Friday, November 28, 2008

Oh Yah, Thanks

I Thought I Might Have A Greatful Entry since it was just Thanksgiving and I just watched a video about the 50's father telling his son the true meaning of Thanksgiving. So let me explain what I am most greatful for.

1. Living-I know it sounds like a cheat or cheesy or something, but it is something that can always perk me up when I'm down, or remotivate me when I need it. The idea that not every time life has the potential to exist means that it does is what triggers my thanks. I have this opportunity to exist. Pretty cool. And I'm aware of my existence, also pretty cool. Imagine all those people that don't get the chance to live and feel and be. I'm glad I got to be one of the ones that is alive.

2. My Family-Also cliche, but what can you do. I hope they know all the things I thank them for, but here is a short and sweet version. Teaching me how to listen and analyze, teaching me that hard work is easy, reminding me that all people want is to be loved, respect, and many others. I could go on for a while.

3. Camp-Between camp Warren and Menogyn I can't be more greatful. They really sculpted me into what I am today. The spirit of these camps were my mentors that I wanted to live up to and one day become. Some main things I learned was how to accept and live with any kind of people; how group dynamics work; leadership skills; independance, less fear, nature, and the mountains!

4. KLHT-Really though. Thank you for so much. I grew immensly while I was at that school. I learned what hard work was thanks to Mrs. Kweskin; I joined cheerleading, very trying but rewarding times; quality friends that helped me shape myself, and time management hehehe!

5. People-You have all influenced me and taught me something important that I have cherished and will continue to. I love people generally though. Even the people I don't know. There is something wonderful about knowing that that person is just as human as you are. Its refreashing in a way because people try to deny thier humanity sometimes.

I Need To Sleep

A European Hosted American Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm a day late, but that's alright. So, how does it work over here? Well, we threw a really nice big feast. Dave was the host, CDV the place. The pool table was covered and converted into the main banquet table for Americans, and the rest of the game-room was set up with other tables for the other guests. I know, rather exclusive, but these are Americans we are talking about. We baked most of the pies the day before the event and let them sit in the fridge overnight as well as the homemade cranberry sauce (AMAZING!). The pies included 2 sweet potato with marshmellows melted on top, 3 pumpkin, 3 apple, 2 apple-cranberry-mixed berry, and some kind of crumble. On Thanksgiving day I started with lunch duty, so I baked my grahm cracker crust pumpkin pie, the ingrediants were sent from the states from my parents. Then I stayed for the rest of the day working on the gravy, we ended up throwing in the bones of all the birds, and veggie scraps, and the drippings...woah! I also worked on a baked mac & cheese with Jessica, a fellow American, made 3 traditional apple pies (big hit and delicious!), rolls, and stovetop stuffing. Dave stuffed and rubbed the turkeys....oh my goodness....each was different. There was a turkey covered in bacon, one rubbed with honey and almonds, one with BBQ sauce, one with cranberry sauce, I can't recall all the different ways. He stuffed one with apples and breading, one with cranberry sauce and breading, on with a whole sweet pepper that was then stuffed with goodness, and others. THEN they, I should say the dinner chef, made a Turducken. A turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. Then the legs and wings of all the birds are imbedded in the turkey so it has 6 legs and wings...weird, but yummy. We also made green bean casserole from the green beans mommy and daddy sent me, THANKS AGAIN! We also made sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and when it was all set out it made a beautiful feast.

Pictures will be up. Dave has them on his camera, so I will need to get them on here soon. AndI will get pictures from the snow fall also. I just seem to find myself updating when I am not on my own computer! For example, right now, I am on Luigi´s computer. Well, back to work.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Snow Snow Everywhere

It's White and deep. It snowed a lot!! It keeps it quiet at CDV. Nice and slow. But Taking out the trash is a little bit harder.

Not Much Else to report. I did go dancing and had a really fun night out. One of my rare nights out. Crazy strange though. First I picked up my purse and noticed that my phone and wallet were missing, and freaked out. The bartender returned it to me luckily! I did notice just today that I am missing the cash that was in my wallet, which wasn't too much. Everything else was okay and in place. It gave me quite a scare. Then, when the bus came to bring everyone down, I noticed that my jacket was not where it was supposed to be. It was a cold walk back. Another interesting turn in the evening was that a friend of mine had a few too many drinks and ended up falling asleep at the bar. This resulted in me walking him to my room since he lives far away. He crashed at my place and had no recollection of the previous night when he woke up in the morning. Hahaha. Oh college.

