译者：smile

原文：http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/family/sc-fam-1231-reinvent-20091231,0,3030681.story

As a teenager, Lubni "Lu" Cazeau swore she would never waste time sweating away in a kitchen.

作为一个少年，Lubni “Lu”Cazeau发誓她将不再把时间浪费在在厨房挥洒汗水上。

"I'd see my stepmom come home from a hard day of work and have to turn around and make dinner," Cazeau says. "I thought, 'I would never do that.' I wanted to be a new age woman."Then I went to college," she recalls. "And started to starve."

“我常看到继母从一天艰辛的工作回家后又不得为做晚饭忙个不停” Cazeau说“我不愿那样做，我要成为新时代的女性。”她回忆说“接着我上了大学，（独立生活也使得我）开始挨饿。”

Cazeau bought a couple of cookbooks and some pots and pans. Experimental dishes here and there turned into frequent culinary masterpieces for grateful friends. A hobby — and a future chef — was born.

于是Cazeau买了一些烹饪书和一些炊具。小试身手的便饭竞逐渐成为了答谢朋友们的大餐。一个爱好——来日的厨师——产生了。

College is a career builder, to be sure, but it's also the place where many of us first hear our inner voice, the one that tells us our likes and dislikes, our strengths and our shortfalls — surprising as they may be.

大学确实是事业的建筑工厂，同时也是我们很多人第一次听到我们内心声音的地方。它告诉我们我们的喜恶，我们的强势与弱点——这些都如同它看似的令人吃惊。

And this time of year, with new calendars freshly hung and resolutions freshly penned, it's tempting to reconnect with that voice to reinvent ourselves and our outlook.

每年的这个时候，随着新的日历挂起，新的决心写出，重塑自我和前景的心声呼之欲出。

"When you take learning seriously, whatever the subject matter is, if you're taking it to heart as many adult learners do, it becomes a part of who you are," says John Dirkx, professor of higher, adult and lifelong education at Michigan State University. "It becomes a medium through which you understand yourself and your place in the world more deeply."

John Dirkx 一个在密歇根洲立大学的成教学院的教授说；“当你认真地对待学习时，无论为为学的是什么，如果你像很多成教学生一样用心求知，求知的精神就会丰富你的自己身。它是一个中介，通过它，你会更深刻地理解你自己以及你在世界上所处的位置。”

During her first stint at college, Cazeau earned a marketing degree and went to work as an advertising sales coordinator in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But she couldn't quite shake the feeling that her future was elsewhere. So with her 30th birthday fast approaching, Cazeau went back to college.

在大学的第一个学期，Cazeau取得了一个市场营销学位并业以一个广告销售协调员的身份在佛罗里达州的Fort Lauderdale,工作。但她仍然坚信自己的未来在别处。所以，在她的30岁生日即将到来之际，她又回到了大学。

This time, college was Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Miami to earn an associate of science in culinary arts.

这次，她上的麦阿密Le Cordon Bleu烹饪艺术学校，想获得在烹饪艺术方面的大专学位。

And this time was different."Without a car, I put myself through culinary school," she says. "I worked from 8 to 5:30 and went to school from 6 to midnight, five days a week. … I took the bus, I begged my classmates to take me home."

“ 这次是不同的。”她说“没有小汽车，我让自己投身于烹饪学校。我从八点工作到晚上五点三十分，而后从晚六点再返回到学校学习到半夜，一周要上五天。我平时坐公车，（如果没有公车了）就求同学载我回家。”

And that's how she knew she had made the right decision. "I knew this was something I was doing for me. It wasn't a degree I was getting for my parents or because it was the right thing to do," she says. "I remember how it would be so painstaking to get up in the morning to do the same mundane task over and over, versus when you love what you do, it doesn't feel like a job."

正因为如此，她知道自己做了正确的决定。“我知道这是我在为我自己做的事。我获得这个学位并不是为了我父母或者学位本身”她说：“我记得自己是怎么地每天不辞辛劳地早起来一遍一遍地做同样的平凡的工作，因为当你喜爱你自己做的事的时候，它就不再感觉像一份工作。”

Of course, a return to school doesn't have to mean a change in careers; it can offer a new worldview, a new skill set or simply a new group of peers. It can take place in a bricks-and-mortar campus setting or a much less traditional venue.

