Two Truths and a Lie - Toastmaster Ice Breaker Speech

One of the things, you’ll find when you start to get to know me is that I can take things quite literally. For example, I often answer rhetorical questions sometimes unintentionally but mostly unintentionally. So, it’s only natural that I’d my first Ice Breaker speech, but doing an actually Icebreaker. Although it’s a one-sided Icebreaker. However, if you’d like to share your two truths and a lie with me later it would be greatly welcome.

If you are not familiar with the two truths and a lie icebreaker it essentially just a fun little activity that people will do at a networking event to get people to start speaking with each other with more ease. You go around the group and each tell three statements about yourself but they have to be two truths about you and one lie.

Here are the three statements about myself:

The first one being it once took me 15 minutes or longer to remove a dead mouse from my kitchen. The second, since 2007, I have traveled to a different country every year. The third in honor of NY coming up that for one of my new year’s resolutions was to always carry stickers with me for that year.

I’ll give you a few seconds to think about which one is false.

The first one taking 15 minutes to remove a dead mouse is true. I’m not a big fan of creepy crawlies at all. And I’m extremely grateful that it wasn’t alive when I found it otherwise, I’d probably have to move out. It’s just one of the down-sides of growing up and owning your own home or being a landlord. I really do enjoy it, because it’s is actually really gratifying to slowly improve and fix my house. I don’t question if I’m an adult yet as much.

The second statement was traveling out of country since 2007. This is false, if you got this one wrong you aren’t alone.  My sister who I’ve known for well over 20 years also got this incorrect. In 2007 I travelled abroad to South Korea. I have some of the best memories from there and met some amazing people who I keep in contact with. After that trip, I think I made a sweeping declaration that I would travel internationally once a year and that I wanted to truly live and experience new foods and cultures. However, I learned that travelling is super expensive and I don’t really enjoy the travelling part of travelling. And I have a lot more responsibilities now like owning a home and having worry about who will mow my lawn etc. I don’t regret not travelling internationally every year because I do travel when I have time and there’s still so much to see within the US. My perspective and priorities have changed.

Which brings me to the last statement which is true about carrying stickers around as a new year’s resolution. My logic was that stickers were underappreciated and underutilized by adults with the exception of elementary to middle school teachers.  I thought it would be nice to get a sticker or some nice gesture when you do a job well done. But I don’t take new year’s resolutions that seriously mainly because it never works for me, because to me it’s like making a sweeping declaration about travelling to a different country every year. I rather focus one thing or goal at a time like joining toastmasters to learn how to speak more confidentially which leads me to advance my career to allow me to update my home and pay others to mow or shovel the snow while I’m travelling to a different country. Or something even more simple like telling two truths and a lie to complete my first icebreaker speech.

The 128 Cafe - Eye Feast

This restaurant did not disappoint. The 128 Cafe is definitely one of my favorites now in the Twin Cities area.

Luckily, we stopped by here for Restaurant Week.

Sadly, I don't recall everything we ordered, but I assure you every dish was amazing. Especially the dishes we had low expectations for.

Here's a feast for your eyes:

Beef Tartare

Gnocchi

El Tequila Restaurant Review

I never thought one amazing dish could keep me coming to one restaurant over and over again. In regards to Mexican cuisine, I pretty much assume their typical dishes will easily compare to other restaurants. However at El Tequila their chicken enchilada in the green sauce is pretty much AH-MAZING. I am constantly craving this dish.

It's hard to not re-order this dish every time I go there.

Chicken Enchilada with green sauce

Chaulafan

Seriously, not sure how far you live from this place, but it's worth a trip just for their enchilada. It's the best I've ever had. Their chaulafan was pretty mediocre, but who orders "fried rice" at a Mexican place, my boyfriend. I've also had their chicken quesadilla on our second trip there. It was good, but I thought it was a little over-priced for what it was and a smaller portion size for the price. However, I can't stop eating their addicting free chips and salsa once I get there - so no big deal.

