Last full day in NYC! YAY!
Today we headed down to Liberty Island! To get there, we took the Subway. The subway car there was brand new and announced everything and got us where we were going in style!
We hopped on a ferry and said hello to...Lady Liberty!!
I'd never looked using one of these before, so we spent a quarter and looked out at really boring stuff.
The ferry then took us to Ellis Island, where the immigrants to the US used to land. A very interesting museum! This is the registration room where they used to gather the immigrants for the start of their inspection. 
We then were going to head to the WTCentre site, but it started to pour rain. So, we decided to go back. We hopped on the subway and got back to Times Square with no trouble. We also got some US $1 coins! 
We stopped by the Hershey's Store b/c I wanted chocolate! I tried to take a picture with some points of reference so you could see how big it is! I'm not bringing it home...it's already half eaten. :P 
Anyway, tomorrow we head back. From the time we leave the hotel until we land in Regina, it'll be a 24 hour trip. Oh well. We'll get there eventually!
Hi!
So, I definitely wanted to sleep later today. But I've been setting the alarm for 9am so that we don't sleep all day. We can sleep when we get home from NYC. Most things don't open until 10am, so there's no point in getting up any earlier.
Today we were going to do Andrew's thing! He wanted to see Alex Grey's paintings - an artist he likes. Likes = IS OBSESSED WITH. So, off we trekked from 46th street where our hotel is down to 14th street. On the way we stopped by:
- Toys 'R Us - Ferris Wheel INSIDE
- Macy's - It's just a really big The Bay
- Madison Square Garden - It's just a really big arena
Union Square Park
So then we went back to the art gallery. There were only 2 room and a hallway full of paintings. The gallery is just a temporary location while the artist builds a new location, so not all his paintings are there. So, they had a movie playing where he goes through all his paintings and explains them and it showed them in a lot of detail. They had chairs to sit in on the floor and we sat and watched the movie which was about an hour long. So, that was a nice addition to looking at the paintings. We probably wouldn't have spent very long in there if it was just the paintings, so it was nice that the trip was worth it. We spent a few hours in there in all.
Then we wandered back to the hotel, going a different way. Along the way we stumbled upon:
The Empire State Building - we could see the top part that's pointy from farther away, but not from the base of it, which is where this picture is taken from.
And yet another Ghostbusters scene location - the public library!
We went to TGI Fridays for supper. It sucked. I highly don't recommend it. I non-recommend it.
We also wandered over to Grand Central Station - which is actually Grand Central Terminal. Andrew did say the line and it was funny.
Anyway, by this point we were tired of walking, tired of the crowds, and headed back to the hotel room to rest up for our last day in NYC.
Day 2!
Well, we didn't go overboard or anything today. We got up and left around 10:15. We didn't sleep all that well - it's a loud hotel and the city is loud. But we got a bit of sleep.
It was pouring rain, so we decided to do an "indoor" activity today and go to the American Museum of Natural History. It took us an hour and a LOT of rain to walk there, but eventually we got around to the outdoor activity. :P On the way there we saw a couple places such as...
The Late Show with David Letterman...
Radio City...
The Rockefeller Centre...
And....this street. It made us laugh.
To get to the museum, we had to go through Central Park. Very pretty:
Andrew thinks this place is in Ghostbusters. But he wasn't sure, so we took a picture.
We finally made it to the museum!!
Spent a few hours at the museum. We went to the Planetarium there, which was really awesome! Then we walked home and saw a few more places such as the Trump Building and...a HERSHEY'S STORE!! Look, a Reese's only section!! 
Then we went for supper at Planet Hollywood! Very cool and very good food. We got a picture from there, but you'll have to wait until I get a scanner to see it. :P
Then we went to Avenue Q on Broadway!! YAY Broadway play!!!! It was awesome! Was it worth $66? Probably not. But we couldn't have gotten better for the price. I just think plays are overpriced. :P But it was good!
Tomorrow we go do Andrew's thing and head to an art gallery!
Anyway, that's a quick recap of today. :)
Well, we made it. That's a plus! This place is INSANE. I've never seen anything like it where I've been...which isn't much of anywhere. But I think I was comparing it in my head to Washington, DC where I went a couple years ago, and it's nothing like that at all.
