What was and is to come

So the insanity and lack of sleep continue....

We've finished up our 2 week Shop Production and it was a blast despite the early hours. It was 2 days each at 4 different sections producing various pattiserie items to be sold at the uni cafe. Here are some of our goods:


French Pastries


My Masterpiece-a spur of the moment inspiration


Another moment when my brain was working-Fruit flan lined with strawberry, kiwifruit & apricot


More French Pastries

So besides my normal timetabled classes, I've also been spending a lot of time training for the upcoming Culinary Fare @ Greenlane Showgrounds. Myself & another girl are competing in a team skills competition-Toque d'Or (Golden Hat). We will be competing against 11 other teams and some of us have put or names forward to be eligible to be nominated to join the NZ Culinary team. And no surprises, I have put my name forward...Whoever that is selected will have to opportunity to join the other chefs on the team to compete at International level. How cool?!

We are now just over a week away from Competition day. We will be competiting at Hall 5, Logan Campbell Centre, Greenlane Showgrounds, Sep 3 from 12-4pm. Your presence will be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you are interested to come and I'll hook you up with more details.

Other things that are happening in the crazy life of Jean include 2 weeks of industry placement as part of my course. I have been placed at Rocket Kitchen in Penrose. I'm not really looking forward to it nor do I have any hopes of having a blast. The cool thing is I only have to complete 50 hrs in comparison to my classmates who have to complete 80 hrs. This is due to the ridiculous amount of hours of training that I will be putting in for the competition. SO, there are some benefits to my lack of sleep over the past month!

On a more serious note, in general things have been rough. At the moment, I'm doing a lot of searching and questioning. I've noticed that recently I've started to react & respond differently to situations/things. I'm sure it is a good thing; being more aware about myself but coz it is uncharted territory, I'm not quite sure how to handle it. Possibly being in the unknown and out of control adds fuel to fire.

It's been a rough few weeks. But hopefully, once things start winding down it'll get a bit better....

Stupidity beyond comprehension

'Insane' best describes the current state of my life. At the moment, I'm in week 3 of a 52 day week. I'm hanging in there but at times....I don't do so well.

Anyway, so my insane life has involved uni, work, competition training and several functions that I have to and will be catering for. This week, for example, involves me being at uni 7 days. Esp with it being competition season, I'm bolted to the kitchen for hours at a time and missing meals. Apart from having enough time for 1 meal a day most days, we also have a very sleep deprived Jean.

I don't think I've ever been more sleep deprived in my entire life. For some bizarre reason, I thought I was in Melb today. And while training and receiving feedback from my lecturer, I kept thinking "You sound very Kiwi. Constantly saying 'aye'. It's feels like a while since I heard that accent...". Mind you, I was in NZ, at uni but for some weird and wonderful reason, I thought I was across the Tasman!!!! Just as well I didn't open my big gob and make myself look like more of a fool than I already am..... *sigh* (Just thought I'd share my stupid moment of a lifetime.)

To keep me mentally on to it and my mind off competition thinking, I've been loaned a fiction book. It's been a rather enjoyable and hilarious read actually. However, it's been a challenging and hard read at times too. I was handed this book to hopefully help me see me and understand me a bit more. (If that even made any sense).