Worked The Weekend With Muli and Sunday went better than any Sunday since Cheriese and Apri left. We got out about an hour after we closed, so around 12:15. I was a bit too overzelous slicing buns today and cut a little bit of my hand, not too bad though. Oh the excitement of CDV. The bar tender actually came to CDV and inquired about the state of my possesions which was nice.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Pumpkin Pie

I Made Pie, pumpkin pie. It was good. There was much rejoicing....in my tummy! MMMMM. So good. Thank you mommy and daddy. You make my life happier and more delicious. I baked it at the house in Randogne that I stayed in over the summer. While it baked I watched...tried to watch, Tenacious D. I think the humor would have worked if the movie wasn't so long. Otherwise, not much. Today it is cold and rainy. The pie is gone.

I Am On Sale Tonight at the student auction. It is fund raiser for MBA graduation I think. I'm on sale with Cheriese. A double date at a la carte is what they will be purchasing. Though hopefully they won't actually want to go to a la carte since it happens to coincide with Thanksgiving, and I want to be in the kitchen cooking yummieness on that evening. I do wonder who will buy me. Anyone I want to buy me hasn't the money, so I will be up for grabs, no guarentees. Vicente, a dog, is also up for sale and I had planned to buy him since I want a dog for a day, but now I cannot bid. Alas.

Eating Today Is Good. Edo for breakfast (at noon). Thai for lunch (4:30). Yummy catering for dinner at the auction (8:00). I know, my life has changed clocks. I was once an early riser of an 8/9 am breakfast who now eats breakfast at noon. Libby is proud of me haha. (She's a friend who is known to sleep very late on both sides of sunrise.)

Tonight Is One Of My Few Nights Out. Cheriese and I happen to be off together, so we are going out tonight. DANCING! Hopefully the music will be good, though the clubs will be quite full. I also hurt my neck yesterday lifting too much weight at the gym, so hopefully it won't get worse and dancing will be doable.

The Interesting Life of Lia.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Package

My Dear Perents Sent Me A Package!!! I asked for my winter clothes and in addition to the needed clothes I got plenty of goodies from home!! Including Pumpkin pie mix and crusts, Onions for green bean casserole, A mix of brown rices, Wildberry Skittles, for Albert, Natural Peanut and Almond Butter, and tons of gravy mixes. Oh, and another pair of socks, but the toes and stripped kind :) It made me very happy to open the boxes. It also made me exceedingly excited to return home. I do hope we do champagne together again, and maybe Khaled will have some this time.

I Bought Non-Local Produce at Aligro, the Costco like store. I got mini yellow squahes, an egyptian mango, some sweet potatoes, and other goodies. This has refreashed my taste for veggies, which was much needed considering my lack of veggie intake recently. I have been eating a lot of fruits htough. Oh, and I bough a big bag of clementines!!! I love them so much. They keep me hydrated and satisfy my sweet tooth. So good. So little. So juicy. MMMMM!

Zurich was on my schedule for today and tonight, but Steffi's schedule got moved around, so it didn't seem practical to go today. I'll be heading over there in Dec. and will hopefully be able to catch the Christmas market. YAY! I really like everything here. I really do. As much as I say I miss home, I will miss here too. I love them both. Ah Bluche, Ah Les Roches.

Monday, November 17, 2008

A Return

I Returned To The Gym today after about 4-5 days off thinking that the rest was needed to make this cold thing go away, but it didn't so I decided I might as well return to working out. I started right back on the designated day of the program, so all is well, and when I return home I'll be super strong Lia Mwhahaha!!! hehehe.....

I Went To The Specialist and he said to come back when my stomach has returned to its angry state. It is currently in its contented one. Then he will do an endoscopy and hopefully we come out with more than "It is just stress. Try to relax more." Since I seem incapable of relaxing as most of you know...though I don't actually know how many or exactly who is reading this, so you very well may not know.

