Coffee Madness

Got my first ever Starbucks Planner last night (IIRC, it's their 2nd yr pa lang of giving away planners dahil in '03-04 iyong malaking frapuccino container ang ipinamimigay -- coffee jelly days).

Honestly, I didn’t have any conscious effort of completing the 21 stickers in the red card. Yes I’m addicted to Starbucks only on Holiday Season because of its Peppermint Mocha (I’m a coffee and mint addict thus a combination of two desires is priceless), but with my lifestyle and budget, I know I couldn’t afford to complete the required stickers. But since my sisters found heavens at Starbucks (Venti Mocha Frapuccino and the luxury of staying at Starbucks), required stickers were completed.

After receiving the planner, I just realized how much money we’ve spent drinking all those cups of coffee. More than 2,000 bucks for cups of coffee is really much!

Well, while completing 21 stickers equates to giving some percentage of what Starbucks has earned from you to a charitable institution, we can’t deny the fact that there’s something wrong about spending that much money just for some cups of coffee. Yes, we’ve somehow helped yet it’s not something sustainable after all.

And to think that Starbucks has been involved in some issues of injustice among coffee farmers, completing 21 stickers may mean accepting or simply disregarding these issues.

We’ve been consumed by a coffee lifestyle that has made us mad about going to coffee shops (Starbucks particularly). [Oh consumerism, oh consumerism]

Is coffee madness just about the “thinking” that being at Starbucks makes you cool, hip, and “sosyal”?

I’m still among those people who find coffee shops as good venue for meetings, personal conversations, and moments of introversion [pag-umatake ang anti-social blood ko, any coffee shop is the place to be]. I go to Starbucks once in a while for important meet-ups and to satisfy craving for its Peppermint Mocha. I guess my reasons for visiting Starbucks (or any coffee shop for that matter) have matured. I must admit that I was guilty of “going with the trend” years ago.

Glaring coffee madness! Even in the unexpected areas (Q. Ave. cor. Araneta Ave., Congressional Ave.), there built a Starbucks outlet. Caffeine Consumerism! (why I know these places, why it appears that I am almost everywhere in the City -- reserved for another blog post)

Oh, and maybe this kind of conversation is apt for an over-a-coffee discussion [or over-bottles-of-beer discussion?

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Blame loads of work and a tall peppermint mocha for keeping me awake [pero nakuha paring mag-sulat ng blog entry].