(Campus) Life is a bitch #1

Dining halls, meal plans, points vs. meals. Who's idea was this and why does it continue to go so horribly? Every time the University of Delaware makes a change to their food system, it seems to piss more people off than it satisfies. So at the beginning of each semester, I can choose to arrange my dining plan in one of several ways. I can have a number of meals ranging from 24 to 10 meals allotted every week. The more meals I choose to have, the less points I get to buy snacks and on-the-go meals at various food courts and markets around campus. This whole dining plan experience is mandatory for those living on campus, and costs a chunk of change that I have no accurate number for because it's tacked in with the rest of the 17 grand I owe to UD every semester or something like that. I feel like I've heard $800 before somewhere, but don't count on it, I wouldn't be surprised if it were more. I can also, and have myself, selected a bulk number of meals for the entire semester, to use each week at my own discretion. I can eat 3 meals one week and 20 the next and not lose any for using too few or be turned away for using too many. 110 meals and 350 points this semester, that's what I chose. You can have more meals and exponentially fewer points if you want.You can also spend $$$ on stuff from the dining locales, and in that case 1 point is the same as $1.

So my first issue here is that there's no conversion factor that gives you a balanced ratio of meals to points. If you spend points to get into the dining hall, it costs around 7.50 but if you spend a meal it only takes one. However, when you're choosing how many points versus how many meals you get, every meal you trade in for points doesn't get you 7.50, it gets you closer to 4. So they're encouraging students to eat meals instead of snack or grab fast food. That's great, except 3 of the 4 dining halls have exclusive hours. Breakfast is from 7:30 to 10:30, then they close until lunch at 11:30 which lasts until 2:30 or so, then they open back up for dinner from 4:30 to 7:30. If you have blocks of classes during those time periods, good luck finding grub when they finally release you. Kent conveniently offers buffet style dining from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM, but the quality of the food takes a hit as a result.

It used to be that if there was nothing else edible at Kent you could always grab a salad and a slice of pizza and call it dinner. For breakfast, you could always have an omelette cooked up to your preferences. But not anymore! Now the omelette station closes down at 9:30 along with the preparation of hot/fresh other items like sausage and biscuits and pancakes as they shift over to "continental breakfast". So if you're like me, and you have a class at 10 AM, you mosey on over to Kent at about 9:40 after you crawl out of the shower and discover that there's no more pancakes/french toast, what sausage or bacon is left is cold, the pastry options (muffins, danishes and sometimes donuts) are gone, and the milk dispenser is all out of whole and skim, and sometimes even chocolate for your cereal. There's always a waffle maker over by the applesauce and yogurt (which is covered in raisins/nuts by this time) but I would argue that it makes some nasty waffles. Bagels and bread are by a toaster oven type thing but they take a day and a half to toast and the topping options are dismal or contaminated like the applesauce. Some days there's still Silk to pour on your cereal but most days all that's left is Lact-Aid, and by that point you might as well just use water, or eat it dry. And dinner? In an effort to make the dining options classier, they've eliminated pizza from the menu except as an occasional entree (meaning I've seen it once this year, and there was only one slice left). Salad three nights a week gets old fast. I'm not some great food connoisseur, but I like to enjoy my food. When hot food is burnt AND cold, cold food is lukewarm, and nothing has spices of any sort (salt and pepper anyone?) then I get a little irritated.

So on the occasion that I decide to grab something to eat from one of the food courts on campus, I have a few options. I can trek all the way up to Trabant on Delaware Avenue. The Chick-fil-A inside is expensive, and so is the pizza (sort of like Sbarro) and the sub station. The sushi place isn't too bad for a small tray of rolls, but the wasabi has a tendency to bleed over into everything (do not want). A meal from any of those places inside Trabant runs around 7.50 (amazing how that works isn't it?). Perkins, right across the street from my dorm, has a Dunkin Donuts, which is cheap drinks and snacks but the sandwiches are as expensive as everything else. There's a salad bar (yay more lettuce) which ends up costing more than a burger because they sell the salad by weight, and dressing is heavy. A salad with a drink has been about 8.50 every time I've gotten one, and anything else on the menu usually gets me at around 7.50 (again). Note that when I say a meal, I'm not talking about a deluxe burger, large fries and a large fountain drink, I mean just the simple burger and a small fountain drink or bottled soda. Or the sub and a drink. No sides; they cost as much as the entree.

Even worse than all of that is the fact that I know I could EASILY take $10 and buy ingredients from Pathmark down the road to cook for myself in the conveniently located kitchens in every dorm building to last a week. EASILY. But I can't do that with my points, because there's no grocery store type markets. The closest thing is the frozen tv dinners that they sell at the markets for 6 points. A box of cereal is about 6 points, a quart of milk is about 3 points, and a bag of chips is about 5 points. And that's all they sell. Chips, ice cream, small containers of overpriced milk, various drinks, microwave dinners, donuts, cereal, candy bars, bulk candy, deodorant and condoms. If they sold cigarettes, they'd almost be like the gas station convenience store. Except the quick-e-mart sells flour, noodles and basic spices, and the Harrington Market doesn't.