I'm not a pharmacist but I heard this the other day.

Pharmacy students with long-term, part-time employment with Walgreen's were offered full-time employment on completion of their degree. If they accepted, then all was well. Some didn't, for any number of reasons. Some wanted to continue to work part-time (for whatever reason). Others wanted to take a year to do a residency to enhance their qualifications. If they didn't accept the offer or didn't respond to the offer (thinking that the status quo would be okay or that they could discuss the options later), found out when they went to pick up their checks that they were fired. Summarily. On the spot. Don't show up next week. The past few years - who cares.

It seems there's something of an equilibrium now in this field, enough so that it has become a buyer's/employer's market. I don't know how many people were affected by this, and the ones I heard about found jobs pretty quickly, but they were (I love this Britishism) gobsmacked by the attitude.

I decided to splurge and buy 1 oz of expensive Chinese green tea and 1 oz of a more moderately priced green tea. Bought from a US website but tea shipped directly from China.

I receive the tea and decide to try the more expensive tea first - actually, it's the only one I've opened so far. The tea looks pretty good. Well, it looks like tea. It's green. That's about the extent of my expertise.

I take a pinch of the tea and put it in a mug. Pour hot water (yeah, I know, not boiling, etc.) And I let it steep for a while. Then I sip it. It tastes like hot water with a hint of some flavor, the tea, presumably. To call it mild would be accurate, I suppose. But somehow I expected something that would be more, I don't know, notable. I know it's not black tea, and I certainly know it's not coffee. But it tastes nothing like the commercial green tea (Yogi, Tazo, Bigelow).

On the one hand, I feel smug and self-righteous for cutting back on coffee and drinking green tea (again, yeah, I know, it still has some caffeine), but I'm half wondering if there's something of the emperor and his new clothes. Here I am praising myself for my exquisite good taste, but the kid who proclaimed that the emperor was naked is laughing his ass off because I'm drinking barely flavored hot water.

So -- am I brewing it right? Is the mild taste right? Don't refer me to websites. I've been to tons of them, and they all repeat the same guidance, and even the site where I bought the tea isn't much more helpful. So if anyone has experience with Chinese green tea, feel free to weigh in and set me straight.

Received recorded survey call today from Arcola, VA - 703-348-7839 - conducting "scientific" survey. What the heck. First question, gender. I passed. Second question, are you R or D? Guess I passed that, too. Do you support Obama's performance or not? Failed that one. Survey stopped. No further questions. Doesn't strike me as particularly scientific, unless it's the R playbook on science, in which ch 1 puts the age of the planet at something like 150 years old. Don't bother answering the phone if that number shows up. They are persistent, by the way. First call was received this morning - I ignored it. Got another this evening.