Hasta La Gadget!

I came to New York City straight from college, eager to become someone new. A career in fashion consulting seemed so glitzy then; everyday, I pored over clothes, makeup, parties. I thought once I perfected each part, I would finally have the glamorous life I so desperately wanted.

A year later, my life was perfect – at least, according to Facebook. I was on track to a promotion and raise at work, owned expensive clothes I couldn’t afford, and had just been accepted early-decision as one of the youngest candidates to Columbia Business School. I may have feigned smug satisfaction, but inside I was miserable. I was too embarrassed to admit I wasn’t the person I aspired to be and terrified what a change would mean for my façade as a self-important fashionista. But on my 21st birthday, I decided it was now or never. The decision itself wasn’t completely courageous: I had my admissions letter as a safety net and I was deliriously confident I’d be returning to a well-salaried path post-MBA. Why not take the next year to enjoy culinary school as a “creative sabbatical”? What else did I have to look forward to after that besides decades of PowerPoints and corporate politicking? I threw caution to the winds; I breezed through my school tour and put my entire savings down as a deposit. Maybe I can’t choose my future, I thought, but I would take this year as my own.

I definitely did not anticipate culinary school completely changing my life.

School was…an adjustment. Most of my classmates were older, career-switchers with backgrounds far different from mine. My struggle to relate to them, however, paled in comparison to my difficulty working with them. I was historically a terrible team player and avid micro-manager. Yet instead of ostracizing me, my classmates accepted my shortcomings and supported me regardless. When I leered over my peers assigned to cooking sweetbreads or slicing chives to make sure “everything was okay”, they indulged me with a laugh and gently shooed away my concerns. When I broke a bottle of expensive oil or burned our mandonlined apples, my classmates hurried over to help without hesitation or finger pointing. It eventually dawned on me…my classmates cared about me. Not my resume, not my lambskin handbags, not my impressive ability to use “vis a vis” in regular conversation – just me.

This type of friendship was completely foreign to me. I began to appreciate characteristics of my classmates I never even noticed or considered before. Cliché words like generosity, loyalty, and open-mindedness took on new meaning. And just as I began to realize what qualities were actually important in others, I began to see new possibilities for my own future. There was another option besides the narrow definition of success I’d followed for years. Perhaps it was not as well defined or as well regarded by society at large, but my transitional time in culinary school helped me I realize personal happiness does not come from external approval – but from internal courage.

I left Columbia after one semester to start my journey in food. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. For years I could hear the voices of my peers, former coworkers and fake friends in my sleep, whispering, “Here I thought she was going to be someone important.” What I thought would be a triumphant charge against the status quo turned into a deeply humbling realization I was starting over. It was an uphill battle to find the right type of job – I felt I fit in nowhere. I resolved to forget the titles, the pay, the hours and focus on learning. I was a barista, a sales consultant, a recipe tester, a kitchen cook, a social media intern, among others. I explored facets of the industry I didn’t realize even existed. My last salaried role was at Le Pain Quotidien, where I was involved with the entire menu development process, from R&D to launch, across multiple countries. From there, I managed to have my food published in magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and land a few appearances on Food Network and Oxygen Network; I also started my own LLC – a culinary consulting practice. In two short years I’ve brought in 10+ clients, many of them repeats, and am now at a point where most new clients are referrals and my work can comfortably sustain my lifestyle. I could never have done any of this without first going on my bizarre path of odd jobs and manual labor.

My yearning for culinary creativity also prompted me to start my own underground restaurant, I Forgot It’s Wednesday. My idea was to host a group of like-minded individuals around good food & drink and enable them to connect on a deeper level. I was terrified the concept would flop and no one would come; for a while no one did. Filling 12 seats each dinner took all the humility and perseverance I had learned on this journey, if not more. But for all the “no’s” I heard from the press and nonchalant disregard from the many I prospected, there were gems: loyal guests who became champions of the brand. Once again, I found my real friends, the ones who cared about my small business before 7×7 named it the #1 Supperclub in SF or Business Insider mentioned it in their Top 10 list. Those are the people that made all those nights washing dishes at 2am worthwhile. I Forgot It’s Wednesday has grown into a part of my personal narrative, and in the most trying of ways it has shown me failure is simply the beginnings of success.

