...And the Animals Rejoice!

Since I have read about the animal testing of products, I have reset my mind into a mode where I am only trying to buy things that have not been animal tested. As a couple people have pointed out to me (which I wouldn't have thought about on my own until some time later), that some of the ingredients within some of the products may have been tested on animals before it went into the final product, so you still have to be careful. I got some advice from my manager about some of it, and did some reading and spoke to another friend. I'm pretty happy at this point with what I have achieved.

My goal in doing this is finding products that I can purchase at the usual store, where I don't have to go completely out of my way to get to. I don't mind going out of my way, but it seems more environmentally conscious (not to mention pocket-book conscious) to go to a closer facility. Unfortunately, this is a difficult task in itself. I probably looked like a weirdo standing there, looking up brand names in my little folder to see if they were okay to purchase, but oh well. It's not like anyone knows me here anyway.

I have to say, that at least at the location I went to, I found nothing that was not animal tested at Walmart. I don't really like that store anyway, and how the company runs, but sometimes it's where I have to go. I then went to Target and had a lot more luck. Though neither store had a cruelty-free pet food available for me to purchase, I did find laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, dish soap, hand soap, body wash and shampoo and condition at Target (and I had a couple choices of brands and scents)! I was excited, it made me happy and feel a little better.

Method is my new best friend. It's a brand that Target sells, among other places, and it is not only not tested on animals, it is also a vegan product! They make cleaners, air fresheners, detergents, soaps, etc. As a designer they are very appealing to me, the packaging is beautiful and sleek, and as a green dreamer, they are lovely as well. You can recycle the packaging on every product and it is all biodegradable. Did I mention it's all affordable too? Not bad prices at all!



Pure & Natural is the body wash I bought. They have several other products as well. It says it is biodegradable, comes in a 100% recyclable container, is paraben free (a major cosmetic preservative), and is of course not tested on animals. These are all things that make me happy. I don't think this one is a vegan product, but another plus is that it is hypo-allerenic. These are a little more expensive than your usual purchase, but still not terrible.

Seventh Generation is a fantastic company that I've known about for a while. I didn't realize until today that they sold it at Target, but I was pleasantly surprised by this! Non-toxic, no chlorine, no phosphates, biodegradable product and recyclable packaging (and of course no animal testing). They make a WIDE range of products to choose from (or buy them all). This is definitely an eco-conscious company. Comparably priced to other brands.

And lastly, Rusk is the other brand I purchased. These are not vegan, but they do not test on animals, so that makes me happy. This is also much more affordable and a larger quantity than a few other brands that I had to choose from. I'm on a tight budget, so wherever I can save money is important. Needless to say I would like to try out the other haircare products I saw, but I'll do that when I have more money, and maybe less hair (it's very long right now).

Green Dreams

I suppose I ought to go into some sort of personal decisions I've made, so some of my actions will make more sense.

I am a "green" person at heart. There are things I am doing every day to make myself feel better about how I am living. I am a vegetarian, and though I started being a veg because of health reasons, I don't see me going back to my old ways anytime soon after learning so much. I now know too much about the meat industry to feel that it's personally okay for me to eat meat. That is a personal decision and I have nothing wrong with people eating meat in front of me or in general, I just do not.

Recycling is an important issue for me, and I have slacked greatly on it since I have been living in this particular apartment. This will change dramatically when I move this month. I am starting a recycling program at our store and have everything set-up, I just need to finish my follow-through and get it going and get people involved with it. It will be clean and organized, so people won't be offended or disgusted by throwing a bag of recyclables into their personal vehicle and running it up to the recycling place up the road.

A co-worker asked me the other day if I knew of any shampoos that did not test on animals, and I did not so I looked it up! Once I found what I was looking for, I couldn't help myself and had to keep reading and learning more about companies that do test on animals. It is ridiculous how many companies test on animals, and so many of the mainstream ones. Like organic foods, and anything else that's good for you and everyone/thing else, it is often more expensive to purchase these cruelty-free products. As a personal decision, it means more to me to now purchase these products and spend more money on them than to go on purchasing the ones that continually do harm.

