donna martin graduates!

whoa. finals are here. if my life were a tv show, this week would be the season finale and heady shit would go down. but alas, it's not, so instead this splendid time is filled with studying for two tests, an oral presentation (done, schwing!) and a two-person skit, yes, a skit...oh, man, takes me back to ms. stockmann's drama class circa late 90's. i, also, sadly to say, have been frequenting starbucks a lot recently since i cannot study in my room, and, truth be told, miss good coffee. tonight, however, i was rewarded kindly for such indulgent behavior. you see children, i was preparing for my lit final tomorrow when an employee came over and invited me to participate in their 'party' beginning at 6 o'clock. of course i accepted. to make things easy, i have created a bulleted outline of the glorious festivities.

• first, we--there were about 10 other guests--were escorted to the back area of the cafe and got to order any drink we wanted for free.

• then, we filled out a card with our names, favorite store--yeah, i didn't really get it, so left that part blank--and favorite starbucks drink.

• after this brief introduction, they gave us a sample cup of water--not sure why, perhaps to cleanse our palettes?--and told us to down it. then filled it with coffee, made us smell it and slowly sip it. once we finished half of it, they came around and poured orange juice, yes, orange juice, in it and instructed us to finish it. whaaaat? as expected, orange juice + coffee=not so delicious.

• now, it was time for the games.
• game one: spelling contest! after taking us behind the bar and showing us how to make a caramel macchiato, they had us spell out 'caramel macchiato' in english and in chinese. i spelled it correctly in english, although had no idea what it was called in chinese, yet still managed to score a 'geography is a flavour' map type thing.... score!
• game two: picture contest! we were split into two groups. they gave us a bunch of little, colored magnets and we had to make a collage to be judged by the employee moderators. my group made a picture that read: SC (for starbucks and coffee, respectively) = heart. creative, no? the other group wrote out 'love' and had two stick figures holding hands. they declared all of us winners...oh man, takes me back to the parker-'everybody is a winner'-days--and gave us a fold-up starbucks shopping back thing.... and one!
• game three: trivia! they asked us three questions: where was the first starbucks? when did the first starbucks come to hangzhou? and, how many starbucks are there in hangzhou? i answered the first one right--seattle, duh!-- and won myself a purple stuffed rat... count it!
• game four: bonding game! so, for the last game, we played a middle-school retreat/NOLS/MOO-esque game. i'm too lazy to write it all out, but i'll tell you this much, it involved holding hands in a circle, pointing, dancing and singing. but yeah, do you believe in miracles? yes! yes! because just as those young americans defeated the unbeatable russians, i, too, came out victorious in this underdog battle.
  

end of story: i dominated that fucking party. and left with some baller tchotskies...oh man, takes me back to the time i tried to put becca cohen in the charity tchotsky box in 7th grade.