a bit of middle English humor

Sigma Tau Delta/le futur proche

Earlier today was the third annual Black & White Party hosted by Sigma Tau Delta. Our baby was a success! So much fun to hang out with other English major types, eating delicious black and white food, wearing black and white garb, and laughing about everything under the sun. Delightful. :)

I had to leave a bit early--not too long after the induction ceremony of new members--and booked it back to Kirkland for work. I wasn’t late at all--praise the Lord!--but then the other turndown lady couldn’t make it tonight, so I was on my own. Surprisingly, I ended up with a lot of time on my hands, so I started brainstorming a pros/cons list for staying here in Washington/moving to California after grad and India. Oh wait...I haven’t blogged about California yet, have I...?

So on to the list:

Washington~
++friends
-[almost] no family [except for hermits and distant Mormons]
+possibly decent job market (?)
-church uncertainty (Stay at SJ? Go elsewhere? If so, where...?!)
+emotional support (from ++friends)
-pay for housing/utilities/etc. on my own (as in, not with my parents’ help)
+beautiful nature everywhere!
-certain people I could do without
+Seattle! (It’s irreplaceable in my book.)
-messy roommate (?)
+close to Canadia
-school debt will be hard to pay off with your basic job
+live w/ good friends (?)
-relatively high cost of living (seeing as I want to stay on the Eastside)

California~
+family
--no friends
+free rent (my grandma has offered to let me live with her)
-church uncertainty (I have options down there of churches that I have been to, and I like them, just...don’t know.)
+possibly decent job market (?)
-moving costs (?)
+Gimli! (my furry feline lover)
-loss of autonomy (?)
+stable support system
-shallow/superficial culture of Southern California
+GREAT weather
-Grandma could die on me and the whole family would hate me...
BUT
+then I would get both the cats...
ONLY
-then I wouldn’t have a place to live...
+the beach
+close to Mexico
+pay off loans quicker (since I wouldn’t be paying rent/utilities--or not much, anyway--I could put more of my money towards school debt)
+feel like adult (?)
-bigger cell phone bill from calling all my friends in Washington (?)
+I would KNOW my family before being gone the rest of my life doing missions!!!
-expensive cost of living


So I don’t know...I’m not really sure how this is going to play out after graduation/India. Could be that I end up in Washington. Could be that I end up in California. Could be that I move elsewhere across the country. Louisiana would be nice for a change, don’t you think? ACK! Ok, I really don’t have a clue. Feedback? Anyone?

love of my life

Coffee tidbits culled from online searching in the midst of pulling an all-nighter :)

from "Ask the Barista:"

-->Starbucks coffee tastes like crap!

You're welcome to your opinion. I like the stuff myself, but despite my time in the green apron I'm no connoisseur. I wouldn't turn up my nose at Folgers Singles -- well, not much. There are several reasons some people don't like our coffee. For example, Starbucks coffee is roasted about twice as long as most other coffees. Is this over-roasting it? Beats me. If it's too strong ask for a cup of "mild" coffee (which will be something like Lightnote or Breakfast Blend) and see if it's any better. Or perhaps you got a bad batch. Or it was a kind of coffee you just didn't like. (I noticed, for example, that whenever our regular coffee of the day was the 30th anniversary blend, sales of mild coffee jumped dramatically.) Or maybe it is crap. Who knows? It's all a matter of taste. I wouldn't say McDonald's is haute cuisine, but that doesn't stop them from serving Billions & Billions. Likewise, whether the coffee is "crap" or not, people buy it, and they come back for more. And Chicken McNuggets are really good with honey.


-->What do you have against Frappuccinos, anyway?

Your average barista is usually not very fond of these, and it's hard to say exactly why. They're quite easy to make, rarely involve espresso, don't require steaming milk ... it's just a matter of throwing the ingredients in the blender and blending. They're fairly tasty, and most employees and ex-employees have a favorite frap or two. So why don't we like them? Well, for one thing it's a favorite drink of the Trendy Teenagers who pour forth from their Junior High schools and High schools, make sure they are Seen entering Starbucks, and commence to order a Trendy Drink. Fraps are also a way of drinking coffee without tasting it, which is kind of cheating in some eyes. One learns to instinctively know who's going to order a Frappuccino, and dread evil frap rushes. The closest analogy I can come up with is being a bartender and dealing with a constant flow of orders for little blended girly drinks. (To be honest, though, I don't know whether bartenders hate making girly drinks like I hate making fraps)


-->Sometimes I hear the people behind the counter saying strange words. What do they mean?

