Quirks Carlos Holden-Villars

The reason I did so well on my Math Analysis final exam in my junior year was because of Blink-182 and black tea. By the time May came around, my study session for math went like this – pour the water in the kettle and check Instagram while the water is boiling. Spend about two minutes trying to decide which tea will jolt my brain into math mode. Steep the tea bag for another five minutes, which means more Instagram. Get down to my desk, open Spotify, and blast some Blink. Take the first sip of Earl Grey Black Tea and let it do its magic.

I started this ritual back in November of my junior year. Math had always been my Achilles heel, so I was looking for something that would help me conquer it. Tutors are too expensive, it’s not worth calling my friend the Math Genius because he’ll just get impatient, and coffee is much too bitter. So I settled on tea. Tea is more than the elixir of life. It’s like a pipe of tobacco for Einstein, or absinthe for Hemingway. Tea gives the perfect amount of caffeine – it’s enough to focus the mind on the task at hand, but it doesn’t make me feel like a bomb is ticking off inside my brain – like coffee. Blink-182 is just heavenly. Hearing that ‘90s punk beat in the background does wonders for my...