I love café hopping. During breaks back home in Berkeley, I make it a point to hit up all my favorite cafes on College Ave; Café Bittersweet, The Beanery and Espresso Roma are all either quaint, independent coffee shops or local chains.

Davis has its share of cafes that I enjoy hopping to as well (Cloud Forest and Delta of Venus being two of them). Most every one of these columns has been written while under the influence of a white mocha or iced Americano, some form of relaxing café music playing and the whir of blenders sounding in the background. The café I’m at in downtown Sacramento right now is quite the find. It goes by the name of the Naked Lounge.

Open until midnight, Naked Lounge plays an eclectic blend of music, ranging from ’80s to The Knife to reggae to acoustic. Peach and pomegranate walls complement a black ceiling. Two marigold colored couches next to the window form a communal area much like the space on the TV show “Friends” (I had thought those spaces were now nearly obsolete in modern day coffee shops).

And yes, in accordance with the name of the coffeehouse, there are even two paintings of naked ladies hanging on the wall among vintage photographs and a large Van Gogh-esque canvas. In addition, the views of streets and tall buildings remind you that you’re not actually in the middle of nowhere (as much as Davis students like to complain about the nothingness that surrounds Davis).

I know I’m not alone in my love for cafés that have character. Coffeehouses with their own special vibe make for an experience. So, though some people don’t understand why you would pay for a beverage that’s available at home for a much lower price, we café-goers know that it’s more than about the beverage. Here are some of the elements that constitute the experience, at once providing appeal and contributing to positive psychology.

Private and public. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the café is that it combines the personal and private experience with the public and communal. Many of us strive for a balance between individual and group space; at the café, we can be alone among many.

We have our laptops where we can listen to our own music on our headphones, but we can also tune in to the music that’s playing at the café. We can listen to the chatter of others before tuning out those conversations and focusing on our own thoughts.

Escape. The space of the café is also clearly a retreat from the clutter of the home, where household belongings pile up to create a mess that can negatively influence mental processes.

We pay to relax, to not have to worry about shopping for beans, preparing the machine, and cleaning up after ourselves. We pay to have our espresso made just the way we want it.  Howard Schultz’s vision for the café was of a “third space,” somewhere between work and home, where one can relax without the worries associated with either.

Positive motivation. Additionally, seeing other people working diligently in our immediate surroundings prompts us to work harder. In this sense, the café experience can positively reinforce productive behavior.

Stimuli. The stimuli beyond just the people at the café can also inspire us to work harder. This includes the artwork, the outfits, the smell of coffee, the sound of machines, newspapers crinkling. While such stimuli might distract some, it can also stimulate others to work harder.

This being said, nowadays we’re not only paying for a beverage, but a multi-sensory production. We’re paying to look at the art, smell French roast, watch that eclectic middle-aged man think out loud as he types away at his laptop. We’re paying to not be lonely in our rooms.

Architecture / layout / seating. Places with a “creeper’s ledge” optimal for creeping (common euphemism: people watching) is a must for some people. Many cafes have tables situated next to windows overlooking the sidewalk, prime spot for aforementioned creepy behavior. An earlier column of mine mentioned how rooms with low ceilings were better for tasks that required more intense focus and technical skills. Higher ceilings, pretty artwork and visual stimuli are good for tasks that require creativity or more open-ended thinking.

So a small cubicle might be better for that physics homework, whereas Naked Lounge is your go-to for an English essay about magical realism. Adjust your study setting based on the task, and also based on your own knowledge of your distractibility and attention span.

Coffeehouses today. The website ClassicCafes expresses concern that the modern day café seems to have strayed from its roots.

 “Too many have been replaced and refitted with ghastly plastic molded interiors devoid of atmosphere. But those that are left are national treasures,” the website said. I’d say the Naked Lounge maintains many traditional elements of the classic café.

Whether the “cheapened” new café works for you or you prefer a more eclectic, personalized outing, switching study locations to the local café can make for a varied, delicious-smelling experience. Can we drink to that?

ELENI STEPHANIDES can be reached at estephanides@ucdavis.edu.

We as a society have a very important decision to make.

As the economy remains weak and the perennial California budget crisis drags on, the subject of cuts to education becomes very touchy. With the $500 million cut to the UC system already finalized, the only question for us students is whether that number will grow or not, as Republicans and Democrats in the capital wrestle over the enormous budget deficit and the possibility of new taxes.

The question for our society is what exactly the educational rights of us young people are. What financial obligations does the government (i.e., the taxpayer) have to the post-secondary student?