We're mostly exhausted. Our first flight left at 6am, which meant we needed to be at the airport around 4:30, so we got up at 3:30. Suffice it to say, neither of us got much sleep. So, we got to the airport thanks to our lovely sister. We then got checked in and went through security. I got held up b/c of one of my carry-on bags, but finally got through security. I still don't know what was confusing her so much. But whatever. We got on the plane and to Calgary with no troubles. We then had to find our way to US customs and we finally did after a bit of confusion. In Calgary we did pre-clearance for US Customs and Immigration. So, that was done and we waited for our flight from Calgary direct to Newark, NJ. Our flight was half an hour late leaving and 40 minutes late getting in. But we did get in. We got our luggage no problem and found our bus into the city no problem. I had paid for a shuttle bus to get us from New Jersey to downtown New York. So we got off at the Grand Central Station stop and proceeded to walk to our hotel which was MUCH further than expected. But we finally made it.
We are at the hotel now and just need to eat something and then sleep. We'll begin our NYC touring tomorrow. The hotel isn't bad. It's not great, but from my pathetic research, anything around $200/night in NYC isn't going to be that great. So, it's acceptable and will do the trick. :)
For now, here a couple of pictures:
So, I took a picture of myself on my first day in uniform, so I wanted one from my last day too. Here are the before and after pictures.
BEFORE
AFTER
Well, I've been sick since about Wednesday. But had to finish out the week at school, then do some Brownies stuff. We were taking the girl door to door on Thursday to sell cookies but I had to stay back as I couldn't talk. We sold cookies for 3 hours yesterday at Sears as well, and that almost killed me. But I went out and got myself some better drugs and I'm feeling more like a human being now.
I'm flying home in THIRTEEN days. Finally getting voted off the island. Survivor makes it look easy to get voted off the island, but it's actually quite hard.
I bought the new Kelly Clarkson CD. I'm really desperate for new music, and I own all of her CDs. I'm surprisingly disappointed by it! It's nowhere near the quality that her last one was. Oh well.
It snowed here last night. Supposed to snow for the next two days too. What a crazy province.
Anyway...I need to go clean and start packing. I'm a couple days behind from being sick. Also, my apartment has been taken over by Kleenex, so I need to get rid of them!!
The hardest part about moving when you can't just bring everything with you is trying to purposely run out of stuff. Normally when people move, you just bring everything with you - if you had a half-full box of pasta, that's fine! Bring it along! But when you're moving across the country, you don't want to pay to ship all that.
I've timed my laundry PERFECTLY. I only bought one jug of laundry detergent this year and it's going to last me EXACTLY as many loads as I need - no more, no less. I managed to plan out my laundry so that I only have 50 cents remaining on my card - not too bad - could have been $10 on that card, with no way to use it. And I've timed it so that I'll do my last load of laundry a week before I go - I do laundry every 2 weeks. So, I'll have enough clothes to last me the last week, plus one week back home - where I'll have access to laundry again!
I ran out of soap in the bathroom which sucked. Only ran out a couple days ago. Definitely not worth it to buy more. HOWEVER, I have way more dish soap than I could ever use. So, I just refilled my bathroom soap dispenser with dish soap. I figure soap is soap. And it's only 3 weeks.
My bubble bath should get used up in the next week or two, which is good.
Overall, I wasn't able to accumulate nearly as much stuff in the 8 months I was here as I had in the 5 years I was in Saskatoon. Which is good, b/c I don't have parents to dump stuff on this time. :P
Figured I should put a little something about what I've been up to lately.
I just finished my 2nd Lucy Maud Dinner rotation. This is making plated desserts for the dining room for supper service, as well as doing any functions. I found this rotation to be the most stressful of all of them. It's stressful for a few reasons.
First of all, I just feel like the expectations for quality were higher on this rotation than any other. So when you mess up, it's a bigger deal.
Second, you have to stay in the evening 2 nights of the week to plate desserts when people order them. This just adds a bit to your exhaustion level, b/c it creates a 12-14 hour day at school. And service is very BORING. You just stand there for upwards of 5 hours waiting for people to order your dessert. This rotation I spent both weeks working Friday/Saturday which sucked. It takes up a lot of the weekend.
