TIPS -Restorán a la Propina is a restaurant in which you only pay what you think the food and the service were worth.
You are served a set menu consisting of an appetizer and a cocktail, an entrée and a glass of wine, water, beer or soft drink, a main course with a second glass of your chosen beverage, and a dessert with a cup of coffee or tea.

That statue was sort of intimidating.

The restaurant itself is quite nice. It has different sections (the lounge, the bar, the patio, etc) and they are decorated differently, ranging from Pop art to camp style.
We were sitting in a part of the lounge area that was mainly decorated with religious icons, such as painting that depicted Jesus and a Virgin Mary statue.

Anyway, I chose the following menu:

Entrée: TIPS’ Fries (french fries with a cheese topping) with a glass of Coke Zero.
Main Course: Chicken Schnitzel with a side of fried yam and caramelized onions, and another glass of Coke Zero.
Dessert: Flan with dulce de leche. Neither coffee nor tea were offered.

The service was terrible. The waiters were rude and unhelpful. The main course took more that an hour and a half to arrive, and it wasn’t even worth it. The side dish was cold and the portions were quite small. And the dessert was terrible, it tasted like plastic. And they didn’t even offered us our drinks. Terrible.

The worst part was that they turned some of the lights off WHILE WE WERE EATING. It wasn’t even late, and the restaurant was full of people, but one of our waiters told us that they had to turn a lamp off, and he didn’t bother to tell us why.

I was so pissed off, I just want to pay exactly what I thought they crappy service was worth and get the hell out of there. I won’t tell you how much we paid, but I think it was more than enough.

In order to catch up with you guys, here are a few pictures I took the last two months:

March 22nd - I found a Scientology church near my faculty.

March 14th - I finally got La Prohibida's first album.

April 14th - A few friend and I went to a Culisueltas' live show in a LGBT party. Culisueltas are one of the trendiest cumbia villera groups in Argentina. Let me just say that it was quite bizarre. (Sorry for the low quality, it was really crowded and I couldn't properly focus my camera.)

April 16th - I got a '90s haircut. Ignore the extremely weird face I made, I hate taking pictures of myself.

Yeah, my life hasn’t been really interesting. University classes have been great, though. I’m taking Economy II, General Sociology and Philosophy.  They’ve been quite hard, but really rewarding. Please take into account that I spend four hours a day in class and most of my free time is spent reading for the next day.

I need some rest.

For those of you who aren’t aware of their existence, 2NE1 is a quite famous k-pop/hip-hop girlgroup formed in 2009. According to Wikipedia,  ’the name 2NE1 combines the phrases “21st century” and “new evolution”, and is pronounced “twenty-one” or “to anyone”‘. NOLZA was their first solo concert and it was held last year at the Seoul Olympic Stadium from August 26th to 28th.

Anyway, I was extremely excited when I got my present and I couldn’t wait to get home from the party I was at.
I unwrapped it and I was shocked. I always knew that Korean merchandising was of great quality, but I never expected something this elaborate for a 2-disc DVD set.

Closed box. I think it is covered with velvet or chamois leather.

Opening the box

DVD Case and 110-page booklet with concert pictures and credits.

Open DVD case, YG Family card and flyers.

As you can see, the whole package theme is related to playing cards,  a reference to both the group’s name and its official fanclub, the Blackjacks. Since I can’t seem to fittingly describe the set, here’s a video of a man who did an unboxing review:

And I leave you with a clip of their opening number, ‘FIRE’. Enjoy, they are fierce and pretty damn talented.

I haven’t been able to update as frequently because I was out of town, on vacation with my best friend. We are only 19 and it was the first time any of us was so far away from home without an adult present, so we were extremely excited.

We stayed in a city called Mar del Plata, on the coast of the Argentine Sea.

The weather was hot/warm during the day and cool during the night. I love that about coastal regions!
There were also a few rainstorms that caught of in the middle of outdoor shopping or walking home from a club, so we got to run like crazy and laugh at how awful we looked.

I don’t really like beaches and I get sunburns quite easily, so we basically went out for meals or to nightclubs, and watched films made by Pedro Almodóvar, my favorite director.

I just wanted to relax and forget about the health problems I’d been having, and I kind of did. Except for the stomach flu we both got.

On another note, I just found out that I only got accepted in one of the three courses I applied for.

My university uses a system in which you have to make your own schedule based on the courses on offer and their available class times/days. The system then enrolls in a certain number of students based on an algorithm that takes into account your grade average, whether you work or not, if you have children, et cetera.  The higher your score is, the more likely you are accepted in the classes you’ve applied for.

But every new student gets a 7/10 score when they apply for classes during their first four-month term, due to the fact that  the Common Basic Cycle (the first 6 courses that you need to pass before getting into your faculty of choice) grade average isn’t taken into account.  So it’s basically luck. And I seem to lack of it, as I only got enrolled in Economy II. Now I’ve got to wait until February 28th to apply for the remaining classes on offer and my schedule may end up looking like this:

Schedule

That four-hour gap on Wednesdays and Thursdays would be really annoying, but it’s the best option I’ve got. I guess I’ll spend those hours having lunch and reading. It’s better than nothing.