当然，回到学校不必意味着事业的改变，它可以提供你一个新的世界观，一种新的技能或只是一群新的合作伙伴。它可能发生在一个真实校园亦或一个非传统的领域。

The National Zoo in Washington, D.C., for example, collaboratively with George Mason University, offers undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs in such areas as effective conservation leadership and species monitoring. Much of the learning takes place at the zoo's Conservation & Research Center (CRC) campus in Front Royal, Va., where students may encounter a black-footed ferret, the most endangered mammal in the U.S., among countless other species.

例如，华盛顿国家动物园协同乔治梅森大学在自然资源保护和物种检测领域提供本科，研究生和认证学位项目。在“皇室前沿”的动物保护和研究中心的大学校园时可以学到好多东西，同时在那，在数不尽的其它物种中，学生可以见到美国濒临灭绝的哺乳动物，黑足的雪貂。

"It's not just a classroom experience, it's a hands-on experience," says Kate Christen, graduate/professional training specialist at the zoo. "And because practitioners come to our courses from all over the place, you leave with a connection to the CRC, but also to people you meet from all over the world."

“这不仅是课本上的知识，也是实地体验”凯特．克里斯丁，一个动物园里的专业训练专家说：“因为来学习我们的课程的人来自己各地，所以你毕业时你的关系网不仅囊括了动物保护和研究中心，也囊括了来自各地的其他同行。“

From esteemed four-year universities to local community colleges, from Asian classics to patisserie and baking, a return to school can take on many forms. The key is to embark on the endeavor with an open mind.

从令人羡慕的四年的大学到地方上的社区大学，从亚洲的古典到法式糕点和烤饼，回到学校可以选择很多形式。关键在于要用开放的思想尽力去做。

"Most people enter a program with really explicit goals," says Dirkx, "and one or two years into it they learn so much more about not only the possibilities out there, but about themselves and what excites them and doesn't excite them. "It becomes a search for identity," he says. "Some of it's explicit, but a lot of it is implicit. It gradually bubbles to the surface over time and becomes a fundamental shift in one's consciousness."

“大多数人是带着明确的目标来入学的，”Dirkx说“一两年后，他们不但会认识到实现目标的各种可能性，也能知道哪种方式适合自己，哪种不适合自己。”他还说：“它成为了一个个性的收寻，其中一些是明确的，而另一些是不明确的。它随时间的流逝而涌出水面并成为人们意识中的人基本的转变。

For Cazeau, who graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in April 2008 and now works as a line cook at Gansevoort South resort in Miami Beach, Fla., that meant shifting her view on both cooking and marketing, and discovering what makes her tick in the process.

对于在2008年四月从Le Cordon Bleu 毕业，现在在麦阿密海滩度假圣地的Gansevoort South做一名主厨的Cazeau来说，那意味着她对于烹饪和市场的观点的转变，同时在这个过程中找到了自己的位置。

"In marketing you take a concept and put it out there in a way that will make the customer happy," she says. "It's the same thing with cooking. You put your own twist and flavor on something and present it so it's beautiful and eye-catching. In the end, it's the sensation of making someone happy that I like.

“市场中，你接受一个理论并把它以一种让顾客满意的方式运用出来，”她说“烹饪也是一样：你把你自己的意思和香料一起加之于某种东西上呈现出来，为了它变得美丽而且吸引眼球。最后，它就成了使我喜欢的人高兴的那份感动！”

"You have to look at it that you're not necessarily flipping your life upside down," she says of the decision to return to school. "You're just taking everything you've already learned and adding that to something new. You're re-creating your life, and you're re-creating it to make yourself happy."

“你必须确定你没有必要打乱自己的生活”当她说及重返校园时，她说：“你只是在你已经学到的东西上加上一些新的。你正在重新创造你的生活，你重塑它是为了使你自己高兴！”

大学, 烹饪, 励志

238 天前 by 驿路 共有 546 人浏览