Dispatches by Adrian Conoza

Coffee is a part of my everyday routine, in and out of school semesters. I’m among a lot of professionals and students today who drink a cup of coffee or more everyday. Not that I go to a coffee shop every now and then and have “Adrian” signed on my cup. I’m frugal. Instead, when I’m at school, my regular cups of coffee are a hot 7-Eleven’s City Blend, a cold Nescafe French Vanilla or White Mocha, and (the main cup among them all) brewed coffee in the house.  I thought of coffee as a bitter drink before, but as I grew up it would become a daily dose, my favorite drink aside from rootbeer. My first coffee My parents like coffee very much, as much as your parents do (I believe). I remember times when I was still so young when Pa and Ma tell me while we eat breakfast (or maybe evening dinner): “ O, mag-kape ka... ” (“Why don’t you have coffee?”) in a jokingly way. I would simply refuse. I didn’t like coffee yet at that time. But I tasted one. It was a cappuccino either my auntie or my...

Source: marcusradich.com While I was in high school I was much engrossed in science fiction, especially those under the themes of cyberspace. I chanced upon a secondhand book, a collection of short stories entitled Live Without A Net . And I bought it. The stories there center on the theme the title suggests—a future without cyberspace, without virtual reality, without the Web. And it made me think: what would happen to a world without the Internet? That seems impossible of course, but for a while I faced a dilemma similar to that.  I remember a time during my recently-concluded 2nd year in college (first semester in particular) when I had no access to the Internet at home due to some lapses in payment, which later on turned out to be some sort of misunderstanding in how much to pay. It hasn’t been easy to be away from the World Wide Web for months, but I managed to get through it, and I learned much from the experience. Routine From September until the middle of November last year...