Third, it has the biggest and fanciest functions. Functions for this rotation tend to be for 120-250 people at a time, rather than the 40 person functions you get for lunch. We lucked out with our rotation and only had 2 functions. One was a small function for 40. The second was a function for 240 people for Sticky Date Pudding. This was a challenge to plate for the function because it's a warm dessert. So, you're trying to time 250 desserts. Now, everyone knows that any banquet for 250 people starts late by the time whatever event it is finishes going through opening remarks, grace, etc. So, as kitchen staff, you're waiting for them to start, and as pastry staff, you have to wait for them to go through 3 courses before they get to dessert. And you can't start plating too early b/c it will get cold, but neither can you plate too late or the serving staff will be waiting for you. It's tricky.
Anyway, I'm glad it's over. I'm starting to like plated desserts more and more. I'm thinking of making Friday night dessert-night when I'm at the parent's place. B/c having dessert every night is expensive and unhealthy. But once a week seems good.
I now move on to Chocolate. It's only a 3 day rotation, so I'm not too worried.
Thursday we have our written theoretical final. I'm really not worried about it. It's basically an amalgamation of all the tests we've already written, plus some food costing. Food costing is very simple - it's just memorizing the conversions from imperial to metric that can be confusing.
We have Friday-Monday off for Easter. Then we start practical exams. I'm scheduled to do my practical the next Thurday - one week after the theory final. For the practical we have to do something frozen, a cake, cookies, a custard, and a bread. The custard and the frozen dessert have to be plated with sauces and garnishes. We have from 6:30am until about 2:30pm to do this. Should be a fun challenge! I'm mostly worried about when you sit down with the chefs face to face at the end to discuss how you did. I have trouble being told I suck to my face. I prefer th university method of just giving me a crappy mark and letting me deal with it. Here they have to bring you in and tell you. It's like being on American Idol and having Simon yelling at you.
After that, we go in on the 24th to clean the kitchen and do some other wrap up stuff.
Then I fly home on the 25th. Sleep for a week. Then go to NYC.
So, yeah. That's an update!
Just found an airplane napkin I had drawn all over on my flight here back in September. According to the napkin, it only wasted 45 minutes of my flight, but I still had 45 minutes to go. Since I can't share the picture with you, I guess I'll share the limerick on it:
There once was a butterfly named Ben
Who never knew when to say when
He ate and ate
Until he ate a slate
And swore never to binge again!
Because it looks like this outside:
So, I was having a conversation with a classmate about taxes and how we keep having to pay more for stuff. It went something along the lines of this:
Shanna: "Welcome to adulthood."
Classmate: "Yeah, my hometown is paying to put water metres in."
Shanna: "...what do you mean? How do they track your water usage now?"
Classmate: "They don't."
Shanna: "...but how do you pay for your water?"
Classmate: "We don't."
Shanna: "...what!?"
Classmate: "Pretty much the entire maritimes doesn't pay for water. We're surrounded by it!!"
Shanna: "What the hell!? No wonder our fresh water supply is dwindling so fast!!"
There you have it folks. Turns out these people think they can just get FREE water. And then drink it all on us! *shakes my fist at the maritimes*
Well, this is it. I have 11 more days of classes, one day for a practical final, and one final day which I'm assuming is for cleaning the kitchen. And THAT IS IT. :D
I'm glad I didn't ship my winter stuff home over March break, which was my plan, as we are currently in the middle of a giant winter storm. It's unsurprising though as everybody told me that there's always a St. Patrick's Day storm - it apparently just came one week later this year.
I'm slowly starting to sort out of my stuff here into piles for packing and piles for donating. The other pile is garbage, but I just take it straight down, so it's not really a pile that piles up. I think I'll ship my rubbermaids back sometime in the last 2 weeks of April, now that I know I don't have classes and will have time to get to the bus depot.
I definitely got back into my Puzzle Pirates addiction over the break. I'm not sure if that will continue now that I'm back at school. It's definitely not as bad as an addiction as before, as last night I didn't log on b/c I knew I had to do my laundry, clean, and get ready for school today. Of course, I wasn't in school last time I was playing Puzzle Pirates - I specifically didn't play it because I knew I'd get addicted, haha. Either way, it's been fun getting back into it. It can be pretty lonely here in PEI, especially when everybody leaves for March break, so it was nice to have people to talk to and play a game with.
