Lol, 1 year later....

Oh my....can't believe my previous post was more than 1 year ago....

I'm not sure if there's still people who are reading this but anyway....

So many many things have happened. The Diploma course which I was doing in Switz is finally completed. I'm waiting for my NS to start now, still waiting for the enlistment letter to be posted to me. I'm guessing I'm going in during this year-end Dec or Jan next year.

Ahh, lol looking back at the my previous post made me realized how fast time has past. My last post mentioned about the French course which I took in Singapore ( 1 month French crash course). It ended well and I went back to Switz for my next Academic Semester, which sang a very different tune compared to the first Semester I took on February 2008.

My second Academic Semester consisted of much more more projects which required not only knowledge but also critical thinking and objective opinions. Also, I was directed into another Semester batch since my classmates in my first Semester were doing their internship. I was supposed to do mine only in Jan 2009. I made many new friends in the second Academic Semester which I will never forget. Indeed, it was a tiring Semester but I felt it was fulfilling for me. I definitely learnt A LOT.

Oh yea, I did a very different CBL compared to my first semester. In case you forgot what CBL meant, it's a month-long practical course which is intensively focused on an hospitality section, in this case, I did rooms division which consisted of Reception and housekeeping.

AND YEA...I had a hell of a time. I had a very hardworking and co-operative Asian group =)

We worked extremely well for housekeeping, no lazying around, haha. As for my reception section, we did not managed to do as well since we lacked initiative but well....I had fun and learnt a lot from experience.

For my mid-term break, I had a very loving time with my girlfriend =). I planned a trip to a ski resort (Zermatt). It was 2 days 1 night, we explored the very popular Matterhorn mountain which is the Toublerone chocolate logo. After that trip, we went on with the school to visit a castle, Swiss cheese museum and Swiss's Cailler Chocolate Factory. It was really a eye-opener to see all these, as well as being able to see all these with my special someone =)

Lol, all these are just fast forwards of my life after my previous post.

Sorry to all for my extremely late post, Yes I know, my bad....

lol, it's already 12.40am. I will continue on another day =)

Nights everyone!

Back in S'pore! Having fun plus french lessons

lol, sorry guys that this post took so long to arrive. I was enjoying myself this few days when I got back on the 8th. I had dinner plus movie (Kungfu Panda, really good) with my family. I went to service my laptop too. It was really bad, slow and laggy despite the 2 Gb RAM and 2 Ghz processor. Furthermore, the sound of my fan in the laptop was really really loud. I really hope I can my laptop back to its original settings, real fast and quiet. I also went out with my friends. Really fun, playing LAN (Dota and other warcraft 3 custom games). I ate my favourite food: Cha Siew Rice. Then they stayed overnight. We played some drinking games (really crazy) but fun. Next day, I was just slacking around, and then talked with my girlfriend. Didn't realized that I had a webcam in my house till my dad told me and took it out for me. We saw each another through webcam, I was really happy but sad that she couldn't be with me or me not being with her.

Chaki~, Bogosipo, Sa-rang-he-yo! Your teddy bear misses you! =)

Well, I should be going the PC fair tomorrw then have fun during my break plus exercise plus, I'm taking french lessons to prepare myself for my internship in geneva.

Okay then, Cya guys!

YEss...5 more days and Home Sweet Home!

Yea....the day when i'm leaving for home is getting close. Another 5 more days! Actually it's 4 but I spend 1 day on the plane back to Singapore. Woo..I just finished my I. T. and Accounting exams today. It was really good. I'm praying hard that I can get another 10 for I.T and hopefully 10 for accounting too. ^^

I had F and B exam yesterday. It was alright, considering that I had to memorise 20 wine labels plus 5 countries on their regions and wines. Phew...I'm glad I'm done with that. Well, hotel operation's tomorrow. I just got back from shower and had dinner. It's 8.26pm but it's really bright here. Summer's the season now. Sunset's at 10pm, lol. Weird but it sure feels like the day is long.

Kk, I can't wait to get back home. 5 more days and counting......

End of CBL!

Sorry for the late post, I was busy with school and my F and B wine project last week.

I finished CBL (my service and kitchen practical) !!!!

okay....that was 1 and a half weeks ago. Sorry for the delay. It was fun and interesting, overall. I did 2 days of pastry a la carte and made many desserts....so nice....and no stress compared to hot a la carte kitchen. For the last day of a la carte kitchen, I was in cold kitchen, having fun decorating the starter plates with salad and stuff.

Wow....2 weeks of service and 2 weeks of kitchen....just like that...it's over...I'm really gonna miss it. No school, no homeworks, no projects....just working and working and working...makes me feel like I'm in an actual cafe and restaurant during my practicals.

Hmm, I was looking through my previous post and I don't think I mentioned my 1st week of kitchen practicals. The 1st week of kitchen was quite boring...just cutting and cutting at the kitchen production. Oh yea, kitchen production means cooking for the student population at the cafe....so it's like mass cooking for a lot of people beforehand. A la carte, on the other hand, means to cook for 1 portion per plate when ordered. Of course, I found a la carte kitchen more exciting than kitchen production but still....CBL's over! (Yay and sad)

Now, I'm back to normal school life for 1 and a half weeks already. It's been normal....lessons and lessons...2 more weeks to final exams!!! Gonna study over the weekends....

