School Update

Kelly is doing great, he is in the top 10 students in the school with a 4.0 GPA. He's finished 2 of his 3 English classes, a computer class, a nutrition class, and skills 2 now. Skills 2 was the hardest class he'll have. The majority of drop outs happen during that 3 weeks. He got an A. He showed up for open lab at 530 am everyday during that 3 weeks to study and get his prep done for the day.Now he's in meat and seafood identification and fabrication. He's learning how to properly do all the different cuts of meat and some classical preparations of them. He made seafood sausage this week.He's made a few good friends and we see them fairly regularly. Chris is a ninja and lives in our apartment complex, so he comes over once or twice a week to visit. Nick and his girlfriend live in Hillsboro and they've come over twice now. We've invited them and Jessica, who is oddly possessive of Kelly, to come over for a Rocky Horror Party. It was supposed to happen at Halloween, but our schedules never lined up, so it'll just happen when we get around to it.

School Update

Kelly is kicking butt in school. He's acing all of his quizzes and goes in early to study so he can spend a little more time with Anni and me at night.

How could you stand to be away from this face?

They're kind of like boot camp as far as the dress code. He has to be in full uniform all the time: a toque (the hat), jacket, pants, shoes (polished), apron, side towels, and cravat (a tie thingy), it all has to be perfectly pressed and clean and he has to be clean shaven (except for existing facial hair).

Yesterday we found out that he was awarded a $1500 scholarship for an essay that he wrote about why he was going to culinary school. I'm so proud of him, and all the people in his presentation group are really happy to have him with them now.

Anni wearing Kelly's toque.

After this week he's done with his first class, skills 1 and sanitation. Skills one was mostly knife skills and some product ID. He's gone through about 30 pounds of potatoes at home and in class practicing. The hardest cut is a chateu. It basically looks like a 7 sided football that's 3 inches long. Today, he had to ID 80 herbs and spices for a final. Tomorrow is the knife skills final, he has 2 hours to do 5 chateus, 8 large dice, 12 medium dice, and 12 paysanne of potatoes, 18 julienne and 24 brunoise of carrots, 12 julienne of green pepper, 12 batonnet of celery, half an onion in a perfect medium dice, chiffonade 6 leaves of spinach, and supreme 1 orange. A paysanne is 1/2 by 1/2 by 1/8 inch cube, a brunoise is a very, very fine dice (1/8 inch cube), a batonnet is a perfect 1/4 by 1/4 by 2 inch rectangle, a chiffonade is the finest strip you can cut, and supremes are perfect segments of citrus with no peel or membrane.

Monday he starts Nutrition and Writing/Composition. He won't be using his knives for these ones, so they'll get packed away for 3 weeks.

Oregon or Bust

It's official. We will be moving to Portland, Oregon during the first week of August. There have been a lot of mixed feelings about us leaving among the family, but we really feel like this is the best thing for us. The school offered Kelly a few grants and we got the financing to go, so we are going to jump on the opportunity. The longer we push it back, the less likely we'd be to go at all.

Kelly is so excited, I'm really nervous. I've never lived farther from my parent's than Logan.

It's going to be an adventure and we're ready to get started!

GRADUATION IS COMING!!!

I finally have all the info on my graduation. I almost had to strangle a moose to get it.

I will be graduating on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 1:30PM in the Eccles Conference Center Auditiorium on USU's campus. This is just a ceremony for my college. I'm not going to the big 2 hour University commencement.

Call me if you have any questions! Here is a map of the campus.

https://extension.usu.edu/files/conference/USUCampus.pdf

ARGG!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so stressed out!! My GRE exam is tomorrow, and I've been studying my butt off, to the detriment of my other classes. I bombed a genetics exam Friday and have a weeds exam Wednesday that I haven't even started studying for. Kelly and our families are the only things keeping me sane! URG!

Minnesota Update

It looks like I might have the position. I'm taking my GRE's on the 30th and can put in my application then. If I'm accepted, I've got the job, I think. I won't be able to start classes until summer or fall semester, but I'm going to try to start working before that so I can avoid as much as I can of the November - March slump. I'll let you know whether or not I have the position for sure and when we'll be leaving. Thank you all for all your advice!

I Need Weeds!

I was asked to be more diligent in my blogging, so here's update from the past 2 weeks:

I HATE GETTING UP EARLY!!

There it is. That pretty much sums up mine and Kelly's lives.

One thing I did learn from just today was this:

+

=

I have Uncle Tom's fingers now.

Anyway, school's being going well. I have to collect and press 50 different weeds by Oct.12. I have 30 drying right now, but I'm starting to stretch for the last 20. Let me know if you have any cool weeds. Send me a picture so I can see if it's one I already have too.

I had a Genetics exam today. I did pretty well on it, which gives me hope for getting a good grade out of that class. I'm going to topdress the green next week. It's a pretty interesting process if you've never see it done before, and if you're not the one doing it. I'll take some pictures so you all can share in my joy. That's all I've got right now. My life is pretty boring, just sleep, school, work, school again, work again, homework, dinner, not enough sleep, and then it starts over. We've got a busy weekend ahead of us, so hopefully we'll have something new to share.

Fall Semester 2007

I started my last semester of college at USU on Monday, August 28. My classes are as follows:

• Weeds (plus a Lab)


• Plants and Civilizations


• Senior Seminar


• Landscape Management (plus a Lab)


• Genetics

Weeds is going to be a very interesting class, albeit very time consuming. I despise genetics, as it is human genetics and isn't doing anything for me except bombing my GPA. Landscape is interesting, senior seminar is just an exit course and only once a week. Plants and Civilizations has the potential to be interesting, but as of yet is just basic review and is horrible boring.

14 weeks to Graduation!