2008 Woodie Awards
Coffee Is Not Always A la Mode
Reid Kiyabu
Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: Commentary
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To meet the escalating demands of the midterms season, I pulled my first all-nighter last night. While the seconds ticked away and the minutes melted into hours, I deliriously contemplated reaching for a good ole fashioned cup of Joe to ease the pain of a sleepless night. As I stood up to hustle the cappuccino machine for a pumpkin-spice latte, I quickly withdrew my outstretched hand because, unlike most of the student body, I don't drink coffee.
For those of you who don't know me extensively (probably 99.9 percent of you reading this), I was a vegetarian for the majority of my life. In fact, I only recently started to assimilate myself into the world of "normal" carnivorous eating. The reason for this was actually surprisingly simple -- I never had, and never considered eating meat. I was healthy, I had energy, and the sustenance plant matter on which I had grown easily supported my lifestyle. There was never a need to eat meat so I just didn't. The same can be said about my coffee-less way of life -- I never had to, never needed to, so I just didn't.
As I've stated in a previous article, I spent an enlightening summer at Cornell University two years ago. While I sat waiting for the lecture session to begin, I made it a game to count the number of people who were drinking coffee on any given morning. As the count reached the echelons beyond my 7:30 a.m. brain functioning, there were three girls who caught my eye. They looked like they had just crawled out of a swamp. It was impossible to miss their unkempt dirty blonde locks, wrinkled garments and sagging, baggy eyes. As they snuggled into the lecture hall seats, they clutched steaming coffee cups with both hands, holding the bitter liquid up close to their pouting mouths as though they were scared of putting it down and falling asleep. It was ridiculous to see teenaged girls so dependent on their morning mochas. This experience only strengthened my belief that coffee is an unnecessary evil.
I don't know how many of you actually like the taste of coffee, but I suspect that much of the reason our society seems to be so attracted to it is because it is a sign that we have "grown up". There is no worse feeling for a kid than getting written off as an immature, non-contributing member of society. We see the most prominent people in the world drinking coffee, we see "cool" older kids rushing to class with "venti" cups and we consequently begin to believe that we must also adopt that habit to be taken seriously. In the case of coffee drinking, gaining the publics' acknowledgement that you are a time-conscious human being is worth sacrificing the height you could have attained had you stayed away from excessive caffeine till after puberty.
For those of you who don't know me extensively (probably 99.9 percent of you reading this), I was a vegetarian for the majority of my life. In fact, I only recently started to assimilate myself into the world of "normal" carnivorous eating. The reason for this was actually surprisingly simple -- I never had, and never considered eating meat. I was healthy, I had energy, and the sustenance plant matter on which I had grown easily supported my lifestyle. There was never a need to eat meat so I just didn't. The same can be said about my coffee-less way of life -- I never had to, never needed to, so I just didn't.
As I've stated in a previous article, I spent an enlightening summer at Cornell University two years ago. While I sat waiting for the lecture session to begin, I made it a game to count the number of people who were drinking coffee on any given morning. As the count reached the echelons beyond my 7:30 a.m. brain functioning, there were three girls who caught my eye. They looked like they had just crawled out of a swamp. It was impossible to miss their unkempt dirty blonde locks, wrinkled garments and sagging, baggy eyes. As they snuggled into the lecture hall seats, they clutched steaming coffee cups with both hands, holding the bitter liquid up close to their pouting mouths as though they were scared of putting it down and falling asleep. It was ridiculous to see teenaged girls so dependent on their morning mochas. This experience only strengthened my belief that coffee is an unnecessary evil.
I don't know how many of you actually like the taste of coffee, but I suspect that much of the reason our society seems to be so attracted to it is because it is a sign that we have "grown up". There is no worse feeling for a kid than getting written off as an immature, non-contributing member of society. We see the most prominent people in the world drinking coffee, we see "cool" older kids rushing to class with "venti" cups and we consequently begin to believe that we must also adopt that habit to be taken seriously. In the case of coffee drinking, gaining the publics' acknowledgement that you are a time-conscious human being is worth sacrificing the height you could have attained had you stayed away from excessive caffeine till after puberty.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 3
Doug
posted 10/04/07 @ 3:30 PM EST
"Petty bonus" might be a stretch. Perhaps you should think about those poor souls who might have a harder time waking up in the morning. I'm not one of those people, but I know a lot of them and it's not something that happened overnight when they reached college. (Continued…)
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