Their customer service is pretty good. However, there was a bit of a language barrier with one of their waitresses, but she's attentive. 

What are some of your favorite Mexican restaurants? Have you been to El Tequila before? What do you usually order. 

Szechuan Restaurant in Roseville Review

This was a spur of the moment pit stop after dropping off a package at FedEx. I was expecting an over-priced/American Chinese food based on the design of the restaurant, but it actually the opposite.

Szechuan was fairly reasonably priced and looked much nicer than your typical family run Asian restaurant. I thought the flavoring of the food was stellar, but the meat quantity was lacking for the price.

Chicken Fried Rice

Beef with Green Peppers

They had a lot of dishes that were different from the typical fast food Chinese joints, so it caught me a little off guard as well as items written in Cantonese/Mandarin. So I was a little out of my element and not prepared to order. I'm still waiting to give them place a chance to wow me and try some of their specialty dishes.

Have you been to this place before? Any suggestions?

Osaka Sushi Review

Grabbed a quick dinner with a good friend of mine at Osaka Sushi in Roseville.

The service was fast, and the food was reasonably priced. 

I ordered the shrimp and salmon teriyaki box. It was delicious and the portion was reasonable. The leftovers made for a great snack/brunch the next day.

I'd definitely come here again. The atmosphere was great for a fun and low-key event. 

Have you been to any of the Osaka locations? What did you think? 

Corner Cafe Review

Had a quick lunch here with the BF at Corner Cafe (which he frequents fairly often).

It was pretty much adorable. Loved the atmosphere and the sandwiches were fairly good, and at a a great price. We were both having a pretty crappy work day, and it was a great spot for us to get away, but be able to rush back to workload.

I ordered a made-to-order wheat bread with turkey, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, onion, and hummus. I also loved that you had the choice of just having your bread toasted or the entire sandwich. This was only half a sandwich. I was worried that it would be tiny, but it was the perfect portion for me that day.

I'd definitely come here again, and see the appeal of it. It was fast as well. It's the equivalent to Acoustic Cafe in Eau Claire, WI except there are no hoagies.

Didn't get to try their soup, but I will next time.

The Rest of Target's Customer Service

Well obviously there's the customer service at the actual retail locations at Target, but what about the rest of Target customer service?

For example, the online and telemarketing services. Recently, I purchased Up&Up toothbrush replacement heads, and it had serious quality issues.

You really do pay for what you get. I decided to go with the cheaper Target brand compared to the brand name like Oral B. The Up&Up brand toothbrush head was loose which caused it to snag the inside of my lip causing it to bleed. Like any idiot, I still continued to give it 4 more tries. I thought I was the problem. Well, 3 out of 4 times, the toothbrush head snagged my lip. It was time to get a refund and report the issue.

Problem: No receipt, and one was used.

I contacted the number listed on the back of the box to see if I could get a refund. I wasn't in the mood to go run to my nearest Target.

Basically, I wasted 15 minutes of my life to mainly prove a point. My point being, I don't think any one manned the number that I called. All it did was continue to ring and then say "We're sorry to keep you waiting. Calls are answered in the order they are received."

My first thought was "How many crazy people are calling to complain about stuff?!" Then, I was like "I don't know maybe more than I know."

Next, I tried the website listed on the packaging.

Also no good.

However, it did finally redirect me to a different page, where I filled out a form. The only difference to getting to that page...not entering in the "www."

So it said someone would respond within one to two business days. I didn't believe it, and went to the store to return it. 

I went to the DT Minneapolis store with the opened package and missing used toothbrush head replacement ready to fight the customer service employee for my money back. It was easy and painless. She told me I probably wouldn't get the full amount back, and it was only for store credit. I was satisfied!

They actually did respond to me within one to two business days as well. It was asking for a variety of information about the product though, which I no longer had since I already returned it. Hopefully, no one else gets the same experience with the product as I did though.

How do you feel about Target and its customer service? I felt pretty satisfied with the in-person service, and the online/email service wasn't too bad.