On Being a Graduate

​Yesterday, on a rare sunny afternoon in Paris, a group of students from all over the world gathered at the Shangri-La Hotel and, receiving diplomas, tall white hats and medals hung from an iconic blue ribbon, became chefs. With speeches from the school's director and guest Pascal Niau, executive pastry chef of the esteemed Dalloyau, it was a ceremony to mark the transition into a new phase. Some will go on to be interns, starting at the bottom rung of the restaurant industry ladder, others back home to join family businesses, a few to graduate programs in management, and still a handful undecided.

Less than a year ago, I also ​crossed in front of a group of peers and loved ones to receive a fancy piece of paper with my name on it, shake hands, and have my picture taken while wearing a funny hat (though that time it was flat, black and square). That, too, was a symbolic and momentous occasion, but even after I returned to my seat and was thereby officially "done," I wasn't sure that I felt any different. 

It's strange to think that after almost 18 years of being a full-time student (I started kindergarten when I was 4 and have never taken a gap year), I am no longer one. I'll miss the formalized setting of the classroom, but for a while now I've been anxious to work - to actually do things that previously I only learned about and discussed with teachers. Looking back I've begun to appreciate all those experiences that, while being an integral part of school, are beyond the confines of formal education; in other words how I've changed. If you asked me 2 years ago whether I was prepared to move miles and oceans away from friends and family to a place where I didn't know anyone, I would have said no. And although it hasn't always been easy, I've made it work and the experience has definitely made me grow in ways that I probably wouldn't have if I had been at home. 

I won't necessarily rule out more schooling in the future, but for now this is a good time to stop. My internship starts on Tuesday and I'm both dreading (mostly the part where I have to wake up around 5am) and anticipating the 40-hour work week. After spending a lot of my childhood wishing I were a "grown-up," now I wish I could put it off a little longer.

I Don't Know How to Cook

Nope, not an attempt at modesty; it's just the honest to God truth.

If I made a chart of my current diet, the predominant food groups would include fresh fruit (no preparation involved!), omelettes (the only thing I feel competent making apart from boiling water for pasta), and burgers (one of the perks of my part-time job).

The idea of cooking scares me, because the very reason I love pastry so much is for its precision. I get that a lot of chefs - amateur, professional, and everything in between - are the opposite. Cuisine gives you the chance to improvise, freestyle, be spontaneous. I, on the other hand, like order and following procedures. Of course, having said that, it's kind of a miracle that I ever hated chemistry lab so much...

I may be training to be a chef now - but only in desserts. A handful of students at my school do both cuisine and pastry, but for the rest of us it often feels like they might as well exist as two separate industries. I sometimes wish I had gone for the Grand Diplôme; that is until I heard about one of the more traumatizing lessons from a cuisine student: deboning a rabbit. (Don't worry, it comes with the skin already off, but they had to decapitate it which I guess freaked some people out). So I think I'll stick to making tarts, cakes and sugar sculptures.

This weekend I'm headed to Lyon for Sirha, the world's premiere event for food and hospitality. One of my chefs at school is competing for the French team in the bi-annual world pastry cup, but there is also a parallel competition, the Bocuse d'Or, for cuisine. (If you're really interested and/or bored this weekend I can provide links for live streaming).

Who knows? Maybe I'll learn something from watching the masters.

Why Do We Care So Much About High School?

I recently re-watched Mean Girls with an Aussie friend, and as the credits were rolling at the end she turned to me and asked, "Is this what high school is like in America?"

No doubt there is some small percentage of truth within Tina Fey's brilliant script but, as with the collegiate Greek system, it's become quite apparent to me as an expat that there are certain social hierarchies and institutions that are uniquely American and therefore utterly bewildering to members of other cultures. (No, seriously, if you try to explain a frat or sorority to a non-American - no matter however many movies/TV shows/pop culture references you cite - they'll still be like, "Um, yeah okay...WTF.")

If you went to school with me and are reading this right now I can only surmise what you might be thinking. Probably something along the lines of, "Well, what does she know? She wasn't popular."