And then after exams.......HOME SWEET HOME.....Yeaaa =)

Argh, I'm not bringing my gf back though. I think I told some of you that she's coming with me to Singapore for the long vacation but her family seems to be experiencing some difficulties so she needs to go back.

CHA kI ~~, I'm gonna miss you ~~~~

Kitchen Practical....phew.....

Wow....i just finished my second day of kitchen practical. I was really disappointed with myself though, I performed really badly for a-la-carte hot kitchen today. It's my second time at hot kitchen because I did that yesterday too and yet.... -.- screw ups... and panicking when so many firing of main course came at the same time. I mixed up garnish and damn, the rice today was so bouncy, I couldn't fix it properly. The decoration of the dishes were really bad and we even had the chefs to help us out.

It was so different yesterday. Amy, Grace and I were really focused on the presentation of the dishes. There were no mistakes yesterday and we were praised by chef Didier for our good teamwork but today was...argh... Sian 1/2Anyway, I was made the chef today because I had experience from yesterday but I don't think I did a good job though. Won't be surprised if I get a bad grade for today.

Oh well, I'll just look forward to tomorrow...I will in pastry making desserts....sweet~~

Oh yea, some pictures that were taken last saturday.

Asian Hangout in my room






















































































Chicken curry plus Hainanese Chicken rice thanks to Jer and Ron = Really good food and homesick for S'pore food! haha, 5 more weeks till I'm back!
Cha Siew Rice....I'm coming for youuuu!

My Singapore, My home....

Sup guys, just finished my service practical. PHEW, I'm done for service..finally...2 weeks of it..but I really learned a loooott of stuff, thanks to the service instructor, Mr Oriol for his guidance. I learned the most when I was waitering in Bellevue, the fine dining restaurant in school. It's not that simple as it looks, just serving and clearing, there's still a lot of other stuff behind like setting up cutlery, crumbing down, serving wine, punching in the orders in the micros system, collecting orders at the kitchen. It was really fun and interesting, although it can be sometimes stressful, considering that I served 7 people in a table for my first day. I served the academic dean on the second day plus another table and I served 2 tables on the third and fourth day. Luckily, the last day was the easiest, only 1 table of 3 and it was my cha-ki's table! ^^

All in all, service practical was really nice, gonna miss it, be it restaurant service or cafe service. Runner, stewarding, waitering....

I just ended my weekend duty in Cafe, service for brunch and dinner. Guess what? On my way back to the room, smelt Singaporean food in Ron's room! (My Singaporean classmate).

Ahhh, Hainan Ji Fan!! Chicken rice! It was really good, hands down to Ron's cooking. The rice was nicely flavored with the chicken stock and ginger, and then I thought, why not listen to Singapore music and eat Singaporean food?

Lol, we started to listen to Singapore NDP songs with Jermaine and Hatta. Ahh..the good old singapore songs...really makes wanna go home as soon as possible. " Count on me Singapore", "My Island, Home", "We will get there", and "Home".

I think "Home" is the best NDP song ever. I'm still listening to it on Youtube as I'm typing down this post. I'm feeling really nostalgic now....This is home~~~, Truly~~~ Where I know I must be~~~

Lol, kk I think I better stop it. Okay, I'm going to shower now and then finish my English project due on tuesday. Au revoir!

CBL starts!!!!!

Ah, just finished 1 week of CBL ( Craft Based learning) Practicals in school. It was fun. CBL is like practical lessons in the hospitaity industry aspects. I started in the service first with my first week (14th April - 18th April) in cafe. It was simpler than the fine dining service since I was serving in Cafe Vennois in school but it was busier and more hectic. Still, I feel that it was really a good experience and I'm really happy with my service group members who were there to support and motivate each other.

OH yea, it was really a long day for last week. We had breakfast, lunch and dinner to serve the school but the key event was during lunch where we had to do setting up of table (mise en place) and announce the soup of day along with serving water. Dinner wasn't so bad since it was buffet style and people helped themselves to everything. Haha, and there were many functions of a waiter in the cafe. Besides waitering, I did stewarding (emptying food waste and arranging used plates and cups in trolleys to be brought to the back of the kitchen for cleaning) and runner (in charge of transporting clean plates to the front and bringing dirty ones to the back). Yea, it was kinda tiring but I liked it.

So, I just did my first day of fine dining service in Bellevue restaurant in school. It was nice. The pace was slower and not so tiring but the service section was more demanding. We served breakfast and lunch. Waitering for breakfast was okay, I only had to pour coffee for guests who wanted it. Lunch was a-la-carte, meaning we have to take orders from guests who are presented with menus for a 3 course meal: starter, main course and dessert. We had to serve bread and butter at the start, take orders, set up cutlery for starter, main and desserts, clear plates, monitor water glasses to see if it's empty and......Smile! I still need to practice on that.

Phew, I'm glad it's over for the day. My very first day and I was given a table of six! In the end, it turned into 7 people (All teachers)! It was a bit nerve recking at the start and I almost messed up since I was scribbling badly on my paper taking the orders but in the end, it turned out well. When I reflected back on the day, it wasn't THAT bad. I didn't make any major screw ups and I only had to serve for breakfast and lunch. So.... I was free at 2 for the whole day..but..still have to wake up at 6am everyday.

Hmm, it's 4.15pm in the afternoon now. I can't wait for kitchen practical to start though. It's nice to serve but I like to make food for people to eat as well.

Well, that's all for today. Haha, and I apologize for the late post. Been busying, mostly lazy but hey, I still posted this right? ^^ Till then!