December 17, 2012 Monday
Study
December 18, 2012 Tuesday
Final Examination: Finally, after 2 days of memorizing the 10 recipes for the exam, this is the day. I arrived in school around 11:30am, the road was snowy, slushy, very hard to walk on. I also wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time to get myself ready, and studied a little bit more. We were all okay nervous, not super nervous. We drew an envelop for Bon d'économat. Mine was Miroir au cassis. Basically, we just had to write out the recipe of the cake we drew. I believe that I had done this one fine. Then, we drew another one for Practical Exam. I was glad to do Tarte au citron (lemon tart). We had two hours and half to finish the cake. In our group, few students were doing Tarte au citron, few were doing Gâteau Forêt Noire (Black Forest Cake), and the rest of us were doing Bûche de Noël (Christmas Log). My Italian meringue for the lemon tart wasn't great, but I just wanted to finish it and presented it. Well, I think I did fine. We all did fine, and finished on time. Then Chefs were taking our cakes with numbers to another room where the guest judges from the industry or former graduates from LCB would mark the presentation and taste of the cakes. I believe we all passed, not official yet, but a little bird told me...... :-)
Then I had a celebration dinner with Cindy, Quinn, Tanvi, Sara and Sara at Milestone's at 8:30pm. We had fun chatting about the exam, the Chefs, and everything else. Both Sara and Sara won't be back for Intermediate program. I was disappointed with the food, 'cos I ordered it medium-rare, and I got medium-well..... but I was just too hungry to ask for change. I only had breakfast before the exam.
I am happy that the exam is over. And now I can relax and enjoy the holidays! Thanks everyone for praying and supporting me! And you know who you are! :-) xoxo
December 19, 2012 Wednesday
Russian Dinner @ Dina's Place: I slept until 1pm today, I needed it after working hard for the exam. Before going to Dina's place for dinner, I went to get a Oreo cream cake and some chips at Loblaw's. It seemed like we, pastry students, tended to buy supermarket cakes for special occasion even though we could make real nice cake ourselves. When I was inside the elevator in Dina's building, a guy introduced himself saying "my name is Dan, I would shake your hand if my hands are free (he was holding a bunch of stuff), and I heard many good things about you"....... I found it a bit weird, and was thinking: Great, trapped inside with a weirdo... Then when he walked out of the elevator on the 7th floor, and walked toward to Dina's apartment, then I realized that he must be Dina's friend. Well, Dan was just dropping of some stuff for Dina, then he left to have dinner with family. He was invited to join us later. Jason was already there helping her. Tanvi, once again, said she would come early and help, but didn't show up.... Sorry Tanvi, I had to mention it LOL So, I tried to help as cutting the cabbage. Yes, cabbage is always the main ingredient in Russian cooking. Dina already made the dough in the morning, and we were making pirozhki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirozhki
Tanvi came and helped fillings those pirozhkis, then Cindy came with drinks and Cynthia arrived after her exam. Dina also made borscht for dinner, the real deal, not the Chinese version with tomato in it. The red colour in the soup is actually from the beet!!! Who knew?! Everything was so yummy! And without vodka, you couldn't call that Russian meal, right? I even tried a little bit.
For desserts, Dina made a fruit cake, Tanvi bought mediterranean baklava
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baklava and my Oreo cream cake from Loblaw's.
Again, more vodka shot! And you supposed to have a pickle right after the shot!
After dinner, Dina taught us a Russian card game called Fool. In the beginning, pretty much almost none of us understood what was going on! Fools we were! Well, the more we played, the more we understood. It was fun.
Thanks Dina for the amazing yummy Russian dinner! We all had a great time! By the way, I love the Christmas tree!
When I got back to my building, I found THE X'mas Card (with a letter) I anticipated from April and Siu On in my mailbox. I LOVE receiving their card every Christmas. That's usually the way I found out how their lives were each year. And a family picture is always enclosed. I was in Hong Kong for almost a year since October last year, so I didn't get a chance to read last year's letter until I got back here in September this year. I don't really spend much time with them, but I'm always grateful that I am in their mailing list. Thanks April and Siu On!
December 20, 2012 Thursday
This morning, I walked to school with Dina, and met Cynthia there. There were two reasons for me to be there. 1) to get Quinn's lock that she forgot to bring home.
Here's the proof, Quinn!
2) to get some gifts for friends in the boutique. After shopping, I got a message from Student Service:
Then Cynthia and I went to Chinatown for hair cut. When we walked up to the hair salon on the second floor, we were a bit worried, especially we saw all these older people getting hair cut here. We were brave enough to let them cut our hair, well it turned up fine :-)
Then, we went to Rideau Centre to get bus tickets. And you know what's irresistible? This:
After, the yummy Cinnibon, we met Cindy, Jason, Tanvi, Dina and Dan for Korean food.
And Cynthia made some mini macarons, I loved the green tea ones!
After dinner, some of us went to Loblaw's 'cos Cindy wanted to get a Christmas card for a neighbour who she never met but she received a Christmas card from this neighbour. Then, she spent some time to look for a cheapest card.... of course, Tanvi was an expert on this subject (cheap), so she told her to look for card placed in the lower shelf where the cheaper cards usually were placed.
On the way home, it started to have freezing rain....... I just hope that our trip to Toronto on Saturday will be safe and fine. Pray for us!
