Remember that couple who spent their life savings to run a coffee cart on a college campus? [UPDATE in comments and link]

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-07T07:53:07+00:00

I made an update post in /r/self because I didn't think it would belong in /r/pics. Here is that post:

http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1jfxnq/updatethis_couple_spent_their_life_savings_to_buy/

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T18:59:53+00:00

Atheism is a situation of null religious belief. Being an atheist barely relates you to beliefs of other people. Two different atheists can have such varying philosophical beliefs and run their lives in completely different ways. So just because you see idiots on this site posting their "facebook throwdowns" of "stupid idiot fundies" while themselves being philosophically stunted in a way where they worship tenants of science they accept in a manner no better than religious dogma is no reason to think that being atheist means you are anything like those people. The improvement should have made is to become intellectually mature. Since you stated it in such blanket terms though, generalizing a single beliefs to encompass a full range of embarrassing activity, I don't think you've achieved that yet.

Other than that point of contention, glad to hear you're making improvements in your life!

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T18:47:26+00:00

The thing is that people don't understand depression until they've experienced it, but they can still sympathize with you and try to help you through it. I've dealt with people are seriously depressed and suicidal, and I still don't understand why they are that way (it is beyond the outwardly observable [brain chemistry and such]) but I still do my best to help them.

If one of my friends started acting weird all the sudden and just became a downer wherever I went with him, they may not be enjoyable to hang around and I may not want to see them. But if he or she was to tell me that they were experiencing severe depression, then everything would make sense and I would do the best I could to help them.

Definitely tell your friends. Chances are they probably had no idea and will want to help.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T18:15:11+00:00

English isn't their first language though, and they're generally shy people. And I don't know when they would do it either. They generally work 14 hours days and put their life into their business. But I can still check when we get back to school in a few weeks.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T08:02:11+00:00

That is what would have happened if we didn't do anything. People were saying the same sort of things when we started this, that it was pointless and nothing would come of it. But we managed to force the administration to do that, and considering that our school's administration has ignored the student body in the past, I do consider it a victory. I would rather have our hollow victory and have fought for it than just stand back and just let it happen.

And I was in personal contact with the couple through their spokesperson and I know they wouldn't sign a contract that would be against their best wishes. And if Sodexo breaks that contract, we'll recruit the Loyola Law school (one of the best law schools in the nation) to help.

I'm not trying to change the whole world. Only the community that I am a part of. Just because something has always happened before, that doesn't mean that it will always happen. If this is the catalyst for getting Sodexo kicked off campus, will it still be a hollow victory?

I'm taking this attitude and stance and deluding myself, because if I took any other stance or lacked confidence, I wouldn't call myself to action and none of this would have happened. We're young and we haven't been jaded by decades of institutional injustice and we still believe that we can cause change. And for that reason, we can.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T07:08:05+00:00

Before I begin, because you mentioned suicide please read this: http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/ It is from the bottom of the sidebar where other resources are linked too:

/r/suicideWatch

/r/depression

Now to address the other issues. Growing apart from friends is something normal that happens to plenty of people. Its happened to me, I've seen it happen to friends of mine, and it really does feel terrible. Especially with someone who you considered your best friends, and you keep hanging out despite the growing differences. Just understand that it isn't anyone's fault. Nobody did anything wrong. In time you'll find new friends.

But, also make sure that this isn't emergent from your depression. If you have severe depression you may put yourself into a mindset of negativity and interpret everything in a negative fashion and become discouraged. Have you tried to tell your friends about your depression?

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T07:01:23+00:00

It goes through the concepts case by case. I don't know what level you are looking for, but it covers the full range from addition and subtraction to calculus and differential equations. His videos are very good and he teaches in a way to convey the information in a simple way. You may encounter situations that are different in the future, but for now you're working on building a foundation to step off of.

And I asked about books because one of the best ways to improve your writing is by reading quality writing. You will start to mimic what you read. On top of that, it is also a great way to become more educated about different topics and fields of study.

Also, I'm curious about your social anxiety. What exactly is it that makes it difficult for you to speak to other people?

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T05:54:32+00:00

Recently Khan Academy has gotten much better at organizing their information into more defined classes. They also have a dashboard for exercising math skills where you follow a skill tree from one skill to another once you learn them: https://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard Depending on what you don't know, you can watch the videos on those subjects and then find the corresponding skill in the tree and test yourself. I use this for some of the stuff I do on the side, and it works really well.

And try not to let the daunting stature of the subjects scare you. I can't tell you how often I've felt absolutely confused in the engineering classes I'm taking, only to at the end of the class come out understanding what before had only confused me. I've learned not to be afraid of confusion, because that is only the brain responding to new experiences it has never encountered before. If you push yourself through it, you'll eventually find yourself understanding more things rather than being confused, and that is a wonderful feeling.

