Published on Oct. 6, 2005
in General.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my first week at Blenz Coffee. The manager’s nice, my coworkers are fun and I love being back in a coffee shop.
It’s a little confusing though, since recipes are different enough from Starbucks to throw me off. Mochas/hot chocolates, iced mochas/iced chocolates and mochachillos all require different chocolate mixes to make each drink, whereas Starbucks uses the same mocha for all their drinks.
I like how the espresso machines are not completely automatic, because now I can actually learn how to pull a good shot. However, there’s a bit of a learning curve at the bar for me, especially with the blended ice drinks. I’m still a little show, but I feel that I’m pretty good at keeping up with the rushes now when I’m at the bar. I still struggle at the till when there’s long line-ups though.
I’ll be working this Saturday from 1pm to 6:15pm and Tuesday from 2:30pm to 9:15pm, so visit me if you need a place to study.
Published on Oct. 3, 2005
in General.
I took this while sitting under a tree in front of the Computer Science building, while reflecting on everything that’s been happening to me in the past few weeks.
Published on Oct. 2, 2005
in Music.
Whenever I watch a piano performance, I always start wishing that I hadn’t stopped practicing after I finished my ARCT when I was fourteen. But tonight, since there was nobody home, I lifted up the piano lid, dusted off the keys and played around with Debussy’s Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I last played this piece - it was probably part of my Grade 8 repertoire, which was maybe ten years ago? It’s fairly simple, mostly consisting of broken chords, so I was able to pick it back up pretty quickly. I’m going to try hard to practice this piece until I feel comfortable enough to play it in front of people. I bought a recording of it off the iTunes Music Store just now, so I can listen to how it’s supposed to sound. I can’t believe how fast it’s supposed to be played! While practicing, I played it at about half the speed of the recording and thought I was doing pretty well.
Too bad we’re not studying Debussy or Chopin in History class. Listening to the same few chants on repeat makes me sleepy.