My headaches are a bit better, but I’m still in pain, so I made an appointment with my physiotherapist for tomorrow. Let’s hope that will take care of them like it did a few months ago.
My doctor reminded me again that I have to get an appointment with a psychologist in order to discuss my supposedly hypochondriac episodes.

But I won’t think about that right now – today is all about this:

As you might or might not know, Morning Musume is an idol music group from Japan and it’s my favourite one. Today, their newest single, ‘PyocoPyoco Ultra’, has leaked.

Many fans have complained about this single, mainly because they think it’s extremely childish. Well, let me tell you something – Morning Musume is constantly changing. Members graduate after some years in the group and new generations are added after exhausting auditions.  The newest members (9th and 10th Generations) are very young, ranging from 12 to 16-year-old girls – it is normal for girls their age to perform a single like this.

And it is not like MoMusu has always a serious and mature group – they have changed their style countless times during their 48 singles, 13 studio albums and so on and so forth.  Besides, they are japanese idols, they have to be all cutesy.

So no matter what people say, and despite my constant headaches, I’m going to spend the whole day listening to it and it’s coupling track. Because I am that obsessed about them.

And even though I wanted to stay home and relax for the rest of the day, specially since the temperature was 35ºC/95ºF, I had already made plans with a friend of mine named Sabrina.

So I took a few ibuprofen pills and went out. We wanted to go to Wendy’s.

Wendy’s restaurants all over Argentina closed in 2000, but due to the  franchising boom that started once Starbucks came to the country circa 2008, they decided to come back. As of today, there is only one Wendy’s restaurant in Buenos Aires, which opened around two weeks ago. I’ve already gone two times, and there is always a lot of people.
Today, the waiting line was so long that many people were almost outside of the building. It was insane, so we ended up eating at Burger King.

But the interesting part about my afternoon was related to the Nantucket cookies I wrote about yesterday.
I bought another bag of what I though were Soft Baked cookies, but they turned out to be Chocolate Chunk Crispy Cookies in the wrong bag!

I was really scared at first – I though I’d purchased the wrong kind of cookies the other time, that I was supposed to bake them or something. But I checked Pepperidge’s website and I finally understood what had happened. Let me tell you something: they are both extremely good.

Tomorrow I have to go to work with these awful headaches. The event we are hosting is going to be quite big and there’s going to be a lot of noisy teenagers. I think I’ll die of an ibuprofen overdose.

ETA: I changed the site’s theme – the previous one was way too boring. I hope you like this one.

Pepperidge Farm's Soft Baked Nantucket Dark Chocolate cookies

I had a job interview a couple of days ago – it only took about half an hour and everything went great. I decided to give myself a little treat, so I went to the supermarket for a little shopping spree.

Stores like Disco and Jumbo are known for being more expensive than others, but they also have a wider selection of products. More specifically, you can buy several imported goods that are not available at any other supermarket.

I was in the mood for something sweet, so I bought a bag of Pepperidge Farm Soft Baked Nantucket Dark Chocolate cookies – what a long name!
Although they seem popular and, according to Wikipedia, there are a few references to Pepperidge Farm products in shows (Will and Grace, Futurama), I hadn’t heard about these cookies.

They are GREAT. They sort of tasted like cookie dough (I’ve only eaten my own homemade cookie dough as I’ve never seen any pre-made packs in Argentina – I should check Jumbo’s aisles and see if there are any) and the chocolate was melting due to the heat – our summers can be pretty damn hot.

It was a messy experience, I ended up with chocolate stains all over my hands and my face, but it was really worth it.

It’s funny, because I find this such an interesting and pleasant experience, while most of you should be able to find them available at any store.

The last time I wrote in Anatomized was on October 23, 2008, more than three years ago. Most of you probably have forgotten me (let’s face it, I wasn’t even that well-known), but I haven’t.

I keep reading your blogs, even commenting every know or then. And I can’t even describe the joy I feel when I discover someone’s new site/blog/LJ/whatever – is really comforting to find out, after all these years, that you are all alive and well.

So, what’s been going on for the past 3 years?

2009 was a dreadful year. I was quite depressed and spent most of my days in bed. I fought all the time with my closest friends, I had a relationship with one of the most horrible human beings on Earth and I loathed myself.
One of the many things that helped me through those days was music, specially a Japanese idol conglomerate called ‘Hello! Project”. Yes, laugh all you want, but groups like ‘Morning Musume’ and ‘Berryz Koubou’ sort of ‘saved’ me.

Things got really better. I got a job as an Coordinator in a anime-related event planning and production company (I still work there, it’s an on and off thing).

In December, I finished my secondary education and in March 2011, I started university. I’m studying to become a Licentiate in Sociology (according to Wikipedia, it’s a ‘degree between that of bachelor and master or doctor; in some countries it is comparable to a PhD degree.’ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licentiate#Argentina) at the University of Buenos Aires. I was going to study Anthropology, but I though about it for a long time and I decided to enroll in Sociology, looking forward to specializing in Sociology of Culture. I completed the Common Basic Cycle with high grades and I start the Grade Cycle this March.

Anyways,my written English is kind of rusty, so I might make quite a few mistakes every now or then. Please keep that in mind and cut me some slack.

I’m really looking forward to getting in touch with most of the people who used to read and/or comment on this blog, so let’s hope I’ll keep on writing.