Chef's Table - Pasta, Dealing with Worry, and sigh navigating fandom anti-shipping

[shadowkat]

Discovered this lovely show "The Chef's Table" Pasta. Except for one thing - once again it seems to emphasize our media's obsession at being the best at something? We really do live in a meritocracy and I think it's damaging to folks mental health.

Just find things that you enjoy about what you do - you don't have to be the best at it.

I remember years ago, someone told me a story about a bunch of national merit scholars who had all tested as the top of their classes or groups for the National Merit Scholar Award. Then they came together only to discover that whoa, they weren't the best. There were at least 500 people who tested as well as they did.

And the storyteller went on to tell the group, that the scholars took the next test, and whoops, they weren't the best. And they didn't know how to handle this. What would they do? How could they cope?

The person telling the story said that there is always going to be someone who is better at it, eventually. The baseball player who has the perfect average one year will be beat by someone else the next.

The Chef's Table Series is interesting though? The first episode was about a man who was lost. His parents had raised him - with the view that he could do whatever he wanted, but he'd better do it really well and be the best that he could be at it. His brother had taught himself to play 13 different instruments by the age of 16, and his sister had an amazing singing voice. But he couldn't find anything that he could do well (most people can't), until he realized he was good at cooking and went to culinary school - but got frustrated when he got a job at a hotel - and the chef wouldn't teach him to make pasta. So he went to Italy and fell in love with pasta making, after many stops and starts, he's gone on to run a top tier restaurant in Beverly Hills, where he honors the women who taught him to make various forms of pasta, featuring each woman in the episode.

He states at the end of the episode that he realized he was meant to make pasta.

It's lovely, but I'm reminded of something? In our society, I think, folks become obsessed with defining themselves by what they do, but that's not who we actually are? Nor is it necessarily all that we are meant to do?

The chef believes he was meant to make pasta and to make the perfect pasta.
But really what stands out in the episode isn't that? It's the connections he makes along the way, the people he has helped, and what he's learned from them. Alessandra who adores him - and he features in the episode, and who taught him in Bologona, Italy how to make pasta with joy and love.
The restauranteur in Chicago, who teaches him how to grow employees and support them with love and good will. What's lovely about the episode is not the pasta, but the connections between the people and how they work together to make it. He doesn't make it by himself, he makes it with others and learns through others. And then he honors the women who taught him in Italy.

I realized at the end of the episode that he was lead to make pasta not to make pasta, but to connect with those people and learn from them as they learned from him. The pasta was just the ...string that tied them together or the catalyst that sent him on the journey. Important yes. But not the main ingredient.

Also, food made with love like all things...is far more nourishing even to those who create it, I think.


***

Headspace app gave me an exercise to deal with my anxiety and worry. Set aside a time each day to worry. Write in a journal about or talk about or think over your worries at that time only. No other time. Then let it go.

So this morning, I did that. I put down all the things I was worrying over, and how I was resolving them, and the real situations. And it helped.
My anxiety decreased substantially.

I think sometimes the internet increases my worries. (Not Dreamwidth, other things on the internet. Or the news. Or my emails. Stuff like that. Actually DW correspondence list is rather calming.)

***

Why is it that no matter what fandom I enter - folks split into factions over characters? And there's always a group that just heavily anti-ships a character or pairing - usually one I like?

It's why I tend to stay away from fandoms for the most part. My tolerance for this sort of thing is relatively low?

I tend to follow the story thread. And if I realize that the story thread is featuring characters or pairings, I despise? I stop watching. I don't whine incessantly about it for years on end. Seriously life is too short?

Comments

[cactuswatcher]

Just find things that you enjoy about what you do - you don't have to be the best at it.

This is excellent advice. I would add that one should pay attention to things they're naturally good at more than what they themselves and the folks around them would wish them to be.

