If only I had the energy, I'd slaughter everyone right now

One of the more tedious aspects of living amongst the fruits and nuts of California, is the number of people who don't drink coffee. They don't drink beer either for that matter, or at least not enough to indicate sufficient self-awareness to need the kind of escape from reality that only alcohol can provide. However, non-drinkers at least tend to stay away from the sort of places that I go to get drunk, thus I am spared their patronizing self-righteousness. Not so those who've fore sworn caffeine. 'Oh no, I don't drink coffee, it's really bad for you' they unnecessarily inform me, drawing deeply on their camomile-and-rosehip flavoured infusions (or whatever it is that these people drink to keep the chi re centred). Yeah, well try getting through a four year PhD fuelled only by tofu and dried leaves, or for that matter keeping a centred chi. At the other end of the scale are the caffeinated hipsters, the sort of new-media dickheads who seem to spend most of the business day surfing the net in Starbucks on their laptops pretending to work. These are the sort of people who routinely wear hats, and who can ask for a 'tall, skinny latte with wings' without any hint of irony or embarrassment. Clearly, coffee seems to bring out the pompous in people, much like religion and smoking bans.

I've recently finished my qualifying exams. These are, as far as I know, unique to the American higher education system, and represent the most pointless exercise in academic hazing imaginable. Nobody takes them seriously, but everyone has to take three months from research to study for and complete them. Up to this point, I have for the most part managed to retain some sense of connection with what we laughingly dub the Real World, but after the last few months I have become apathetic, nervous, socially inept and disinterested in anything outside work. If the aim of these exams was to ensure that we're fully prepared for a life in academia, then I suppose it could be said that they were successful.

Now that these exams are over, I no longer need chemical stimuli to force my mind and soul through the tedium of learning in minute detail a lot of stuff that I mostly already knew. I have decided to try an experiment, to see how I react to life without a regular dose of coffee. Nothing permanent, just for a week or so to see how it feels. All those people who tell you how much better they feel and how much more energy they have since giving up caffeine are, quite frankly, talking out of their arses. I'm currently on Day One, and it is thirty-four hours since my last 'hit'. I can barely keep my eyes open, I'm struggling to string a sentence together, and useful research seems like a long distance memory. My head feels like I spent last night hitting the Jagermeisters with an Irish rugby club, like I am being bludgeoned to death by a pack of spoon-wielding otters. The only thing that sustains me is the thought of enacting actual physical harm against people who drink ginseng for kicks. In this one last aspect, at least, I am my old self.