Okay, everybody wish me a happy birthday. Please?

Which is better, save money and spend 20 mins per day looking for street parking (two days a week), or spend a lotta money for a semester parking pass?

So I am officially a certified Starbucks barista.
"Wow, what does that mean?"
"Well, my young friend, that means that in the world of Starbucks, I now have proof that I know and can make all the drinks that the Starbucks Coffee Company offers."
"Wow, you must be a smarty-pants!"
"Why, yes, yes I am."

As y'all seem to gather from my previous posts, I like to watch PBS a lot. I should probably send them a donation one of these days. I can't wait for the Colonial House series coming this May. Anyway, one of the recent PBS programs that I watched is Hot Dog Program, about our culture's love of hot dogs and the various famous hot dog places in the country. Watching it made me rather hungry. It's an old documentary, made in 1999, and I remember watching it around then and it made me crave a hot dog. So the next day, I made a stopover at Top Dog. Mmmm... Top Dog. Well, when it aired recently, there's no local hot dog place here. Well, none that are good, anyway. But the program did feature Pink's Hot Dog Stand. So last night, when I went to the LA SIGGRAPH meeting with my friend Dave, afterwards we stopped off at Pink's. I gotta say, they're famous for their chili dogs, and it was a damn good chili dog. I am such a Homer Simpson. A few days ago, I had a craving for a donut on my way back from Robert's, but the good place was closed and there was too much traffic to back track to get to the other places and by the time I got on the freeway, I had no idea where there were any good donut places. Just as well, I guess, since I shouldn't be eating donuts anyway.

So this was one of my passing thoughts, then. Should I ever become pregnant in the future, I wonder what I would crave? Maybe I would crave healthy salads and vegemeat. It's kinda funny. As much as I like fruits and veggies, I don't ever crave them. I crave meat (lots-o-meat), salty chips, chocolate, and sometimes salsa. I used to snack on pickles at night, but I haven't craved those in a long time. So much for the theory that we crave what our bodies need, right? Last I checked, I didn't have a fat/salt/sugar deficiency.

BTW, since I keep forgetting, my schedule for the next 1.5 weeks:

Fri -- 7 pm to 12:15 am
Sat -- 8:15 pm to 12:15 am
Sun -- church, 6:45 to 10:45 pm
Mon -- Fun w/ Erica (et al) Day!
Tue -- First day of school for the semester... and what else?
Wed -- 10:45 am to 3:30 pm
Thu -- school
Fri -- 7:45 am to 2:30 pm
Sat -- 7:15 am to 12:15 pm, then church thing?
Sun -- church, 6 to 10 pm

Hey, so why aren't my regulars commenting? Eh? Eh? (Nevermind, you kettle me pot.)

Wow, it's been almost a week since I've posted! You must think I've died or something! Well, close. I've just been sick the past few days, and I'm buying into the theory that our bodies have their own response to fight diseases, and by taking medicine we are only hindering our bodies from their thang. So far, though, it's just been sore throat, sporadic coughing, and a lot of runny nose, so I'm not sure how much more I've got to wait this thing out. After all, my flu shot can only last for so long.

School's starting next week. Right on my birthday, too. Oh well, there are worse ways to celebrate. I'm reminded of my 21st where I spent it with a couple of sick roommates, one of whom was so sick that her parents and her then-9-yr-old sister came up to visit. Oooh yeah. Nothin' like turnin' legal to party with a elementary-schooler. ;P

Turning 25, though, is making me go through a quarter-life crisis. What the heck am I doing? I'm seeing my peers getting married, establishing careers (or at least is on a solid plan) and I'm feeling like a giant loser kid with no prospects. I guess I'm just getting antsy. I've done a lot of slacking and having fun this winter break, but that's getting me no closer to my career goals. It's a long story, but I saw this program on PBS, and it was nothing new, but it did remind me that the mass immigration of Koreans in the 70's and 80's had only one major purpose, and that's the education (and subsequent success) of their children. And well... it's a scary burden to know that your parents sacrificed everything to live in a foreign culture so that you could become a success.

