Queso Freak

I do not know when it first came about, but a few years ago my reward for a week of eating well was a Friday night trip to one of several Tex-Mex restaurants in Austin that served what I considered to be good queso. Queso, chips, and salsa became my Friday night fix.

I could have a worse fix than queso.

At various points across the years I have had an entourage who joined me on a regular basis. We would get into such a routine that the staff knew what to bring me when I walked into the establishment. For the last year, I have mostly had my queso fix alone because my regular friends moved away or our schedules no longer align.

Does eating queso alone make me an addict?

I am somewhat picky about the queso. Heated Velveeta does not do it for me. It actually has to be some kind of cheese sauce. I also prefer the queso compuesto which means it comes with pico and meat and sometimes guacamole. I mix everything except any included guacamole into the cheese. I do not care for the avocado taste in the cheese, but I leave the guacamole floating in the hot cheese because warm guacamole actually tastes really good.

Recently I have been mastering the process of making my own queso from scratch. Getting a smooth sauce is not as difficult as I long imagined. I just had never done it right. Simply melting cheese does not a queso make.

I firmly believe that, much like bacon, cheese sauce makes almost anything better. Mastering the base for a cheese sauce allows for so many variations. One of my favorite variations involves making a smoky cheese sauce. When mixed with the right meats and pasta, it gives a sense of the grill. Properly incorporating fresh peppers into the base makes a very spicy sauce without the lumpy nature that sometimes happens when going for spicy. Using a variety of cheeses creates sauces as varied as the variety of cheeses in the fromagerie.

As much as I look forward to the queso itself on Friday nights, the real enjoyment of it comes from the company with friends and lively atmosphere in the restaurants. By going to the same ones so regularly, I recognize, and even know some of the regulars now. Despite my naturally introverted nature, I am comfortable enough in these places to relax and enjoy the company of others. Queso is just the bait to get me there.

Connected

Every once in awhile I get to have one of those weeks that defies all expectations. The past week has been one of those.

I had high expectations for the conference I attended in Chicago. Several co-workers had attended the same conference some times before and they all had raves for the information they gained from the sessions and the resources. I went looking forward to some sessions that were very topical to the work I did on a daily basis. Mostly I went hoping to meet in person some of the professionals I had chosen to follow as a part of my PLN (Personal/Professional Learning Network). Based on their output through various social media sites, I learned to value the information they shared and have followed their online sharing of personal learning and the learning of others through links.

I have gained more from them in the last few months than I have in the last few years of professional development sessions. They have the answers I need when I need them.

They are uncannily perceptive sometimes - even though they do not know me.

My hopes were not dashed. I had the opportunity to spend far more time with my internet idols than I expected. At best I had hoped to recognize them in passing and introduce myself. Instead, I spent several hours with them in conversation and they introduced me to even more. In addition to the volumes of information I had learned on their Internet output, I learned even more with them and even gained some ideas about future work to do here in Austin.

While I expected valuable information in conversation with them, a random conversation at the hotel bar provided the biggest surprise. It started with the bartender asking me a bit of television trivia (because I looked like a smart guy) and ended in conversation with the person who originally posed the question. The conversation did not stay trivial for long and by the end of the evening he promised to send me the introductory parts of the manuscript for a book he was writing. The story he has to tell is one every educator should read when considering the smart kid who just does not do his work. There is always more to the story than we know and he provides a face for the rest of the story.

He actually sent the manuscript to me and we have maintained an email dialogue since then.

People who know me well know how difficult it is for me to talk to new people.  As a professional, the need to connect exceeds my natural shyness - that is one reason I like the opportunities that exist in social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google+). They suffice to initially make contact with others until the point that they are no longer strangers. After reaching that point, the face-to-face is a comfortable next-step rather than a mandated social norm. Being of the age and generation that I am, I do still long for the personal connection despite my initial shyness. As valuable as my virtual friends are, there is something special about a face-to-face conversation that surpasses the screen-to-screen text chats.

The biggest challenge in the last week has been keeping up with and doing something with the new knowledge and connections. While I get it all processed I think sleep will just have to wait.

I'm an Introvert and Here's Proof

I have always maintained that I am an introvert, but every time I said that, it was dismissed by any listener. All my friends would cite the many times I lead meetings, the time I have addressed large audiences, and the public roles I have taken over the years.

My friends have confused shyness with introversion.

I am not shy. I am an introvert.

Sophia Dembling: Nine signs that you might be an introvert:

'via Blog this'

I am quite capable of performing in public settings - as an educator, my job demands it. When I have the chance to be alone in private, I grasp it wholeheartedly.

Those public things that I do drain my personal energy. I can do them, they simply take focus and energy. Being alone lets me recharge. I never mourn the nights I spend home alone with just me, a pen and paper or the computer or a book. Likewise, I never regret the times I spend out with my friends, but it rarely carries the same satisfaction I get sitting in my recliner.

I appreciate the article and descriptions from Dembling. Perhaps they will help my friends understand what I mean when I declare myself an introvert.