AGU: insight into addictions

My name is Margot and I'm a coffee junkie. I won't leave the house in the morning before having finished a litre of the stuff. And if I do office work I tend to start that with the next half litre. Or a whole one. And if I'm doing lab work I have a few mugs more at the coffee breaks (enigmatically known as tea breaks) at 10.30 and 15.30. Must have coffee! Must have lots!

I remember absolutely loving the American habit of the coffee refill-until-you-drop. I remember getting up at 5.30 during the glacier course in Norway because I wasn't willing to have that heavy day of hiking without a coffee first. Easy diagnosis one would say. But then came AGU!

The hotel served some mediocre coffee in the morning. And then it was up to the conference centre. They did serve free coffee at some hours, but with 18.000 likely coffee addicts around, the queues were astronomical. And I just couldn’t be bothered to stand around for ages to get to my shot. And to my great surprise I quickly got used to it. Effortlessly! I thought I was a veritable junkie, but I’m clearly only addicted to easy coffee. I was glad to notice that. The whole week, which was one with lots of work and not that much sleep, was a likely one for high caffeine intake, but I haven’t drunk that little of it in many months.


When BA put us in the monstrous hotel we got back to an eternal-refill-regime at breakfast. And then it’s an easy fix again! It was torture if my cup was empty, and the waiters wandered in every direction but mine. Back to what has symptoms of an addiction, but is evidently much more convenient than that!