Not Much Else is going on. It has been a pretty relaxing few days.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

My Weekend

Steffi Visited and it was good. We went to culture night and enjoyed the show, which was better than Winter Batch's show. The food stands were really good. I had the delicious Arabic food!!! Oh, so good. I then proceeded to eat Yorkshire Pudding from the British stand, something I have wanted to try since I read about its existence. Had some interesting dishes from other countries including a variety of desserts :P !!! Then I had a great time dancing the rest of the night away at the CDV after party. Poor kids stayed till 2:45 cleaning up the place. Glad I wasn't working, I'll be honest. Missed out on some brownies though, I was craving a brownie.

I'm Tired.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

A Semi-Long Weekend

I'm Sick Again. I have some combination of a nasty cold and a mild flu. This resulted in a rather dramatic night at work yesterday. With nobody to cover for my shift, I had to stay and ended up in something of a bad temper and a mildly exhausted state. I slept well though. Today I am feeling better, though still quite off.

A Teacher Enlightened Me to the views of the teachers. Apparently, the teachers are getting just as fed up (probably more) with the management of the school (aka Taylor). They are tired of the terrible communication, the falling standards, the mass of "academically unadmissable students admitted," and the unorganized nature of running the school now. I'm glad to hear it. I was given specific examples to Taylor's inability to run this place and enforce his own rules, including but CERTAINLY not limited to admitting students who had not signed for dinner into dinner to eat after putting new rules out to strengthen the signing responsibility. This is the "just now" example the teacher gave me when we spoke. Enough with my negative ramblings though. Taylor did give me 3 tickets to culture night "just because you're sick"....so if I wasn't.......

Culture Night is tomorrow, which is rather exciting. I am the only stagier with the schedule that allows me to attend both the show and the food stands and the after party. SO, Steffi is comming with Albert and me to culture night. We are going to watch the show and enjoy the food and have a fun night generally. Then I will be taking Steffi back to Zurich where I will be spending a day enjoying the city and maybe seeing Koi who is also visiting the city. I will do some research this time to create a general line of discovery for my excursion, which will hopefully include an english bookstore as I am coming to the end of my last book!

Monday is My Dr. Appointment! For the stomach that hasn't been hurting since I told the Dr. that the medication she gave me didn't work....well, I may as well go and see what the tummy specialist says...maybe it really is all just psychological.

In Other News: I found an identification code on some tortillas that had my name in it. I was pretty excited. Also, I was told that the kitchen semester done at Kendall is better than here, so I am looking to do it in Chicago in January. It is a bit late maybe, but I will essentially be doing an exchange semester from Switzerland to the States hehehe. I would also be able to spend one semester near my brother, which is very appealing to me. We will see what happens!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Where My Mind Is

I Am QUITE Excited To Return Home! To see all the familiar faces. Those who have been important to me and a part of my life for so long. I'm still reading Omnivore's Dillema, you should read it...you will look at food differently, in the US anyway. I look forward to the familiarity and, I'll admit, convenience of a lot of stuff back home. Little comforts like going to Borders and losing myself in books, or relaxing at Starbucks with a book (heheh) or a friend...mmmm my soy latte.....NYC, upstate NY, catching up with my good friends, eating fully vegan again. There are so many things I am so excited for...OH and fires in the fireplace, and yummy hot cocoa, kitchen chats with mommy, running errands with daddy, generally hanging out and listening to guitar from Khaled. I am quite excited. And if their is snow, it DOESN'T mean I have to walk through it to get where I want to go. How spoiled I am when I am home hahaha! And I can visit Dave who lives in NH since he won't be returning to school next semester. :( I still have over a month left so I probably shouldn't get too excited about going home yet. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying myself and will miss many here when I go home. wherever you go you have someone and some place to miss I suppose, but that just means that you have so many people and places to love!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

My REAL Day Off

Today Was A Much Needed Day Of Rest. I was off today in return for working for Muli when he was sick. It was nice. I had lunch with Albert at Edo and enjoyed the wonderful mountain view, as always. Enjoyed some sushi and miso soup and yummy warm edamame with our favorite Assemblage Blanc wine. Then relaxing and reading more Omnivore's Dillema followed by more fitness reading and planning for the next "week" of the preparation program. I am skipping ahead to week 3 of the prep program since weeks 1 and 2 are not challenging enough. The prep program is supposed to give you an indicator of how ready and fit you are to do the actual program (Metabolic Surge). I'll be starting the week 3 workout tomorrow! Woohoo! Now I am cooking some Tortolini and mushroom suace for Albert, and I will be having something I havem't quite decided upon yet, I think smoked Salmon will have something to do with it, or maybe oatmeal, hahaha.

