Like many other colleges, the system here is buffet style. They say, “All you care to eat” but it’s actually, “All you can eat/stash in concealed tupperware containers/carry on your person without being frisked and caught.” With the way my family has been training me in being very cheap and very hungry, this was a good then bad thing for me. Luckily I have the Kobayashi gene but I’m trying to cut back. I went a little crazy the first week because of all the new ethnic flavors I got to sample. There was soup from California and ratatouille from the movies and this thing called Tempura-coated vegetables. (BTW, the ratatouille was just as epiphanic as the eponymous movie suggested, though I don’t know why I was on a French farmhouse and voiced by Peter O’Toole.) And there was a guacamole salad that was almost, but not quite a Tostada Salad. (*sheds single tear*)
I have the ten-meal swipe plan. I have access to the various dining court buffets ten times a week except on Sunday night when all the dining courts are closed. So obviously the first meal to forgo is breakfast. So I have developed ways around that, ways to survive without 3 squares a day. (Not that I could have 3 squares if I could. Like I said, I have Kobayashi’s stomach gene, so the meals are more like rounded squares.)
I supplement the ten meals with the employee meal I get when I work. I work every Monday but only every other weekend, meaning I need to stretch my meals for those shiftless weeks.
I get around this on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have a lab 7:30-9:20 on Thursdays so no early morning breakfast. Once I get out of lab I kick my scooter (because I’m not cool enough for a skateboard) over to the Hicks UG (which stands for either undergraduate or underground library, both of which are true). The act of doing so, causes the hypothalamus to stimulate sympathetic preganglionic nerves, stimulating the chromaffin cells to release more epinephrine and norepinephrine, causing my blood’s glucose and fatty acid concentration to rise. This allows me the alertness and necessary energy to sit at my desk near the window and study, usually anatomy. More commuting chases away further hunger pangs.
Then there’s the problem of standing in line for food with a scooter. Usually, one hand is holding the scooter as I go from class to class. So I improvised. I clipped the scooter to my backpack with a handful of the free carabiners they gave us at Target, so now both ends are attached to my backpack. Now, I don’t have to worry about setting it down and it potentially being stolen because it’s a sweet-ass ride.
