If you wanna be a badger

"Does anyone know if Michigan won?"
"No idea. Blah blah blah, what time are we going to the bar?" the male friends I was hanging out with
"uh right, whenever, but, OH MAN did you see that play!?" I scream at the tv playing 'in the background'
"Blah blah blah, I can't believe they were serving oxidized wine blah blah blah" back to the dudes
"No but seriously, did Michigan win? because I really only care that Wisconsin won WOOP WOOP but I need to give my old chef crap if Michigan lost"
"Don't know Jenna, blah blah blah do you want another dri.."
as the scores are recapped on tv "YES! They lost! HAHAHAHAHAHA"

I never realized what a comfort football is to me, especially college football, until yesterday when I found myself searching out televisions to get score updates and later that night hanging out with 4 guys and I was the only one gaping at the television. Kind of strange. Also, seeing Brett Favre in a Jets #4 jersey makes me a little queasy.

Writing that makes me feel like I should be simultaneously looking at new snowmobiles and cracking open an MGD. I am not.

I'm hiding out in the big city blinking

Hey Wisconsin.

It won't be long yeah (yeah), yeah (yeah), yeah (yeah)

Still on the prowl for housing in Berkeley. Mainly I'm bumping into problems with the renters wanting me to come see the place/meet them, owning cats (to which I am allergic), being all dudes (a situation I'm not totally comfortable with), being far away from work or being insanely expensive.

Here is what I want to happen: I write to someone describing myself and they say, sounds great, see you in September. And I say yay. And it all works out. Happily ever after. Until the end of January when I drive cross country. Again.

I have a wines' test tomorrow. Studying for that all night. I don't get a grade in the class...weird.

You keep me rocking all of the time

"Just don't mix up your spit cup with your water...That's never good."

I started a Wine's class this week. A total of 10 classes, 60 hours of class time, in 3 weeks to cover a ridiculous amount of information. Luckily I don't get a grade because I'm Baking and Pastry and therefore just auditing the class. But I'm still pretty much reading or studying wines 75% of my waking hours. We taste several wines every class and I once again am incredibly grateful that my parents brought me up in a winetastic household. The teacher has repeatedly mentioned how difficult it can be to differentiate and pinpoint smells and tastes in the wine if you're not used to it.

There's one other baker in my class and we smell the wine, sip and spit and she looks at me questioningly and whispers, "berries?" and I go on for a few minutes about notes of lemon zest in the finish. So thank you Dad for all those years of playing, "what do you smell, what do you taste?" when drinking wine. Ok we're nerds. Snobs? nerds? It sounds pretentious. egh, so be it. I love it.

The teacher likes us more--the bakers-- (his words) because we are taking the class when we don't have to. This means we got chocolate with our port today and the culinary students got yet another reason to roll their eyes at bakers.

I am also now in charge of giving a speech about Chile and Argentina, after talking to the teacher about my time in Chile and Chileans love and pride in Carmenere.

Alright, and there is your fill of snobbery for the day. I'm going to go sit by the river and read about malolactic fermentation.

Never been so easy, or so slow

I'm almost done with my last baking class for 5 months. It's going to be strange because most of my friend will be leaving on Friday. Everyone who started at the same time should be going on their externships at the same time. I'm really going to miss a lot of people that I have gotten used to seeing everyday.

Luckily I have friends outside of the group I started with who can keep me company while I take a wines course starting next week. It has the reputation for being the hardest class here and I could not be more excited.

This weekend I'm taking a little excursion to the city with John and hopefully see some nomads I haven't laid eyes or hugs on in awhile.

And I'm STILL looking for housing in Berkeley. Yay!