"Not Feeling It"

Actually, Andrea called it early on: Chef Al was in some sort of a snit this morning, and nothing that anybody did really met with his approval. It was about 180° from yesterday's congeniality. But we marched on, boards were built, and I was actually shocked when I drove east over the Bay Bridge this afternoon and realized that indeed, Friday was over and next week is our last week of class.

"Andy, I'm gonna miss you," Andrea called from across the classroom; he said he'd cut bacon but was of course caught up in some new project. I had a wonderful dream last night that included CCA people and places, and this morning, I realized that I'm getting my money's worth: the school and its characters have become part of my unconscious life.

Andrea and I built individual boards and then one as a team, which Chef Al evaluated. We ended up with 25 points out of a possible 30, the highest score in the class. I seem to have a knack for "movement," aligning the pieces evenly but changing the center of rotation. Andrea didn't feel it. "You're really good at this," she said. And I took Chef's comments to heart, the ones he made directly to me, but when he dissed the whole class, I really didn't feel like he was including us.
During our board evaluations, as we stood around in the dining room and listened to Chef's evaluations, he said, "You're not feeling it. Can you tell? Last week you had more enthusiasm. You need to stop thinking so much and just trust in your love of food." Nobody was willing to say, "But Chef, your grumpiness is contagious" but that was really the case. Everybody's got a short-timer attitude, and baggage they carry publicly or privately. Andy said, as an aside, that his girlfriend back in Minneapolis "just isn't feeling it," and he's not sure what he'll find when he gets home in 10 days.