Growing up it was assumed I would go into engineering like my father and brother. I was good at science and math, so why not? I got into science classes in high school and discovered I absolutely loathed doing lab reports. I was fine on the facts, fine doing the experiments, but writing up the experiments was torture. The closest I ever got to "straight A's" in high school, I got one grade that wasn't an 'A' a 'C' in physics class, because of having problems writing up experiments. I was okay about it, till my father saw my grades and gave me the only negative comment he ever gave me about any of my grade cards: "You need to pull up your grade in physics." He was right and I did. But I knew from that moment on I wasn't that good at practical science or engineering, and I needed to look elsewhere, for something to work on in college. I had to take a science course in college, but I found one with no lab and easily got a great grade in it. It still took me almost my entire college career to realize what subject I should have been majoring in all along, because I'd picked something else I wished I was good at and was getting by. Asking Freshmen to pick a major is stupid.

I was reasonably good at standardized tests, I know they were a problem for you. At this stage in our lives we know that doing well on them is a useless skill once you've graduated from college for most folks, got into grad school, passed the bar or whatever for the rest of us. I didn't bother taking the test for the National Merit Scholar program. I was easily in the top 10% of my large high school class. But I knew damn well I wasn't in the top 1% or 2%. I wasn't going to be a semi-finalist, and I didn't know of any scholarship I might qualify for that I needed that test for. My girlfriend did take the test, ended up a finalist and did qualify for one of those weird "if you have green eyes and your father does blah-biddy-blah for work and your momma's good-lookin'" scholarships. She actually didn't needed to be the best of the best, just good and lucky enough.

I feel lucky I didn't go to a prestigious high school where there was pressure to make it into an "elite" college.

[shadowkat]

It appears the writing gave you issues? You could do the experiments just not do the write ups? Was it the mathematical formulas or the writing itself?

For me? I was good at writing things up, just had issues with the mathematical formulas, and the experiments. What kept me from Physics was the math. And biology? The dissection.

[cactuswatcher]

It was the writing, specifically that kind of writing. I hated writing "The purpose of this experiment was to ..." to someone who damn well knew what the experiment was for, hated making excuses for why the results weren't perfect, hated reciting conclusions that any fool could find in the text book. Even then I understood the importance of writing proposals for getting grants for scientific endeavors, and making clear elementary explanations of engineering proposals. Realizing I didn't have the mindset to do those things was good for everyone.

When I signed up for that science class in college (Astronomy that was mostly math and a little relevant physics) everyone else on my dorm floor was signing up for a beginning Physics course with a lab. After the first week of class everyone was telling me, "Oh, you should have signed up for Physics! It's so easy!" After the last week of class that semester and before final exams the same guys were all moaning, "Physics sucks!" I didn't have to take the final in Astronomy because I'd earned enough test points during the term. With all the math I don't know how the others would have done in Astronomy, but I sure had a good quiet laugh over not taking Physics again.

[shadowkat]

I adored the writing. My biology lab partner and I had an arrangement - she'd do the dissections, and I'd write up the lab books. I'd also draw bits of it, if required.

How'd you jump from Astronomy to Russian?

[cactuswatcher]

Astronomy was taking care of a general science requirement. My major and my B.A. is in Psychology.

I knew I'd have to be able to read two foreign languages for a PhD and the Spanish I had in high school wasn't going to cut it. So I took German when starting college. I did well in it, so I decided to go ahead and take Russian *to raise my grade point average.* As the comedian says, I kid you not. It turned out my Russian instructors were excellent. I did very well. Though I wasn't a Russian major, I made friends quickly with the kids who were majors and made good friends with instructors over time, unlike in psych where I barely bothered to get to know anyone. It suddenly dawned on me when I was a senior "Oh, my god! These are my people! Why am I waiting for acceptance to grad school in psych? Psych is okay, but what do I really want to study?"

Nearly getting drafted for the Viet-Nam War was enough to make me write to the places I'd been accepted for grad school in psych and tell them politely "Thanks, but I'm not coming."