Anyway, I know I could type more, but I also know that I have to go catch the bus and get to school. See ya!
That's right. It's almost 5am and I'm up. No, not b/c I have to walk to school this morning...b/c I haven't gone to bed yet!! YAY! I freakin' love March break.
Now, am I bored? Hell yes. But it's way better than the hell I have waiting for me when I get back to school. I have 3 more weeks of class when I get back and it's the worst 2 rotations there are. Then for the final 2 weeks we just have our final practical exam one day and cleaning the last day, but the rest of the days are free! Wheee! So, I'm using this week to steel myself for the hellish 3 weeks, then it's smooth sailing homewards. Speaking of which, I should book a plane ticket...
So far I've spent my March break sleeping and then sleeping some more. I played some computer, some Wii, watched some curling, started a puzzle...it's been awesome so far. Here's to an awesome week!
Subtitle: Shanna is Exhausted
Well, I've spent the last two weeks working on my sugar showpiece. We had a choice for our showpiece to do either chocolate, sugar, fondant, or a combination. My big draw for sugar was that this was really our only opportunity to make something with sugar - it's not something you do a lot of in day to day work. So my showpiece ended up being a mixture of sugar and fondant. My goal was to finish it before March break. I had a few reasons. One, I'm a keener lately. Two, I wanted help from the chefs. Our showpiece is due only 2 weeks after we get back from March break, so I knew that after the break, people would be in a mad rush to finish and would be demanding the chefs' time. So, to help ease that rush and to help myself, I wanted to work on it early so they had time to help me. Third, we only have 2 sugar boxes - these are used when doing pulled and blown sugar. I knew lots of people wanted to do sugar showpieces, so those boxes would be in demand. Once again, I wanted to beat the rush. And finally, I just wanted to be able to sleep through March break without feeling guilty like I should be working on something.
I'm estimating that this showpiece took me 25-30 hours. I could definitely do it in less if I did it again, as I know where all the problems come up and I've now figured out how to solve them. The base is a poured sugar football field. I made one and it was perfect EXCEPT the sugar started to crystallize. Bad news. I piped the lines on the sugar base with royal icing - this sped up the crystallization. I ended up pouring it 3 times, but went with the first one. I decided to take my lumps mark-wise with the crystallization, knowing that it was the only thing wrong with that first one. The other two I poured had multiple issues that would have caused me to lose many more marks. Also, at the point where I was pouring the 2nd and 3rd ones, everything else was done with my showpiece and I just had to put it together. I had also been working on it for 2 weeks and was really exhausted from the 12 hours days and the walking to and from school. And I was just getting sick of working on this one project - it was getting frustrating. So, after staring at all the bases I had, I made the decision to go with my original base.
(Random Edit: Forgot to point out that the crystallization can be seen in the picture as the light green "splotches." But of course this just means that a game just ended and those are the scuffs on the field from all the tackles.)
I made the uprights for it out of pulled sugar. It wasn't ideal, but it was the one thing about the showepiece where I wasn't 100% sure about what material to use to make it. So, those were a bit disappointing to me, but that's ok.
The football was made out of blown sugar which is similar to blowing glass, but much safer, haha. In the end, the football was the easiest and quickest thing I did, which was VERY surprising. I got it right on about my 5th try with blowing sugar. It was a surprisingly difficult shape to achieve. The lines on the football were made with fondant. After 2 days of it being on the football, the colour from the sugar was bleeding into the fondant.
The logo was made out of fondant. I've been talking about that, but I suppose I should explain what it is for those who don't know. Fondant is a type of icing that has the consistency of playdoh, so it's used for modelling. That's what I used for my wedding cake - it's the big thing now for cakes as you can do just about anything with it. It's very, very sweet though. So yeah, made the logo out of fondant. This was potentially the most frustrating thing I did. I had to make it 4 times before I got it right. Although once I got it right Jamie (a classmate of mine from Moose Jaw and a HUGE Riders fan) saluted it, so I knew I was good to go with it. I spent at least 8 hours on this alone.
