I have been finding it more and more time consuming to update my blog. I love all the comments from the new visitors I’m getting all of the sudden, it makes me feel so popular, but then it takes me more and more time commenting back, that by the time I get done, I don’t have time to actually post! So it makes me wonder where I’ll be this time next year! Out of curiosity, how much time do you spend commenting/posting each week?

With all the work I have to do these days, it makes me reflect back on my childhood more and more. I was a stupid kid. Well, not stupid, naive. Up till I moved to Tennessee in 7th grade, I really had no concept of the world. Which is stupid, since we took a road trip every summer across half the country to go visit my mom’s side of the family. But that didn’t really register in my young mind. My whole world consisted of my neighborhood and the few roads that drove to school, to the store, and to my friends’ houses. And that was the world. No one else existed. Which is funny because we had a map of the world hanging in the hallway and I would stare at it every day looking for funny names of cities. It just amazes me that the amount of people in the world didn’t sink in until middle school. We’ve started talking about mental development in my education class, so I’m starting to see that it’s normal and most kids think this way, but its still embarrassing to think that I was supposed to be the smart one!!

All I would do was go to school, come home, and ride over to my neighbor’s house on my bike to play with her nintendo. I was so jealous, I wanted one of my own! Mario was the shizz, and we would play for hours, all the while listening to local radio station, streaming Brittney Spears and N*Sync to our young ears, until I had to go home for dinner. I would then go upstairs, do my homework, then play with my beads or yarn while watching Disney channel, then fall asleep and start the whole thing over again.

It amazes me the luxuries that kids have these days. And I’m not even old! I’m 19!! But looking at the cool games you can play with an xbox 360, and the interactiveness of the wii, and how you can play your playstation 3 with your psp, if I understood that correctly, I’m freakin jealous!!! I got ripped off in my childhood! And then there are the clothes girls are wearing these days. I mean, dude, they’re mini adults! What happened to being a kid? Why does an 8 year old girl NEED high heels and tube tops? I wore leggings and T shirts till 6th grade. I didn’t even have a purse till high school. Now looking in the window of Limited Too while in the mall, it amazes me how much things have changed so quickly. I hear girls asking other girls if they look fat, and they’re 8 and look anorexic! What type of impact does that have on their development into adulthood? And the music they listen to. Granted, the pop of my day wasn’t exactly clean, but neither was it so explicit. When little girls know every word of Lady Gaga’s Love Game song and have no clue what they’re singing about, it kind of worries me. But that’s just me, wishing kids could stay young forever.

What differences, if any, have you noticed from your childhood and kids today? What did you do as a kid for fun?

I’m surprised at you people. I thought coffee drinkers were everywhere, but apparently most of my readers don’t drink coffee. I didn’t realize I was in a minority here in my little blog circle, lol. Oh well, maybe one day you’ll come around now that you know the lingo.

My mother came into town Tuesday. Normally that wouldn’t mean anything to the average girl. But we have a strained relationship. She is fierce, and argues everything to death. And when I get mad, I tear up. So, I cried a lot. It was rather embarrassing to be crying in front of the waitress at the restaurant, and then again at the mall. And I felt sick, so of course she did the motherly thing and made a big fuss about my health. I felt cold, and she made such a big deal that I ordered a water, I needed something hot and warm. She even felt my forehead in front of the waitress. How old am I, mother? lol I love that she cares, but cut me some slack!!

But all of our talking has helped me to make her realize that I’m not taking computer science for me. I’m taking it for my father. I don’t want to do it. I don’t know what I want to do for undergrad, but it’s definitely not that, lol. I’ve decided to drop a class. My first ever withdraw on my transcript. I can’t handle the stress of 5 classes a semester and working. And frankly, that teacher scared the crap out of me. It seemed like it was his personal vendetta to make students fail because he’s an old man that secretly grudges the younger generation for the pampered lifestyle they live. So, he doesn’t teach the subject, he acts like we already know it. I just can’t handle that on top of everything else. I feel so relieved to never have to step foot in that classroom again. But I also feel like I failed, like I gave up and quit. Which I did. But I’m more relieved than mad at myself.

I’ve also decided to screw computer science. Why am I inflicting such a miserable experience upon myself? I don’t enjoy it, I never will, and every lab has brought me to tears in some form or fashion. So why keep doing it? I only need one more class to get the minor. So I am going to get that class and get the hell out of there!! That is, if I get formally accepted into the education college. And since they are in desperate demand of math teachers, why wouldn’t they accept me?! And if all goes well, I’ll still be able to go to Texas A&M. So at least I got something out of the visit. And it was nice to have someone else pick up the tab at the restaurant, lol.