Taking a shopping break from college visits - the fateful day I discovered Marc by Marc Jacobs.

To be honest, though, high school was never something I gave much thought to. For the four years I spent there it was always just a means to an end; an unfortunate but unavoidable stepping stone between childhood and the culmination of eighteen years' worth of hard work, extracurriculars, and my parents' savings: college. 

But then this New York Magazine feature, with its histrionic title intended to instill fear into every reader, came into my life via Facebook newsfeed, and I couldn't just agree to disagree. I'm calling bullshit on this one.

The underlying theme of the article is - spoiler alert - that behaviors and identities perpetuated during the formative years of high school tend to be predictive of later life, which the author supports with anecdotal evidence and social science (more on that later). For the sake of the counter-argument I'm going to simplify this as the author asserting that people don't really change; that life after high school is still exactly like high school (because, again - science!).

At a Christmas party I attended last year, a fellow guest related an amusing story about the time he almost got mugged while out pub crawling in his hometown. Yet, as soon as the aggressor stepped out from the shadows of the alleyway, the two men made eye contact and instantly recognized each other: they had gone to primary school together. So instead of getting mugged, my friend ended up having an unexpected catch-up session with his former classmate, the point being that despite their similar upbringing and socioeconomic status, my friend went on to university and law school while the other guy bummed around and apparently forged a livelihood through stealing from others.

Now I have yet to be mugged by a past acquaintance, but especially because so many of my social network connections are from high school, I can't help but share the same sentiment. How can individuals from nearly identical backgrounds end up on such wildly different trajectories in life? My answer is that people do change, and often in surprising ways.

After delivering my valedictorian quote: "You have 3 choices in life: be good, get good, or give up." - Gregory House, MD

A substantial portion of the article deals in archetypes. I think there's something inherently wrong with encouraging individuals to identify with one-dimensional tropes, as one of the studies cited in the article does, because it's both reductive and demeaning. Maybe that's why I never developed an appreciation for The Breakfast Club; to this day I have not met a single person that is anything like those characters that popular culture tells me are so iconic and beloved. Real people are - surprise! - nuanced, multi-faceted, and have interests that defy placing them in one neat box. Jocks, princesses, brains, basket-cases, stoners - none of these are mutually exclusive. Labels are only meaningful insofar as others endorse them.

Perhaps it's because of the media and popular culture that adolescents are deluded into thinking that they need to cling onto one particular identity. But that's not the only option for socializing. It's true across many social environments that people tend to self-segregate based on things they have in common, but I never fully integrated into one particular clique because my closest friends were scattered amongst different groups.

When it comes to navigating those tricky years of adolescence I suppose what it comes down to is this: what you define as success and happiness, and what you are willing to prioritize in order to achieve those things.

I wasn't popular in high school because I prized sports and academics above everything else. I had a handful of close friends, many of whom I still cherish today, but I never went to football games, school dances, house parties etc. Do I feel like I missed out? No, not really. 

Kickin it with the burghers of Calais at the school that would become my alma mater.

Oh, and having attended one of the world's top research universities I can honestly attest that any study relying on [post] adolescent subjects is, at least from said subjects' point of view, more about the stipend received afterward than any grandiose ambitions to contribute to public knowledge and the greater good. Results should be gauged accordingly.

On Living the Dream

I'd like to tell you more about my uncle. For accuracy's sake he's not really my uncle, nor do I believe we're actually "related" in the technical sense of the word. His wife is the cousin of my aunt; an aunt by marriage and not by blood. There probably isn't even a word to describe our relationship to each other but, family is as family does, and after this past weekend I can say that I feel a lot closer to him and his son than I do to others that I'm actually, you know, related to.

At eighteen my uncle moved from his hometown of Kyoto to Tours, France, in pursuit of his culinary dreams. Mind you this was decades ago before the advent of internet, smartphones, and all those handy apps that make physical distances and time zones between people seem trivial. I'm not even sure that he had been to France prior to leaving Japan, so it was with great determination and only a rudimentary understanding of the language that he left home.

