I am freezing fucking cold and dead tired. I hate this time of year.

I am skipping a class that I really need to pass. The Professor is a hard-ass lady from Jamaica and always calls on me when I have nothing to say. Why do teachers do that? I am paying attention and if I really do have something to say, I will raise my hand. It's not beyond my scope of living.

It's just that my anxiety disorder almost completely clams me up in any sort of public speaking situation. I end up feeling stupid in front of 30 people and it just makes me not want to go. This will be my third time missing the class. It's just a general education requirement so I will be fucking delighted with a C but what's that about 90% of life is just showing up? I know I should talk to her but sometimes I feel like I just need to put on my big girl panties and fucking DO IT and not complain. School is just going to get harder, right? I want to be an English teacher but I'm not sure it's for me...

I also want to go to culinary school. It's been on my mind for quite a while. There are plenty here in NYC but that means I have to start over and get into more debt. My credit is fucked and I have no one to cosign a loan nor do I have a job at the moment. Oh, and say hello to the raging monkey on my back.

I feel like cooking is my passion and I'd love to do it on the level of some of the greats. To be honest, I'd just love to open a restaurant/bar/art space type deal where I can just kind of hang out all day and schmooze. I've always thought when you die and go to heaven, it's kind of like a big, casual dinner party with all the people who went before you where you can talk, catch up, eat, laugh and just be together. Like that scene in Hook where the Lost Boys have that imaginary feast of pastel mush.

It's sad but I do enjoy most films with Robin Williams.

I just can't do anything. I don't have any energy. I have these cysts in my neck that are right near my thyroid that I feel like need to come out. My thyroid levels are completely normal. I have a constant pain in my neck when I am not on an opioid. But I only have Medicaid.

I should have gotten my tonsils out when I had the chance, when I was still working and had decent insurance. Oh well. I'm fucking going out of my mind and I can't leave the house unless I'm completely doped up. I think I'm at the end of my rope and I should just suck it up and get some help. Like, in-patient type shit. But I just can't deal with the stigma even though almost everyone I know has been hospitalized at one point or another.

I could never kill myself and leave my brother like that especially because he's doing so well. I thought he had a delayed grief response but apparently mine is even slower now that I've had the time to sit and wallow in it. Before, I just worked and worked and kept busy but I was burning the candle at both ends and kind of just said fuck it. Now would be the time, wouldn't it, to get my shit together.

Waiting on some percs that couldn't come soon enough. Then some oxy. In a couple of weeks I will be feeling better. And then feeling worse because I'll be sick again.

You know the drill. How awesome is life.

 

Definitely let your professor know about your anxiety. I was in the same sort of situation as you in a previous class and finally just sucked it up and e-mailed my professor and she was totally understanding and I even got an A in the class. It's at least worth a try. Good luck!

 

You don't necessarily need to go to culinary school to be great. Or at least, not right away. If you've got some cooking skill now, you could try working as a cook under a good chef for a while. If they truly are a good chef, they will be very happy to teach you the fundamentals of their style of cooking, and you'll learn a great deal of the general skills that you would learn in the introductory classes. Stuff like knife skills, general prepwork, how to make basic culinary foundations (like a bechamel, good stocks, maybe some basic emulsion sauces). I have a friend who is a chef de cuisine at what is arguably one of, if not the, top fine-dining restaurant in my city, and he much prefers enthusiastic cooks to educated sous-chefs. The former tend to be more willing to learn, to work hard, and to hold themselves to his level of standards; the latter tend to 'know' better, and in his experience have far too high of expectations for their level of skill.

Cooking, at least to start, is much more a trade than an art. There is artistry in it, but like all art you must first learn the craft skill well in order to express yourself in that medium. And there is no diminishment in being a skilled craftsman either for that matter. The point is: for something like cooking, it may be better to start out working and perhaps go to school later, which would work out better for your finances.