[shadowkat]

That's rare...to find something you love while busy with something that isn't working.

Multiple choice tests?

[shadowkat]

I should clarify my issues with multiple choice tests? The difficulty with the term dyslexia is folks throw all learning and/or cognitive challenges/disabilities under it, like a huge catch-all. This irritated the behavior psychologist that tested me.

I'm not dyslexic exactly? I may flip a few letters and numbers now and again, but my issue is actually more spatial. The psychologist called it a visual and audio coordination/spatial disorder. It's why I have difficulty driving, doing choreographed or coordinated dancing, learning languages, singing, playing a ball sport, playing the piano, guitar, playing certain video games, or doing activities that require spatial coordination either visually or auditory. (I can't juggle at all or catch a frisbee for example.)

Regarding multiple-choice tests?

It wasn't the multiple-choice test in-of-itself that was the problem but how the educators set up the tests in the 20th century before it was entirely computerized (now you just read the question and select the correct answer below it, no transposition required) or the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1991 (and reasonable accommodations had to be provided once diagnosed).

I don't know if you remember this? But in the 70s-90s they used to have one sheet that was the test, then used an entirely separate test booklet or computer sheet for the answers. In the ideal situation it was a computer sheet that you were asked to transpose your answers to. You just had to transpose the answers to the separate computerized sheet. This in itself was difficult enough for me to do. But more often than not - they'd be using left over computer sheets, and repurposing them, or even little booklets, and ask the students to "number the questions" on this separate sheet of paper themselves on the booklet or worse, "renumber the numbers" on the computer answer sheet. Sometimes, you'd have to use up to a certain number on one side of the computer sheet and turn it over for the next set of numbers for your answers.

Which would work fine and dandy, except if you have any sort of visual spatial coordination issues. This isn't the same thing as dyslexia. Without my knowledge - my mind often skips over things. It may be a word, a symbol, a number, and it's often more numbers or symbols than words. Since I don't usually know this is happening, it's often hard to compensate for it. I've developed tricks over time - but they do take time.

Example?

Question 5: What was the learning disability sk listed in the above paragraph, that she has?

a. spatial coordination issue
b. dyslexia
c. dyscalcia
d. other

I go to number the questions...

1.
2.
3.
4.
6. a
7.

Or worse?

I'll number the questions correctly but put in the answers incorrectly?

For example? I know the answer is "a" for question 5. But I'd transpose answer "a" under number "6", or number "7", and skip over number 3, or I may put "a" under 4 and 5, skipping over the answer for question 4. And be completely unaware that I've done it.

This was before the ADA was passed in the 1990s. And all I could do is figure out a few key compensation techniques. I would double check my answers against the test (problematic if it is timed because it adds anywhere from five to twenty minutes to my answer time) or use a ruler. If I couldn't bring in a ruler - I'd use the edge of a piece of paper. And always try to give myself twenty minutes at the end to double check the answers. This was obviously problematic and stressful.

Imagine having to do all of that for 20 or more questions? The SATs and LSATs were a nightmare. On the LSAT's - I had to erase all the answers for about 30 questions and go back and refill them all in correctly. I had skipped over just one number, just one, and had to erase and re-fill in about twenty or thirty questions, because they were all off. I only discovered it because I happened to glance down at the answer sheet, and noticed I'd somehow skipped over question 20, and then went to check the ones after it and every answer was off, the answer to question 21 was actually the answer to question 20 and so on. I panicked and went back to check everything and took an additional 30 minutes to do just that, running out of time. It's not because I didn't know the answers, I did. It's because I couldn't correctly transpose the answers to the computerized sheet of paper through no fault of my own. Imagine doing that on every single multiple choice you have to take - and imagine if you will, not knowing for a while that you were doing it? Or why? And the stigma attached to it by educators?

