This past semester, I had the pleasure of studying under an amazing history professor, Mr. Christopher Palladino. Mr. Palladino is a very avid coffee drinker, and actually taught a whole lesson in our world history class about just how important coffee is to history. Did you know that until the age of exploration, everyone basically drank one of two things? Water and beer. Beer was the go to for social events and meetings. Beer is also a depressant, and causes people to be very tired. Once they were able to import coffee beans, meetings and daily activities became much more upbeat and enjoyable.

It's no secret that college students rely on coffee like oxygen. Now after the last two weeks of the semester, I want to give you guys a look into just how much my coffee addiction grew from the time I became a college student to where I am now. The following narrative is sort of a view on the last year of my life and how my own love of coffee has grown into a reliance. This story also stands as a testament to how you can really explain many major life events by way of coffee.

“RRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG!”

Kate’s alarm clock buzzed. 6 a.m. She had gotten only a few hours of sleep that night due to her nervousness, so she gently pressed the snooze button. Her eyes were not opening this early, even if it was for her student orientation and registration day for the college she’d be attending in the fall.

“Katelynn, you need to get up now. It’s 6:30 and you have to make a good first impression.” Her mom walked into her bedroom and turned on the light. “The people you meet today are the people you’ll be around for the next four years.”

Great. It was almost time to leave. She felt dead tired and didn't want to move from her horizontal position in the middle of the bed. Her pillow was begging her to stay as she rested an arm under it to support her head.

Fast forward to the ride to the school that was not but 20 minutes away.

“Mom, can we stop and get coffee?” Kate figured she’d ask, seeing as today was a big day towards her becoming a college student, and college students drank that stuff religiously, right?

Right. Her mom turned into the nearest Dunkin and moments later, the soon-to-be college student would be sipping away at an iced mocha flavored coffee. She was set for a great morning, and a great morning she had.

By the time she was finished meeting many of her new classmates for the first time in person, she had yet another cup. This time, the university had offered it in the lobby. She was awake now and could continue to go about her first day as an accepted student.

Fast forward to the last day of high school.

“Come on, K. You have to get ready, it’s your last day of high school and you have to be at graduation practice or else they won’t let you walk tonight!” yelled Kate’s mom from the bottom of the steps.

Ever since SOAR Day, she found herself dreaming of nothing but college, and finally, today was the day she would be saying goodbye to her high school, something she had grown to loathe in anticipation.

But she barely slept the night before. For some reason, she was always extremely restless the night before big events.

“Mom, can we go to Wawa? I need a coffee.” Katelynn threw her mom a puppy dog look and explained that it would be her first cup since the morning after prom a month ago.

“Sure, as long as you run in and get me one, too.” Her mom laughed, rolling her eyes at what seemed to be a little bit of reliance on a cup of joe coming from her daughter who, at one point, swore she would never drink it.

Nevertheless, she would get through that stressful day.

Fast forward to the night of the first day of freshman pre-semester activities.

“What in the world is an ‘Agustivus’?” the students were wondering, as they gathered in the chapel before the final activity of their first day on campus before classes started. Friend groups had formed and they were praying that whatever the activity was, they wouldn't be split up.

Katelynn sat around with her new friends and explained to them that it was like a type of Olympics amongst all the freshman. Her upperclassmen friends told her when she was looking over the itinerary for the week of welcome.

She also knew to take in enough coffee to get her through the night. At dinner in the dining hall, she only drank about 4 cups, and the caffeine mixed with her adrenaline was more than enough to get her excited to take on the games.

And thank God she drank that much. The games stretched far into the night and she'd had another restless night the night before. If her recent reliance on coffee wasn’t a foreshadowing of what Katelynn expected college life to be, then she had no clue what to expect.

To be continued.