unnaturally caffeinated with a naturally caffeinated drink

iamcaffeinatedup. and i feel like a crazy person. i am a laid-back person, except for those times when my anxiety kicks in - like on a first date, presenting to large groups of people, going to the doctor's, etc. but overall, if i'm just going about my day, i keep calm. i think part of the reason i am so calm is that i am part of the 10% of americans who doesn't drink coffee. i don't like the taste of it and i didn't want to become dependant on it, so i never got into the habit. caffeine is a drug. people become dependant on it. my mom drinks 2 cups of coffee every morning. if she doesn't have her coffee, she gets a major headache. she relies on her coffee in the morning like i rely on my contacts and glasses to see. i don't want to rely on a drink to get through the day.

however, that sometimes works against me, like when i have to be alert in the morning. i am not a morning person. maybe it's because i don't drink coffee. it was ok while i was in school. i don't know how i got up for high school everyday, but i did. although i do know i often drove well over the speed limit to get to class and was sometimes late for the first session of "homeroom" because i couldn't wake up. in college, i was able to choose my class times. there are those people who choose early classes so they could get their classes over with and enjoy the afternoon. i was not one of those people. my school didn't have night classes, but i tried to get the classes that started later in the day, like 1:45 or 3:25. my earliest class was at 9:45 and i definitely remember having a tough time getting up for that. i would often sleep through the class or roll out of bed, go to class, and go back to my room and take a nap. even, in the "real world" at work, my lack of getting-up-in-the-morning ability has been a slight problem. my first job was at a small company and my cube was right outside my boss’s desk. well i would often stroll into work at 9:30, not 9 like i was supposed to. i was spoken to a couple times about needing to come in on time. i would then come in on time for a couple weeks and then revert back to my 9:30 time. at my second job, i was at a bigger company and had my own office down the hall from the rest of my team. in the mornings, i would often sneak in a back hallway, run into my office, and turn on my computer and listen to my vms immediately to catch up on the half hour of morning work that i missed. i was never spoken to about getting in on time. either no one noticed, or they realized that my staying until 6:30 or 7 or 7:30 at night made up for it. is it the lack of caffeine in the morning that makes it a struggle to be on time in the morning? or is it what the band broken social scene sings, "if you always get up late, you'll never be on time?" that's definitely a problem of mine.

but anyway, the other day i was watching the show "get fresh with sara snow" on tlc i think it is. i had never seen the show before, but as i was flipping through the tv guide thing, the info thing summarized the episode with a blurb about an alternative caffeine to coffee. i was interested, so i watched the episode that ended up promoting the drink guayaki. guayaki is a brand of yerba mate tea that is high in antioxidants and is naturally caffeinated. it has less caffeine than coffee and more caffeine than green tea. i started drinking green tea at work to wake me up a little, but i thought i would try out this drink as another alternative. i get really sensitive to caffeine. if i drink coffee, my heart starts racing and i get shaky. so today in the comfort of my home, i decided to try out the raspberry revolution guayaki yerba mate. the taste isn't bad. it has kind of a weird earthy smell and after taste, but i got used to it after a few sips. and the caffeine has definitely kicked in. this morning i did two things that usually take a lot of motivation for me to do: working out and packing. i had the energy and concentration to get through my workout and i packed up my room with minimal breaks. now the things that i could have stretched out all day to complete are out of the way and i could enjoy the rest of the day. now i'm going to finish my tea, walk over to the post office and bank (i got my security deposit back in less than 30 days after moving out - yay! but now i have to send a letter asking for my key deposit money back - blah!), and then drive back up to new hampshire for my last week at that house!