a quick hallo to all my friends outside of NY

Dear Friends,

I intend to continue my blog because many ideas come to my mind and I would like to share them with you (and I have all this writing to do about the last part of my trip). The blog is also a wonderful way to keep in touch. I didn't put anything here for a while becase the time in transition was full of big and little things to do. This is just the jist of what was going on:

I enrolled into Pacific College of Oriental Medicine and started the fall semester two weeks ago. For the first time in my life I study something which totally engulfs me. Especially the foundations and fundamentals of Chinese medicine are mind-blowing knowledge (and I adore dr. Kuo who is lecturing on the subjects and who comes from Taiwan). What is interesting is that it is a very logical knowledge, very concrete, although it is rooted in sprit and the invisible workings of the universe which may seem not easy to grasp at times. When I had a subject called "Logic" in college in Poland it totally didn't make sense. "Logic" based on western philosophy most often doesn't make sense... to me... Now nobody talks about logic but all is perfectly logical. I also have anatomy and although it is a lot of material to memorize the book is written so well that it is a very interesting subject, indeed. It's called anatomy but really it's anatomy, physiology, biology and biochemisty in one. I also have taji chi to master the movement and the flow of energy and proscribe it to my patients in the future. So I go to school on Friday evenings and then on weekends. I work Tuesdays - Thursdays at Le Pain Quotidien (www.lepainquotidien.com) which is a bakery-cafe type restaurant founded by a Belgian chef. I work as a waitress to get some extra money for living expenses - I got the federal loan for school tuition and part of living expenses. Restaurant job is a good place to continue my unofficial antropological studies. The restaurant is located in the Soho area and it attracts a very varied clientele: true New Yorkers and tourists, European expatriates since it is a European-styled cafe, expatriates from other places. Some people come for a quick meal, some linger for hours with their laptops and books to read. I enjoy serving them all, and seeing what their relationship is to food and to me based on the cultures in which they were raised or live in. If there are any generalisations to be made, a restaurant can serve as a good place to see how a culture shapes its inhabitants. For example: to the people from the outside of the US I am "a waitress", to the people born and raised here I am "just a waitress." I believe this comes from the power people have, or think they have. The tipping system gives the customer the power, of either tipping or not tipping, or rather tipping or not tipping well. Where there's no tipping and the waiter gets a regular salary, no brown-nosing is needed, or required... ("where there's no tipping if I am nice to you, I am nice to you because I am a nice person, not because I count on a heafty tip"). The tipping system creates a certain insincerty... Also, the way the service is done in the US and anywhere else is totally different. Here you have to come every let's say 15 minutes, to check on the customer and ask if they are fine and if they need anything else or they will be offended that the waiter neglects them. Outside of US the waiter doesn't come to the table unless called or else the customer will feel harassed. In US the check is brought when the meal is done (to chase out the customer and make space for the next customer). Outside of US a check is never brought before a customer asks for it - one can sit at a table whole day if one wishes. So, thank God, I got this employee packet in which it is stated that waiters can use their judgement as to how to proceed when serving i.e. harras the ones who like to be harrased and leave in peace those who wish to be left in peace. I enjoy serving people and I never frown at their often difficult requests (Can I have the goat cheese salad witout the goat cheese?; Can I have the cappucino extra light, half regular coffee, half decafenated, some regular milk in the coffee and some creme on the side?) . Plain cappuccino gets a half-page description and if it is not done "just the right way" the customer is outraged... The cappuccino melodrama is typical of very elegant customers who emanate wealth and I believe it comes from the fact that there are no bigger problems than that in their life... One might say they are lucky, one might say they are not... depending on the perspective one has... The biggest problem at PQ are eggs i.e. egg mega melodrama: they are never made the right way i.e. they are either too soft, too runny, too hard, to watery on one side but not the other side... With the amount of eggs returned to the kitched and thrashed half of the hungry in the world could be fed (not to mention the bread and other food)... It hurts to see how much food is being wasted. City Harvest, a company which collects leftover food from restaurants for homeless people and in need of free food, is soupposed to come and collect all the unused and still fresh food but they rarely do it. I feel that you have to try very hard to be hungry in the US... as opposed to other places where there's war or a natural diseaster and there's just no food whatsoever. Here there's lots of food and it is not respected and so much is being wasted...

I am going back to anatomy and will be back shortly with other news and more NY melodrama.