good conversations are my red bull
red bull. haha i was gonna title the post with "coffee", but toastbar just started selling redbull and red bull came to mind.
i stepped out of my room looking at my list of reasons for being here in 2012, picked one, and kept reminding myself of the reason i was gonna focus on today - build up. i was really glad when A came over and started talking while i made a drink for a customer. we talked about how he dreams of travelling around the world with nothing holding him back from enjoying the luxuries of the different (comfortable) cultures. about how he's doing work with usana now because he sees that as a way for him to buy time in looking for a job upon graduation. his savings from working with usana (he hopes) will tide him through for a while and lower the job hunting pressure. we talked about how i dream of opening up spaces for good conversations and relationships to be formed and how i see that being done in a cafe (and how my work at toastbar is essentially me having a crack at working out my dream. we talked about how sometimes people are too smart for their own good. they keep limiting themselves by giving themselves a long list of "needs" that have to be ticked off before they can pursue their dreams. and we talked about how i didn't have anything when i started toastbar. just someone who was serious about me pursuing my dream.
Tomorrow's neighbouhood dinner. i usually dont cook. i quite dislike cooking, because i dislike cleaning up. plus i have not much interest in cooking. but in the past week, i've met a fair number of new people. xin nan, yi fang, meng qian, rudy, stephen. and they're all chinese.. cept for rudy who's from indonesia. and i'm cooking with all of them tmr. LOLLLLLL seriously. i hope we have fun.
it all started.. perhaps with a cup of free hot chocolate and a free cupcake. then rudy offered to help me do the dishes! and then he asked if he could have free dinner tomorrow. which led to me asking if he and stephen wanted to cook together. and he got all excited about cooking fried noodles. SO.. i encouraged him to keep talking and thinking bout fried noodles and told him i'll buy the ingredients and he said we'll all chip in for cost and it'll be dinner from the three of us! omg i love it. i love how things like that just spring out of no where and there's leadership in that. i see it. there's enthusiasm, generosity, spontaneity and respect. golly. it's easy to miss these beautiful things. me naming them is my effort to not take these things for granted. so lovely.
stephen aided me in serving out laksa today too. and we sold out within half and hour. he was just so willing to help out. ah. i am encouraged.
tonight was also a random free hot chocolate night. because i said so. haha.
funny how a cup of hot chocolate can lead to people feeling taken care of in a place. and how it has catalysed the formation of relationships. SO...(yes another big 'so')... i ended up gathering xin nan, meng qian and yi fang (and henny) to make tang yuan together for neighbourhood dinner. hahah. they're really not confident in the kitchen. like me. and they dont believe they can do it. But... i've had fun making tang yuan even though i'm not a kitchen goddess. and i think they'll have fun too! i'm genuinely excited about kitchen work for once. but not so much that because of the food that we'll be cooking, but because we'll all be trying something new together. new people, getting their hands dirty, serving out. WHOOOP! lovin' it. i think i'm so energized i wont sleep till really late again tonight.
side note: sue-lee took me to proud mary for breakfast today!! FINALLY. after 3 years of wanting to go to proud mary. the chai latte there is the bomb.
i stepped out of my room looking at my list of reasons for being here in 2012, picked one, and kept reminding myself of the reason i was gonna focus on today - build up. i was really glad when A came over and started talking while i made a drink for a customer. we talked about how he dreams of travelling around the world with nothing holding him back from enjoying the luxuries of the different (comfortable) cultures. about how he's doing work with usana now because he sees that as a way for him to buy time in looking for a job upon graduation. his savings from working with usana (he hopes) will tide him through for a while and lower the job hunting pressure. we talked about how i dream of opening up spaces for good conversations and relationships to be formed and how i see that being done in a cafe (and how my work at toastbar is essentially me having a crack at working out my dream. we talked about how sometimes people are too smart for their own good. they keep limiting themselves by giving themselves a long list of "needs" that have to be ticked off before they can pursue their dreams. and we talked about how i didn't have anything when i started toastbar. just someone who was serious about me pursuing my dream.
Tomorrow's neighbouhood dinner. i usually dont cook. i quite dislike cooking, because i dislike cleaning up. plus i have not much interest in cooking. but in the past week, i've met a fair number of new people. xin nan, yi fang, meng qian, rudy, stephen. and they're all chinese.. cept for rudy who's from indonesia. and i'm cooking with all of them tmr. LOLLLLLL seriously. i hope we have fun.
it all started.. perhaps with a cup of free hot chocolate and a free cupcake. then rudy offered to help me do the dishes! and then he asked if he could have free dinner tomorrow. which led to me asking if he and stephen wanted to cook together. and he got all excited about cooking fried noodles. SO.. i encouraged him to keep talking and thinking bout fried noodles and told him i'll buy the ingredients and he said we'll all chip in for cost and it'll be dinner from the three of us! omg i love it. i love how things like that just spring out of no where and there's leadership in that. i see it. there's enthusiasm, generosity, spontaneity and respect. golly. it's easy to miss these beautiful things. me naming them is my effort to not take these things for granted. so lovely.
stephen aided me in serving out laksa today too. and we sold out within half and hour. he was just so willing to help out. ah. i am encouraged.
tonight was also a random free hot chocolate night. because i said so. haha.
funny how a cup of hot chocolate can lead to people feeling taken care of in a place. and how it has catalysed the formation of relationships. SO...(yes another big 'so')... i ended up gathering xin nan, meng qian and yi fang (and henny) to make tang yuan together for neighbourhood dinner. hahah. they're really not confident in the kitchen. like me. and they dont believe they can do it. But... i've had fun making tang yuan even though i'm not a kitchen goddess. and i think they'll have fun too! i'm genuinely excited about kitchen work for once. but not so much that because of the food that we'll be cooking, but because we'll all be trying something new together. new people, getting their hands dirty, serving out. WHOOOP! lovin' it. i think i'm so energized i wont sleep till really late again tonight.
side note: sue-lee took me to proud mary for breakfast today!! FINALLY. after 3 years of wanting to go to proud mary. the chai latte there is the bomb.
posted by elisa @ 1:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home