Winning one war and losing the other

Glad to say I've survived the past six days of working at the cafe. I've now become used to waking up real early in the morning already, and I hope it's something I'll never change. Even when I'm done standing in at the cafe I'll want to wake up early and go to school to practise.

I've also gotten used to the quicker pace of the cafe, and sort of gotten used to the pricing system (except odd things that some customers order). I've become more experienced at making tea and coffee (ok, just tea, since coffee is easy) of the right strength, although some customers are beginning to ask for more milk (oops, my teas are getting stronger) while yesterday someone wanted his even stronger. Really diverse tastes, humans...

I'm getting used to putting my hand in scalding hot water to do the dishes (soapy hot water). We do this so that the dishes are dumped into the water and when there are no customers to serve, they (the dishes, not customers) are just scrubbed clean with a sponge, dipped a few times to 'rinse', and then left on a rack where the hot water will evaporate off them very quickly. It saves me from having to dry the dishes, but it also makes my hands feel very cooked each time I wash something.

One thing I'm proud of is that so far I've managed to understand all the customers, even though when I was asked to stand in they warned me that cafe customers sometimes have really strong (and sometimes weird) accents. But it was ok, I could understand them and they can usually understand my fake-o trying-to-be-British-but-dunno-what-it-sounds-like accent. I was really a bit surprised when HN came in one day to help and he couldn't understand a very simple order, seeing that his English is as good as mine... it's a very weird thing, accents.

On the school work front I'm not doing so good, though. As of now I still have 1 minute and 12 seconds to write in order to complete my assignment (oh and plus a write up too). And I'm afraid to say, I'm quite gone case for the three essays... started the first paragraph of one but realised I might need to get another edition of the score cos this one isn't of much help. I think I'll go right after work tomorrow (er, ok, today I mean). I know I say 'gone case', but still, I'm going to try my best. Gambatte ne...