at first, I thought I was allergic to the Library...

Seriously! I was experiencing these strange symptoms. First, I'd get a bit woozy, my vision would be blurred, and I'd keep waking up with my forehead in the middle of a book. Now, that's not too rare for me, but for the last few days, I realized as I left the library I would get these awful nausea-inducing headaches. The kind where your eyes hurt and your head hurts and it hurts to think. Not very helpful when you are supposed to spend your day reading extremely thick material about equity in citizenship and Engles methodology of analyzing industrialized Manchester (you know you are jealous!). Without options, I'd pop two Advil and take a nap. And then, yesterday, with a raging headache, I had to go to the mall to pick up my (drumroll please) CELL PHONE!!! A nap would not suffice, so to comfort myself, I got a latte. And the sweet nectar of the earth soothed my raging neurons and I floated away to T-Mobile on a cloud of bliss. And as I returned to campus, I realized, I'm addicted to caffeine, again! Those occasional Pete's lattes over the summer had turned into my source of consciousness through the jet-lag and orientations. And then, I experienced the perfection of Parisian espresso. But as I've slipped into a routine, I had stopped throwing my money at the cafe underneath my flat. And my brain is punishing me for it. And so, in order to save my sanity and my dwindling bank account, yesterday I purchased instant coffee. Top of the line, instant coffee, grant you, but freeze-dried decaffeinated coffee it still is. And so this morning, I lined up on the kitchen table my new travel mug, my jar of crystallized coffee, and my tub of hot chocolate powder (hey, I can't cross over to the dark side in one leap). And I realized, I have never made instant coffee before! I know there was a spoon and hot water involved, but that was about it. I searched the jar for some hint of ratio, but there was none. Apparently the British are born with an innate instant coffee ratio sense, which would explain the hit-or-miss nature of their espresso (yuck!). I won't go into too much detail (because this post has already fallen over into the "too much information" category (just establishing background, right Dad?)), but three teaspoons of crystals qualifies as "too much." I will now spend the remainder of the week experimenting with crystal to chocolate powder to water ratio. Wish me luck.