Potential

A lot of the negative feedback I've gotten over my plans to attend The Culinary Institute Of America are regarding my ability to succeed. This entails every aspect of those plans, from my ability to come up with the money, to my ability to get in, to my ability to live up to the rigor and standards of the acclaimed program, to my ability to get a job in the industry at which I will last at least a year. Admittedly, I would've agreed with some of these objections, and fairly recently at that. Building enough self confidence to put aside these concerns and forge ahead has been a complex and multifaceted process. Perhaps some of it is just that a sufficient amount of time has passed since the failure of my company that I've been able to sufficiently mentally recover. Mostly, I think I've had experiences in both the distant and recent past that have convinced me I have at least sufficient reason to suspect that I can overcome those obstacles. For months after my company failed, I had no hope within me that I could succeed at any endeavor significant merit. Attending CIA represents the first truly significant thing for which I've dared hope in six months. Despite the complete lack of potential my biological and stepparents see in this endeavor, I see it as something that, while certainly difficult, is worth doing.

On the question of whether I'll be able to get in, I'll admit that that hasn't been definitively answered yet. What I have going for me is my three years of experience owning a specialized unique dessert company through which I gained a fairly rare expertise on the subject of gelato and that I can articulate my passion for food so well because of my writing talent. CIA sees me as someone with something unique to bring to the program and they appreciate that I'm not like most of their applicants who write that they expect to become celebrity chefs and authors of bestselling cookbooks. Raising the money to pay for tuition is another question that has not yet been definitively answered and I covered the particulars in an earlier article titled Payment. What I can tell you is that my fundraising campaign at http://www.gofundme.com/n91zus has raised 100 in less than 48 hours, which is a nice confidence boost. Concerns over my ability to work at the pace and quality demanded at CIA are valid and I've thought about it a lot. Helpfully, I remember how I had to adjust to the pace and quality standards in Classical Desserts And Pastries class at NWACC and how I managed to improve enough that the chef instructor personally congratulated me on how much I'd grown. Besides, I will be rigorously training myself through the very textbook I'll have at CIA, just as I did with the candy making book.

Perhaps the most open question on offer is whether I'll be able to get a job afterwards. Although my plan is to become a paid consultant for my former company, for which I currently consult, it's always good to consider all my options. Say that consulting job doesn't work out for whatever reason. Could I get up early in the morning, make dozens of pastries, and do so at a quality level and pace sufficient to satisfy a professional dessert business? Well, I don't know if that's true or not at the moment, but I couldn't successfully make a basic birthday cake that looked professional before I took the cake decorating class either. While I can't make the complex decorated cake that professional bakeshops can, yet, I feel that is mostly because I have not been trained to do it or even really tried to do it. It's worth it to stop saying I can't do things because of autism. For years, I've been saying that and I'm tired of it. Can't sweep, can't mop, can't move faster, can't make a lemon meringue pie, can't, can't, can't, can't, can't. Isn't it time to say that, no, I haven't turned over every stone, haven't tried as hard as I can every which way I can, haven't gotten the best training I can, haven't pushed my body and mind as hard as I can, and haven't believed in myself the way all my friends can? No more can't. Let's see if I can.

-Frank