There is a certain amount of lingo involved in being a barista, even beyond what's on the menu, and it varies from area to area or even store to store. Allow me to explain a few.

Traditional or Drip: Plain coffee.
Addshot: An extra shot of espresso added to a drink. Usually you'll hear this when someone orders a Frappuccino with espresso; the person taking the order will call something like "Can I get an addshot?" to let the person at the espresso bar know they need to make an extra shot.
For-Here: Served in a ceramic cup rather than a paper one, or in the case of pastries, served on a plate rather than in a bag.
Zebra: A drink made with half regular mocha, half white mocha. Not all stores use this.
Frap rush: Sometimes a group of people will come in, like high school students, and all order Frappuccinos. This is a frap rush.
COD: Coffee Of the Day. Again, plain coffee.
Spin: Every ten or fifteen minutes, one of the baristas is supposed to go through the lobby of the store, bus the tables, wipe and restock the condiment bar, check the bathroom, and just generally neaten up. This is a spin, also known as a lobby or the fifteen minute timer.
Shots pulling long or short: Starbucks standards require that an espresso shot take between 18 and 23 seconds to pull. This requires some skill on the part of the barista using the machine (if it's an old-school La Marzocco machine and not one of the new push-button Verissimos) and is very susceptible to the crankiness of the device, the grind of the beans, the firmness of the tamp, etc. Short shots are a bit sweeter (like ristrettos), long ones are a bit darker, but technically only 18-23 second shots are supposed to be served unless the customer specifies otherwise.


from "O Chef:"

The Monumental Difference Between Latte and Cappuccino

What is the difference between caffè latte and cappuccino? When I have asked at various coffee spots, I seem to get different answers!



You know, those little 17-year-old all-knowing snobs who stand behind the counter and deign to serve you are trying to confuse you, trying to instill a sense of mystery in an overpriced product that will keep you guessing and coming back for more. We can’t do anything about the price, but at least we can help clear up the mystery. In this case, it’s a matter of proportion — latte has more milk.

In this country, cappuccino is a serving of espresso (about 2 ounces) with essentially similar amounts of milk and a rather stiff milk foam. Caffè latte is a serving of espresso with about three times as much milk, topped with a short head of foam. So a latte is milder and has a milkier taste.

While Starbucks has imposed rigid standards at every store in its chain, in practice in other coffeehouses and restaurants around the country, these drinks can vary substantially, and a cappuccino at one place could be similar to another coffeehouse’s latte, or even weaker. But not necessarily less expensive....



Can anyone else tell that I would rather be doing something else than working out an annotated bibliography for my Chaucer class...?

anywhere but here

body still,
pulse pounding,
heart yearning to explode,
I wish I could be anywhere but here.

Why do I feel the need to not be where I am now? Why do I look at my life and think that I am insignificant? Why do I look at my life and wish that I was either completely broken or whole but not a little of both?

I talked with a good friend last night--someone who can relate to me very well--and talking with her made me feel somewhat tilted, if that makes any sense. I used to think that when I stopped seeing a counselor last year that I was well on my way to being whole. I had dealt with the crap, and I was on to my next biggest challenge: healing from a breakup.

Ok, so it's not like that was a walk in the park at the time, either. (Thankfully, that's finally over and resolved. It just took a year, is all.) Not the point of the blog. Reversing to the start of the rabbit trail...

Anyway, so a year later, I know that I've made progress, but even so, I know I still have a long way to go. I think about potential relationships, and I feel sick. Is that how a whole person is supposed to react? I think about turning into a monster with another guy in the picture, and I revolt at the idea. I think about an actual marriage relationship, and my stomach gets queasy.

Me? Married? It's laughable!

It's not that I think I'm beyond loving someone else or being loved in return, but I can't stomach the idea of the act of marriage. It's good thing it's not exactly one of my future options at this point--at least not short term future. Even so, I don't know if I'll ever be able to handle marriage.

I remember talking with one of my coworkers from the bookstore and she and I were somehow discussing a couple that was going through premarital counseling in which the woman had been sexually abused growing up. (Random side note: still feel like it's a lie when I say that I was...) My coworker didn't know anything from my past, but one of the things that she basically said during the conversation was that the future husband was probably going to regret marrying this girl because she would always be screwed up from her past and that intimacy would be very hard for them.

At the time, I tried to brush it off, but clearly, the thought dug deep and hasn't let go of me yet. I wish that I could meet someone who was sexually abused who has had a healthy marriage regardless of the...hold the phone. I am SUCH an idiot. My mother was abused as a child, and she and my dad have a GREAT relationship.

She and I need to talk.