Coffee dates and silly questions

Coffee, I have recently learned in my first two weeks of uni here in Australia, is absolutely essential to a student's life. Apparently. It almost seems that like there is a code of fashion at Curtin, there is a code of coffee. If you're one of the cool kids, preferably from the western suburbs (to those of you not from here, those are the posh ones), you go to Concept Coffee (cause "oh my god, their coffee is the best!"), right in the heart of the student guild area. If you're a humanities student, who is at times overly consumed in being alternative while at the same time laid back, there is the Coffee Patch, with a lovely old lady to take your orders, and an outside seating area covered by tall, lush trees, perfect for the Curtin Creative environment right by building 209 (the humanities). Lastly, there's Cafe Angazi, at the end of the guild promenade, situated very close to the business buildings and hence filled with smart-looking people who are always in a hurry. But, no matter which code of coffee you're from; which cultural coffee group you belong to, coffee is a big part of your life at uni. "20 minutes till class, guys, let's go for a coffee, yeah?". And then, suddenly, an awkward, almost piercing sound enters your years: DING! 5 dollars. "Duuuuude, I'm so tired from last night, wanna come for some coffee?". DING! 4 dollars and 50 cents. "Okay, I seriously need to talk to you, you have a free to go to Coffee Patch, right?" DING! 5 dollars again. By the end of a day at uni, unless I'm hanging out with my friend Cameron who hooks me up with free coffee from time to time, as a student at Curtin University who is not careful with his or her coffee money, one can easily have spent between fifteen and twenty dollars on COFFEE. On coffee. Which leads me up to the silliest question I have probably ever encountered in my life. With a coffee cup in hand and a half-awake gaze, my Engaging in the Humanities fellow student Danen turned his head towards me today and whispered "So, why do you even work?"