The alarm clock decided that it had to scream at me when it was six o’clock in the morning, and I wasn’t at all amused by it. What is with these ungodly early hours…I don’t even begin to function until after noon, and usually, not until long after that. So it was no surprise to me that, looking back, I have no recollection whatsoever of making my way to school. One minute, I was looking at my bowl of Cheerios and the next I was walking to the school.

Chef made a delicious chocolate cake that he decided to ruin by soaking it in coffee extract. It was vile and honestly one of the worst things I have ever tasted, all because of that horrible coffee syrup. I like coffee and all, but this was so bad, I can’t get over it. I didn’t put it in mine. For decoration, there was some gold foil, but of course, all of the greedy students grabbed the gold ones first, so, I still haven’t tasted gold foil and am starting to tire of being unaware of the stuff.

Here’s a taste of the photography madness after each Demo. Everybody seems to believe that taking a picture of a cake will make them do better. How? I haven’t a clue.

At half past eleven, I was back on the train home, ready for lunch. I had some tasty leftovers and then had a well deserved nap. I didn’t have time to appreciate my slumber, because the school did one of it’s intelligent scheduling miracles and I had to go back for the practical in the afternoon.

So, groggier than I was before I left the first time, I was back on the train. On the way there, I finished my first Kindle book on my iPod Touch, and I am now sold on this technology. I will definitely be getting the real thing when I get home. It’s just too much fun and I actually read faster. I read fast already, but with this, I flew through the reading. The only thing I don’t like, is not being able to see, physically, how far along you are in a book. The iPod always looks the same if you are on page five or five hundred and three.

My book was a biography of Julia Child, and it only reinforced in my mind how awesome she is. I decided that for my last practical, I should take a leaf out of her book and do my best today. It’s not that I don’t do my best everyday, just somedays, I’m lazier than others. So, to enter the Julia state, I shook my hair to make it look as crazy as hers and stood at my tallest–still two inches short, but with my shoes, it should work.

Jongin and I were assistants so we had to prepare the kitchen before all of the other students arrived. I was there early enough though that we sat with Julalak in the Winter Garden and talked about an odd succession of things. First off was my hair. They liked my hair a lot, because everybody in Asia has straight black hair. They seemed surprised that the color and texture is natural. They also thought it looked like the hair of David, the statue by Michelangelo. I had never heard that before, but when I looked later at the statue, it’s true. Our hair is very similar.

Somehow, the topic turned to blood type, and bizarrely enough, (not bizarre if I had known more about Asian popular culture) we all have type AB blood. I found that very strange as only about 4% of the world’s population has type AB. I also learned that if I ever go to Japan; lie about my blood type because it’s thought that people with AB blood are mean. AB’s are usually villains in movies. In Asia, asking somebody their blood type is as common as us asking a person’s astrological sign.

It was time to go upstairs and get all the ingredients put together, so Jongin, Julalack, and I ascended the hundreds of stairs to the fourth floor. We found a magical room full of supplies and then…a cupboard full of chocolate! It was ridiculously exciting.

My cake came together quite well, and Chef was quite impressed with it. The boiling cream smelled exactly like homemade macaroni and cheese, which made me smile, then feel very sad. I won’t elaborate why, but if you know why, you know why. I spread the glaze a little too thin on the top, but it worked out perfectly well. With Julia Child in my head, I seemed to be able to do everything much easier, even though, I’ll be honest, I haven’t been incredibly challenged by this course. Making an apple tart is hard and rolling chocolate croissants isn’t easy, but other than that, it’s all been a not-quite-metaphorical piece of cake.

As you can see, we all took some pictures of each other, and then left to start studying for the exam on Friday. I meant to, really I did, but I didn’t. Studying isn’t any fun! I’ll probably put it all off for Thursday and then call it good. I mean, how exactly do you study to cook something?

Ma managed to get me booked into the Hotel Welcome in Villefranche for this weekend, and I’m very excited about the room I got. It’s called the attic room on the sixth floor with a large terrace, so, I intend to sit up there for a few days and let my body absorb some sun. I also need to do some site scouting in the area and visit the spice market in Eze. So, it won’t all be rest and relaxation — just the vast majority of it.

Also, as years have gone and past, I’ve grown tired of people asking me if I have a Facebook, wondering why I don’t , and then having to come up with a reason as to why I don’t. I have never found them worthwhile and lacking in design. But, after being asked probably 13 times today if I had one, I decided to join. I enjoy the potential for real time conversation, but I fail to see the addiction people have to it. Why would you want to poke somebody?