That bruise on the donation spot isn't so big. I have a slight soreness in that elbow joint, but I think that's from work and not the needle. Sometimes, when I'm tamping the espresso grounds (which means that I'm using this little thing to press down hard on the individual brewer) and my arm is at a 90-degree angle with my elbow facing up and my upper-arm parallel to the ground, I feel a little tingle right above my elbow. Kinda like when you stretch and your joints pop. Anyway, it doesn't hurt, but I wonder if it will lead to something. There was this whole thing about repetitive-stress injury prevention that we had to read, but a lot of it is hard to put into practice. The only one we seem to be doing is not working the bar for more than 30 mins at a time, though I think that has to do more with the customer flow than anything else. And they kicked me out 45 mins early yesterday, and an hour and 20 mins early today! This sucks. It seems like an obsession with the manager/leads to save labor hours. So meanwhile, I'm getting less than 18 hrs a week, and next week it's even worse. Sigh.

On a different note, I watched Bowling for Columbine last week (Robert's DVD), and it's a really good documentary. And it raises a lot of thoughtful questions. What was especially an interesting point was that of the developed countries that have less than 150 gun-related deaths (or is it homicides) per year, Canada doesn't have strict gun-control and in fact has more guns per capita than the US. Yet the US has over eleven-thousand gun deaths per year, while they have around 115.

I also rented a couple of DVDs cuz I had a coupon that expired on Tuesday. I've only watched one, which is Bend It Like Beckham. It's a pretty good movie, though I had to turn on the subtitles after 5 mins cuz I had a hard time understanding what they were saying. Reminds me of Kelly Bundy taking an English-to-English dictionary on their family trip to England. I think it hit home with a lot of young people, because no matter which culture you come from, especially if you are dual-cultured, when what you want and what your parents want are different, problems (and possibly hilarity) ensues. I did learn a new term, though. Slag is British for slut, I'm assuming. So perhaps I'll go around calling people bloody slags. Heh heh.

One more thing, there is a reason why Starbucks is making bank. A tall drip (the small size) is $1.40. The cost of the coffee is approximately 8¢, and the cost of the cup is 10¢, and if we assume the lid and the sleeve add up to 5¢, and since it takes 2 min for a Barista to take the order and fill the cup and give it to the customer (which is about 22¢), then the profit for each tall drip is 95¢, or 68% profit. (BTW, this is a low estimate, since one of the leads said that the net profit from drip coffee is the price - 8¢, which would be a 94% profit.)

Next time, I'm getting soy in all my drinks. Normally they charge 30¢ extra. I think for my slightly-above-minimum-wage wage, I deserve soy. Besides, I don't need a reason for my lactose intolerance to flare up.