First sticking snow of the winter?

We've had a couple of days this winter of mild flurry fall, but this morning I awoke to a nice steady snowfall that has decided so far to stick. They're predicting a couple of inches before the day is out! Finally.

A light morning dust upon my street.

Also, am I the only one who had trouble figuring out this next slogan?

It reads on the 7-Eleven coffee cups: "If we charged any more for coffee, you'd have to wait in line."
I get it now, and I guess I'll grant that there's value to the type of advertising campaign that isn't immediately translucent to the consumer. It did capture my attention and force me to ponder why it was that I'd have to wait in line... It's possible, however, that it was just my pre-caffeinated dozy state (practically slept through the whole bus ride). 7-Eleven's strategy of mimicking higher end coffee shops is appropriate for the pocketbooks of today. Pseudo-lattes galore, eh? Let's just say a buck and some change is far easier to swallow - or to sip - than three or four bucks of burnt beans.

Mad frenzy of final paper writing.

Wow, so tonight I polished off the third ten-page paper I've written in the last two weeks, and I came to the realization that I've really found my groove in terms of academic paper-writing. It seems the first two years I've written papers for class that were good, you know - ones which acceptably met the guidelines for length, content, amount of analysis, whatever - but not above par.

And finally I've snagged it, the grace of writing that feels natural even in the confines of the academic voice. Length doesn't phase me because it's simply another border within which to work, but doesn't really change the level of 'difficulty' in writing the paper. It would sound blasphemous to the student of my times past, but I can proclaim now: "I enjoy it! I thrive off this stuff. I'd be absolutely content spending the rest of my life churning out pages filled with ideas and dance these words around to infinity." There must be a scientific basis for this "writer's high." Once I pushed through the muck of tentative freshman- and sophomore-year writing, those countless essays of stop-and-go, half-formed arguments (which felt like pointless essays then), I hit my stride here, this fall of my junior semester. However, history can't be written as it's occurring, right? Time'll tell.
Maybe the sheer number of pages I've subjected myself to writing this semester, taking three English classes and another two which involve several essays, has forced me to break the ennui. Last week, I had felt utterly drained: as if all the words had been taken out of me. But then I knew, it's a part of the writing process and it's a part of what makes writing so damn difficult sometimes - when there's nothing left, still you must take more from yourself. And it's probably why so many writers have a psychotic break. Heh, I kid... maybe.

Next week I've got final exams. This winter break is going to feel niiice.

Noted to myself, on the bus.

• Caught myself in a foolish line of thinking, one that won't come as much of a stretch for most Americans today. We'll buy items to serve a specific purpose, accumulating more and more, getting hooked on getting more, eventually become so depressed by the weight of it all and the sight of ourselves. It's illogical but we do it.
• It's great getting a free ride on the bus. Hardly ever happens on Metrorail, though - their system is much more organized with the entry and exit gates.
• So of course we're each burdened by our own afflictions, and that's not new. Read some good lit, burst into life, and ride your tide out. It's not that simple but it sure feels that way when you're young, and afraid of getting any older. Fame's not as important as experiencing as much as possible (whenever I read the Romantics, I want to get out and just wander). There's more to be found in getting low than reaching those heights sometimes.

Election Day is November 4th, this Tuesday! Go vote, do everything else afterwards. It's been such a long time coming that I'm pretty tired of election coverage and campaigning and opinion polls... and here's to hoping it won't take a month to get the results.

Class is back in session!

Today was the first day of the new semester - and so, back to lots of required reading. Time management, too. It's great when you get a syllabus full of titles that have been on your "to-read" list though. Hopefully I'll continue to update the blog regularly!

40-hour workweeks, nine-to-fives...

I'd like to find a statistic on the number of people working approximately 9-to-5 Monday through Friday in DC, because I bet it's a huge proportion of our working population.
Downtown during a weekday is a good indication of this - basically all you'll come across is office buildings, lunchtime establishments, and caffeine pit-stops. It's a desolate area after hours, when you'll be hard pressed to find a place to eat or something to do and the streets will be empty, save for those few drained souls treading back to the Metro to get home and crash before another long day in the office. The more social of their coworkers have dispersed into the surrounding city by this time and are working on drink three.
Actually, since my "weekend" by the five-day workweek standards usually falls on Monday and Tuesday, I've found that there's a certain niche in DC of those who shun the 9-to-5s. They're found in the coffee shops - all day long it seems! In this way, even the cool coffee shops become a bit more like offices...

A Murky story?

Within the past couple of days, there has been a lot of talk over Jeff Simmermon's blog post about the denial of his iced-espresso request at Murky Coffee in Arlington, and the subsequent response from Murky.
Apparently coffee shops don't like to serve espresso with ice, because patrons tend to order these with the intention of filling the rest of the cup with the free milk and creamer available, creating a cheap "ghetto latte." Customer saves some cash through this loophole, but store loses a bit of profit on the drink and has to refill the pitchers of milk/creamer more often. Murky Coffee has an expressed policy against doing so, and the owner states that it somehow destroys the taste when espresso is added directly to ice.
At the reinforcement of this policy and the refusal to serve Simmermon his drink in the way he wished to have it, he posted a response on his blog that starts off stating, "The only way I'm ever coming back to Murky Coffee in Arlington is if I'm carrying matches and a can of kerosene." But honestly, does that justify telling someone on the store website, "If you ever show your face at my shop, I'll punch you in your dick"? Bad attitudes all around, but it's hard to deny that Murky knows their coffee.

Summer of caffeination

Here's a handy website that lists the caffeine content of drinks, including all of the popular sodas and energy drinks, as well as coffee and tea. The names of some of the drinks out there are pretty hilarious - take "Who's Your Daddy" or "Whoop Ass," for example. I've never even seen a lot of these on the shelves!