we finally cooked this week! tomato a la portuguese. simple enough. we also got to taste some food prepared by the mediterranean class next door - lamb with a vegetable relish of some sort, and a chick pea, shrimp, black olive dish with harissa. it was nice to finally be able to eat something between the hours of 6 and 11. my stationmates and i also ate about half a raw rutabega - which was quite tasty - as we practiced our dice.

i also finally ate in the cafeteria for the first time this week - i get one meal a day included in my tuition and i haven't made it to school in time to take advantage of it until this week. it is a good time to chat with my classmates, and a good opportunity to see what the students in the full time programs are making (and see some of our fancy cut potatos and rutabegas and carrots in there), but i'll give it a few more dinners before i start analyzing the food options here.

i had a nightmare this morning that i used to have in undergrad - that graduation day comes around and i realize i had skipped an entire quarter of one crucial class so i can't graduate. i think i'm having some anxiety around what i'm going to do with my life when i'm done here, am i really going to be able to make a living off of my culinary skills? not to mention pay back the loans i'm about to take out to pay for it all? only time will tell, i guess. and in the meantime i'll just keep eating rutabaga scraps and having fun learning more about my hobby.