It always seemed ridiculous that high school was a time to plan what you want to do with the rest of your life. Of course, it is not to the same extent as good ol' Penn State expects you to have a course charted for life -- but it's just as frightening.

As my high school friends selected everything from advanced placement microbiology to honors life skills (always a favorite), I shied away from all the advancements that my friends said they would need to receive credit in college.

Instead, I took a class called Food Science -- which consisted of roaming the halls and drinking Mountain Dew with the occasional foray into the kitchen. So began my bizzare journey to the Culinary Institute of America. I was told it was time to choose my future, so I did.

The Institute, or CIA as it is more commonly known (I've heard the jokes more than once, thank you), was a haven for me. I escaped the pressures of microbiology and embraced the fine artistic process of soup making and cookie baking.

Once I reached my destination in beautiful Hyde Park, N.Y., I was ready to take on the culinary world.

The CIA is a finely tuned machine, a robot factory for chef wannabes and bakers in training. The schedule was brutal -- 7 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. in the hot, sweaty bowels of the transformed Jesuit monastery which served as the main building. I loved cooking. I looked forward to the time (about three months after starting) when I had finished the preliminary courses and could enter the kitchen. This was what I wanted; I was sure -- then came the cows.

Frozen cows, split open -- horrible sides of beef that screamed as my pitifully dull boning knife cracked their flesh into tasty little tenderloins. It wasn't just cows, but pigs and enough chickens to fill Old Main.

After these horrible days, I would want to relax or maybe party a little. My comrades wanted to go to Sears to shop for a shiny new set of knives. I loved to cook, but hadn't had the culinary experience to justify my desire in that noble profession.

Finally the blessed day arrived, and I entered the magical CIA kitchens. While my classmates' knife skills allowed them to chop onions and parsley in their sleep, my knife prowess involved many, many band-aids. Determined to be a world famous chef, I prodded onward.

Chef Faulkner presided over my kitchen training. He was an overweight Austrian chef with frequent heart trouble who once commented in a throaty, cholesterol-seeped voice that low-fat food was for sissies. There were 17 people in my class. Names were outlawed by Chef (a title of false respect), and my weeks of being known as "number 11" began.

I thought of my high school chummies, off at college basking in their advanced placement credits and being called by their names. I thought of my high school guidance counselors, determined to steer me down the well-worn path to middle-class satisfaction and career happiness.

After the third week of my kitchen training, the test began. A three-hour sauce-marathon in which consomms and cream soups were the flavor of the day, all subject to Chef's approval. A friend, Mike, brought one of his soups up to the desk that Chef Faulkner seemed surgically attached to. Faulkner spit his mouthful of soup to the ground and complained that my friend was trying to poison him. Nice man, that Chef Faulkner.

I barely passed and was given severe warning to improve my proficiency. My roommate wasn't so lucky. He failed the test and was held back for a three-week period. I became "number 10."

I fell further and further behind in the class, and every morning my inspiration left me further and further under my covers. The Mountain Dew I used to chug had turned into caffeine tablets and I bounced around every morning with the unrestrained energy of a amphetamine-laden jackrabbit. I didn't chop parsley any better though.

Had I let my parents down? I loved cooking, but lacked the passion to be a Chef. I did what I was supposed to do. I had chosen a career path. Everyone wanted me to choose and I did.

During Christmas break, I debated what to do. An hour before I was to return to the CIA, I broke the news of my unhappiness to my shocked parents. Amazingly, they understood and encouraged me to take an extended leave of absence.

Eventually, I found my way to State College (by way of Allentown Campus, a one-room school house where all my classes were in the library.) The writing I had done at the CIA, as an escape from my boring, distasteful culinary reality, led me to this bastion of journalisitc happiness -- The Daily Collegian.

If only the CIA hadn't sapped $8000 from Pop's wallet. If only there were no such thing as advanced placement classes. If only those damn guidance counselors hadn't forced me to make a choice.