Hell Week

Soooo it's safe to say that I'm back. "Back where?", you must be wondering. Well, to the world, really, since we just completed our Hell Week, five straight days of extremely tiring restaurant simulation. I think I might have just gotten about less than 30 hours of sleep during Hell Week, and my energy level bar still has to be filled up, but that experience, no matter how tiring, will definitely come down as one of the best and most fulfilling things I've ever done.

Day 1: Mise en place for the whole week

 

Day 2: Breakfast & Lunch 

Time of arrival in school - 3 AM (the last 2 to arrive are made dishwashers)

Karina & I were the breakfast servers (we were so tense that one of our chefs took us to a corner, literally shook us and made us jump up & down)

Day 3 : Lunch & Alumni Dinner

Day 4: Mestizo-themed Degustation

I was assigned to do the appetizer, so I decided to make kinilaw (which would have failed terribly without the help of Chef Elaine and those last minute corrections my classmates helped me with). Here I am opening the dinner and introducing my dish (and uyyyy ning katawa sila sa akong joke! Haha):

After the degustation was also the only time we were allowed to get out of our school in our jackets and shoes:

But before the night ended... I still had to wash the dishes since I was one of the last to arrive:

Day 5 was spent using the leftovers for brunch will all the AICA chefs & staff. It was also the last meal we would ever spend in school together since we're doing our OJTs next already. We then had to hose down the whole kitchen - and I mean WHOLE kitchen, from dismantling the ovens to the exhaust ducts - where I got a huge cut on my finger.

Hell Week may have been one of the most draining weeks of our lives, where tempers flared & hands were chapped from all the scrubbing, but I'm pretty sure that all of us would be willing to do it all over again (minus the dish washing part, of course).