A similar, fairly infrequent purchase of mine would be milk and eggs. I only buy organic and free-range/cage-free eggs. I know too much about what happens to those animals to buy any other way, and not to mention it's better for me to not ingest all of those hormones, antibiotics and chemicals that these products are often consumed by. I am also working on eventually buying all organic foods, but unfortunately my budget doesn't cover my complete green dreams. Perhaps one day. Right now I will focus on my personal products and cleaners, and the big ones like eggs and milk that are consumed so widely.

Some Earth Day Artwork

I just have this one illustration so far, as I have not met with anyone yet. I already had the outlines for it, just needed a reason to finish it up. It's complete for the moment, until I notice something else or need to alter it. Just thought I'd put it up here first! Once I get my website redesign done, it will go in there also.

Earth Day and Volunteering

There were some people that came by the store yesterday wondering if we could assist them in any way with Earth Day. They are having an Earth Day celebration up in the Square in town and are new to it and kind of learning as they go along. I didn't know at the time we were only donating to the Rainbow House, but I will call them and let them know what's going on. I told them that even if our store wasn't getting involved, then I would be interested in personally helping because it's something that I care about very much. I told them that I might be able to do some posters or t-shirts or something for them to help them out. I'm not going to ask for any money for it because of the cause itself. I guess I would end up being kind of like a sponsor for it with my design even though I wouldn't be paying them any money? Not sure. I'm going to think about it more and see what I can do. I have some artwork I was working on anyway for Earth Day, not intending to really do anything with it, but it would be a good t-shirt or something design. We'll see!

I had the manager hold onto the flyer and I'm going to see if any of the partners would like to get involved with it. I think it would be a great experience to do volunteer work as a group. Good bonding and a good cause. I hope somebody else would like to help me out, at least one person. I think there will be interest at least in it, these are good people I work with. I love going to work with them.

I'll update the status of the Earth Day event as it progresses, and post some artwork in here as well if I do end up working on some for them. I think it will be fun. I just have to set some time aside for it since it's just around the corner! And with the possible job promotion and the other design work I do and the fact that I'm moving to a new apartment this month. I'm a busy bee, but love it!

Rainbow House, Inc.

With the new manager at our store there have been a lot of changes, new views and new ways of doing things. One thing that has recently come up is the frequency of people asking for donations from us, and how many people are doing it. Of course it's fantastic that we do any donations (coffee and pastries), but to have multiples of people coming to us all of the time has actually become a little stressful. We have to remain a neutral company so we can't donate to anyone with religious affiliations, so that rules out a lot of people. Then, there are people who want donations and then don't come to pick them up, so we end up wasting usually around 7 and half gallons of coffee because they won't call or they messed up on what time they were going to come by. This hasn't just happened once, there have been repeats. In any case, a solution to this, she and DM came up with was to choose one organization and donate only to that place. Unfortunately there are a lot of great organizations and causes to donate to, so it's a little difficult when you start to think about it, but she decided on a worthy cause. The Rainbow House.

No one can get mad at us for donating only to the Rainbow House, no matter what kind of organization they. It's too good of a cause and is something that she feels (and I agree) is something all of the partners will get behind strongly.

The Rainbow House is an organization that helps abused children recover from their trauma.

"Our Mission: To provide comprehensive services that restore, heal, and rebuild the lives of children and families.

Our Vision: Children and their support systems will be best served by competent, caring professionals who provide extensive services based on strength-based, family-focused, and community-based principles."

I'm sure that this organization will be fully worth the downsizing of the amount of donations we do and is just as good and better than the other people that want donations. Nothing against them of course, there are many worthy causes, but I feel this one is most definitely worth the time and money.

