Bday

Today is my birthday, the big 2-5, the big quarter of a century. Days like these get me thinking about what a friend means. Facebook and MySpace are great tools to reconnect with old friends or keep up with what is going on in peoples lives, but it has also blurred the meaning of "friend". Some people's sites have 1000 or 2000 "friends" but how many of these people do they really know? It is quite easy to send a happy birthday when the site tells you when a birthday is. Is it really heartfelt? Personally, if I only get a happy birthday wish from a few close friends and family, then that is worth more than 2000 phony friends sending it on Facebook.

Winter Passing

I have had the hardest week in a while. Work has become steadily more stressful, school is kicking into high gear, with tests seemingly every week, and little time to process it all. And on top of it all, it is winter...technically anyway. I have lived here for close to nine years and I am still not used to sixty and seventy degree winter days. Warm winter has kind of saddened me, which seems to be the opposite of everyone I speak to. I feel like a curmudgeon, raining on everyone's good weather mood. At work, I have to fake liking it, which eats away at me, since I wish I could be honest and tell them, "No, the weather outside sucks, and I hate it. See ya latte, have a grande!"

I have decide that some day in the near future, I am going to have Honesty Day. If someone at work asks how I am, I will answer with the mosy honest answer possible without getting fired. So, if on this holiday, it is a particularly rough day and someone asks "How has today been?" I will simply answer, "Crappy. A lady was rude with me, the high school kids have annoyed me to the brink of insanity, and I dumped hot coffee on my arm and burned it. How's your day?"

I have observed that people say "How are you?" out of sheer politeness, not out of care. I am just as guilty as anyone else. I would be just as shocked if someone gave me an answer that was different than "good" or "alright". Why can't we say we aren't good or alright? Would it be considered lying if you say good when you are obviously not?

Second Guessing When the First Guess is Unknown

So, I sit here, eating mincemeat tarts and playing Spider Solitaire when I have a Bio101 test tonight that I am nowhere ready for (typical student?) and I start to think about Saturday. Yes, Saturday is Valentine's Day, big deal. I'm cooking dinner that night, a Beef Au Voir with honeyed carrot salad and some sort of risotto, finished with a French Berry cheesecake. It sounds way more complicated than in reality.

What comes to my mind is a simple question. I graduate this fall (YAY!) and my plan the last year and a half has been to attend culinary school. This is where the question comes in: is that really what I want to do?

I know I am not the only college student that wonders this, probably most do, unless they have already lined something up after graduation. I know that I love to cook, but does that mean I want to go to school for it, or make it my life? I believe that all people on earth have a purpose to fulfill, a reason to be alive, and it's discovering what that purpose is that turns us into the people we are.

Which brings me to my next question: what is the difference between a dream and reality? As a child, I dreamed of playing in the NBA, shot baskets in the corn shed, dreamt I was hitting the game winning shot over Michael Jordan, and to me at the time, it was reality. As I got older, it became apparent that this was not going to become reality and I moved on. So was I wrong to dream this?

I dream of cooking in a restaurant I may or may not own, traveling the world, learing how to cook from the actual regions rather than the books. Frankly, I don't have a backup plan because this is what I hope to do, but is this reality? Do moments of self-doubt show that maybe this isn't what I want, a warning to not go down that path?

There is no easy answer, just hope that for once I am in reality and not another dream.

What is in a drink?

Tonight, I was at my job, Starbucks, and found myself in a very interesting conversation (interesting to me, anyway). Us baristas are commonly asked if we judge people based on the drink they order. Personally, no, I do not judge someone, but I have concluded that certain drinks have an implied personality, per se. I would like to share my thoughts on this...

Any espresso drink (con panna, macchiato, or straight shots)- this person knows coffee, considering that these are pure espresso shots

Latte, no flavor- not quite the above category, but respectable

Straight coffee- again, respectable...add a shot of espresso...now we're talkin

Cappuccino or Americano- these are the "higher class" drinks; americanos are better than brewed coffee, and cappuccinos are the fancier version of the latte

vanilla latte- now this, sorry to say, is the boring person, the indecisive one who wants a latte, but with some cover

frappaccinos- this is the one we were a little confused on...this is typically reserved for the children (certain ones have inside names, like the Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, or the Mickey Mouse...why? Because the kids love them!) but an adult ordering one? The conclusion was that, although not a true coffee drinker's drink, these were ok...add a shot? That's much better