Making Your Own Waffles

The music of Duke Ellington blared in the background. But I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to it. I was too busy combing the Internet for information on the Disney College Program. I was nineteen years old and still dewy-eyed about a company that mainly created products for children, but I had to feel that way. All my life I wanted to partake in the DCP, a university-based internship that allows for students to spend a semester working and studying at Walt Disney World in exchange for college credit and hourly wages. As I sat in my jazz course at UMass, browsing the website I bookmarked back when I was in fifth grade and college was nothing more than a far-off ember, I returned to the same giddy state of mind that a ten year old would have when he found out someone would actually pay you to be in Disney World.

Similarly giddy when I found out UMass students could actually take the aforementioned class about the history of jazz, I convinced my friend to take the course with me. However, the options were limited and the only time the class fit into our schedule was an hour after a previous class concluded, leaving the two of us to secure our seats in the back of the lecture hall early and subsequently wait forty minutes for the rest of the class to arrive.

Finding the wait interminable, I decided to use the time to instead finally take steps towards a DCP application. After all, I was a college student. If I didn’t try to get into the program now, I’d probably never get the chance again.

Truly clueless about the resources on campus that existed solely for studying off campus, I decided to begin my search for a faculty member to figure out the DCP with by pursuing the study abroad department. The internship I wished to pursue was located in the extremely domestic destination of Orlando, Florida, but I was doubtful that UMass had a “study at Disney” department that I could waltz into. At the very least, I felt that the study abroad department would be able to point me in the right direction, but I could feel my legs shaking with anxiety as I knew the first step was already misguided.

In the back of my head while I typed “UMass study abroad” into Google, however, was the fear of embarrassment. People who wanted to study abroad and people whose job was to help them get to other countries knew what they were doing. I was just some kid who was not even sure where to begin looking on a campus he had already lived on for a year. The last thing I wanted to be was the center of attention at UMass. I was just a sophomore who wanted to do something that was the least-attention demanding way to spend a semester: work at Walt Disney World.

I spent a week of jazz class preambles learning the name of the study abroad building, locating it on the official campus map for UMass, and rehearsing the questions I was going to ask the receptionist. Eventually working up the nerve to pursue the first step of my Disney dreams, I dropped my backpack off next to my friend one Monday afternoon and told him I would return shortly.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’m going to the study abroad building to ask about Disney,” I replied.

“You know that Disney World isn’t abroad, right?” he said to me.

The anxiety came rushing back. “All too well,” I said, grimacing and forcing myself to turn around and leave, knowing that the longer I put it off, the more I would worry about inanity. Deep within me, I knew that the people who worked in that department received foolish questions every day that never warranted a second thought. But if I was not thinking overdramatically, then I was not acting on brand. The fate of my Disney World hung in the balance.

After pinpointing the study abroad building on the map, I realized it was directly adjacent to my freshman dorm building. All those days spent walking past it and I never realized what it was actually used for, but as a sophomore, it had been consuming my every thought. Navigating the familiar paths to the central area of campus, I continued to recite what I wanted to say, mouthing the words to eyebrow-raising students along the way.

When I finally turned the corner of the street to face the building, I found myself frozen and staring across the crosswalk. It was as if I had spilled waffle batter all over again. 

 

Part of my transition into fledgling adulthood was coming to the understanding that waffles are superior to pancakes and the emphasis UMass places on them is evidence enough to support such an argument. However, I only became truly comfortable using the dining halls’ waffle makers during my junior year, a time when I was already beginning to wean myself off of university food altogether. As a senior, I love to make waffles and it is a station I am frequently drawn to, but when I was a freshman, the waffle makers were tainted with fear and humiliation.

During my early weeks as a UMass student, I would tentatively watch other, more confident students pour themselves a cup of batter, empty it into the machine, and finish the process with a delicious breakfast three minutes later. When I finally felt that I understood how the waffle process was conducted, I reluctantly, with eyes darting around the dining hall to see if I was being judged, poured batter into the machine and closed the lid. Startled when the machine loudly began beeping, I flipped the waffle over. Having already forgotten a step, I could feel the flustered frustration settling into my skin.

My mortification was further palpable when I turned the machine too aggressively and one of its legs slipped from its position of support into mid-air, sending the lid of the machine dangling and the waffle batter gushing onto the floor; my grip was the only thing that saved the machine from clattering altogether.

“Happens all the time,” said one of the dining hall employees reassuringly, even though my own experience with spying on the station taught me otherwise.

I helped him clean the mess, returned the waffle maker to its upright position, and spent the next two years refusing to entertain the thought of my return to the station. Waffle makers were something to be terrified of and I was clearly not equipped to handle them. Everyone who thought I was ready for manufactured independence was wrong. My parents were wrong, the teachers who had written my recommendation letters to UMass in the first place were wrong, and I was wrong, too. If I couldn’t make a waffle, how could I ever graduate? Staunchly afraid of a process I did not understand, I gave up and I turned my back on waffles, promising myself that I would never again attempt to do anything that deviated from my comfortable routine.

 

Fixating on the memory of dripping waffle batter, I could not find the memory of what the study abroad building looked like as a freshman, but I knew it was not this. A metal fence surrounded the facility and its empty lot that was filled with construction equipment and machinery. The crew seemed prepared to demolish the building altogether.

Maybe the sidewalk is just getting renovated, I thought naively as I spent my time circling the building, never once finding an entrance that was approved for students. This time, I didn’t need to do anything to embarrass myself. UMass had taken care of it for me.

I felt like I wanted to willfully interpret this as an act of some higher power giving me a sign that the pursuit of Disney was sure to be a fruitless one. I wanted to give up again.

Instead, I found an article on my phone about the university’s construction plans for the building and I learned where the study abroad building had been relocated. When I found it on the map, I realized it was directly next to the hall that housed my fellow jazz enthusiasts. Taking a deep breath, I reunited pocket and cell phone before retracing my steps to class, accounting mentally for one small detour.

Image Source: Baking a Moment