Then I just had to assemble it all. If I were to do it all over again, the biggest change I would make would be to do it all in 1 day or 2 at the most. Most of the problems I ran into were due to the fact that the sugar was sitting around and started doing wonky stuff. Another change I would make would be to use Isomalt for the base as it doesn't crystallize. I didn't use it here b/c the chefs didn't want us to use it - I'm guessing b/c the point is to learn how to make the sugar using normal sugar. But if you want a true "showpiece" that lasts a long time, then isomalt is the way to go.
I presented it today and I was really nervous. I got really upset when my wedding cake got picked to pieces by the chef b/c I had been really happy with it. And today I'm just VERY exhausted - I've been walking to and from school which takes a lot of energy and I've also been spending a lot of 12 hour days at school working on this showpiece. So I was in one of those tired "If you say one bad thing, I'm crying" moods. So yeah, nervous. Also, the entire time I was working on my showpiece, I was getting compliments from the chefs, so if they had done that and then turned around and when marking time came told me how bad my showpiece was, I would have been upset. So, I sat down with the Chef and I pointed out all the problems I saw. Many of them he told me are just things that are there that can't be fixed and "That's why you make them face the back." In the end, he really said not a single bad thing about it! He did say that it truly looked like a "showpiece." As in, if the President of the Riders came to me and asked me to make a showpiece, it's exactly the type of thing you'd give them. It's also something that could easily be made into a cake.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, I'm really pleased with the mark I got (He bumped me up even higher than what I gave myself!!), I'm exhausted, and I feel like I've just emerged back into life. I can now sleep like a normal person again and stop spending my waking hours at school only to go home, sleep, and return to school to do the same thing all over again.
Well, I made it here long enough to change my clocks BACK to the way they were before! This time I lost an hour. :( How sad. However, it is lighter out for much longer now, which is nice! Just in time for March break! Anyway, for those of you back in Saskatchewan, please note that we are now 3 hours apart.
Went out for a very fancy meal tonight with a friend. It was her 19th b-day and she wanted to go to this one restaurant, so we went! Had a very good banana/puff pastry dessert. YUM!
I'm trying to finish my showpiece this week, but I'm just not having luck. My sugar is crystallizing and making it look like crapola. :( But I'm going to go in early tomorrow and see what I can do.
I just counted...28 days of school left!!! And I don't even have to go for all of them. Tomorrow will hopefully be the last Monday I have to go in. Woot woot! I should probably book a flight home....hahahaha.
Ahhh the lingo. Saskatchewan has some crazy lingo, I'll admit it. But it's fun to drive the Maritimers insane with my talk of bunny hugs and vico. Here's a couple things I've noticed that they say:
Kitbag - it's not a backpack and not a bookbag, it's a kitbag. Ex. "Let me just grab my kitbag out of the backseat."
Some Slippy - it's not slippery out, it's some slippy! Ex. "Yeah, I walked to school today, it was some slippy out!"
Well, I'm on my last AM rotation and I'm walking. Which sucks. It adds a lot of time to my day. And moisture to my shoes/socks/feet.
I made a pretty sweet dessert today. I called it "A Day in the Tropics." What I did was I made a Coconut out of coconut ice cream and chocolate. Then I made some Passion Fruit Granita to go with it. And then topped it all off with a tropical fruit salad drizzled with Kalamansi coulis! Here's a picture!
After this rotation is finished, I have a week-long break. Then I've got 2 rotations left and I'm finished! We have a lot of stuff piled into the last month. Due between now and the end of the year are: Wedding Cake, Showpiece, Plated Dessert Assignment, One more small test, Final Theory Exam, and Practical Exam. I'm done the Wedding Cake and just finished the Plated Dessert Assignment. The small test is this Friday and my showpiece is underway. I'm hoping to finish the showpiece by Friday. So that would just leave me the Final Theory Exam and the Practical Exam and that's it!
I've sent my first box of stuff back to SK, so that's a start! I'll be sending more in the coming weeks and soon will be back out west! What I'll do once back out there remains to be seen. I do need to start applying for jobs, so I'll probably start on that during March Break. That's another reason for finishing all my assignments early...I'll have more time to focus on finding a job and moving back out west.
Not too much else going on. I'm on a team for the Big Brother Big Sisters Bowling Fundraising event this Saturday. *puts on my fundraiser hat* If you're interested in donating, even a little bit, please follow this link: http://pei.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=298858&u=298858-246085543. Any support would be much appreciated!
