First Thoughts

When you wake up in the morning what is the first thing you think of, or what pops into your head? Maybe a priority list of things that needs to be done.  Or how many times you hit the snooze and how much time you have to get to work before you get fired.  Whatever it may be it probably  is about you, and what you have to do.  Not what you want to do.  Now this is not a bad thing really, I mean you made the choice to do what you do so to you it seems fine and it is I suppose.  I can remember some of my best first thoughts in the morning had to do with the night before and what may or may have not transpired.  Wondering who is Lisa and why do I have a number from her.  Who am I kidding I never got a girls number at a bar.  Oh well with age comes a different set of priorities and first thoughts.  Now normally my first thought is how can I get my damn wrist fixed so I can jump into this game of food for which I am decades behind.  Which leads me to the second thing I dwell on in the morning, how do I get a sweet cushy TV show all about me and my culinary perspective.  News flash, I don't have some special, cute and cuddly food perspective.  If I had to write one up for a Food Network talent agent I would say, "Making food is my last chance, without it I will surely dive off the ledge of a bridge."  Which would be followed by , "Now make a cute little show about that, Tuschman."  I can say all that without any worries because my face is more a radio one than a TV one.

Although seriously I am not kidding about the ledge of the bridge deal.  I know it sounds a little dramatic but I have reviewed the options for suicide and the bridge jump wins.  I believe that if I can't learn to cook in a restaurant I will be destined to a life of peddling cell phones in kiosk in a mall.  Which I have done before and its a blast.  When I say blast, I mean like being punched in mouth with a sledge hammer, twice.  So with the constant nightmare of the  sledgehammer punching it seems I have put a lot of pressure on myself to do well enough to call myself a working cook.  I refuse to use chef, others call you chef, I will always be a cook. This pressure is now with me everyday I walk into the Midwest Culinary Institute.  This, if you don't know, is where to go to school and it is where I am trying my best not to screw up.  So far not to bad, but I hear the heavy stuff comes later so I am looking forward to my first butt chewing session when the scallops are over done.  Now I seem to do well under pressure, and I think I look for it and need it to do a good job.  This may be the only reason I feel I might have a fighting chance at making it through culinary school and maybe landing a mediocre job in some restaurant.

So remember what you parents told you about yourself right?  Mine told me to be the best I could be and never to give up.  I work hard everyday to have those as first thoughts as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling.  Now I know parents don't always say the right things at the right times and well mine have said a lot things that have discouraged me more than encouraged.  This can never be used to blame them but to encourage yourself and to push yourself closer to what you know is right.  To help you have your own first thoughts and to not be defined by what others think but you or what you know to be true.  First thoughts of this wanna be cook boy...

"Run before you crawl and dive in with no water in the pool."