Elegant Ranting

Some theories say that getting turned on is the result of an entire predictable system of physiological and emotional reactions being ignited at once. There is much evidence to support this.

Because we are likely to find one another attractive to certain degrees either way, this helps us stay open to variety and helps us to be happy mating with people who don’t exactly fit our ideal. So while you now have a better sense of what your ideal is, you aren’t bound to it like you are to your eye color or height. Instead, it is something you can recognize and that can guide you, but ultimately you are free to make decisions about who you want to be sexual with based on varying factors in your own life and according to your own feelings and preferences.

I. Nowadays, many of us are bombarded with images of Seattle’s Best, Gloria Jeans, Max Brenner, Figaro, and the ever-popular Starbucks. They’re everywhere in Katipunan, Ayala’s Place, Greenbelt and just about every corner in Makati; even McDonalds has McCoffee. Davao City has its Basti’s Brew, Blugré Café, Karl’s Coffee and my new home, Formula Pete’s. This is a testament to the growing market of higher-end coffee shops and its strong charisma towards consumers. Coffee shops have created its own hegemonic brandscape where it has introduced a prevalent message as to the value of coffee shops and has projected an image as an ideal. The cultural discourses that surround such coffee shops has established a desirable coffee shop experience, it systematically influences the socio-cultural milieu of ordinary coffee shops which are positioned as a hangout for high or middle-class professionals hence the development of the local Blugré to keep up with the trend. Consumers have become programmed to prefer the “Starbucks” experience thus other coffee shops are trying to mimic its European-American ambiance. Starbucks and its close competitor Seattle’s Best have a brand of class and sophistication. It’s a brand that consumers look for. In the absence of such, consumers will look for the closest alternative. Brands are now analyzed as potent symbolic resources for the construction of personal and communal identities (Fournier 1998; Holt 2002; Muniz and O’Guinn 2001; McAlexander, Schouten, and Koenig 2002.) A Starbucks consumer is a connoisseur of coffee of highly sophisticated taste; people hanging out in high-end coffee shops are educated and cultured. These are the messages created by the “coffee shop phenomenon” that we’re experiencing today. Brands are often vilified as all-consuming ideological forces, colonizing cultural and economic life (Bové and Dufour 2001; Frank 1997; Klein 1999.) To those who have been exposed to the coffee shop culture, their ideas of leisure and style have been overhauled from lounging at home and reading a magazine to bringing that same Vogue magazine to Starbs and reading it while very gently sipping on a tumbler of iced frappuccino for an hour. Consumers want to bask on the images ascribed to them by hanging out at a Starbucks or Max Brenner as they shell out PhP195.00 for a cup of brewed coffee when a Nescafé 3-in-1 worth PhP5.50 would taste just about the same. These coffee shops thrive on the humans desire to be hip and accepted, something that can be achieved by being fashionable. It has become a mecca for the trendy, cool crowd where just about everybody wants to belong to. The coffee shop phenomenon has become among the great hegemonic forces that reprogram our culture, think Nike, think Disney, think McDonald’s, and think Coca-Cola. The marketing success of coffee shops is overwhelming from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The Starbucks revolution has definitely inspired a dramatic growth in national coffee consumption, something that would otherwise not happen without the Western introduction of the new coffee culture. Traditionally, coffee is seen as a beverage for the elderly as they chew on their tobacco leaves during early mornings. Established socio-economic hierarchies can be rationalized as a natural consequence of the dominant classes’ refined tastes, social sophistication, and intellectual acuity (Bourdieu 1990). Those who are on the higher end of the social strata are intent on maintaining their social standing by engaging in fashionable activities. In a third world country such as the Philippines, being among the elites is a very inviting prospect that is why middle-class consumers also bask in coffee shops. They relish every second dwelling in places that induce a similar sensation as being affluent.

II. Western-influenced coffee shops such as Starbucks, Seattle’s Best and Max Brenner rarely advertise on television, radio and print. Constant advertising through mass media generally appeals to mainstream consumers or the masses. It is something that may be viewed as jologs by those who want a different, more cultured identity. Consumers are highly critical of mainstream consumer culture and the homogenizing forces of globalization; they use coffee shops as a means to construct a different identity that differ from the mainstream status quo; they embrace aesthetic diversity that is different from their usual life experiences; they tend toward connoisseurship; they express strong desires for creative self-_expression and personal enrichment; and they are vitally concerned with the question of authenticity. In this context it is the absence of mainstream advertising that appeals to the consumers. It’s sort of a secret, posh, members-only spa as opposed to a generic spa that you see everywhere. Starbucks and other prime coffee shops have created this image of authenticity by evading mass advertising so as to avoid seeming too commercialized. The only advertising that such coffee shops indulge in is Logos. These logos are already very popular. Another means of advertising without creating the unfavorable mainstream jologs effect are the product placements on TV shows and movies as when Starbucks suddenly just pass by at Sex in the City. The Starbucks revolution popularized coffee shops as a prime hang out; they became a fashionable place to be seen rather than just being a meeting ground for intellectuals, bohemians, and artists sucking on sticks of cigarettes. Today, even kids who have no business drinking coffee start hanging out in Karl’s Coffee at the mall drinking iced cocoa with sprinkles. Teenagers parade their new outfits at Greenbelt 3 and “dwell” on Seattle’s Best’s tents adjacent to Starbucks’ when the youth isn’t really a primary market for coffee. Since the youth want to be chic without being generic and coffee shops now emulate the same characteristics it has now drafted a new genre of consumers. As trenchantly summarized by Klein (1999, p. 23), “with this wave of brand mania comes a new breed of businessman, one who will proudly inform you that brand X is not a product but a way of life, an attitude, a set of values, a look, an idea.” The market and advertising has greatly evolved that rather than concealing subtexts in their advertising, they blatantly spell out that their product gives you the attitude, the look, the status. These are all images that high-end coffee shops sell their customers.

