Amongst the series of purposes GUE serves, one of the major ones in this project is to track the advancement in my life from the roots of where my kinship with food began and trace the path of where I hope to end with it. I've been working on a series of life revamps throughout last year and this, which include (but are not limited to) taking charge of my savings and day-to-day finances, clearing my credit report, making plans for the future, and pin-pointing what it is I want in life and where all of this is headed.
Going to culinary school is something I've talked about for almost two years now on a serious note, yet something that's played around in the back of my head for way longer. Reaching this goal, this late in the game, has become a hard goal to achieve, financially. Always caught up in the dilemma of:
- Classes are at day time hours,
- I have to work at these hours,
- I could quit my job as a sacrifice for school -
- But then I'd have no money to live -
- I could get loans and budget -
- My credit is not where it needs to be to get the needed bank financing,
- Must work to clean credit,
- Can't go to school because I have to work.
In any case, I've made some calls and ran some numbers. First I aimed low and compact, quick and easy by starting with L'Academie de Cuisine. Then I aimed way high by looking at the CIA, which a photo of the campus alone was enough to make me want to drop everything and go try and get a job as a janitor there. Alas, it is too expensive for me to attend, as much as I would like to. Now I'm shooting for something good and affordable (I hope), or so I intend to find out tomorrow at the Art Institute of Washington, where I hope to take on a B.Sc. curriculum in Culinary Arts Management.
I have an interview/appointment locked down with someone from Admissions who I hope will be able to open up some doors and create some options for me. This is both very exciting and nerve-wrecking at the same time. I don't want to get my hopes completely up just yet, but I can't help feeling a little bit of excitement in anticipation of perhaps finally landing where I need to be. Wish me luck!