Anyway, I've already taken to calling myself a 25-yr-old, so once the day comes, I suppose it won't be too much of a shock. Urgh. ******SHOCK*******

I saw La Boheme (the opera directed by Baz Luhrman) on Tuesday. It was pretty good. But I feel like I missed a lot cuz I was too busy reading the subtitles. After awhile, I just had to ignore the subtitles and just focus on the emotions and the music and the visuals. I think for that reason I like Rent better. Weird, cuz I don't mind subtitles in films. But it was cool seeing an opera, cuz the singing was so much more... overwhelming. It's so much... bigger... than pop-singing styles.

Oh, and to be clear, I saw it with Erica. Hey, I hang out with other people besides Robert and Amber. Like last Friday, I hung out with Andrea (who was my best-friend growing up and is Robert's ex) and her sister Chuck (who's real name is Kristen and is a fellow Starbucks barista) and it was an interesting day that I'd rather not go into on a public blog. But what was surprising was that I must have dropped my temporary 24-Hr Fitness pass somewhere in Downtown Disney (where we were hanging out) and the Disney Lost-n-Found mailed it to me. I guess they're pretty good about that.

BTW, I got caught (again) in a Snapshot (the mystery shopper for Starbucks). I absolutely hate those things. We got good on everything except the waiting time. Again. Argh!!! It took thirteen minutes for the person to get their drinks, and the max time is five (and perfect is under three). I know why it took so long. Cuz our espresso grinder is funky and the shots have been pulling in 30-40 seconds (it should be between 18-23, and we've been using 14-29). And it takes awhile to make a drink cuz we keeping having to throw out bad shots. Well, it's come down to quality vs. speed, and I say that quality matters more. I mean, there's a reason why fast food tastes like fast food. As if I need more ammunition should they decide to fire me. Sigh. Well, at least I should qualify for medical insurance this month. I think I'm in dire need of either a dermatologist or an allergist.

I should stop drinking caffeine so late. I had a raspberry mocha at my first ten minute break tonight, and that was enough to wire me for the rest of the shift. But I got a black tea lemonade to take home with me, and even though it's diluted, it still has caffeine. But then, maybe it's that I slept for 12+ hours last night and woke up only two and a half hours before my shift started.

I saw Big Fish on Friday. How Catholic. Heh heh. It's a good movie. Not as good as Return of the King, (here that, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?) but pretty good. Ewan MacGregor was excellent (as always) and his stories are so quirky. And the Siamese twins are really Siamese twins. Well, maybe Japanese. The movie has the traditional Tim Burton dark humor, which is awesome. And Edward Bloom fights the North Koreans in the war, and they actually spoke Korean. Hey, speaking of which, in the episode of Alias where Sydney and Vaughn end up in North Korea, the Korean they were speaking was weird. I mean, I know that North Korea speaks with a different satoori (accent & colloquialism) but it just sounded angry and unclear. Eh.

I worked at a different store Friday morning, and they had an automatic espresso machine. It felt weird just pushing a button to pull shots. I'm so used to getting beans from the grinder, tamping the filters, and pulling the shots and hoping it falls within the correct time frame. Well, it turns out that this machine pulls rather crappy shots. Makes sense why we still have our manual machine. It was also weird just dealing with people I've never worked with. I wonder what it would be like to work with someone from another store whom I've never met.

So after that shift from 4 am to 8:15 am (how crazy is that?), I worked on a design for a stamp for a coffee blend contest they're having for the Starbucks leadership conference. I have a image scanned on my dad's computer, so I'll put it up eventually. (Yeah, right.) But I was thinking that it didn't really fit with the contest guidelines, and I doubt it could be used as a coffee stamp image. For one, it's too cartoony.

I think I could've used a nap yesterday. And now it's almost 4 am, and I'm not tired and I've got church in six hours. Ech.

In case I don't get a chance to publish this tomorrow, my schedule for next week is:

Mon -- 7:15 to 11:15 am
Tue -- no work
Wed -- 6:45 to 10:45 pm
Thu -- 4:15 to 9:15 pm
Fri -- no work but volunteering between 10 am to 4 pm
Sat -- 8 pm to 12:15 am
Sun -- church at 10 am, 5:30 to 9:45 pm