Reading it now feels like listening to someone else talk about my life, in a really interesting way. This was written in 2010. I'm leaving it as is, unedited. How close, how far away. So many unnecessary words.
"A few years ago, I watched in awe as a friend of mine sought out, applied and was accepted to the school of his dreams. It was the fourth undergraduate institution he had attended, and was twenty-eight years old when admitted. When I asked him how he had found the college of his dreams, he said that he did an Internet search for everything he’d ever wanted, and when his school popped up, did everything he could to attend because he knew it was where he was supposed to have been all along.
Which is how I find myself writing to you now.
When I was in high school, I started working for a coffee shop in the local shopping mall. It was something I picked up after school and on weekends because I wanted to pay for gas so I could own the freedom of being a sixteen-year old licensed driver. Soon, though, I found myself skipping school dances on Friday and Saturday nights in favor of picking up shifts; coming home late not because I was out with friends, but had stopped by the store and was pitching in because they were unexpectedly busy. When I was faced with the prospect of applying to college, I did so because it was simply what you did after high school. I had no particular ambitions, and in retrospect it would have been wise to take a few years off before going to school. My college career was littered with changes to my majors and minors, with an overall sense of scatterbrained wanderlust. I was not what you would call a successful student.
I began working at the coffee bar on campus and was often found there in between shifts and classes reading (not necessarily for class). My Modern Poetry professor once walked by my table, noted that I was reading V., and from then on referred to me as “the girl who read Pynchon for fun”. I think I got a C in his class. Coffee, writing and books were my life. I wanted to drop out so that I could open my own café and travel, but as I grew up in a family comprised of nurses and lawyers, this, they proclaimed, was simply not an option. Food service wasn’t a valid career path, but something I did as a layover to a “real job”. I accepted this, but floundered. My undergraduate career was unimpressive with the exception of my writing classes, in which I excelled.
Once I graduated I started traveling. Ireland was my first foray into the world outside of the United States, followed by Thailand, which changed my life forever. For the first time I felt like I was living. Fueled by fear, pure exhausted adrenaline, and outright curiosity, we ate our way through Bangkok and I fell in love with the culture of food markets. I ate green curry with prawns on plastic folding chairs in the middle of the street at six o’clock in the morning, followed by a plastic baggie filled with gelatinous, brilliantly colored…well, frankly I still don’t know what was in that bag, but it was sweet, strange, and I wanted more. For the first time I felt like I was home. I never could have predicted I’d find it (and myself), linguistically isolated in the middle of Southeast Asia.
Upon my return, plowed through Philadelphia with new zeal – sought out any hole in the wall that that served Shanghai soup dumplings (turns out there’s only one) and vermicelli. Restaurants and eating became my hobby, my meal ticket and my passion. I dragged any willing friend or family member around the tri-state area (and beyond) seeking out new markets and restaurants while the diploma in my closet became a distant memory.
When I started working for Capogiro Gelato Artisans, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. Quickly though, it became clear I had fallen into a crowd that would push me to the next level in my career, and in life. It’s a pace I’ve not encountered before, and one I can barely go without – working throughout the day and night to provide the city with newfangled ways to support local farmers and agriculture, all the while maintaining an aesthetic to impress all levels of media. I cultivated an eagle eye for burnt out light bulbs and past their prime Meyer lemons. “No, we don’t have strawberries right now” became part of my daily rhetoric. When they created the position of District Manager for me, I was floored and honored in a way previously unknown. I am constantly surprised by the support of the owners, and the camaraderie created when a bunch of crazy food lovers keep close quarters and extreme hours.
Eleven years after my first job as a barista, I have finally accepted that my passion for what we put in our bodies is the life I am meant to have; the life I can’t life without. When I realized I was ready to take the next step and did an Internet search for the academic program I’ve always wanted, New York University’s masters program in food studies was the first result.
I know my undergraduate transcripts are lacking. I’m aware that on the surface, I’m not the student you’d be most likely to admit, but I’m the one that deserves to be there. I want this, I’ve worked hard for it, and it isn’t something I take lightly, as it’s the first time in my life I’ve really known what that means."
