I spend a lot of time at coffee shops. As a result, I've had a lot of experience observing the comings and goings of coffee shop patrons. I've seen temper tantrums and public breakups (or possibly just a nasty couple-fight). I hate when people fail to grasp basic coffee shop etiquette. There are certain rules that should be observed inside a coffee shop for the sanity of everyone involved.
Rule #1: Don't take up more space than you need!
This. Is. So. Annoying.
At the coffee shop I frequent, there are three individual couches, three two-person tables, five small round or square ones, and three four-person tables. There's also a grand total of four power outlets. One of them is at the entrance, so it's effectively useless because you can't plug anything in without tripping every customer that walks into the door. The three functional power outlets are next to the three big tables, which are usually occupied.
As a result, the three larger tables are the most in-demand areas of the coffee shop. I can't work with other people at an itty-bitty table, and if I have WebAssign to do, I need the power outlet to keep my laptop on for long enough (it's really old and has terrible battery life...).
If you're alone with a grand total of one book and a drink, you don't need to sit down next to one of the tables that everyone needs! I don't care how large you are. I don't care how spread out want to be. The regular tables are plenty spacious. You are annoying. And don't put your twenty million bags on top of the table and on the other chairs around you--someone else can use that space.
There's nothing more irritating than seeing someone with materials that don't take up much space and no laptop sitting at one of the nice tables surrounded by a fort of backpacks.
Rule #2: Inside voices, please.
The other day, I was struggling through a particularly confusing section of The Republic when a lady sat down at the table behind me. I thought nothing of it, but her friends began to join her, and as time passed, the noise level from behind me got louder and louder until I could hear every word of their conversation. And I didn't care at all to hear about the time Sally dressed up as a showerhead for Halloween.
A coffee shop is a perfect place to gather your friends to chat and catch up with each other, but not when your collective volume level starts to rival that of a lawnmower. There are people trying to work! Either a) be polite and talk in six-inch voices, or b) take it outside--there are lots of tables there too!
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Oh, there's more. Check back next time for Coffee Shop Etiquette: Part 2!
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Never Ever Ever. Like, Ever.
Last Monday, I rolled out of bed and stumbled through my morning routine. As per usual, I yearned with every fiber of my being to be curled back up in bed. This is the time of day my recurring daydream of eating myself into a food coma and hibernating occurs most frequently. But not this day.
Five minutes later, I froze, toothbrush in hand. Perked up, even. "ALICE!" I screamed to my sister in the next room. "Today is the day! Red just came out!" She told me to go away. My mother yelled up the stairs to be quieter. Oops.
Red is Taylor Swift's latest album. I've been a devoted fan since her "Teardrops on my Guitar" days. Taylor just got it, and I thought she understood so well what it was like to be the shy and quiet one in middle school. That song spoke for preteen girls everywhere. Fast forward to 2012, and she's on her fourth best-selling album, has turned 22, and sometimes it seems like she's dated every single guy in Hollywood.
I was looking forward to Red almost as much as I am sleeping in next weekend (which is really saying something). I had to wait a couple of hours before the first songs were uploaded to Youtube, but I avidly listened to all of them as soon as I could get to them. And I was devastated to realize that all I had to say when I got through the album was ehh.
There aren't really any other words to describe it. Some of the songs have a lot of potential, but it's as if Swift stopped before she got there, allowing it all to degenerate into bubbly, girly, poppy music. Granted, Swift's songs are almost always about girly things, but I wish some of the songs weren't so trivial. The innocent he-broke-my-heart-and-now-I'm-singing-about-it theme is getting strange. The high-school relationship songs made sense when she was, you know, in high school, and it was even ok for a few years afterwards, but now, at 22, she's well into adulthood. I get that she has to keep her songs kid-friendly, but does she really have to be so juvenile about it?
Take, for example, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." I want to bang my head on the steering wheel every time it comes on the radio. She uses more "likes" in 2 minutes than anyone should ever have to hear! I have similar feelings for most of the other songs.
There are a couple of songs that I do like on Red. My favorite song on the album is "The Lucky One," which is not about a boy, but instead about a girl who has to deal with overnight fame and being lost in the bright lights of Hollywood. I also liked her collaboration with Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody on "The Last Time."
No one is expecting Taylor Swift to start tackling life's biggest issues in her songs. Her songs have always been fluffy feel-better music for bad days, but I can't help but wish Red had just a tad more substance.
Five minutes later, I froze, toothbrush in hand. Perked up, even. "ALICE!" I screamed to my sister in the next room. "Today is the day! Red just came out!" She told me to go away. My mother yelled up the stairs to be quieter. Oops.
Red is Taylor Swift's latest album. I've been a devoted fan since her "Teardrops on my Guitar" days. Taylor just got it, and I thought she understood so well what it was like to be the shy and quiet one in middle school. That song spoke for preteen girls everywhere. Fast forward to 2012, and she's on her fourth best-selling album, has turned 22, and sometimes it seems like she's dated every single guy in Hollywood.
I was looking forward to Red almost as much as I am sleeping in next weekend (which is really saying something). I had to wait a couple of hours before the first songs were uploaded to Youtube, but I avidly listened to all of them as soon as I could get to them. And I was devastated to realize that all I had to say when I got through the album was ehh.
There aren't really any other words to describe it. Some of the songs have a lot of potential, but it's as if Swift stopped before she got there, allowing it all to degenerate into bubbly, girly, poppy music. Granted, Swift's songs are almost always about girly things, but I wish some of the songs weren't so trivial. The innocent he-broke-my-heart-and-now-I'm-singing-about-it theme is getting strange. The high-school relationship songs made sense when she was, you know, in high school, and it was even ok for a few years afterwards, but now, at 22, she's well into adulthood. I get that she has to keep her songs kid-friendly, but does she really have to be so juvenile about it?
Take, for example, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." I want to bang my head on the steering wheel every time it comes on the radio. She uses more "likes" in 2 minutes than anyone should ever have to hear! I have similar feelings for most of the other songs.
There are a couple of songs that I do like on Red. My favorite song on the album is "The Lucky One," which is not about a boy, but instead about a girl who has to deal with overnight fame and being lost in the bright lights of Hollywood. I also liked her collaboration with Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody on "The Last Time."
No one is expecting Taylor Swift to start tackling life's biggest issues in her songs. Her songs have always been fluffy feel-better music for bad days, but I can't help but wish Red had just a tad more substance.
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