I asked him how he knew, at that age, that he wanted to be a chef. He told me that growing up his father, an accountant, frequently took him out to eat at European-style restaurants, and through these shared meals he fell in love with the artistry, ambience and culture of western cuisine. And luckily, as the third son of the family, my uncle was free from the burden of carrying on the family business. 

Once in Tours he enrolled in a language course, and when the coordinator found out about his culinary ambitions she introduced him to Monsieur J, owner and chef of a hotel restaurant in nearby Azay-le-Rideau. My uncle began working in the kitchen, and over time Monsieur and Madame J essentially adopted him as one of their own.  Eventually work opportunities took my uncle away to Paris, where he stayed for a few years, but still he visited Azay on weekends and holidays.

Now, having worked extensively in Kyoto and Los Angeles, he runs his own restaurant in Pasadena alongside a dedicated group of staff that have been with him since opening day over a decade ago. Over the course of the many meals we shared together in Azay, I couldn't help but notice the way Monsieur J looked at my uncle; even though it had been years since they had last seen each other, it was still that of a proud father.

---

Of all the people I met last weekend in Azay, perhaps one of the most inspirational was Pascal, a friend of Monsieur J's son who also became close with my uncle when they were growing up together. I should add that everyone I encountered throughout those few days was so unbelievably kind and generous; not at all like the French I've dealt with in Paris.

"Paris is not France," they said, shaking their heads. And now I can see why.

Pascal was formerly an Air France steward, but not of the glitzy Catch Me If you Can / Pan-Am variety. Whereas his colleagues preferred to lounge in fancy hotels during their downtime, Pascal would grab his bags, hit the road, and escape the big cities. As such, over the thirty years he worked for the airline he traveled far and wide across South America, Africa and Asia.

A self-described "citoyen du monde," his undying curiosity and zest for life seemed to belay his true age. As he drove Philip and I to the rendez-vous for the hunt, he spoke of his encounters with different cultures with nothing but the utmost respect and enthusiasm.

Now a licensed pilot in retirement, he proudly showed us a photo of his bright yellow passenger plane, which he enjoys flying over remote areas of the United States in addition to his native France. Philip told him it resembled a certain Pokémon.

"Pikachu?" said Pascal gleefully. "Yes, that's what I'll call it!"

It would be an understatement to call him an avid photographer, given his willingness to stop the car in the middle of a country road or highway roundabout just to capture a good shot. He mostly takes personal photos, but, as I later learned, some have been featured in guidebooks.

"C'est trop genial," he would say, turing on the hazard lights and reaching for his camera.

---

In a socioeconomic climate filled with depressing statistics regarding the high unemployment rate for my cohort and the potentially diminishing value of college degrees, it was encouraging - inspiring, even - to be around such people who had pursued what they were passionate about when they were young and, years later, are so much the better for it. Even though I don't have everything mapped out ahead of me, what I learned from these two men is that you can still make it in an unfamiliar environment, and along the way capitalize upon life's little adventures.

21st Century Separation Anxiety

Clocking in at a little over a week since The Incident, this is the longest I have been without a cellphone since the eighth grade.* How does it feel? Well, like most bad break-ups, it's complicated. But before I get to the emotional stuff, here are a few everyday, practical issues that being phone-less renders excruciatingly difficult.

Knowing what time it is. My first night without my phone I fell asleep worrying how I could possibly wake up on time, seeing as I haven't owned an alarm clock since before Obama became the first black president. Footnote 1 below mostly solves this problem.

Knowing where I am. While she has many admirable qualities, I inherited my mother's unfortunate sense of direction, which basically means that without a GPS documenting my every move, maps are completely meaningless to me. Leaving my apartment is now generally prefaced by a 5-10 minute ritual in which I peruse Google Maps and try to commit it to memory.

Communicating. The most obvious problem is also the most poignant. Gone are all my contacts, so even if I had a functioning phone I would be almost as helpless as I am now. 