Yesterday was just as busy as I expected it to be except in terms of food. I was prepared for a lot of food orders, but it was mostly drinks, so we ended up closing the kitchen early (10:15). We ended up kicking everyone out at 1 am and I left at around 2, but the floors were still being cleaned when I left. The Americans were so kind as to help clean up after thier party. It was very sticky. Got ot bed by 3 but couldn't fall asleep for a while, I don't know why. Perhaps it was just the excitement of the night or something. I'm opening tomorrow, so I shouldn't sleep too late tonight.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Rumours and a Party

Rumour Has It that when the school reopens San Nicks, it will be run by the CDV team, US! This theorhetically will happen in a couple of weeks. This is a great idea and I hope Taylor follows through with it. It would seperate us from the lunch and dinner services, which complicates and confuses our food orders, our production ability, and how we clean at night. There would be no more overlapping of different "restaurant managers" like there currently is, and clean up would be so much easier with a smaller space and a place that is made to entertain messy college students (CDV is not made for this). There would no longer be the problem of students comming to the back all the time and crowding the kitchen like they do now. It would really be swell. I REALLY hope it happens.

Obama Is Being Celebrated All the Way In Switzerland. First of all, the majority of the campus was cheering Obama on during the election. It was definitly nice to see how a lot of non-Americans leaned. It was also strange to me that the election was such a HUGE deal in Europe since it wasn't for Europe. I mean, in the States we sort of might get informed about some new president or king or Prime Minister, but we never follow any debates or watch the elections. The Europeans are well informed! They care about the stuff of the world, and they learn about and follow these things. It was on every news channel here, not just CNN. Pretty respectable if you ask me. AND SO....Obama's victory is being celebrated tonight in CDV hosted by the Americans. They will be helping us clean up at the end of it, which is good because I have a feeling a lot of people will be showing up, and it will be rather sticky (beer and booz on tile floor=dangerously slippery followed by dark and sticky). It is a mopping night. But it should be fun. I'm in a good mood, which is important when CDV is gonna be busy.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Another Non-Day Off

Muli Was Sick...yesterday, and today, my two days off, so I worked for him. Though he didn't ask em to work for him yesterday I did anyway since I know how awful it can be to work CDV alone. His sickness coincided with his birthday. Unfortunate. SO anyway, I believe I will be getting one day off this weekend, which is pretty cool. I did, once again have to cancel the dinner at Ty's place because of working tonight. Maybe it isn't meant to happen. I also started the preperation training for the Metabolic Surge program, which I am rather excited about. Super tired. Good Night!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Oh, Yah, It's Switzerland

I've Been Reminded of the States recently due to the election, which is today, and Thanksgiving, which is this month. The biggest thing I've really been thinking about is groceries. Dave and I were putting together an order form for a Thanksgiving dinner at CDV and that was when I realized just how much I no longer had access to and how much I NEVER thought about it back in the US. For example, we couldn't order cranberries because there are none here. So no cranberry walnut salad, no cranberry sauce, no cranberry wildrice dish, no cranberries. Too expensive, so we don't get them through the school, and the supermarkets don't sell them anyway, so we can't personally purchase them. Pumpkin pies are harder to do here for a few reasons. They don't have canned pumpkin, let alone "Pumpkin Pie Mix." The pie crusts that are premade are about half the depth of the ones at home, and the pie pans themselves actually. They don't have those crunchy onions for green bean casserole, no biggie. I kept thinking about how I would have been shocked not to be able to just run to the store and purchase these items on a whim. Now I don't even expect to see them, so I don't think about them until they were brought up. THEN, I went grocery shopping today at the SUPERMARKET CHAIN, Migros, and couldn't buy any berries since they are no longer in season, no asperagus, no broccoli, and I couldn't find baked beans (so common back home), and I was thrilled to discover things like premade pie crusts, which I swiftly informed Dave about using my new phone ;P, Ricotta cheese (NY cheese cake anyone?) and Cottage cheese!!! These are all things we completely take for granted back home. You never imagine that you would have to wait until next summer to buy berries. Or that asparagus and broccoli would be off the menu. Another thing: ALbert has been talking about gravy and I just remembered how we just hop over to the store pick up some gravy mix and voila, gravy. Not here. No gravy mixes. Also no low-fat products. I thought that was interesting. I've started reading a book about the American food industry (I know, another one!) and have been reminded of the whole low fat yoghurts etc. and was more aware of the fact that there is no such things in these stores. I wanted low-fat cottage cheese when I saw that cottage cheese existed here, but no luck there. And no Lebne/Greek Leban Yoghurt, which I was craving. Such basic, expected items just don't exists here. To think that you can't just get everything you want at the grocery store hahaha, we, Americans are so spoiled by grocery store options!!

