Like plenty of other students shuddering in the shadow of the dreaded and unknown Hurricane Irma, I fled on the 8th as soon as I saw the report that she was heading straight for Tampa.
This lead to an unfortunate conclusion for my roommates and I: the fact is, we live in an apartment style dorm, and with those wonderful amenities like having our own rooms and not having to share a bathroom with 19 other girls, we also have one other thing.
A kitchen. A kitchen that we had stocked with food. And when we feared that power might go out, we realized that we had to figure out what went with who or suffer the possible consequences of returning back to Tampa to a freezer full of spoiled meat and a refrigerator of sour milk and turned lunch meat. After this happy fact, I went home, had a long talk with my Mom, and was inevitably told that I wasn't using enough of my meal swipes (to which I totally see your point, Momma).
And this made me realize that although I LOVE my apartment style dorm and its cute little kitchen, I also have a love/hate relationship with said kitchen. Thus said, here is my personal pros and cons list of having a kitchen on campus.
Pros
1. You get to cook. You get to cook EVERYTHING your little heart desires. You want Mac n' Cheese with extra breadcrumbs? COOK THAT SUCKER. You will always satisfy your cravings when it comes to having a kitchen. The Hub may not be making what you're currently wanting, but you sure can. Bonus? It's home cooked.
2. Snacks, snacks, snacks galore. You can have milk and cookies without having to walk to the dining hall just to get a glass of milk. You can make hot chocolate. You can have COFFEE without having to go to the water fountain or bathroom to get your water. This is very important.
3. Not having to walk to the dining hall. Since Fresh closed, I have to heave my butt out of bed and put on my shoes and walk the agonizing two minutes it takes ALL THE WAY OVER to the Hub, where I'll swipe my card and pick from a menu and get my food. With my kitchen, all I have to do is shuffle down the hallway and eat. I can even do this in my pajamas, and my roommates can't judge me for it because I LIVE HERE. Then I can immediately sit in front of my laptop and watch Netflix and fall asleep. Score.
Cons
1. I don't think a lot of people realize this, but those dorm kitchens are tiny. And when everyone decides to cook their separate dinners all at once? You become some variation of contortionist/snake/gymnast as you and your roommates squeeze and slither around each other to get to the silverware or the stove top currently bubbling over or the microwave that just signaled your frozen dinner is ready for you.
2. You have to buy food. I praise the kitchen for me being able to cook all the pasta I want, but I still have to go to the store and buy the stuff. And groceries? are expensive. You learn to cut out the things you don't really need pretty fast.
3. You have to cook. Yeah, frozen dinners and cans of soup exist. But what I love about the dining hall is that their food is just ready and waiting for my greedy little hands to stuff it into my equally greedy little mouth. In my dorm? I have to cook. I have to take my food out and measure my ingredients and make my food and clean my dishes and UGH sometimes it's exhausting but sometimes it's so worth it.
4. Sometimes you forget dining halls exist. I'm not lying. I sometimes panic because I have no idea what I'm going to eat tonight but I really want a burger but I don't have the stuff to make a burger and I don't have a car to get the stuff to make a burger. And then you remember that pretty much any dining hall you go to will serve you some variation of meat on a bun and that is a nice feeling.
