Trial and Error

A little something...Thoughts, inspirations, moments in time. Hints, glimpses, windows into what is. Life as I am living it. All work copyright 2006 by Ranya Mike.

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Location: Portland, Oregon, United States

From trial and error to guesswork, my life is a work in progress. Practice is key, and love the main ingredient. The journey is long, but the way is right. Time is endless, but here is where I make it stop. Memories are for the making.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Wake up at 4

I have always been a morning person, but I had never thought that my days were actually going to start with a 4:00am wake-up call which lead straight to a shower and an already picked-out uniform, black pants, either a black, burgundy or royal blue shirt and black flats, and work by 5:00am. This certainly is different! But, I sure am enjoying it, at least so far .

What I am actually not looking forward is when I do not have to wake up so early but rather stay up till midnight when I work the closing shift. I sure am not an evening person and I am praying that caffeine will accompany me as I try to win over the night.

Tomorrow I work from 5-3 and bring week 1 to a close. My day tomorrow starts with a solo morning bake and I am pretty nervous. While there are all sorts of charts and tables to help me along, I need to be ahead of the game and know the baking temperature and times, including rotation time, for over 20 items. I am also required to know the preparation method and the finishing of each of these products. I did a quasi solo bake today and it went well, with a few minor errors, but tomorrow is the big day!

The people I am now working with are pretty nice, considering the only method of communication between them and me is pointing, nodding and smiling! Almost half of them (if not more) do not speak English and I sure do not speak Spanish, at least not as of yet (maybe sometime down the road I will take Spanish lessons, if only to communicate with my pastry chef, my prep person, my saute lady and the dishwasher!). Some of the others are African and so I get to practice my French with them. One is Persian, with no common language area between us and another is Moroccan and so Arabic comes into play. The place is sure multi-national and multi-lingual but the clientele are almost a 100% American! They are a good group of clients, actually better than ones I would get had I been in the Georgetown location.

I am so far attempting to keep as much of my "normal" life as possible though I am falling behind on emails and talking to my friends and family. I am still motivating myself to exercise and cook at home and I hope this will continue to be as I delve deeper into the manager's responsibilities and come home with a number of work-related issues and headaches! Until then, though, Jeff remains a supportive marriage "associate". He wakes up with me every morning and drives me to work and then helps recite my homework in the evening. What more could a restauranteur-to-be ask for?

Ranya, a restauranteur-to-be

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.
Jules Renard

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

well written.

10:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff's second cousin Leanne here from Rainier, Oregon. I love this idea and never had the nerve to do so. I am so pleased and love to read about your work experiences. I do hope you are not so hard on yourself about your grandmother. According to your degree of maturity at the time, you at least were there and did something to make your presence known to her. Please keep up the good work! Leanne

8:17 PM  

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