Week 4 - Training, Bowling, and a Whole Lotta Macro Counting

Texas Tech University

Carolyn Greene

We've past the halfway mark, and I can't believe how quickly everything is passing!  I'm starting to think a little bit about my drive back home to Virginia, and it's just so crazy to think that I'll be driving cross country again in less than a month!  For now though, I'll try not to think too much about everything I need to do in the future, and focus on the present and the experiences I've been so fortunate to have since arriving here.

We had two different, short rotations last week.  Emma and I were in training for the first half of the week, while Emily and Megan were working with Mindy in the office.  For the second half of the week, Emma and I switched back to the office and worked with Mindy, and Emily and Megan were in a Marketing rotation with Dee and Alan.

Chef Dewey gave us some leftover meat samples,
so of course I made some tacos for dinner

During training, Emma and I met Jeff Caperton, otherwise known as "Cape".  Since there was not too much to do in the office, he kept us entertained with videos of oscillating fans and aquariums of fish on the projector screen.  Playing around aside, we actually filmed a few more clips about gluten-friendly food choices and Celiac's Disease with Evan from training.  Once again, I was a nervous wreck through the whole filming process, but all things just take practice, right?

Cape's birthday was actually on our first day of training, so we celebrated by joining the Hospitality management staff for lunch at the Cast Iron Grill, which is known for its home style, southern food, and hand crafted pies.  I ordered a grilled chicken dish with mashed potatoes, green beans, and a roll.  It was delicious!  I would love to go back to try more of the menu soon.

Emily and Megan, on the other hand, helped Mindy with building a "Week in a Glance" menus for different dining units around campus.  This project had them looking at the nutritionals for various dining locations, and then make a "Smart Choices" menu with a healthy, balanced meal schedule someone could try to emulate.  By hospitality standards, Smart Choices means any food item that is less than 400 calories, and less than 30% calories from fat.  Emma and I switched over to working with Mindy on Thursday, and got to work on the Week in a Glance menus as well.  For my dining location, I chose Sam's Place at Murray, which has multiple Build Your Own concept stations, including an Asian Wok, a "Mexican" station, a sandwich line, and a grill.  I had an entire excel spreadsheet with every day of the week, with a section from breakfast, lunch, and dinner, calculating out all the macronutrients, fiber, and calorie counts for all the meals and days.  As someone who loves excel spreadsheets, I was basically in heaven for those two days.

While Emma and I were working in the office with Mindy, Emily and Megan were doing more Red Raider Orientation (RRO) work, this time with Hospitality in the Student Union Building (SUB).  We got to try it out ourselves this morning (6/27), and I had a great time talking to parents and new students and educating them about how dining plans work, and what their options are on campus!

On Thursday night, a friend of ours from our food service rotation at Bledsoe-Gordon, Nick, invited us out to cosmic bowling.  However, due to a bowling tournament that evening, it turned out to be just regular bowling, which was still fun regardless!  I learned that all I have going for me is brute strength and zero aiming ability - I think I finished last in every game we played, even though my bowling ball had quite a bit of speed behind it.

I also checked out Crossfit Paladin, one of the local boxes in the area.  Having been active in my Crossfit community back in Blacksburg, I had really missed that camaraderie derived from mutual suffering and hard work, so getting back into high intensity workouts was so refreshing!

Fun Fact: Lubbock is the birthplace of rock legend Buddy Holly.  As a result, the music scene here is very much alive and well.  Many local bars and venues host a wide array of well known, and less known, artists.  Nick invited me out to hang out with him and his friend V at a small show at the Blue Light Live in the Depot District.  I didn't know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by how good the artists were.  As far as I know, the live music scene in Blacksburg is almost nonexistent, or at least so small that you rarely hear about it, so I'm really loving these different forms of entertainment here!

Okay, that's all I have for week four (plus a few days)!  I'll be up bright and early tomorrow; I contacted the resident sports dietitian a few weeks ago, and she's been allowing me to shadow her in the mornings before work.  I love love love sports nutrition, so this is a great chance for me to witness this niche in person.  I'll post more on that another time!

See you next week!