The rain is back. What a miserable walk home. I've gone back to detesting the weather in this place. NINE MORE WEEKS!
Well, new but not new. I had this early on, but the pictures went missing. They are back, and so is this beautiful template! Credit for the design is at the bottom of the page!
In other news, I was productive with my homework tonight, yay!
I have the Weather Network bookmarked on my computer so I can check the weather before I go out. However, I've never bothered to change the setting to bookmark it to Charlottetown instead of Saskatoon. So, the first temperature I see when I go is what it's like back home. This morning? -38C in Saskatoon versus +5C in Charlottetown!!
It's February and I didn't wear my winter coat outside. I could get used to this. Overall, I LOVE winters in PEI from a weather standpoint. All the rain turns into massive amounts of snow and I LOVE snow. And it's great snow! Not the powder crap we get back in SK...every single day the snow here is snowball/snowman consistency. Also the temperature never gets insanely cold. I think the coldest it ever was here was -25C.
Unfortunately, I have a massive hatred for rain. So no, I won't forgive PEI for it's crappy spring/summer/fall weather just b/c it has great winters. However, I might go looking for a place with similar weather but less rain! Or at least buy myself a car so I can drive in the rain instead of walking in it.
Less than 10 posts so far this month! And it's almost over! Thank God!
So what have I been up to? I dunno. We had a crazy rotation the first 2 weeks in February. Then last week I spent at least 11 hours at school every day until I finished that wedding cake. But it's sooooooo good to have it finished!! I think I was the 3rd person in the class to finish. So now I can start on my final project. My plan is to do a sugar project, so we'll see how it goes.
We have a week off in March break. I'd like to go somewhere, but chances are that I won't. I'll probably spend that week packing up my stuff and getting ready to head out of PEI. I have 8 more weeks of class, 1 week for March break, and 1 week between end of classes and grad, then I'm heading out of here, so 10 weeks total. I'm very excited to be done so I can move on and go somewhere else.
Anyway, I don't seem to have much to say and I should be in bed, so I'm going to head that way. See ya!
My sister just may kill me for not making this for her wedding. But it's her fault for getting married a year too soon!
P.S. The music piped on the top tier is the Legend of Zelda Overworld Theme.
Well, with all the blogs I've done in my time, I think this is only the 2nd one where I've hit 100 posts! *pats myself on the back*
I suppose I haven't posted in a while. So what have I been up to? Not too much! I had to finish my occasion cake - the one posted below. Then we had a very busy week at school. During my last rotation we had 3 functions with a total of 490 people attending. So, I was on bread and we had to do dinner rolls for those functions. We made over 600 rolls last Friday and over 200 this Friday, although I was doing other stuff this past Friday, so my group members did the majority of that work. Also, during the first Friday when we did 600 rolls - we had two group members sick and a fire alarm in the middle of it!! But I'd say we made lots of rolls. Here's a picture of just a fraction of the rolls we made that day.
I tried to do a bread showpiece. I ended up doing it at home as I didn't have time at school to do it. I wanted a Valentine's showpiece we could display at school. But it turned out looking like crapola. I had to make it over 2 days, so the dough that had been sitting in the fridge overnight cooked differently than the fresh stuff, so there was a big difference in how it looked. You could pinpoint what had been made with the new dough. Anyway, here it is. I'm going to try another bread showpiece over March break. I'll just spend an entire day making it.
Oh! And since I'm uploading pictures, here's a picture of the outside again. This is a picture from our cafeteria of the water. Actually, since I'm at it, I'll put a comparison picture of what this looks like without snow.
I'm back on AM shifts for the next month. It's my last month of AM. Getting close to the end!!! We only have 9 more weeks of classes, 1 week for March break, and 1 week after classes are done until grad. Then I'll be home...11 weeks!! :D I don't really have a "home" to go to necessarily...just crashing with the parents. :P Hopefully for as short as possible. There are some recruiters coming to the school in the coming week, so I'm going to meet with the west coast ones if they interest me.
Tomorrow we get a day to just work on our showpieces, so I'm going to work on my wedding cake. My goal is to finish it by Friday and present it on Friday. I'll work on it tomorrow and then stay every afternoon until it's done. :) So hopefully pictures of that for you within the week!
