2019-05-30, How Do You Want Your

Good morning readers!

After almost two weeks of nonstop working, I decided to go home earlier today. I thought if I continue to work in the office like this, I would be burnt out.

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I plan to go to the gym to workout for 40 minutes, so I stopped by our local grocery store and ordered one of their sandwiches. Their subs are very fresh and good in values. For less than $10, you can get a huge sandwich that's big enough for me to have two meals, dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow morning. Almost no other restaurants can compete against except, maybe Costco stores.

I still remember the first time I went to a Subway store for lunch when I was a new graduate student a long time ago. The store was quite busy during lunch. I had to wait in line to order my lunch. When it was my turn to order and the waitress started asking what I wanted, I realized I was in trouble.

At the time my English was still pretty bad. My technical vocabulary was good enough for me to handle my research and study but not good enough for me to deal with simple tasks such as ordering food in a restaurant.

And in a Subway, you have to give instructions on how to "build" your Sub on every step of the way! For example, you would start by being asked for what kind of bread you want, whole wheat or white. Then whether you want mayonnaise, mustard on your bread? With or without cheese? If you answered yes on cheese, then in more trouble with what kind of cheese you want. Next, what kind of meat? Then vegetables, salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar? etc.

With many other customers behind me waiting there then, I knew everybody was probably curiously listening to me and wondered, "Let's see what this Chinese guy is ordering!" That was awkward. I think I ended up ordering a tuna sandwich because it required lesser input from me. But I still had to answer some "multiple choice" questions. It tasted fantastic, I remember.

Nowadays, I no longer feel uncomfortable ordering any food in a restaurant. In fact, we often choose to go to different restaurants when we decided to eat out, just to challenge ourselves on how to order different food. Besides, when you become good at it, you would show more confidence when you interact with those waiters.

For tonight, I ordered a big sub with beef, turkey, ham, provolone cheese and a lot of veggies. It saved me time for cooking after my gym exercise.

How's your day so far? I hope you make it a great Friday! Cheers!