If they were testing my skills in spatially transposing answers to another piece of paper correctly, renumbering, or putting them in the right computer circle - then yes, the result would be valid. But it wasn't about that skill at all. And this was before the ADA, and the psychologists in the 70s and 80s only could diagnose straight up dyslexia but spatial coordination issues were beyond them.

I'd flunk tests that I knew all the answers to and should have gotten an A, just because I didn't realize I was transposing the answers incorrectly on that piece of paper. For years, I thought I was going crazy until I went to college and other people began to figure it out.

The structure of the multiple choice tests back then was discriminatory. They weren't accurately testing my knowledge of the material. Worse, the tests gave people without this spatial disability an unfair advantage. I learned that in law school, finally.

I've learned to triple check everything when counting or transposing - which requires more time and breaks. If someone gives me an assignment with spreadsheets or counting or anything dealing with the transposition of information? I ask for additional time, or do it immediately, I don't procrastinate. Sometimes I even have someone else check it over - if the numbers are off somehow.

The reasonable accommodation for this was rather simple. For the bar exam, they allowed the individual with the disability to circle the answers on the actual test itself - and did not force them to answer it or transpose the answers on a separate sheet of paper or computer sheet. Then they would have someone else transpose it to the computer sheet for them. In today's world - it's no longer really a problem since everyone answers the questions on the computer itself one by one, and there's no transposition involved. And if someone has problems seeing the screen or answering the questions on the screen for whatever reason, under the ADA, they are provided with reasonable accomodation.

Re: Multiple choice tests?

[cactuswatcher]

The psychologist called it a visual and audio coordination/spatial disorder.

I'm sorry, but as someone who studied psychology, and knows a little about hard science, I had to laugh at this. I know why the psychologist didn't want to use 'dyslexia' to mean a broad range of problems. But they came up with a six word term that is just and vague and useless as the word 'dyslexia,' which at least most people understand can be a serious problem.

Your problem is nothing like the problem I call my mild dyslexia. But both are neatly covered by a 'visual and audio coordination/spatial disorder,' and so are a myriad of other conditions not close to your problems and mine including genuine serious dyslexia. The best I can say is that I am very happy that you were able to get the assistance you needed. It's unfortunate that you needed ADA, but it's great that it was there for you.

My problems are mostly with the mechanics of writing. I'll leave out words and syllables, and if I go back and reread what I've written, I'll often read it as if I'd done it correctly. All through school, people told me it happens to everyone. So does your problem with skipping a question and writing the answer in the wrong place on the answer sheet. It's happened to me. But never to the extent that it's happened to you... What I didn't know was that my leaving out words and syllables in writing was unusually frequent, until one of my Russian professors joked about it in a friendly conversation. It's not like I was failing her classes, but it was a shock to realize, it was not simply what happens to everyone. My problem was never a pass/fail sort of problem like yours. But I wonder about all the times I was called sloppy by teachers, when it just wasn't my fault.

Re: Multiple choice tests?

[shadowkat]

A former college friend, who was also dyslexic or had similar issues told a couple of friends who were doing a research study - that she could not explain what it was like to be dyslexic or how she saw things. To her - it was normal or ordinary. It's just how she perceived the world. It was how she thought.

"I can't explain to you what I see - it's normal to me."

She's right. I've always remembered that conversation.

[elisi]

Just find things that you enjoy about what you do - you don't have to be the best at it.
I think you would love The Repair Shop (although you may already be familiar?). I'm not sure if it's available for you on any platform, but if so, seek it out.

[shadowkat]

Thanks, I'll look into it. Although I admittedly have a special weakness for cooking demonstrations.

[elisi]

Alas, no cooking! This is the premise:

Some of Britain's most skilled restoration experts breathe new life into much-cherished family heirlooms that are dropped off by members of the public, who reveal the personal stories behind the items.

It's just the loveliest thing imaginable, the most comforting of comfort viewing. And watching things being restored is wonderful, the experts produce what seems like miracles.

[shadowkat]

I'll look out for it. Thank you so much for the recommendation.