Fall 2011: Ready or not.

Today marks my first day of the fall semester which holds an obscene amount of work that needs to be done, many sleepless nights, zero socialization and most I will likely cry because of the stress. This is all I have been thinking about the past month... well, year actually, and it has made me wish the start would never come.  I know the feeling will pass and I will be the excited, eager student I usually am, but the past week I was in a slump.

At the end of this semester I will have a working website for City Farm, my hand-made presentation book and my verbal presentation. If all goes well, I may pass my final thesis presentation and officially be in my FINAL class in the spring! Even if I do not pass, I will be very close to the final and will have some great feedback. So needless to say, this semester is a culmination of everything I have been working on the past 4 years.

To help me get over my anxiety, I filled my free time with anything and everything that makes me happy. It took some time, but I eventually crawled out of the slump. I wondered around downtown to shop, read 3 books, went to dinner, stayed in bed late (even if I was not sleeping), watched terrible chick flicks, slept on the beach, ate my weight in lobster rolls, and cooked.

As I wrote down my ingredient list for all the foods I was making to freeze (for when I have no time to shop again) I realized that I have not gone through my list of recipes in over a year. So instead of filling my nights with little to-do lists that bore me, I decided to cook.

My "coming out of the slump" breaking point, was on a night I was making up a random dinner for myself. I did what I always do when making up meals, and threw random foods together based on my Italian motto: "Garlic, olive oil and shallots make everything taste like heaven". I had a glass of vino, the oven on, and food all over the place. I was surrounded by cut up eggplant, tomatoes, garlic, shallots, mozzarella and bread, and I was sampling everything as I combined it. The apartment smelled amazing, and was warm from the oven, my clothes and floors were covered in bits of food, my eyes burned from the shallots and my hands smelled of garlic. I hadn't even gotten the mixture on the bread to bake before I realized this is what always makes me feel happy. Literately being consumed by food, in me, around me and being experienced by all my senses. The smell, taste, touch, and sight of the colors. I then spent the next few days making soups, sauces, home-made pasta and little meals to freeze, and I now feel like my slump was decades behind me. The semester technically started on Thursday, but I gave myself this last weekend off to enjoy, and I am really happy I did.

I am ready to take on another semester. I am ready to trash my apartment with binding supplies. I am ready to stay up all night while my brain fires off ideas. I am ready to be frustrated. I am ready to feel totally accomplished and proud of my work.

I was wishing the start of this semester would never come, but now I am so happy it is hear. I will finally learn how to build a website and my book is going to be awesome.

"It's the start that stops most people."