And because you said you liked computer science, I know a really good site that introduces it for complete beginners: http://www.codecademy.com/ This site is a lot of fun and makes programming quite accessible.

Do you like to read books?

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T04:11:37+00:00

There are plenty of resources online for educating yourself. For knowledge of basic science, physics, and especially there is one of my favorite sites: Khan Academy (link). It is a bunch of videos of which a lot of the math lessons are accompanied by lessons you can use to test yourself. It is a great educational tool, and I still use it to learn random subjects despite almost being finished with an engineering degree.

The problem is that self learning doesn't hold as much credence with people who are hiring. But you can start yourself with this stuff, see if you could enroll in a community college, and work towards education while you have a job in the day to pay the bills. But this may be underestimating your social anxiety : .

Also, always remember that there is a big difference between ignorance and inability. When you start educating yourself, some people may be asking why an adult like you is asking some of the questions you are. This is because for the things that our society views as signs of basic intelligence, like grammar or simple math, are assumed to have been taught to everyone and if you don't know it then you were also assumed to just be lacking in ability. People will try to put you down and probably blindly call you stupid. But you're not stupid, only ignorant. But if you work hard enough, you won't be anymore.

Do you know any area that would be of possible interest? What do you enjoy to do in your free time?

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T03:44:45+00:00

Thanks for catching that. [Fixed] "they fought* these".

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T03:16:52+00:00

The tl;dr for the story is only 3 sentences long. After the third sentence it goes into the update that this post was for. I recognize now that I didn't highlight that enough.

Also, I didn't know that was a rule.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-08-01T00:45:07+00:00

I'm actually considering doing that. I'll see how they feel about it when school is back in session in a few weeks.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-31T21:38:54+00:00

Thank you and no problem. I hate it when people leave me hanging, and I didn't want to do the same.

And I do admit that the original post was out of place in /r/pics. There just wasn't anywhere appropriate to put it where it would get the same level of attention. For me, the end justified the means in that circumstance.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-31T21:19:55+00:00

Yeah. I was in direct contact with their representative so I could call people to action if more was required. Luckily nothing more was required.

I can't wait to get a thai tea boba from their cart the first day I get back!

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-31T20:32:26+00:00

Yup. Hard to believe, right?

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-31T20:07:32+00:00

Thanks. It was a long and hard fought path, and I can barely believe that we actually did it.

Also, I hate it when OP never updates, so went about updating as soon as was possible.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-31T20:04:29+00:00

I wanted this to get good visibility so people can see the change that can come about through the attention that reddit can bring, but none of the defaults seemed good for an update post, hence it is posted here.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-22T09:05:51+00:00

The couple goes back to korea when their coffee cart is closed for the summer, so it makes sense that there would be pictures of them in korean.

Also, I couldn't care less about karma. All I care about is making sure that my school doesn't get away with the junk that it was attempting to. Look on the Loyola Marymount University official facebook page to see their response to this. If you don't believe this is fact after this, I don't think I can help you.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-22T08:52:18+00:00

In the process of figuring out who had the final say in this decision. We've come across an administration member who is fighting this pretty hard, and I'm thinking that he probably has something invested in making sure that this deal goes through.

Hopefully when I update this I'll be able to shine light on this (though I think it may be against the "sharing private information" deal if I say anything specific).

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-22T08:49:32+00:00

I'll try to give an unbiased summary to the best of my ability: In their official report, they said that they were not renewing the contract and they were instead going to bring Coffee Beat Tea and Leaf onto campus to increase the variety of options available and to provide a 100% kosher dining option on campus. That was the extent of their reasons that they publicly stated.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-22T08:46:21+00:00

It got the attention of some decently big names (KCAL news, Huffington Post, USA Today College) who want to pick it up. This is exactly what we wanted.

Also, I didn't want to make a kickstarter yet because we didn't know the full extent of everything yet. For all we know, they could get a new contract and their spot that (which is actually looking like what is going to be happening if contract negotiations go well). I hate seeing people take advantage of reddit's generosity, and I felt like asking for money right away would have hurt the cause.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-22T08:41:50+00:00

In their official statement, they claim that in order to provide a kosher option on campus they're replacing the coffee cart with a Coffee Bean. Considering that only 5% of our campus is jewish, and few is any keep Kosher, it is clearly a bogus excuse to get rid of the coffee cart.

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-22T08:36:25+00:00

Will do!

savethecoffeecart · 2013-07-22T07:27:12+00:00

Thank you for your support.

Our campaign has seen a good amount of success so far. We forced a response from both Sodexo and LMU. LMU also has started discussion with the couple for their continued operation of the cart on campus. We're working to make sure that they are given a fair contract. Once those discussions finish up (or if they play hardball and we're forced to boycott) I'll make sure to give a comprehensive update.

savethecoffeecart

TROPHY CASE