On Monday, 5/30, I got all moved in. The apartment is sweet and I love the kitchen! UNI's campus is beautiful. The pic above is their clock tower. On the lawn around the clock tower, they have all sorts of lounge chairs that are perfect for reading/chatting in the sun!
Tuesday, 5/31, was orientation and tour day. I met my supervisor Susan and she got me settled with the necessary paperwork and gave me a tour of all of campus and the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area. On our tour of campus, I got to visit a lot of departments that I will be working with for the next few weeks and met a lot of the staff as well.
Wednesday, 6/1, I started the Mastermind class "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" based off of John Maxwell's book. We were able to cover 3 laws this week: "the law of the lid (leadership ability determines a person's level of effectiveness), the law of influence (the true measure of leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less), and the law of process (leadership develops daily, not in a day)." I really like the class and the book and I know it will be very helpful in my own life.
I was also able to meet with Lisa, the Registered Dietitian on campus. She gave me a brief overview of FoodPro, the campus' do all food program. It's used for purchasing, inventory, forecasting, menus, etc. We also planned special diet menus for some groups that will be visiting this summer. A very important task that we did was taste test some dessert recipes the kitchen had prepared :) Aw shucks, I guess someone had to do it! Some of the recipes sampled were lemon poundcake, cherry almond cake, blackberry peach coffee cake, granola bars, etc.
Thursday, 6/2, I was actually in the test kitchen! The theme for the day was to test recipes that we would be able to be serve from the allergen friendly area of the dining hall Piazza. The recipes we tested were quinoa casserole, cuban style beans and rice, chicken and beans and rice (had a really nice kick from some chipotle), blackeye grits with tomato and bean salsa, and cream of reuben soup. It was really fun! Overall it was a success. People really liked the recipes and we got positive feedback.
Friday, 6/3, was the retreat for the Piazza student supervisors and management team. That was my first time meeting a lot of the other student workers and they were really cool. We did some icebreaker and team building activities. One of main goals of the retreat was to clean and prep Piazza dining hall for service this summer. We split into groups and made lunch for everyone. Piazza is split into different venues. Some examples are stackables (sandwiches), wok by request, serranos (pizza), sizzles (grill/griddle area), savories (homestyle cooking), bushels (salad, pasta, soup), and sweet talk. It was nice seeing how these areas get setup.
Weekend: I had a chance to explore the town further and do some touristy things. I am very impressed by the trail systems in the area and am very glad I brought my bike. I had a chance to spend a good portion of the day on Saturday at the Hartman Nature Reserve and the nature center. The area is beautiful and quite extensive.
Walking around Waterloo, there are some cool shops, restaurants, and museums. It was nice talking with people I met over the course of the week and getting some ideas of places to go, restaurants to try, trails to ride, and day trips to take on weekends. Everyone told me I HAD to try to Scratch Cupcakery, so I caved and sampled a treat from there. Below is a very delicious raspberry vanilla cupcake that did not last long! Checked out the Orchard Hill Church on Sunday, finished some work and enjoyed a nice bike ride.
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