Food Cost Cutting has brought the students together. Those-in-Charge- miscalculated food costs and are ow paying for it. After mid-term this is what happened: No more bananas in PFA (I noticed this and was sad to have to buy bananas again), as well as other fruits I did not take as much notice of. MArket place essentially only serves oranges now, and you find oranges on the side of the desserts in A La Carte, where strawberries, lychee, and passion fruit once stood. Market place often serves only one item instead of 4, and once this was a pork only dish resulting in something of an uproar from the muslim community. CDV has reduced it's menu of 5 items to 2, the burger and the vegetarian. CDV "late night" gets fewer regular shipments and most meat products have been reduced. The school is serving LOTS of chicken. oh, and 2 items have been cut off of the PFA sandwhich menu, the roast beef sandwhich and the avocado-smoked salmon torilla wrap. No more specials either. Yah....the students are really angry. The school doesn't say they are doing this due to food costs, they told the CDV staff that it is due to the fact that "less students tend to show up to practical duty at the end of semester, leaving the chefs to deal withthe whole menu, so they want to simplify it to reduce this problem." The chef later told me that it was actually due to food cost miscalculation. Well, I cook my own food, so I'm not so affected, but still, Les Roches...come on now. I've heard some rumours of some kind of "stand" that the students will be taking against the school soon. We'll see if they are true.

Go Obama!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Metabolic Surge!!!

Cheesy Title, I Know. This is the title of the really fun fitness program I had planned to start, but do to some issues with internet and stuff I was unable to get it. I should be getting it today and can start reading it, so I will therefore start the program itself when I finish reading it.

October-November

Halloween was one of my days off, so you know what I did? I dressed up as a cheerleader and froze my legs and bottom off in the freezing air. Then I went and partied all night long!! No, actually, though I thought my night was going to go something like that, it ended up going even better. To start, the dinner party in Randogne didn't end up working out properly, so instead of that, I dressed up in the warmest clothes I had and took a fun hike to Matt's place for Fondue. We drank wine, ate traditional Swiss cheese fondue, told stories, and listened to some music. It was really nice. The kind of social gatherings I am growing increasingly fond of. Then we had an adventure of a walk back down to Bluche, through snow and down slippery hills. It was a lot of fun. Then Albert and I went back to the room and watched a movie, which I lasted about 15 minutes into before falling deeply asleep.

Nov. 1st, today, is World Vegan Day. There is a celebration in England that I thought would have been really cool to attend, but didn't. I also had planned, but clearly not well enough, to eat PURELY vegan again today and backe something yummy and vegan, like pumpkin pie :D But I didn't plan correctly and actually don't even have the right kinds of food that I would eat on a regular basis let alone a vegan day's worth. So I may post-pone my own vegan day celebration for next week when I can go to the grocery store.

I Hope Everyone Has Had A Good OCT. I hope Halloween treated them well with kids ringing doorbells and eating tons of sugar. ;P One month gone and another one begins. What will November bring? October certainly seemed long and eventful to me. Not sure why. My goals for the new month: Go to the gym 6 days a week. Stick to eating healthy. Have a mini world vegan day celebration. Get some kind of explanation from the tummy specialist I am seeing on the 17th, though my stomach has been perfect since I was told by the dr. to go to the specialist. Visit Steffi in Zurich. Cheers then, to Nov. 1st!