Very few would argue that the taxpayer should not be subsidizing our K-12 education system. There may be smarter ways to do it than we use right now, but the basic idea of free, compulsory education for our children is to me an untouchable right and necessity that we have cherished for more than a century.

Similarly, I think few would argue that government-paid education should cover a lifetime of degrees for the education junkies out there. Somewhere in between the two is a magical “line” at which we declare that additional education for one cannot invariably come at the expense of all.

Student protesters at colleges across the state – ours included – have not shied away from making the issue as dramatic as possible. Spokespeople have denounced the “privatization of our universities” and the “suffering” that “the system” creates, leading to the current “struggles.” There have even been comparisons made to the marches and riots for freedom from dictators in the Middle East.

The answer to this question, I must admit, is something of an arbitrary, philosophical one. To say that we should fully subsidize education through the age of 18 (the approximate high school graduation age) but not spend much money beyond that would likely produce a flurry of questions from my 10-year-old niece. What about 18 and two months? How about 18 and five weeks? No, no, 18 and 42 seconds?

My answer to the above central question, then, relies instead on a quote from a famous author of the American Revolution. “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1776.

Speaking to the “dearness” of my own education, when I graduated high school in 2002, I deferred admission to UC Davis for a full year in order to work full time at a local grocery store and save up money. I bagged groceries, gathered carts, stocked shelves and ran around fetching things. Sometimes I’d clean bathrooms and clear up after night crew for the 3 a.m. to noon utility clerk shift.

 Most of those mornings, somewhere around 5 a.m., sick of the endless mess and the smell of the floor-cleaning machines, without a moment of sleep to survive on, I’d go postal on some poor hapless cardboard box that tripped me. Usually it seemed to be in the toilet paper aisle, which was appropriate given how crappy that shift was.

Yet in that year I managed to save $13,000 and about 97 percent of my income, earning me the 2003 Great Depression Imitator Award which was made with dust, scraps of wood and empty promises from Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt.

My savings, combined with a very meager living, many loans and a little help from my parents, got me through college semi-independently. My point is not that I had the hardest time paying for college. I know for a fact that, with rapidly increasing tuition and some students who can’t even get partial help from their folks, there are tougher stories out there.

Rather, I am addressing the idea that we young people have such a right to heavily subsidized post-secondary education that we must protest en masse, hold sit-ins and shut down intersections and freeways. If we’re going to wave around our B.A. or B.S. and expect thousands of dollars in additional annual income for the rest of our lives, that piece of paper better have some meaning to it. I know mine sure does.

Obviously, if we can get more help from the state to make the education within the reach of more young people, that is a good thing. But if our state is in a terrible fiscal crisis, and the solution is to raise already high taxes, hurting businesses and job creation and chasing even more rich people (whose tax dollars we desperately need) out of the state, I must part ways with the protesters.

We have a right to pursue a college education. Unfortunately, we do not have a right for it to be cheap.

ROB OLSON will esteem your e-mails dearly at rwolson@ucdavis.edu.

During last Thursday’s episode of “Good Morning America,” a seven-year-old girl from South Dakota got her four minutes of fame. She didn’t rescue her baby brother by calling 9-1-1 or have a dog save her from a burning building.

The first grader was followed around by a camera crew to document her plastic surgery. Because she posessed a set of ears that stuck out, called “cup ears” (think Will Smith or Kate Hudson), and a right ear that folded over, her parents wanted her to have her ears surgically reshaped. Like any loving parents, they didn’t want their daughter to be bullied due to her appearance.

Over the last decade, the number of minors getting plastic surgery has increased by 30 percent. Some parents find it cruel to give up an opportunity to save a child from years of possible ridicule. Other parents might think it would be irresponsible to put your child through the physical pain of recovery and the risk of having surgery that doesn’t have a strictly medical purpose.

How we treat cosmetic plastic surgery can say a lot about our culture. 55-year-old Cindy Jackson, who holds the world record for having had the most cosmetic procedures performed on her body, wants to look “natural.” As a part of a seemingly endless quest to look younger, her 52 different procedures, 14 of which have been full-scale operations, have cost her $100,000. When an ABC News reporter told her she was messing with nature, her response summed up feelings pretty well: “Nature messed with me, so I don’t have any problem messing with nature.”

On the other side of the spectrum, we have Lady Gaga going on a tirade against plastic surgery in the May 2011 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. When the interviewer asked her about the new bone-like horns that she sports on her cheekbones and forehead, she defended her new look as artistic expression.

