Posts Tagged ‘caffeine’

I am in Peoples’ Republic of Flavor

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

You do not truly know a person until you’ve studied with them.

Most people I see, they sit quietly, occasionally sipping their coffee, steadily going page by page. I’m a different story.

Get me in one place with study materials for more than 45 minutes, and sooner or later, I’ll end up curled on the ground clutching a chair leg staring down an open textbook, sitting there on the ground, laughing at me, mocking me. It sees my weakness, knows my flaws, it can see into my soul and it finds fear!

Or maybe it’s the caffeine withdrawal talking. I don’t know. You know that stockpile I told you about earlier? I ran the numbers again

Monster 8-16oz cans 1280mg
Crystal Light 20 packets 1000mg
Vault 1 L 160mg

Now, before you laugh at me for the Crystal Light, this is pure straight powder. No liquid. So if I wanted to jack up a bottle of Monster with an extra 50 mg of caffeine, I can do it without significantly affecting the volume I have to carry. All the caffeine of several cups of coffee conveniently stored in a 16.9oz Ice Mountain bottle.

It was freaking sweet. Extremely. Unbearably so. My eyes watered when I drank it. I yelped a little after swallowing. There was so much sucralose, it was like drinking wastewater from Willy Wonka’s factory. Monster with glucose plus close to a gram of aspartame. Sure, it was 210mg of caffeine in 16oz of liquid, but I was floored by flavor. I wasn’t in flavor country, the Flavor Republic invaded with diabetes-inducing weapons and I was on my knees kissing the boot of its monarch.

The key is small sips. Enough to get me up all night at the library. After a couple of nights of this, I could tell that I was physiologically addicted. I woke up in the morning with cold feet (despite the clement weather), stuttering, and with my arms shaking. Not to mention the headaches that would come if I sat still for too long. Zach mocked me as being an addict now. I rebuked him as I clutched my chair leg.

“Resp-irony-atory” illness

Friday, May 1st, 2009

Right now, the metal clang of disassembled bedloft frames constantly echoes down the hallway like crappy New Age rock. Boxes litter the hallways, the dumpster has accumulated a sizable mountain of futons. You could build a small island out of all the stuff college students throw away.

I haven’t blogged about my classes in a while, mostly because the news is boring and sad. I’m doing okay in Ochem and anatomy this time. But Microbiology, damn. The final could become rather interesting.

Lacking a textbook, I am forced to study the lecture slides, which I don’t find as efficient. In an outline format, the material isn’t retained as a concept map as from a text passage. Rather, just a set of static slides, increasing the magnitude of the task.

In fact, just to show how much harder micro is than chem or anatomy: for the second exam, I shifted my hours around and studied extra hard for micro at the expense of chem and anatomy. I got a B in the micro test but a C in both of the other tests. I planned on straight B’s for the third wave of semester exams.

But then irony decided to drive a bulldozer through my face.

The weekend before the test, I was cramming the lectures about upper respiratory tract infections, when I got an upper respiratory tract infection.

It started out with those late night nosebleeds. That may have been the route of entry. From the nasal conchae, it spread to the sinuses, then to the oropharynx, then briefly affected the stomach. In any case, it got the whole full immune system treatment. Fever, lethargy, malaise, rhinorrhea, mild nausea. All of it climaxing shortly after my third microbiology exam. The four hours of sleep the night before were probably the camel-breaking straw, that had me swaying to the beat of unconsciousness shortly after walking into the exam room. I went back to my room and slept for 16 hours.

It would be another week before I was out of the woods. I ended up getting a C on my micro test, a B- on the anatomy one, and shockingly, an A on the third chem exam. I was happy until I did the math and realized how little it helped me.

For microbiology, the grade calculation is disappointingly simple. No dropped anything, just 3 midterms, a final, weekly quizzes and a lab. I’m hovering at a C+ in that class thanks to being cut down on the third exam and despite Seth Rogan TA. Just 2% below the B cutoff, it all comes down to the final.

Anatomy? Slightly better than last semester. Again, the “final” is the fourth and fifth exam back to back, with the lowest exam dropped. If I pull off another miracle, great. I’ll need to average 86.25% on both exams if I truly want that A.

I think that unless I abstain from studying, the numbers indicate a pretty secure B in Ochem. However, I am within the reach of an A if I get a 140 on the 150 point final. With only 69 hours to study.

Test 1 Test 2 Test 3
Anatomy A C B
Microbiology C B C
Ochem B C A

I have a 2.4g stockpile of caffeine and nothing left to lose. Before I got up this morning, the things I reached for were

1. glasses
2. bottle of Vault spiked with extra caffeine (1 of 3)

So begins the journey into the howling dark. Only after Friday at 9 PM can I finally retire to my artificial island of futon mattresses and beanbag chairs floating in Lake Michigan.