Check out their website if you're interested in learning more about them.
Go to: Rainbow House, Inc.

ASM to Be?

I met with my Store Manager and District Manager today and I think it went pretty well! There wasn't any reason for me to be nervous, but I was for some reason. I've never been necessarily nervous around either of them before, just my general shy nature until I get a little more comfortable. Then, like anyone else.. I'm very relaxed, and talkative.

The DM (District Manager) told me that I need to work on my composure some. The only thing that seems to be a real problem is me being nervous around the higher-ups. It's always been a problem for me (the nerves). I don't know why it is, or how to fix it. I'm going to talk to my manager about it because I really don't have any reason to be nervous about anything. Maybe it's just a confidence issue. I'm very confident, but I am also still growing and realizing what I can do. In any case, I need to work on it, so I most certainly will! I want to this position, and working on solving my "nerves" problem (which isn't severe by the way), will of course help me in the long run.

I have another goal to work on in the meantime, or rather side-by-side with the previously mentioned need-for-improvement. This one is not a personal achievement (though it can be viewed in that way as well), but rather a store and partner ("Partner" is what Starbucks employees are called, in case you were wondering) achievement. She is giving me the entire month of April to figure out how to get there. My mission? Our Coffee Passports.

Coffee Passports are small books that every partner has, and it is filled with the different types of coffees we sell. I say we, because I am a part of the company. The Coffee Passport helps us better understand what we do at work, and gives us the ability to teach our customers about our products, and answer any questions they may have about them. When your Passport is full, you are eligible to begin the Coffee Mastery course, where you essentially become an expert at the coffees. There are several of us in the store that are interested in pursuing this and thus comes my project: I am to get everyone more involved in coffee tastings with fellow partners and customers, and to get everyone's passports filled out. I've already begun the process.

I have some notes in the book we utilize daily in our store for people to put their names on a sheet of paper I have designated. "Need to finish Coffee Passport" and "Finished Coffee Passport". This way, I can see who I need to work with the most (though I will be encouraging all partners to participate regardless). We will all have completed Passports soon. I need to make sure I am good about follow-up. Are they putting their names down like I asked? My goal is to have all of their names assigned appropriately by this Sunday. This way, we can begin asap!

Okay, that's way too much for one entry... especially the second entry in this blog! I told you liked to talk!

I have an idea. Every day I do a new coffee tasting, I will post a blog about it. The type of coffee, the pastry or pastries it was paired with, experiences, opinions and flavors.

'Til next time!

Basic Introduction

Well, as the sidebar says, my name is Kirin. "Keer-in", for those of you struggling with the pronunciation on it. Don't worry, most people do, and no it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Let's see... I have a BFA in Graphic Design from Eastern Kentucky University, and I am currently working at Starbucks (I'm sure you have all heard of this company--if you haven't, chances are you have not left your place of occupancy for a very long time and that may very well be why you are reading this now). You're probably wondering why I'm working at Sbux if I have a degree. First off, I would like to say... there is nothing wrong with me working there, or anyone else who works there. There is a lot of training involved with being a barista (bare-istuh or bur-eesta, which is my chosen pronunciation), and you definitely have to be on your game to keep up with everything that goes on. We are very intelligent people (for instance I work with a couple people studying to be doctors). It's really amazing the diversity of people that both and frequent Sbux. Since I do need more money and love art so much, I also dabble in freelance artwork, of both graphic design and illustration. I'm a pretty busy person in general.

My current goal career wise is to become a Manager at Starbucks. I started there in April of 2007, and am currently a Shift Supervisor with ambitions of becoming much more.

A long term goal of mine would be to work in the corporate office, with a considerable amount of knowledge of Starbucks and its functionality so I can better assist them in continuing to grow. What part of corporate? Design and/or possibly marketing. We will see as I go along.

So, that's the gist of things, or at least what I can think of at the moment since I am tired.

There will be more later. Oh, and "Hello!" and thanks for reading. :)