Playing With Cheese

Cheese making. Yes, my friends- cheese making.

(Ricotta salata above, 3 cheddars below)
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I know, I know- I fell into a hole. It was the 'unemployment sucks' hole; the 'crap, I'm turning 40' hole; the 'what am I gonna do with the rest of my life' hole. After I realized that dietetics was decidedly not going to work (higher math, hello) I couldn't see past it. Took months. I was miserable. Summer was awful. I read and I knit, but mostly, I sulked.

To add insult to injury, gardening in Michigan just completely blew this year. Few tomatoes, terrible for hot crops in general. No heat at night makes for miserable little plants.

But then I had a revelation. I made my first raw-milk cheddar.

Now, I've been fiddling around with soft cheeses for a while-- paneer, various spread-type cheeses. And of course, butter and yogurt. But the pressed cheeses felt distant. Then one day, I just did it. Took 7 hours. Pressed cheeses are definitely an all-day event.

But, let me tell you- cheese is magic. I labored for 7 hours and gave birth to a cheddar.

In fact, that first cheese (a little more than a month ago) changed my life. I realized almost immediately that, holy crap, I belong in culinary school, and I am now enrolled in Schoolcraft College in Livonia, MI-- about a half-hour drive from here. I start in January.

So that's where I've been. Off with my cheese.

Haven't cut into the cheddars yet- I have some doubts about the first one; I suspect the curds were too undercooked and it will be bitter because of the high moisture content. But that's the cheese learning curve for you- it's sort of a long haul. Jerry-rigging home equipment on a stupid glass-top stove has proven to be the toughest challenge, but I'm finding ways around it.

I'm going to start posting "A Cheese A week"- I'll go into more detail with individual posts.

Changing course for school

(First sweet pea bouquet of the season, on my desk now- what a scent)
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My whole life, this is my pattern- I dive in, but do not hesitate to back out immediately if it's not working for me. And community college is definitely not working for me. I clearly dove in too quickly. I need to quit school- not forever, just for now. I'm not feeling this right now.

Algebra is kicking my can more than ever. For that matter, so is anthropology, especially genetics. They did not teach genetics in school 25 years ago, only Mendel.

It has dawned on me that just wanting a thing doesn't automatically make it mine, or even make it possible. And that thing would be the dietitian path. So I'm attending an introductory seminar next Monday to see about getting my K-12 certification to become an art teacher.

I already know art. I already know how to teach. I love teaching. But the memorization of an entirely different field after 20 years of art, design, and antidepressants (SSRIs are known to inhibit memory-- and believe me when I tell you, I can't remember anything) is not in the cards.

Can I just say algebra sucks?

I scored a 72 on my first algebra test. I thought I aced the freaking thing. I totally thought I was doing the problems correctly.

I scored a 72, mind you:
After 5 hours of tutoring.
After 30 hours of homework.

I'm totally doubting I can do this.

I failed algebra in high school. I wanted to be a biologist, and after I failed they told me to pick something else- look where that got me. Laid off in a dying field, that's where.

And today looking at my blasted 72, it's like I'm 13 all over again, crying at my desk- though today I had the wherewithal to leave the room to cry. I just feel like the dumbest girl ever.

Maybe I truly, deeply don't have the aptitude for this. We all can't have the aptitude for everything, after all.

Just, why did my aptitude have to be for-- oh, I don't know-- making butter?

I really am not looking for sympathy. But the thing is, I have to get all the way through calculus. This new path of mine is feeling terribly unlikely right now.

School Starts May 18!

(Hmmmm)
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School, hooray! (Yeah, I say that now.)

The good news is, I'm officially in the system for Trade Adjustment Assistance. The bad news is, I have so may pre-reqs it will take longer than TAA will cover (26 weeks for remedial training + 2 years for education). The catch with TAA is: It all has to be consecutive. So for now, we're paying for school.

But something interesting happened today. I went to the community college to submit my application and get some general academic advising, and while I was there I had to take a math placement test. Can I tell you that the math test was actually fun? I remembered how to solve for x. I remembered how to add fractions and balance equations. Now, more advanced algebra was just squiggles, taunting me. But I totally aced the pre-algebra portion. Gosh. I'm very happy right now.

I didn't get a perfect score- it was more like 78%. I have to retake algebra- and considering it's been 25 years since my last algebra class, I'm totally ok with that. But still, holy crap- math is fun, people.

So starting May 18, I'm taking compressed (12 weeks) summer courses in anthropology and algebra. It feels so totally AP high school.

Daunting.

(omg)
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Here's a completely overwhelming list of prerequisites at one school I'm considering for my second career as a registered dietitian; the school is Wayne State University, just two blocks from our house in downtown Detroit. These are needed before I can even enter their RD program. Similar prereqs are required at all schools- and frankly, if the program were any easier, I'd wonder if they were instead filling my head with marshmallow fluff.

