Stuff Dartmouth Kids Like: Big Green Mysteries
In life, you will be faced with many questions. Some are big – is there a God? What is justice? Should I stay in bed or go to my 9L? Some are small – what should I get for breakfast? Which Instagram filter should I use on the millionth picture I’ve taken of Baker Tower covered in snow? Tree or shrub?
Welcome to week five. It’s Carnival, it’s beautiful and snowy outside (and a treacherous death trap) and hopefully your midterms are taking a hiatus for now. Either way, ditch the library because you only get four Carnivals, and as relatively sucky as this weekend might be, by the time you get to senior year you’ll wish you had hung out more. Unless your GPA is a 1.5, in which case get your act together.
In any case, week five is a time for reflection. We’re halfway through the term, which means that in all likelihood all the big, sweeping goals you set for yourself have faded and you have more work to make up than you can handle. For me, it means that I’m spending half of my time doing reading for my classes and the other half watching the snow fall and thinking ponderous thoughts, such as:
Why are there no bathrooms on Fourth Floor Berry?
I love studying on the FBs. They are bright, they are just cold enough to keep me awake (how anybody gets any work done in the Tower Room, I will never know) and they have enough people working in close proximity to each other to shame me into doing work and staying off BuzzFeed. Third floor is great because there are bathrooms and I pee basically every 20 minutes, but occasionally it turns into a hellhole of sophomore girls running around and talking to each other about their weekends when all I need to do is get through 40 pages of reading. Fourth floor is even better because no one talks up there, but alas, there is no bathroom. Why?
Why is Memorial Day a reading day?
Memorial Day was made for barbecues, beer and tanning. Memorial Day was not made for studying and being stressed out about the fact that you have a three-day break between reading day one and reading day two. You’d think this would give you more time to study, but it really just means you spend the day building up momentum to study — all of which you lose by the time reading period day two rolls around.
Why doesn’t our DBA roll over?
Anyone who’s not a ’14, you don’t remember this, but there was once a time when DDS seemed like it was on our side. Prepaid meal plans included $200 of Topside money that could be used as DBA if you wanted, everything was a la carte and unspent money rolled over from term to term. And then came the SmartChoice-pocalypse of 11F. If the meal plan change was really to ensure that students don’t run out of money, why are we losing the money we don’t spend at the end of each term? Dartmouth, we’ve yet to hear a real explanation for why we are losing hundreds of dollars a year on a meal plan nobody actually likes. Are we helping pay off the loans taken out to pay for the new FoCo?
Why is there a one dollar fine for getting a little index card with your HB combo?
Does it really take that much effort to look up a combination and write three numbers down on a piece of paper? I don’t think so.
Why does Dartmouth Dining Services have ridiculous FoCo to-go rules?
I have on many, many occasions seen DDS staff members stop students with fruit or food in their cold cups and throw it out. This makes literally no sense. It’s not like this food is getting put back, because gross. It’s not like it’s getting saved and donated to a food bank or other charitable cause at the end of the day. It’s literally getting thrown out because whoever makes DDS policy would rather force students to adhere to its ridiculous rules – which partially explains where all our money is going – than allow them to eat ten pieces of mango. I hate this expression, but there are starving kids all around the world. Let’s not act like throwing untouched food into the garbage on principle is cool. Also, does “all you can eat” mean anything to you?