The Golden Girls: Run It Back

So I've moved back up to school for my Sophomore Summer (I don't feel like explaining it yet again, read all about it here) and have the incredible luck to be living with three wonderful ladies, aka my friends Madison, Amrita, and Melissa. So far, apartment life has been fantastic, if a little unmotivated. (We have a kitchen and it's really hot out, thus we don't even venture out for a lot of meals anymore.) Yesterday, our efforts to get schoolwork done quickly devolved into two hours of couch potato sporcling followed by a game of "Truth or Truth" (which began, traditionally enough, as a game of "Truth or Dare," but we were too lazy and hot to feel like moving off any of the three couches/futons we have crammed into our living room). And then Melissa came back (having left after the sporcling to go have a life outside the apartment, for which I admire her greatly) and we all ate pie. And laid out ground rules for food consumption, the rules basically being "eat whatever doesn't have someone's name on it, but don't finish the last of something that's not yours" and "if you finish off a basic item (i.e. milk, Cheerios), buy the next one for the group." All in all, a pretty good system, methinks. Although it hasn't really been tested yet.

To continue the roomie bonding, Amrita is cooking the first of what will hopefully become weekly (or every-other-weekly?) roomie dinners, which means we're going on a field trip to Price Chopper tomorrow, since our on-campus grocery shopping options are extremely limited. Here's how Dartmouth's money allotment breaks down:

Smallest on-campus meal plan (which I always opt for): $1000/trimester
Topside money (Topside being the on-campus convenience store): $200/trimester
(Off-campus meal plan: $700/trimester)

Considering the fact that I almost always have between $200 and $400 left over at the end of every term (including the ones where I DON'T have a fully functioning kitchen at my disposal), you can see that, money-wise, apartment living might be tough on me, especially when Topside is so sparsely stocked (a., it's summer, and b., they moved locations since Thayer Hall's under construction). I mean, if I'm obligated to spend $1000 on Dartmouth's campus, it doesn't make sense financially to eat off-campus food, since the price of that is just compounded on top of the $1000 I've already shelled out to Dartmouth. My parents reminded me of this quite frequently before I moved up here. "Don't cook for yourself all the time," they urged. "Eat campus food and get your money's worth."

But since it's summer and the majority of the dining halls are closed, my options include (my favorite!) pasta made-to-order (Monday through Thursday), the salad bar, and/or an assortment of meat-packed, deep-fried, and often sodium-packed culinary delights. It's so much healthier to prepare your own meals, and the variety is so much better. So how are we supposed to stock our fridge while using our meal plan money?

Easy. It's called "Grocery Shopping in the Dining Halls."

Basically, Madison and I went to Collis and raided the salad bar for veggies, which we took home and then put in plastic baggies in the fridge to give the whole thing an air of organization and legitimacy. (Plus the soybeans and chickpeas had gotten all mixed up with the broccoli and, needless to say, each other, which was probably going to be an issue.) We also stocked up on bananas and oranges from the Collis fridge. Then we headed over to the Hop to buy a bunch of Milk Chugs (those Garelick Farms individual milk bottles) for our morning cereal only to discover that apparently someone else (or a bunch of someone elses) had had the same idea, as there was not a single Milk Chug to be found in the cooler. (I can only assume that's why they took them, because milk alone is not a particularly summery drink, ESPECIALLY when chugged.) We recouped our losses by stockpiling some Greek yogurts instead, and Madison bought some of those little milk-in-a-pointed-cardboard-carton thingies that always make me think of elementary school lunch. So all in all, Operation Grocery Shop Without Paying Out of Pocket was a rousing success.

Then we returned to the apartment and Madison did work while I hung a couple more posters (including one that says "Dare to Dream," which, in a spurt of creativity, we hung on the bathroom wall across from the toilet) and wondered (loudly) where our roommates were, at which point Amrita emerged from her room after the world's longest (and quietest?) nap. She then wandered into the bathroom and shut the door as Madison looked at me and whispered, "The POSTER," at which point we heard laughter from behind the bathroom door, followed by a loud, "Whaaaaat...?!" and the sound of the door opening again as Amrita came back in to question us as to why there was a motivational poster staring you down on the crapper.

It was then that we decided that the goings-on in our apartment definitely have the makings of a good sitcom (or maybe a reality show, although there's a definite dearth of girl fights and oddly-named people). What would we title such a show? we wondered. Amrita's answer was "The Golden Girls: Run It Back," which actually seems pretty appropriate. Equally appropriate was Madison's remark that "if our lives were a sitcom, it would have to be on HBO." (Don't ask, just accept it.)

At any rate, I absolutely LOVE my roomies (in case that wasn't clear). My classes...not bad. I think I'm gonna really like my history class, despite the fact that I'm behind in the reading because the bookstore was out of two-thirds of the required texts for this particular class. It was not out of the (only) book for my Chinese calligraphy class, however, and that set me back $69. (I'm already trying to re-sell this monster, I swear to God. It's a lovely, two-inch-thick hardcover book about the art and history of Chinese calligraphy. Do you want it? It would look lovely on your coffee table. And think of how cultured and smart you'll look when company comes over and sees it there! I'll give you a goooood price on it!) And then Madison and I split the cost of our engineering textbook. Since it was the only book required for the class, we'd anticipated a fat hardcover in the neighborhood of $40-$70. Turns out it's a dinky paperback. We bought it used for $7.80 (and split the price anyway).

All in all, it's good to be back at Dartmouth and back in the States (but more on that some other time). I've got mixed feelings about heading home for the Fourth of July this weekend (a long one, thanks to Dartmouth's giving us Monday off), but I'm hoping to hang out with my friends a bit more than when I was home last (for a grand total of what, maybe four days?). But I have a good feeling about this whole "sophomore summer" thing. And not just because there's ice cream in my freezer and a river practically out my back door.*

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer!

*Even though we're not supposed to swim in it. LAME. We can still kayak, though. (Not lame!)