Home Sick

One of the articles I'm reading for my strategic management class points to Jollibee as a good example of companies that have gone global successfully.

Beyond the logical explanation of how they positioned themselves to address needs in the market not considered by McDonald's, all I could think about was their burger steak. Oh, Jollibee burger steak with button mushrooms and mediocre gravy, I miss you so.

It might be time to get cracking on that passport thing.

Sharp Ratio

When we moved into our new apartment, we had to acquire a shitload of stuff - dishes, cookware, utensils, placemats, etc. - but through several strokes of luck, we managed to acquire these essentially for free. So, I didn't feel too bad that we really splurged on quality knives from Korin. We did A LOT of research and a lot of hemming and hawing. We spent an hour at the store, looking at dozens of knives. Fortunately, the woman at the store was patient and nonjudgmental (she could totally tell we don't cook that much). We ended up with these babies:





The smaller one is a Togiharu Petty knife. We use it to chop up vegetables and fruits and I used it to chop up everything before I got enough balls to use the Santoku. The bigger one is a Togiharu Inox Steel Santoku, which is kind of your all-around knife and you can use it to chop and slice meat and vegetables. The knives are super sharp but they're not even the best quality knives. There are hundreds of knives on the Korin website alone and you could go crazy, and broke. We chose these knives because they're not made of the strongest steel but they're of decent quality, and we mostly eat fruits and vegetables at home. We went with the Santoku, rather than the Gyutou because it felt more comfortable in my hand. P, who has much longer fingers, can easily adjust to the Santoku. I love my knives and we cook more often than we did before we had them. The only other knife I would want at this point is a Glestain - it has those cool dips in the surface of the blade that prevent the food from sticking to it. Otherwise, we have all we need.

Lisztomania

PS22 Chorus covers Phoenix.

A place of our own

Did I tell you? P and I moved into our own little basement apartment. It's not done yet. We have P's big red chair and futon in the living room and my side tables that I got from the antique furniture shop scattered around. The spare room is still a hodgepodge of his stuff and mine. Mostly mine. It's not much but we have pots and pans and plates and plants and we make pancakes on Saturday morning.

image from michaelpollan.com

Argh Tea

P and I stopped by this new tea place on the way home from class the other day. I thought we could use a cup of tea after a big meal at our usual pasta place. We ordered some white tea (they didn't have vanilla) and then drifted over to their wares, where we grabbed an infuser mug (above in green). The woman behind the counter rushed over to explain the different tea accessories and why one is better (and more expensive) than the other (because you can perch it on the edge of the mug and just leave it to steep on itself).

Okay. It's so hard to be objective when ultimately we left with a sour taste in our mouths. We were looking at their displays of loose leaf tea and the helpful woman stepped in and explained how the system worked. You could either purchase a pouch or grab a bag and fill it from their dispenser. Usually, she said the loose leaf tea was a better deal than the vacuum packed pouch. We grabbed a paper bag and filled it with loose blueberry white tea. The sign beneath said, "2 oz pack $3.95 Loose $3.45". Clearly, the loose was a better deal. I even encouraged P to fill the bag with more tea to make it about 2 ounces.

While walking out the store, mug and little (and it was little) bag of tea in tow, I glanced at the receipt and noticed that P had paid $6+ for 1.85 ounces! So P went back in and I stayed outside thinking this was going to be short and sweet. After a few minutes, I went back in because it was getting cold outside. The woman behind the counter called her manager, who said that there was a misprint on the sign beneath the tea and it was supposed to say 1 oz pack instead of 2 oz. Also, the price published for the loose leaf tea is always per ounce, and he really doesn't want this to be weird.

I'm not clear about what happened next as it was getting late by that time and I really just wanted to get home, but they ended up charging back the $6 that they had taken off the card. Ladies and gentleman, this is a perfect example of bad customer service. P and I swore that the next time we were in a similar situation we would be better consumers and insist on the published price. And if we ever have our own little store someday we would train the staff to always accommodate the customer, especially in a situation where the customer is obviously right.

I love my mug and the blueberry tea was delicious, but I am never going back to that store again. From now on, we are going to Teavana for all our tea-related purchases.

Bedtime drama

I am texting this blog entry because I am too cheap to get internet connection at home. Late at night, if I'm lucky, I piggyback on my neighbors' connections or I go to starbucks or wherever else there's free wifi. But I had this late night epiphany that just can't wait: If I am to get ahead at work I have to play this game called pagbubuhat ng sariling bangko. It's a popular game and almost everyone plays it and that is just the reality of it. And if I can't do it or the other game called deadma when I make mistakes then maybe I need an alternative career.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

So this is the new year

Happy new year! I know. This blog entry has been a long time coming, constantly interrupted by dinners (Christmas, birthday, farewell) with P's family, babysitting responsibilities, not to mention the three-week-long, three and a half hours three times a week whirlwind of a class. I would just like to say, despite my uncertain job future, my uncertain domestic future, the fact that I was unregistered for failing to pay my tuition by the deadline, and the myriad other uncertainties in my life, 2008 was a good year - a very good year - and 2009 will be too, even if I have to give it constant timeouts and issue constant reminders to it like a petulant child. I am blessed with great friends - both near and far - and my teachers this sem are almost as awesome as my boyfriend.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T