But for the moment I have to go work on some other stuff. Ciao!
Well, I went on a sleigh ride with my Brownies and Sparks on Saturday! The sleigh ride was about half an hour and then we had hot chocolate and hot dogs. It was a lot of fun and everything ran very smoothly! Here are some pictures for those who want to see some of the PEI countryside in the winter.
Occasion cake done! This was my first attempt ever at a fondant cake. Fondant is a type of icing that you can roll out, shape, and do all sorts of cool stuff with. I'm not sure I'd ever really EAT it, but it is edible.
So, in all honesty, I didn't really have a "plan" for this cake or a vision of what I wanted it to be. I'm really excited about my next two big projects, but this one I just kinda wanted over with. I wanted to finish it within the first two weeks of January, but that didn't happen, so I only just finished it today - a day before it was due. :( Not the best, but at least it was on time I suppose. Anyway, the top just says Happy Birthday and the side says "No dream is ever too small, no dream too big." That was supposed to be referring to my tiny fairy. Overall, Chef Pam said that for my first cake ever, it was very good. I find her to be very supporting and encouraging - you can tell that she wants us to learn and be somewhat motivated. For things like this I try to remind myself of two things. First - I knew that the fancy stuff would be my weakness, so I should expect lower marks. Sure, I can get 99% on a test, but don't expect 99% on a cake, it's just not going to happen. And second - I could never do something this great before I got here, so this is huge improvement on anything I've ever done before.
I've still got quite a bit left to do for the semester. Next up is our wedding cake. I have that 100% planned out and I am quite excited. All I'll tell you is that it's music themed.
Anyway, I'm off to do...something! Toodles!
First of all...SNOW DAY! Wow, and there isn't even that much snow. But I didn't complain! I made use of my day!
So anyway, stuff happening lately. Let's see...
Chocolate, Flour, and Starches test! Remember that one? The boring studying? Well, I only got ONE question wrong. How very frustrating. But anyway - I definitely ninja kicked that test! We have one coming up next Friday and I plan on doing the same thing to it!!
Skills competition results! Chef Richard has this weird thing where he won't hand you a sheet of paper to read - a test, judging results - he has to hold it, not let you see it, and read off it what he feels like reading off. Anyway, results are that one of my french pastries was crap, the birthday cake wasn't perfect (duh), and that I did surprisingly well on my chocolates!! Also, he said that I had the cleanest station in the kitchen, which I did. Haha, not to brag. It's just a fact. Some of my classmates are kinda messy. Chef had said that we could spend "a couple minutes" cleaning up after the deadline "if necessary." Which I took to mean exactly that. Try to be cleaned up in time, but if not, it's ok to just be wiping down your table and stuff at 6:02. Well, most of my classmates took it to mean that they could work right until 6pm and then spend 45 minutes cleaning up. Which sucked for me b/c I had to stick around and help them clean. BOO!
Snow day today! It started snowing yesterday, I walked home in it, it wasn't that bad, we ended up with maybe 15-20cm of snow - but they gave us a snow day today! SWEET. So, I used my day to put together and online portfolio that I can use when looking for jobs. I plan on starting to look for jobs this weekend - long weekend. I've got a line on a small contract job in May (thanks Dad!) so I'm working on that as well. :) Things are looking good. Statistics Canada recently released an update saying that regardless of the economic troubles, business for restaurants is climbing, so that's good news for me. I'm in a good industry. Anyway, if you want to check out my portfolio, it can be found at http://www.shannapilon.blogspot.com. If you have any feedback/comments let me know!
I had a request for some pics of what it looks like outside, so here are some I've taken!
Ok, this is my building from the back. The colour is weird...this was in the middle of the storm and taken with my cameraphone, so wonky things were happening. 
This is the parking lot at my school. Also near the start of the storm - basically this picture was taken at the start of the walk, and the one above was taken at the end of the walk home. I'm finding walking home and to school to be less and less of a bother. I found that in Saskatoon too. At first when I moved there, having never really walked anywhere before, 20 minutes seemed like so long, then that became just a quick walk. When I came here, 40 minutes seemed so long, and now it seems so short. And if I get cold on the way, I just pop into stores to "shop" with no intention of shopping at all. I wander until I'm warm, then leave and continue on my way. 
