Per Ardua Ad Astra

Yeah, I need to resync myself. Over the past few months, my biological clock has been displaced by 6 hours. Yep, now my clock is in sync with Muscovites. That’s not really a problem, but I haven’t seen sunrise nor sunset for quite some time, and Brandon’s Cambodia holiday trip photos made me miss the dazzling clash of gold and azure when the Day/Night Terminator passes over us daily. I really need to get away from the hustles and bustles of life, but wait a darned minute!

I’m supposed to be on HOLIDAY!

Yeesh, holiday or none I’m still scurrying about there and here getting things done on time (in some cases, way overdue!). Why don’t I sleep earlier? I would, if not for the fact that I work the closing shift, I have to wait my dad to get off the PC when I get back (yes, the Exec doubles as a PC too, but it’s not made for Internet multitasking!), and there’s tonnes of updated stuff on the Internet daily. Have to keep up, or go under. And there’s stuff to do too, in the afternoons. Somebody just shoot me…

Well, in summary my evenings are now devoted to serving Starbucks customers (there goes my jogging routine). Nothing much to note, except that there’s a new drink (called the Cinnamon Streusel latte) and new sandwiches. Not very ‘Starbucksy’ of me, but I think the best pairing would be Auntie Anne’s cinnamon pretzels. Nice stuff, but unfortunately I have to cut down on my food expenses at Starbucks.

Why?

Well, I still get my Employee Beverage to enjoy at work, but unfortunately fuel prices isn’t the only thing going up. It has been in the pipeline for quite some time, and it’s finally official. Starbucks food has just gotten more expensive by average of RM0.50 I think(thankfully cake and drink prices remain the same as before). The maddening part is, the prices went up, but our wages still remain the same! Perhaps we barristas should gang up and use the management’s explanation to the customers back against them.

Here it goes: "Dear sir/madam, due to the rising cost of raw ingredients and logistics over some time, we have no choice but to regulate the prices at a higher rate" or something like that. You know what? "Dear Management, due to rising logistics and living costs, INCREASE OUR PAY!"

Oh, and about Coffee Tasting (which is long overdue), the steps are quite simple. First, you cover 3/4 of the cup mouth using your fingers, and inhale the coffee aroma through the 1/4 of the cup mouth left uncovered. It’s basically because the olfactory senses gives an idea to our brain what we’re gonna taste. Then you go on describing the smell (almost impossible if you’re using paper cups, because the plastic and cellulose overpowers the aroma). Then you take a sip or rather slurp as the coffee is extremely hot, and to get the coffee over all the tastebuds of your tongue. Finally you describe the taste and identify the coffee. Note, you don’t add anything to your coffee (sugar or milk) as that’s ‘not the way’. Rather, you taste ‘plain’ coffee and its ‘pairing’ which is usually cakes, but could also be pastries. The idea is that both respective tastes will ‘cancel’ each other in your mouth to give a null effect, hence the name pairing. How well they pair depends on how well they ‘cancel’ out each other. How you taste the cake? Smell, and pop into your mouth. Chew, and add coffee. Then you gauge the pairing. Congratulations, you are now able to impress your buddies when you go to Starbucks for their brewed coffee! But, you’ll need to know how to describe the coffee smell and taste too. Maybe I’ll go into that, but that’s for another day.

To end today’s entry, my long wait is finally over! Not quite, but it’s sufficiently over to be over. It’s another story for another entry, but suffice to say, I have my own handheld AND phone!

As for my AJacian AJCian friends, hope you guys and girls got what you wanted. To echo CCM, not to worry all right? =)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 at 9:33 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.