I’m such a failure… but at least I’m getting somewhere, in a round about way, lol.

I love random advertising for a place I’ve never heard of. I came across a demographically targeted link for Outer Banks vacation rentals. Apparently it’s in North Carolina. But why would I travel to North Carolina when I could go to South Carolina? lol Maybe there’s a reason they’re advertising, trying to get more traffic? lol, nice try people….

Ever drop a class?

I’ve realized something. There are a LOT of people out there who don’t speak coffee. It’s a shame, really, because it’s not that complicated. And after having a lady get so mad she called me a complete idiot and threatened to call corporate because I was trying to piss her off by making the wrong drink, I feel it’s time I did something. Sadly, I can’t put up any signs in the store because it’s against company policy, but baby steps. I know giving you the details won’t help me out directly, but maybe it’ll help you the next time you don’t get what you ordered.

So, let me explain to you the basics, for those of you who wonder what the heck everything is.

• Espresso – A concentrated shot of a coarsely grinded dark roast coffee. It’s about one ounce.
• Caffe latte – it means coffee and milk. It’s a drink composed of several shots of espresso and foamed milk. It has just a little foam topping it off.
• Cappuccino – a drink, similar to a latte, but the 3 parts, espresso, milk, and foam, are equal in proportions. So since it has a third espresso and a third foam, it’s a bit stronger and a lot of foam on it.
• Cafe Mocha – a latte with chocolate. Basically any regular drink you order that’s advertised is a latte with syrup
• Breve – this means to make the drink with half and half instead of milk. So a latte breve is espresso and steamed half and half.
• Macchiato – this term means “marked” in Italian. By itself it means nothing. Don’t order a macchiato, that doesn’t do us any good.
• Latte Macchiato - this is similar to a latte. It is marked milk. It has about half the espresso than a latte has. It’s called marked because baristas would add the espresso after the milk is poured, so the foam on top of the drink was “marked” or “stained”.
• Caffe Macchiato – marked espresso, a shot of espresso with foam on top. So it’s still a strong shot of coffee, with a little fluff on top.
• Frappachino – a registered Starbucks term. This is not an Italian coffee drink, it’s Starbucks making up new stuff. It is a coffee milkshake. It originates from a frappe, which is a milkshake in the Boston area. Other stores have taken on the fad and created new terms for coffee milkshakes as well.

I hope this clears things up for those of you who don’t understand. That’s the basic terminology. Now go use it!! Also, a little fun fact, did you know Starbucks has trademarked their size system? Other coffee companies cannot use the word venti to describe a large drink. So don’t do it when ordering!

Now that we’ve got the lingo down, how about the setting? Do you ever go into a coffee shop to do homework or read a book or anything? My store is in a mall, so it’s not that common, but every once in a while someone comes in and reads a book, and I find it so odd. At times it makes me uncomfortable when there’s no one in the store but me and a customer just sitting there for hours. But that’s just me. It also makes me really want to buy a book, and I’ve been considering trying out books online for a while, but is it really cheaper to do so? I don’t know.

Do you speak coffee? What was the last thing you bought online?

Poor Eamon, in one of his business classes, they are supposd to simulate a real business with their stats and history and see if they can play out the semester and not go bankrupt. His group got an insurance marketing business. If he wasn’t in such a stressed state right now, I might have found it funny, lol. And fyi, yes it is illegal to drive without insurance, which is part of the reason why this accident was such a big ordeal. Granted, it would have been a big deal anyways, but it just further complicated things.

But in brighter news… I think I’m officially done setting up my store. Yay! I’m so proud of myself. I thought it would be a big ordeal trying to get everything together, but really the hardest part was listing the items. I guess that just goes to show how much I’ve learned in the past 5 years coding? So, if you’re feeling up to it, I’d love it if you checked out Sugar Rush Designs and give me feedback. I’m sure there are still a lot of bugs to work out, but it seems to be mainly functional, and I think, rather cute!

Now I’m off to work a miserable 8 hours serving spoiled coffee snobs their non fat, no foam mocha cappuccinos, which, by the way, would be a latte. It takes 5 minutes to look up a coffee term online, is it really that hard to look up what you’re saying so you don’t look like a complete idiot to someone who knows the jargon? If I get one more person ordering a macchiato, I’m gonna snap. Saying “marked” to me in italian means nothing, do you want a marked espresso, a marked latte, or what?