My culinary school classmates cooked alongside me at the 1st IFIW popup! Photo by BK Narayanan.

Culinary school changed my perspective on what fulfillment and happiness really means and opened my mind to possibilities I never dreamed possible. But I still have so much to learn and many more ways I can fail, rise, and start over again. My sincerest wish is a desire to grow next year, and every year after, as earnestly as I have the last four.

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Exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollution is linked to the premature deaths of about 6.5 million people every year, according to new International Energy Agency cautionary report this week. That makes it the fourth-largest threat to human health after high blood pressure, dietary risks and smoking.

And the number of deaths attributed to poor air quality is set to only rise in the coming decades, said the Paris-based energy security group — unless swift international action is taken to tackle this crisis.

“Clean air is vital for good health. Yet despite growing recognition of this imperative, the problem of air pollution is far from solved in many countries, and the global health impacts risk intensifying in the decades to come,” the report said.

The IEA warned that while premature deaths due to household air pollution should fall to 2.9 million a year from 3.5 million by 2040, outdoor air pollution-related deaths could rise from 3 million to 4.5 million annually in that time.

Asia will account for almost 90 percent of this increase, the report said.

The outlook may be dire, but the IEA stressed that this prediction is not a foregone conclusion.

Millions of lives could be saved if a concerted global effort to invest in cleaner energy and emissions controls is undertaken, the agency said.

Unregulated or inefficient production and use of energy is currently the single most important man-made source of air pollutant emissions, the IEA said. Eighty-five percent of hazardous particulate matter, for instance, comes from energy industry. Particulate matter, which can contain acids, metals, soil and dust particles, have been linked to lung cancer, strokes and heart disease, among other ill effects. 

Governments worldwide need to adopt new energy and air quality policies, such as improving access to clean cooking oil and strictly enforcing emissions standards for road transportation, the IEA said. A collective long-term air quality goal and regulations to monitor and enforce it are also necessary.

The agency said these efforts would require an increase in total energy investment by 7 percent, or about $4.7 trillion, through 2040. This may cut air pollution-related deaths by more than 3 million a year.

That additional investment amount is “completely peanuts” for the impact it would have, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told reporters in London this week. 

“Clean air is a basic human right that most of the world’s population lacks,” Birol said. “We need to revise our approach to energy development so that communities are not forced to sacrifice clean air in return for economic growth.”

Read the entire IEA report here. 

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Geeks with a penchant for the original Star Trek series with Kirk and Spock who carry a smartphone that has Bluetooth connectivity might as well get out their wallets. ThinkGeek has a very cool new product called the Star Trek: TOS Bluetooth Communicator. Just as the name implies, the communicator has Bluetooth connectivity to sync with your smartphone and allow … Continue reading

Google vowed to spend $150 million in 2015 to diversify its workforce, and the company did hire more women, Black and Hispanic employees last year. Unfortunately, its efforts aren’t enough to cause a big shift — the company is still overwhelmingly w…

While developers have spent a lot of money and effort in creating music for their games, there are some gamers who ultimately prefer listening to their own music for whatever reason. Now oddly enough the Xbox One does not have such a feature, despite the fact that the console has been around for about 2.5 years now.

The good news is that gamers who do love listening to their own music will be able to do so come 2nd of August. Just the other day Microsoft confirmed that the Windows 10 Anniversary update would be arriving on the 2nd of August and while it was more of a Windows announcement, they also revealed that support for background music would finally be arriving on the Xbox One.

The information appeared to be buried towards the end of the post. According to Microsoft, “Top fan requested features for Xbox One, such as Language Region Independence (allowing gamers to choose any supported language, regardless of their location) and support for background music, will come with the Anniversary Update.”

This is more or less in line with what Microsoft stated during E3, which is that the feature would be arriving over the summer. This feature will finally allow the Xbox One to put itself on par with the PS4 who already offered music support in a partnership with Spotify last year.

Background Music Support For Xbox One Coming 2nd August , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.