In the Professional Writing & Communications Programme, we were assigned to write a scene about a significant or dramatic moment of our interviewees. My scene was based on a dramatic story of a culinary student.
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Standing in her non-slip kitchen shoes and chef’s uniform with a navy blue and apple green striped collar, Jan tied a black half-apron around her waist while struggling with the stress she was shouldering. It was her first national-level culinary live contest. And she had been in a hectic internship not long ago before she got dragged into the team to represent her school. Even though she was an experienced and well-equipped third-year student, there just wasn’t much time to prepare for such a tough challenge.
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It was almost nine in the morning. The competition was going to kick off at any minute. Jan stared at the front stage far from her table and nervously awaited the announcement. “Time starts now!” As soon as the MC spoke into the microphone in his hand, the giant timer on the stage screen began to tick. The contestants threw themselves into the cooking battle all at once.
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Jan picked up her sharp ceramic knife and started cutting garlic on a green chopping board. Not with her dominant right hand but the other one so she wouldn’t bump into the teammate next to her. That wasn’t something unusual. Culinary students are trained to use both hands equally because sometimes they have to work together in narrow spaces. But somehow, her next chop slipped. Red fluid flooded out from the garlic cube. “Why is it red?” She thought to herself. The next thing she realized was that the little white chunk was not garlic. It was the tip of her thumb with a bit of her nail that had come off clean.
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Maybe the adrenaline kicked in. Jan didn’t feel the pain at all. She was solely petrified. “What the hell!” But then all the cooking steps she was supposed to do next popped up in her mind. That turned her from shocked to pissed. The last thing she wanted to do in a match was to take care of a cut-off fingertip.
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Her team had been focusing on their task until one of them spotted something had gone wrong. “What the f*ck are you doing?” He startled at Jan. “I don’t know.” Her mind had gone a bit chaotic. Another teammate heard it, looked over and screamed. “Oh my god! What happened? Go to the paramedics!”
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People in the medical station were joking and talking among themselves. Usually, nothing happens in competitions like this. It was such a light-hearted corner compared to the nerve-wracking battlefield out there. That was until Jan approached. She showed the paramedics her injured thumb, throwing them into panic mode. They immediately took out their first-aid tools to sanitize her wound. They even taped it very tightly with a lot of bandages. Jan found it hilarious. Everyone around her was terrified. But all she wanted was to return to the team and get their Chicken Binakol done.
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