The best thing about college is meeting people who will change your life, allow you to enjoy living more and expose you to great, new and wonderful experiences. Sure, you go to college to learn skills to be able to get you to your dreams in the future, but the people you meet makes it a heck of a ride.

I’m glad I met the person who will liberate me from my introverted nature and that false sense of security that might have held me back from getting to where I am now. I’m glad I met crazy, outrageous and carefree friends because they showed me what it is like in the other side so now I can appreciate all types of people. Because of them I don’t judge people from what I see or hear about them.

Sure, it’s fun to gossip, it’s true but they’re not intended to get to the person being talked about. So, you don’t really have any intention to hurt that person. You just want to affirm your "superiority", to satisfy your feeling of being wanted or your want to belong. This is one of the funny lessons I learned thoughout my escapades, so I learned to tolerate people who backbite me. Sometimes life can be really awful and you can’t even run to family, I know this because I’ve been there. Friends are sometimes best because they understand more. Just be careful and choose the right kind of people you associate yourself with and go to for advice.

I’m glad I met friends with a strong soul. The ones who just nurture your spirit everytime you hang out with them; it just makes you appreciate your day more. Friends who sing to me. I love music specially if it’s from the heart of a sincere friend. I’m happy to meet those who have a strong sense of character not like the ones who have to talk about somebody else just so to seem important. Haha… I love it when they invite me to their home just for coffee or tea and just to listen to good music and chat. I love it when they go out of their way just to make me feel comfortable. It touches me when they call me everytime they go out even if they know I’m busy. Sometimes they can be very persistent so I can’t finish my work, but what the heck, it’s fun.

Thanks to the friends whom I’m not really very intimate with but accomodate me anyway. Sometime you go to your third place but none of your close friends are there. I’m blessed to have that little group of people who always let me sit with them and chat just so I’m not alone.

Thanks to friends who doesn’t seem to care but light me a candle at the chapel whenever I’m in trying times. Thank you for making me laugh. Sometimes laughter can be the only thing that gives sense to your day. I’m glad to have friend who are so honest to me and tell me what’s wrong with me for the purpose of making me a better person and not to spite me.

Thanks to friends who talk about wonderful things who just make me in awe of the stories they tell. I’m also grateful for friends who look up to me, I didn’t know I had ones. It makes me feel that I have achieved something for some people to see me as admireble. Thanks to those friends of mine who are very smart and make me work my melon. I’m glad you’re around to not always agree with me. At least now I can talk to critical individuals who really make it their business to discuss about Bosnia or Latin American Feminism.

Thank you, all.

It all started with uncertainty. I, myself was very concerned as to how the debate varsity will fare considering that we have just liberated ourselves from the marooning grasp of pure evil. One which is intent on feasting on our innocent flesh and rip off our intestines for vultures to chew on. One can not start to describe how sinister and malicious this evil force was.

Now that we’re off on our own, it is of my best interest to ascertain that we shall produce the best debaters there can be without forgetting the importance of a soul.

The semester started with the seven remaining dinosaurs clamoring for a fresh crop of would-be blabber mouths. And that we have achieved when 64 applicants turned up wanting to get in the Debate Community, and somehow I felt reassured that the Community will not perish and become no more than a memory of a distant past when cave men dominated the hunting and gathering scene. the task now would be to train these clueless aspirants as to how to use their alleged talents to make sense.

I and the other senior debaters plotted an extensive debate training series and from the results of the culmination of that activity which was the Loyola Champs, I would say I’m quite happy. There are many bright new bloods in the crop. they did well during the 12th MPDC and I’m very proud of them. I’m happier when I see them try harder to be better and acknowlege the lessons taught to them by us who have been through more.

I’m glad that somehow I can say that there’s a bright future ahead of ADC. I just hope that they’ll be able to keep it up and reach higher. I hope they’ll love debate as I did. As a member of the ADC, our objective is to be the best at debating, all else are side issues.

Whenever I talk about what I wish would happen for the Community I get all senti because we went through so much just to pave the way for us to be able to maximize our potentials and not be trapped in mediocrity. I wish it won’t all go to waste. ü  More power to our new debaters! Someday soon, we’ll be Champions of the Worlds. (Yes, it’s possible.)