I've taken only one of these- inorganic chemistry- and that was 14 years ago, so I'll need to take it again. But really, even if they told me I could skip it, I wouldn't. I remember not a single thing about chemistry. Heck, I'll probably have to take remedial algebra just so I can remember how to balance equations.

But jeepers, there are 17 prereqs. If I take 2 classes per semester per year, including summer classes, I'll finish the prereqs in 3 years. I seriously doubt I can handle more than 6 classes a year given the difficulty of the subjects, not to mention the foreignness- design professionals generally are not exposed to microbiology in our workdays. So, Gah! Tell me I'm not nuts, and I can do this.

Basic Life Mechanisms

Anatomy/Physiology

Microbiology

Chemistry, Inorganic

Chemistry Lab, Inorganic

Organic Chemistry I

Organic Chemistry I - Lab

Organic Chemistry II

Statistics

Psychology

Anthropology or Sociology

Microeconomics

Management

Food Science

Food Science - Lab

Human Nutrition

Human Nutrition - Lab

By Jove, I've Got It- Registered Dietitian!

(6-11 servings of grains daily? This pyramid bought to you by the grain lobby.)
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I think I've stumbled upon the perfect second career for me. It's so obvious I don't know why it didn't occur to me before.

Registered Dietitian!
Foodie? Check!
Super-opinionated about food? Check!
Love science? Check!
Feel like I'm making a difference? Check!
Potential for political activism? Check!
Growing field? Check!
Teaching/ coaching? Check!
Professional degree that doesn't require me to be an entrepreneur? Check!

I think the fact that I'm a gardener, pickler, fermenter, and food traditionalist could really work in my favor, too. Or not- depending on how many of my professors are bought and paid for by Monsanto.

Which leads me to a drawback: I have a bit of a subversive streak. Naw, it's bigger than a mere streak. It has its own area code.

For instance, I think reducing food to nutrients or constituent parts (Eat more beta carotene! Eat more oat bran! Fish oil will save us all!) is a bunch of hooey which serves only one purpose- to stuff the pocketbook of Big Food. And even though, every few years, the food authorities make a big show of announcing reversals on former findings, these things have a way of coming up again and again (beta carotene, oat bran, and fish oil lobbyists shoulder a lot of the blame- politics and food, together again). And I'm sure also it's the Cartesian reductionist model of science, hard at work. I intuitively know that there is more to food than it's parts. And I have a feeling that view wouldn't be terribly popular in most RD programs.

Another unpopular opinion of mine: Big Food has inflicted a vast evil upon humanity and ecology in the name of profit and global domination. That'll make me a total freaking ray of sunshine in an RD program, won't it? Michigan State has an outstanding program in food and nutrition sciences, but the school also has many ties to industry. That troubles me deeply. But moving out of state for school is out of the question.

Still. This is the first time I've felt really excited about a second career. And I've been looking for a second career for more than a decade; golly, I was thinking of changing my major to medicine when I was in my second year of grad school. Sad to say I chickened out.

Now the only problem is, I'm too excited to sleep.

Second Career Blahs, also known as Navel-Gazing

(Not the second career for me)
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My e-friend Verde over at the blog Justice Desserts mentioned the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator the other day. It reminded me that I should, maybe, be using my type as one possible map through the funemployment muck. And since the muck is getting deeper, I'm willing to try anything. Please forgive the high-intensity navel-gazing, but I'm in a bad place today.

When I was 20, I took the Myers-Briggs test and tested as an INFJ. I took the test again last year-18 years later- and since MB types are usually the same for life, I scored once again as an INFJ. We INFJs are the rarest type- about 1% of the population. We are extremely idealistic; it's vital that we find purpose in life. We are sensitive to a fault, and intense (that was my mother's favorite word for me, but she didn't mean it as a compliment). We have lots of interests and long for a true calling. Apparently we make really good monks and nuns-- but I'm a non-believer, and never mind that I'm married.

I tried to get my mess nailed down by writing about it, but it didn't really help. Navel gazing- well, you know.:

I'm a 39-year-old female seeking a second career. I was a textile designer for twelve years, but I hated it. It wasn't really the job itself, but I hated the corporate structure I was shoehorned into. I don't suffer corporate B.S. gladly. It was, by far, the worst part of the job. I held a variety of crappy odd jobs up until grad school, all of them miserable, mostly retail. Going to art school for undergrad prepared me for, well, nothing.

So I went to grad school to get a real job. But the real job turned out to be a nightmare for so many reasons. I was trapped in the career because of huge grad and undergrad student loans; I moved from job to job because every mill I ever worked for was always on the verge of closing (thanks, NAFTA); I was taught the barest minimum of skills in grad school, but was reassured by my professors- "Not to worry, you'll learn on the job from master weavers!"- except, master weavers didn't exist anymore. The professors who told us that had been out of the textile industry for 20 years. So for 12 years, I felt like I was scrambling to catch up. And I don't have the aptitude for tracking the million little details in manufacturing. I'm not a multi-tasker-- I'm a single-tasker. I need to address one thing thoroughly until it's finished. I think multi-tasking is over-rated. And the corporations insist its a worker's most important attribute so they can wring every last penny out of value out of us.