In a more metaphysical sense, though, it's like the theft abruptly severed my ties with home. There was always some comfort in knowing that despite the miles and time zones between us, my friends and family were always a Whatsapp/Facebook/Tweet/Email away. And now... I guess you could say that I feel pretty lost, both literally and figuratively, but at least I still have my laptop and internet access; I mean, losing that connection really pushes people over the edge if you know what I mean.

*OK, truth be told I can be found toting around this relic of mobile technology from my first month in Paris when I naively believed that I could get by with a pay-as-you-go plan. However, since those credits have long been squandered, it's utility has been reduced to that of a pocket watch. 

5 Stages of Grief for My Stolen iPhone

I am hereby interrupting normal coverage of our family holiday with a recap of my New Year's Eve. I am also hereby reinstating comments and simple likes, and I encourage you to make use of them as you see fit.

1. Denial

I'm going up the stairs, exiting the Metro en route to a friend's apartment, earbuds in and my phone resting in my coat pocket. I feel someone brush up against me, and simultaneously the music stops. Is someone calling me? 

But as my hand instinctively reaches towards where the phone ought to be, my brain is a step ahead and, sure enough, the pocket is empty. The white cord dangles uselessly as I frantically look about every which way. I want to believe that somehow the iPhone just fell out of its own accord, and I'll find it lying on a step.

The truth is that it's gone, and I've no idea who took it.

2. Anger

Is this a joke? It's the fucking holiday season.

The other passengers have disappeared into the streets, all but one shady-looking guy who lingers near the top of the stairs. Shock has progressed to recklessness so I start to approach him, but as soon as I open my mouth it recedes. What do I say?

"Excusez-moi," I begin.

His lip curls into a sneer; once again my accent has betrayed me. I'm 70% sure he is the thief. But I don't have a dictionary and I'm too emotional to put together the questions that I want to ask. Did you bump into me on the stairs? Did you see anything?

Instead all I can think of is to ask if he has my phone. It's a lost cause. He pulls his phone out and answers it, although I'm fairly certain that it's a ruse and he's actually just talking to himself.

I walk away, seething. Part of me wants to turn around; give the guy a good shove; reach into his pockets and see how he likes it. But the further away I get from the scene the more the anger turns itself inward. I'm furious for being careless. I'm irrationally mad at my friend for asking me to bring things to dinner because the extra baggage slowed my reaction, but above all I'm upset with myself for not being able to communicate.

In six months of living abroad I have never felt more helpless than I do in this moment.

3. Bargaining

Once my friend lets me in I immediately go to her laptop and commence damage control. I log onto iCloud and pray that Apple can Find My iPhone.

As the page loads I make a promise to myself. If the location comes back I will not go apeshit on the person who took it. As tempting as vigilante justice is, I will call the police.

The search comes up empty; the phone is offline. Well, I guess the thief is not a complete imbecile.

4. Depression

Everyone knows that all of life's little events are completely trivial unless they've been simultaneously Tweeted, Tumbled, Facebooked and Instagrammed. So thanks to some random asshole, I have been socially crippled. What is the point of having a good time if you can't post about it? Does it even qualify as a 'good time' if it hasn't been validated by x number of likes, loves, shares and retweets? Does a tree make a sound if no one is there to hear it fall?

(Humblebrag: I had a decent one planned for NYE that had to do with it being Midnight in Paris).

I jest, of course, but the ordeal left me feeling quite upset. The silver lining is that the thief picked a night when it is not only socially accepted, but also expected, to down copious amounts of booze. (I managed to saber the champagne at midnight using a kitchen knife and without spilling a drop, but since it couldn't be documented I guess you'll just have to take my word for it).

6. Acceptance

My phone is gone and part of me went with it. Contacts, schedules, photos, lists, notes - all lost. But it could be worse. I wasn't physically attacked, and I still have my wallet and passport.

So although this was less than an ideal start to 2013, hopefully it means that the year will just get better from here on out.