Picture of a picnic bench in the yard of a building across the street from my school. Kind of gives a better idea of how much snow there is. There's been more snow than this, but it's often above 0 degrees, so lots of the snow has melted/been rained away. 
Walking up to my school. They were clearing the streets - pushing the snow into the middle then coming along to get rid of it. 
A loaded mini van pulled in to the only remaining campsite. Four children leaped from the vehicle and began feverishly unloading gear and setting up the tent. The boys rushed to gather firewood, while the girls and their mother set up the camp stove and cooking utensils.
A nearby camper marveled to the youngsters’ father, “That, sir, is some display of teamwork.”
The father replied, “I have a system; no one goes to the bathroom until the camp is set up.”
YAY! One more month down! 3 more, that's it!! Woot!
Anyway, finished up the Skills PEI competition yesterday - what a long day! I don't know what my marks were - as a nice kick in the ass at the end of 2 days, they wouldn't tell us. We just know who got 1st-3rd and the rest of us were left out in the dust. But we did get a "Participant" plaque. Overall, I'm happy with what I produced. I think if I'd changed one of my french pastries, I would have done better, but oh well! Here are the pics!
First up is my chocolates, all presented! We had to do 2 chocolates, 12 each and a chocolate box that could hold at least 5 of each. On the left are Bahos which are a Ginger-Lime Caramel in a molded White Chocolate. On the right are my Anise Stacks which I had pictured before. My Anise Stacks turned out worse than in class - the smaller batch just didn't work as nicely as the big batch. The molded chocolates however turned out nicer. The box I wasn't so pleased with in all honesty. I liked my other one better. But Chef Pam had said that my last one was too thing, so I tried making this one thicker and it just made it a bit uglier. Bleh.
My pride and joy - Miniature Dobos Tortes. One of my french pastries. I was totally making this up as I went along and they turned out so nice! I love 'em! A Dobos is a classical torte that is layers of chocolate sponge cake and chocolate buttercream (typically about 6 layers of each...I cut it back to 3 layers) with pieces of caramel on top. These just looked so great and I was so happy with them!
My birthday cake! Can you spot the mistake?
My uglier "I can speel gud" birthDay cake! Overall, I suck at piping and so it wasn't so great. This was the absolutely last thing I did. As much as it sucks, this is WAY better than anything I could have hoped to accomplish prior to coming to culinary school, so that says something!
My mousse cake on a tile and with a piece presented. Man I was happy with this too! The checkerboard was PERFECT. Except something happened when I took it off the wire rack after ganaching it and the bottom square of mousse on the right got scraped away, causing my cake to be lopsided. Oh well. What matters is that if I could send you flavour over the internet, your mouth would be in heaven right now. It tasted DIVINE.
This is a picture of how dirty I was! The cameraphone kinda white-washes things, so this doesn't do justice to how dirty I was. I had dripped cherry juice all down one side of me.
One of my classmates, Josh. This is his Plan C for a chocolate box - paint a paper bag with chocolate and then pull away the paper. The funny thing is that if he had painted a few more layers of chocolate, it would have worked!
7:31!! All our stuff had to be out by 7:30, so 7:31 was a great time!
My stuff after the judges were done picking it over. A lot of people didn't like my Religeuse - the pink things. I took a chance with that. It's a classical but rare dessert. Oh well, it was something different, which is what I was going for!
Now for the competitors! Here's a few pictures of what my classmates produce. First I've got a picture of Josh's stuff. I don't actually know what it all is. But here's a look! 
This is Stephanie's stuff. She got 2nd place. I was really impressed with her Chocolate Box. 
And now for the winner. I was REALLY happy with who won - Courtney! She wanted to win SO bad and so I'm glad she did. Plus everything she made was wicked! Here is a picture of her Birthday cake which was just ridiculous. The piping of Happy Birthday is just amazing. Her chocolate box is beside it and it had a very unique shape, yet actually very easy to do. Looked great though! 
The rest of Courtney's stuff. She made a (don't quote me on this) Rasperry Pistachio Opera Cake - that's what's in the white thingies. I don't know what the other 6 French Pastries are. Once again, the piping on the top of her Mousse Cake is just really impressive. 
And here's the team! I was trying desperately not to fall into the sink during this picture. 