Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Swedish chef

I think my love affair with Milan is ending. We've had a great run, made amazing memories together and fallen in love over the years. Recently however, upon returning to Milan after skiing in the Swiss alps with my mother and sister, I realized that I might be moving on from my relationship with Milan. We just seem to be growing apart from one another.
In the past few months I have applied to a number of PhD programs in the USA and Canada. After a slew of rejections (I received my last rejection letter about 2 months ago) things have been suspiciously quiet on the PhD application front. This has given me plenty of time to make myself crazy with all the "what ifs?" that are swirling around in my head. So what if I'm not accepted anywhere? At this point I've already given my 3 months notice to my landlord and we've even found new renters; expected to move in the first week of June. Will I stay in Milan, even if my head and heart have already moved on? Or should I move closer to my family in New York, even though I don't have anything solid lined up there? Believe me, it's not an easy desicion.
I've recently been toying with the idea of changing careers (please don't tell my mom, she'll kill me). Yes being an engineer is rewarding and I love the work I do but there are other options and I have other passions which I might find just as much pleasure pursuing professionally. For example, I might want to try my hand at being a pastry chef. Baking has been a hobby of mine for a long time, and with positive feedback from friends and colleagues I've been motivated to consider this as an alternative to chemical engineering... I mean afterall, they are really similar: selection and preparation of just the right ingredients, mixing components in precise quantities, heating to a specific temperature for just the right amount of time to permit a chemical reaction to occur, and ensuring the final product comes out just right.
Who knows, I might be the next Swedish chef!

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I'm a 26 year old Swedish-American half breed living in Milan. Born in Ă–stersund, Sweden, raised in Manhattan and moved on to live in Montreal, Gothenburg, Milan, and have come full circle back to NYC. I've got an amazing family I'm very close with(even though we always seem to be spread across 3 different continents) and the best friends anyone could ask for.