives it a speckled green look with a crunchy texture.

                I’ve also started thinking sbout a grilling competition for the local state fair coming up, all I need now is to find the fucking sign up sheet that just kind of disappeared into the abyse of a newly cleaned room. Seriously HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? IT WAS ON THE TABLE AN HOUR AGO.

                It’s odd how weather effects my mood, and how often it FUCKING RAINS in this bitch. I’ve woken up to the sound of thunder on the horizon 100% of the time in the last month and it really throws off my day when I can’t warm up with a 10 mile bike ride. It makes all my tedious chores seem like tedious chores. I suppose that’s why recently I’ve been pushing my chef harder to put me on a food station, so far I’ve reached an okay level of speed with both garde manger stations, and fry station. Which don’t seem like much, but let me tell you, everyone makes fun of me for being only okay at them. Except for the second prep chef, who is an extremely nice older father figure I happen to look up too. I’m getting off subject, anyway, work has been so-so, and with the inclusion of the new seasonal menu I have a feeling I’m going to find myself in a bind tomorrow, when looking at the heaping pile of “what the fuck is this shit, where the fuck is the recipe book, why are none of these in order god damnit.”

                  Slowly by slowly I find myself losing faith in humanity in general, everyone around me is becoming clearer and clearer as I progress in my life. I see now that everyone is not against me, there are no real bad guys in the world, no super villains, no text book evil doers, just people living their life’s for no one but themselves. It’s depressing how unbelievably selfish this world has become through industrialation, how blind we’ve made ourselves to the real problems in the world. We chose only to focus on whether or not our clothes are modern or our cars are clean, while we simply pass the people sleeping on the streets that have never been given the opportunity to do so. It makes me sick sometimes when I ride to my house through the main street from campus to downtown, where the homeless and the poor bleed into the same sidewalks as those with designer sunglasses and high heels. We pass them as if they were invisible, because we believe that they have the same opportunities we have in this world. Maybe it is true, maybe they did grow up in a nice suburban neighborhood but chose to dip from society. But they are still human beings, they still have the love of humanity in their hearts, even if covered by laziness or greed. No one deserves to be passed without thought, and waved off like nothing.

                I still wake up every morning and hop on my bike to head off into my own future because no matter how horrible our situation gets, someone has to hold some hope for a better future. That doesn’t entirely mean that any one person needs to feel the same way that I do, personally I hate being followed, even in principle. As far as I’m concerned, if you’ve got a nice life, you’re happy, and you don’t have any regrets, go ahead and live. Just don’t make other peoples life a living hell just so you can keep that life. In the mean time I’ll just do my thing.

                When it finally got down to the wire, I’d like to say I was ready for my Spanish final. Mi maestro y mi examen might have said differently though, oh well, you can’t win them all. On a related subject I believe I’ve begun getting over my inability to get things right when they count. I had woken up late this morning, had sore legs, and found a cockroach in my sink, so you can imagine my surprise when I didn’t let me throw me off my game. When I had to grab a ride from a local Car2Go (A recent development that takes up space in my wallet) and was still 5 minutes late with a sprint from my parking space, I thought for a moment I might be in over my head with today. But instead of letting it get the better of me I took a deep breath and decided that even though I had 5 hours of sleep, was late, and inches from falling in a bad mood, at least I was prepared, showered, in a nice shirt, clean jeans, and generally confident with at least a gallon of confidence (Note: The normal male has at least a 6ft deep wading pool of confidence). You can bet your ass I waltzed into that classroom, holando y waving at all those prepared motherfuckers.

                Finals week finds itself right around the corner, and I can feel it from here. My hands have started their usual anxiety driven seizers and the moments in which I talk to myself are increasing. Like every semester I’m beginning to lose my mind slowly, next come the 3am showers I find myself in after a dream convinced me of my lateness to a review or class. It’s all to be expected and I’ve assured myself it’s just mother nature protecting me from actually losing my fucking mind.

                I’ve already made my list of to-dos when break comes, inbetween press curing a salmon and getting a new bike I’ve written a proposal I made to the Lone Ranger the last shift I had, extra shifts on THE LINE.

                IN OTHER NEWS: I’ve received two generous scholarships that can support my next semester including books and lab fees. This means…. Moving out of my parents house? Maaaaaaybe.

                Yes I’m moving out of my fucking parents house, I’m going to kill someone if I stay here any longer.

                The semester is slowly screeching to a halt and I can feel it in every facet of my life. The hotter weather and clearer skies are pushing for a busier restaurant, which is in turn pushing me, at some points I can almost taste the beautiful feeling of chefdom as it closes its barbed jaws on my will. Fortunately though, my few years of reading everything I can on my trade I can’t say I wasn’t prepared. In truth, I was waiting for this push, like a terrified skinny blonde girl waits for a murderer in her own closet. I’ve had a couple of events while I was away from my journal, one was a school sponsored mixer where I embarrassed myself at a skill tester with a tourne classic cut. The second was a wine dinner at the port, where I embarrassed myself with plating and looking shabby as fuck. Don’t worry though, there are plenty more coming up where I can safely embarrass myself in front of large numbers of people.

                Viva la Socially Awkward

                What a fantastically chaotic week this has been, with the culinary competition and three projects in three different classes I’ve really found the limit to the separation of personal and work time. But in the end I’ve come out more knowledgeable of my abilities and somewhere along the line I feel I’ve gotten all the more wiser. Even though I didn’t even qualify for a medal in the competition I’m relatively happy I’ve accomplished the success in that particular preparation and I’ve also learned so many others from those teaching me.

                I’m glad it’s gotten to the point I ca accept defeat and not only brush it off but use it as a morale booster to try harder the next time.