“I have never had plastic surgery, and there are many pop singers who have. I think that promoting insecurity in the form of plastic surgery is infinitely more harmful than an artistic expression related to body modification,” said Gaga.

Is the choice to get cosmetic plastic surgery a question of curing insecurity or reinforcing the ideas of perfection and the disadvantages of being ugly? A recent survey by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery shows that America is split on this question. Fifty-one percent of all Americans approve of the use of cosmetic plastic surgery. In the United States last year, almost 9.5 million cosmetic procedures were performed.

I personally don’t see the point of cosmetic procedures that are performed without a medically pressing reason. Facts of life: we all look different and we all get old. Embrace your giant forehead and your crow’s feet. If you’re going to get botulism, at least get it from some tasty food instead of from too many Botox injections.

But I hold this viewpoint without having ever been picked on for having “odd” ears or having difficulty finding glasses due to an “odd-shaped” nose. Our culture sets a norm for everything: straight teeth are normal; blemish-free skin is normal; having webbed feet or six fingers on one hand makes you a freak. Most people get cosmetic surgery so that they can finally be “normal” or even “beautiful.”

In a perfect world, we would all accept each other for what we looked like. There would be no “Plain Janes” and the word “ugly” would only refer to personalities. But alas, we are still stuck in the pre-utopian present. Cosmetic surgery is possibly on its way to becoming the new norm.

Going through a few days or a few weeks of painful recovery in order to avoid years of being self-conscious makes sense to some people. If your career is reliant upon your looks, spending a few thousand dollars to keep up your appearance might make you money in the long run. The decision to get surgery is a personal one, full of a variety of factors.

I think it all just boils down to happiness and comfort. If standing out in a crowd isn’t your thing, then go get those pre-mature wrinkles removed. If you want to blend in with the people around you, be proactive and make your nose smaller. I’ll be the one perfectly content with what my momma gave me.

After dissecting a pig in high school, CORRIE JACOBS decided that she would never be a surgeon. Tell her she made the right choice at cljacobs@ucdavis.edu.

UC Davis freeform radio station KDVS will hold its annual fundraiser week from Monday to Sunday.

KDVS has been a provider of student jobs and a media outlet for the voices of community members for nearly half a century. Over time, and with a gradually decreasing subsidy from ASUCD, its existence has become more and more dependent upon donations. As a result, KDVS deserves your support.

The station looks to gain a total of $60,000 this year to maintain its services and quality programming.

“We need this money to keep doing what we’re doing, to keep expanding and to keep providing an outlet for the community,” said KDVS general manager Neil Ruud, “because the average person doesn’t really have much of a voice anymore in the media.”

In January, another northern California campus radio station, KUSF 90.3 FM of University of San Francisco, was re-designated as internet-only. This is alarming for any campus radio station unable to raise the necessary funds to stay on the airwaves.

With the fundraiser, KDVS maintains its individuality and quirky sense of humor that permeate the walls of its studios through offbeat posters and wacky bumper stickers. Date auctions, hand-made crafts and the opportunity to choose embarrassing facial hair for on-air personalities are all being offered as premiums.

Additionally, with a contribution of $15 or more, donors can receive other thank-you prizes, including gift certificates, books, t-shirts and the opportunity to host an hour of KDVS programming. According to Ruud, KDVS will take anything it can get.

The university radio station is a non-profit organization that sets our campus apart. They embrace the basic principles of freedom of thought and speech and we believe it is important to show support.

Donations are tax-deductible and can be made by calling 754-KDVS, by logging on to fundraiser.kdvs.org or by paying in person in Lower Freeborn Hall.

Despite preliminary reports suggesting an increase in citations from last year’s Picnic Day, UC Davis administrators and police declared this year’s event a success.

We applaud all those involved for handling their shit.

On Saturday afternoon Fred Wood, vice chancellor of Student Affairs, said he was pleased at the way Picnic Day went this year.

Though there was more police activity this year as well as more arrests and citations, this does not equal failure. In fact, this increase is expected. With more police patrolling campus and the city of Davis, more citations and arrests are to be expected.

Though the local police deserve credit for their fervent attempts to create a safe environment, Picnic Day’s success can’t be attributed to the authorities alone. The Picnic Day Board of Directors played a huge role in orchestrating a much safer event. Bars and restaurants sacrificed early-morning sales on their most profitable day of the year to limit alcohol consumption.

Most of all it is the students who deserve the biggest applause. Not only did they handle their shit but they did so by having fun and doing it safely.