Amazing What One Can Observe aka the Starbucks Chronicles Vol. 1 and 2...

January 24, 2006…

Just got out of an interview and it finished earlier than I anticipated. I parked my car back at the Power Plant Mall and they won’t open for another hour at least… Hmmm… what to do?

Venue: Starbucks along Rockwell Drive…

Got myself a salad and coffee… I was bored outta my wits at the prospect of waiting for at least another hour for the mall to open so I thought of writing down some stuff while I waited. In the absence of paper, I took one of their pamphlets and started writing things down…

Two girls just walked in wearing unusually short denim mini-skirts, high heeled boots and blond-dyed hair. Must’ve come from one heck of a party to be still up at this hour…

A few tables away a girl wearing an Ateneo Law jacket is studying a book propped on a bookstand. Wow, haven’t seen those in while.

My interview went relatively well compared to last time (see previous thread).

Next thing I know it, Starbucks was playing Lie to Me by Johnny Lang. Kinda unusual to play blues in the morning, and in a coffee shop at that. But you just gotta love the blues baby…

Lie to Me
By Johnny Lang

Lie to me and tell me everything is all right
Lie to me and tell me that you’ll stay here tonight
Tell me that you’ll never leave,
Oh and I’ll just try to make believe
That everything, everything that you're telling me is true

Come on baby, won't you just lie to me
Oh come on baby, go ahead and lie to me
Lie to me
You know what I'm talkin’ about...Go ahead and lie to me

Lie to me, and it doesn’t matter anymore
It could never be the way it was before
If I can’t hold on to you
Leave me somethin’ I can hold on to,
For just a little while won’t you let me dream

Anyone can see
That you love him more than me
But right now baby, let me pretend
That our love will never end

Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me
You know what just I’m talkin’ about…

The song kinda reminded me of my chat with Kim the night before. It was wake-up call of sorts from my apparent social slump. Just realized I could be a jerk sometimes despite me being conscious of not being one. If you're reading this, thanks Dude for the advice.

Just across me is a study group of what looked like MBA students. Not content with books, they need laptops to study. Is it really that effective? Got a laugh out of it compared to me writing down some nonsense into a Starbucks pamphlet.

Just outside by the entrance is what I fondly call The Girl by the Door. There’s always one in every Starbucks I think. You know what I mean. This time she’s personified as tall, fair skinned with long legs, wearing a light green sleeveless shirt and white pedal pushers. She looks way outta my league…

Which got be back to my just concluded interview. Head of HR just informed me that I’m scheduled to meet Top Honcho for a second time around by next week. He’s been very out-of-the-box in our last meeting. Mental note to email references and some bullet-points by tomorrow…

Hey, did the girl next table just steal a picture of me eating breakfast/taking down notes with her cellphone?

I think it’s time I start walking to the mall to get my car…

Venue: Starbucks @ The Power Plant Mall…

What?! The mall doesn’t open until 11am?! I’ve got another hour to kill? That got me to thinking, what the heck, might as well have lunch here right? But in the meantime, I had to hang around somewhere while I wait for the mall to open. So I went to this Starbucks (for a change) and continue on with my "observations"...

Hey, this Starbucks has their own version of The Girl by the Door too! Well, that's just proven my earlier theory! Today's Starbucks Power Plant version is also tall (around 5'8" using the height of the table as reference...) black skirt with evenly tanned legs (beach lover maybe?). Wears an interesting shirt (got "Man" printed on the front and "Hater" printed on the back) and wears red horn-rimmed glasses and large hoop earrings. And she's also a law student judging by the book she's reading...

A lot of expats here compared to the other Starbucks. There's a couple of Korean tourists, what sounded like a Russian and American are in the middle of a business deal in a nearby table, a Japanese guy keeps on stepping out for a smoke...

Ah... I see the mall doors open, and just in time when I'm starting to get bored of observing too. Time to get some lunch. Hope there's no restuarant pamphlet where I'm eating...