The second week begins

In normal online social interactions this is not an issue for me; but I unexpectedly found that as a student with the goal of convincing the instructor of my competence, I very much missed the direct interaction. An obvious condition of the online format with hindsight, but not one that I had planned for. I worried that I would miss some important instruction somewhere in the online course materials, be unable to correct the omission in the normal ways, and do poorly in the course as a result. One course in particular was worrisome this way, a speech course that meets one of the core requirements for graduation. This is an 8-week "fast track" course that I chose because it appeared the most interesting and likely to be helpful to me, and because it would be done in 8 weeks and I would then be free to concentrate on my other courses. Fortunately, fast track courses also have an in-seat component; our class meets on Saturdays from eight to 11. Also fortunately, after the first class session I feel more comfortable with that class. The other two are Nutrition and Sanitation; they’re developing well enough.

I spent the weekend in class, catching up on some reading from the first week, and preparing for the upcoming week. I did not expect this to be easy, but on the other hand it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a college setting and I think I underestimated the amount of time and effort the academic (as opposed to in-kitchen) part of the program would take. In the kitchen this week we’ll be starting with other fruit-pie methods (the apple pie was a traditional, old-fashioned dry mix), then moving on to puff pastry. In the Charcuterie class I took this summer, one of the students served with his project a puff pastry he had made in the Artisanal Breads class that ran concurrently. I think it might have been the best puff pastry I’ve ever had.