I’m desperate to find my true calling. Paradoxically, I have lots of interests- though I can't see how any could be careers. My interests are vegetable gardening, hand-spinning, knitting, cooking, canning, pickling- most of my interests are probably best described as 19th century homemaking skills. Useful, but pretty uninteresting to most folks. My husband has suggested pickling, but scaling up scares me. The business side scares me. Investing in equipment and and a commercial kitchen scares me. The food industry scares me. Selling stuff scares me.

Having been laid off from textile manufacturing, I will soon qualify for re-education benefits. I’m willing to go back to school, but I have no idea for what. And the last time I took a blind leap into school, I ended up with a 12-year-long nightmare. I cried on many, many Sunday nights; I hated Mondays.

I'm drawn to biology- in high school, I wanted to be a marine biologist. Lately my interests are soil biology, agroecology, and plant pathology. But starting over in biology scares me, and the re-education benefits will only go so far. Besides, my memory for scientific nomenclature is non-existent. And, well- there's the math. Math came much easier to me in grad school (I have a Master of Science- took graduate chemistry- hardest B+ of my life) but it is definitely not painless.

I'm considering a 1-year certificate program for sustainable agriculture at Michigan State, but most students out of the program start their own small farms or work for community gardens. I'll never be able to start my own farm (landless peasant that I am), and jobs with an urban ag non-profit could be a tough row to hoe. I'll be 41 when I finish that certificate. I'm not so much the scrapper I used to be. And my inability to multi-task may not be such a good fit, either.

My husband thinks we should work towards buying and running a B&B. It does fit with a lot of my skills, but I'm not a natural extrovert; I have to work very hard at it, and afterward I need a lot of recuperation time. And, I don't have a competitive or entrepreneurial bone in my body- not an indicator for success in the wonderful world of capitalism. I think money lessens the value of everything it touches. I don't want to get in touch with my inner capitalist. I'd much rather get in touch with my inner socialist.

I don't want to be rich or famous.

I want to work in a pretty place, or at least have access to daylight and fresh air every day.

I've always wanted to be a noted expert on some small, esoteric thing that's really important to a handful of people.

Sometimes I think the most important thing is just growing really great tomatoes every summer.

I'm sure I must have a true calling, but it's probably in a field that has never occurred to me. And with my luck, it's in a place I can't move to, or in a time that doesn't exist anymore.

Sometimes I think I'd be best suited to life on a well-run intentional community (is that an oxymoron?) But that kind of life would definitely not suit my husband. Besides, living in an intentional community isn’t an avocation or a career.

Oh jeepers. I'm in such a muddle.

Funemployment update

(That's me, in the middle)
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What I did on my week-long funemployment vacation: made casseroles in the middle of the day, almost finished some unfinished knit projects, spun yarn from the roving stash, started seedlings, got a pretty good head start on spring cleaning.

And I worried, lots.

On bright side, my skin looks great! Work stress always shows up in my skin, but no work = no work stress. Weirdly, unemployment stress doesn't seem to count. Who knew?

I think I know what I want to do next. Michigan State University offers a 2-year certificate in sustainable agriculture.

But yeah, I'm worried. I'm worried that a 2-year certificate (that's as much as the state will help pay for) is not going to be enough education, even though I already have a (now useless) Masters of Science in my former field. I've looked online at job listings in the emerging urban ag field- most of the interesting jobs seem to require 4-year undergrad degrees. I already did the 4-year thing a long time ago. Besides, I just finished paying off my student debt last year, and the thought of a brand new pile of indentured servitude at age 40 completely fills me with dread. It's called trickle-down economics these days, but it used to be called Feudalism. But I digress.

I also worry I'm too old for a second career in such a physically demanding field; I have really terrible knees and a bad neck. Small women are surely at a disadvantage in a field that requires physical strength. I can lift about 40 pounds if you need me to move it somewhere, but it's a struggle. I fear I'll be eating extra strength Tylenol for breakfast, lunch and dinner the rest of my working life.

I'm attending an organic food and farming conference this weekend in Lansing, called MOFFA. Maybe I'll find some answers soon, or at least a better idea of what I'm getting into.

And then there's the small matter of land. I was telling the wife of my favorite farmer about my possible new career path on Saturday at the farmer's market; I told her that my dream job was to become the head gardener for a local and seasonal restaurant. And she plainly (and kindly) asked, "And you'll grow the food, where?" It was rather startling to hear, but was a point well taken. Her one little question is all I've thought about all weekend. After all, I come from a long line of lifelong, landless apartment dwellers with no money. So I'll be a landless, itinerant peasant gardener with permanent knee and neck pain, hooray! Think my new field comes with a good dental plan?