The more your knives, the better your pastries? Orientation day & takeaways.

A play of a similar title of the book that I had read in preparation for pastry school in Paris but those were exactly the first words that came to mind when I saw these:

Yesterday was the first day at school but before I share about Orientation day, I just have to show you the latest tools of the trade for pastry chefs:

No, the Kitchen Aid mixer doesn't fit into this bag but I know, it looks as though I was taking Firearms & Weapons program instead of Pastry. Looks extremely hard-core. Take a peek at what's inside:

I'm not so certain if us pastry students would ever use all these knives in class but then again, a cleaver does come in handy for chopping large amount of nuts. They are Wüsthofs, more to add to our collection back home.

I was relieved to see something more "familiar" - is that the whisk I'll be using to whisk up my meringues in the next few months? I am looking forward to show off toned arms at the end of the program.

Now that I've shared the most perplexing part of yesterday, we can move on to the actual Orientation session itself. Suffice to say that I was so excited that I probably had only 4 hours' worth of real sleep the night before (the thing about daylight savings here in Europe is that it doesn't get dark until past 10pm, which messes up my sleeping habits), changed my clothes at least 3 times before heading out the door and arrived at the school almost 45 minutes early! I was ready, both mentally and physically, and was absolutely eager to start. The orientation session took almost 6 hours, beginning with light breakfast and a meet-greet session at Jardin d'Hiver - their Winter Garden, which was actually a bright, open room no larger than a basketball court. I met 3 other Californians in the first 15 minutes. It must've been the way we said "hello", or the speed at which we had filled up the questionnaires, then sat around checking our iPhones for mails or text messages, or perhaps, as I'd like to imagine, our golden-tanned skins. Whatever it was, I was simply tickled that the first 3 students I met were all from the sunny state back home!
After breakfast, we reconvened at the demonstration theatre on the rez de chaussee (learnt another new word) for the introduction & briefing session, a room which barely fit all of us - 80 students starting either Basic Pastry or Basic Cuisine or both, representing well over 35 nations, we were told. I suspect that they must have counted California as a separate nation. We were introduced to the academic team, admissions team, several Chefs, including a Chef de Pâtisserie and even the Reception team, followed by a round-table self-intro session for the students. I was impressed by the amount of students who spoke French, or at least, attempted to make the introductions en français - all 99% us! The Academic Director took the stage and talked most of the time; a serious-looking gentleman whom us Californians thought looked very familiar. We might have seen him in some Hollywood movies, you know, the one who plays all the bad-guy roles? He fired away the rules and regulations in rapid French. The translator translated in English. He emphasized on rules and regulations, Ms. Translator interpreted. He repeated the rules and regulations in French, she in English. After about an hour of repeat reminders...."nos réglements concernant les absences et les retards sont stricts......", we could probably repeat it in French in our sleep.
After a brief tour of the school - the second time I toured the premise as D and I visited the school last week, we had lunch break where I got to meet and mingle with more students. In general, the student population this semester is young, only a handful of us thirty-somethings, a couple middle-agers, including a fairly matured lady (read: grandmother). The group is very international, fairly diverse except that I could not even find a single French student amongst us, which reaffirms what I've read about the school being reputed as "the school for tourists and the rich". Whilst most French families prefer to send their kids to culinary schools other than this one, I still hold very high regard for its long-standing reputation and confident that I've made the right choice.
The highlight of the day, apart from getting our utensils and trying out our brand new Chef's uniforms was the receipt of le planning. THE schedule. That was the most important item to everyone that I had spoken with yesterday. After all, everything else hinges upon le planning: weekend trips, vacations, more classes, other interesting things to see and do in France, or Europe for that matter, etc. I'm relieved to have that "structure" back in my life again. I took some time to pour through the schedules last night, updated my gCal, color-coded the demo vs. practical classes, read through the student manual (yes, more rules and regulations) and prepared my uniforms for the first class tomorrow. Here's one area where I think the school can get a little more advanced and make better use of technology; I miss the clarity, convenience and efficiency of online schedules, central repository for important notifications and ability to look up documents (and recipes) online. I will look out for their suggestion boxes, if there's such a thing here.
Since I'm only doing the regular pastry program, my schedule is rather relaxed with quite a lot of breaks in-between. Finals will be in mid-August,  graduation ceremony towards the end of August and lots of student events - organized field trips, soirees and dinners to keep us busy (and entertained!). This will be a great ride!

My hounds-tooth pantalons are way too long and need to be hemmed. Off to find a dry cleaners or seamstress that can do the job. A cloudy morning but still a wonderful day in Paris!