Frat Boy: Saga Dining Hall - Part 2

When we walked into the east side, the workers always warmly greeted us. They would swipe our student IDs which also kept our meal plan accounts. We would walk through a doorway and enter the line of food displayed exactly how you would expect in a cafeteria. First there were the plates. You always grabbed at least two plates, sometimes three. There’s nothing worse than being halfway down the line and needing to ask someone to hand you another plate. The first thing on the line was always the main dish, which sometimes was awesome (chicken parmesan, chicken nuggets) often mediocre (hamburgers, grilled chicken breast) and at times disgusting (unidentifiable mystery meat mixed in with some grey-ish yellow sauce).

Inevitably some worker would be checking the temperatures of the food. I guess it’s great that the food was safe, but that doesn’t really help the fact that it sometimes tasted like paste. Then there would someone who would walk around and carefully drop pimetos on the vegetable. Chrissie always ranted about this, “maybe they could focus on making the food better as opposed to dressing up a turd.”

In addition to the main course there were standbys that they always prepped because we inevitably would skip the main course the vast majority of the time. These included: grilled cheese sandwiches, pasta with marinara sauce, cheese quesadillas, pizzas, French fries and the salad bar.

Drinks were watered down sodas and Minute-Maid juice selections. There was a soft-serve machine, pretty fresh coffee and usually a decent selection of cookies and brownies.

Most of the time I loaded one plate with a cheeses quesadillas, fries and hardboiled egg from the salad bar and the other plate with a grilled cheeses sandwich and marinara sauce. I’d grab a couple cookies and grab a glass of cranberry juice. I’d place the egg and fries in the quesadilla and roll it up and dip my grilled cheese in the marinara sauce.

I literally ate this for a meal, hundreds of times. Yes, it was kind of gross, but it was how I figured out how to make this eating situation work for me. My friends all had their own ways to cope with the mediocrity of the food. Some people used a lot of hot sauce, others focused on the salad bar and used tons of dressing while other simply drank a lot of coffee.

Sharing food is one of the most important ways that human beings bond with each other. What I learned at the Plex is that the quality of the food doesn’t necessarily negatively affect the fellowship of a meal.

We laughed about trying to eat some of the worst meats, being disgusted at overcooked hard-boiled eggs, wilted lettuce and rock hard cookies. We celebrated steak night, gorged on chicken nuggets and made mad dashes for the cookie tray whenever a fresh batch came out of the oven. It wasn’t about what we ate, it was the fact that we ate together as family that made the Plex so special.

Bathtime

Parenthood Week 64 – Lessons From My Mother

The person who has taught me the most about being a parent is my mom.

There is so much to know when it comes to being a parent. Yes, there are books that cover almost every single facet of taking care of a kid. While these books are often backed up by research, they aren’t informed by family tradition. Genetics often means that something that worked for your mother as a parent has a higher possibility of working with your own child.

I went to an infant care class, and have access baby-rearing books and the all-knowing Internet. However when things got tricky and I wasn’t sure how to handle something, after talking to Diana, I’d look to my mom for help.

All mothers raised kids, but not all moms are really knowledgeable about the art of raising children. You don’t have to keep up with the latest research and products to be a great parent but you do have to know what’s going on with developments in parenting philosophy to speak intelligently with to new parents.

My mom is that person who always seems to have a baby in her arms at family events.  She is also the person who makes and effort to know in what is going on in the world of parenting. It’s this combination of passion for children and her openness to keep learning about kids that has made her an incredible resource for me.

There are many little things that she has taught me like how to burp Ollie (raise one of the babies hands up to lengthen the esophagus and gently rub the small of the back) and how to give Ollie a bath. She taught me the best way to hold a baby to put them to sleep and the signs to watch for when Ollie is ready to be put in the crib.  She provided an approach to food that we could use to help create Ollie’s diet from her modern knowledge of food and nutrition. And my mom also passed down traditional knowledge from her parents on how to handle thinks unique to people in my family like Asian cradle cap.

Every time I talked to my mom it seemed like I picked up on one more nugget of information that was helpful in handling Ollie’s every-changing needs as a baby. When she didn’t have a solution, she was always understanding and sympathetic.

People battle the insecurity of being a new parent by buying books, refusing to buy books, asking everyone for advice or asking no one. There’s a sense that our parents figured things out by themselves so we should. If we can’t then somehow we are damaging that ever-present comparison we make between our parents and ourselves.

Your parents didn’t figure out all of this parenting stuff themselves. No one does.  Asking for help may mean that you have to put your pride aside. The longer you are a parent the more you don’t care about pride. There’s no feeling about preserving pride when you are in hour two of trying to put your baby to sleep for the night.

Success as parents is not based on our independence but how we are for our children. If our focus really is on our kids, then asking for help is something we do against our own pride but for our children.

The most important thing that my mom taught me about being a parent is that taking care of other people is where we find our meaning and taking care of our own is where we find our purpose.

I still have a lot more to learn about being a parent and my mom has a lot more to teach me and one day I’ll take on this part of being a parent and teach Ollie what my mom has taught me.

Frat Boy: Saga Dining Hall - Part 1

For four years, almost every single week day of my academic career at Northwestern, I endured mediocre dining hall meals that were sometimes borderline inedible and I loved every minute of it. It’s hilarious how prospective students wonder about the dorm food. Yes, you want to go to a college that has decent food but is that really the deal-breaker? I guess my perspective has to do with the fact that if I based my choice to go to Northwestern on the quality of the food I would eat during my time there, I would not have chosen to go to that university.

Part of it was my own choosing.

One of the reasons I chose to live in the Plex because there was a dining hall on the bottom floor of the dorm. This seemed really convenient and it was especially nice on days when the weather was bad. Only a minority of the dorms on campus had dining halls on the bottom floor.

Eating at dining halls wasn’t the only option on campus. There were a cafés and different dining options a Norris, our student union. You could use credit from meals at these different places. For the most part I ate at the Plex dining hall.  

The Plex cafeteria was split into two sides. The west side had made to order meals. You could ask for a specific kind of salad or sandwich and the person behind the line would make it ready to order for you. This food was fresh and with the addition of a small convenience store near the entrance of this side, made for a nice dining experience.

I ate on the west side a couple times, but in general, I stuck to the east side, the worse of the two, because that’s where my family, my frat and my social circle, NUMB-Mu-Alpha-Iota would gather.

Why did we choose to eat at this cafeteria? There were better cafeterias not too far away and it’s not like we didn’t have a better option on the west side of the building. Honestly, I have no idea, why, it’s just the way we did things. When anyone questioned this choice over an especially bad dinner, we would laugh off this very reasonable and logical question like they were asking us why we had heads.

It was like the bar in Cheers.  Whenever I walked in, I’d see someone in our social group happily greet me. Even though I almost always had morning classes, coming to lunch and seeing everyone there felt like the true start of my day.

It wasn’t perfect but it was ours, and oh, how we made it ours. Sometimes it was in small ways, other times it was in big ways and one time our effort to make this place our own got us kicked out.

Parenthood Week 63 - The Party: Part 2

Click here for part 1

“Did you drive? I know parking’s awful bc of Billy Joel concert nearby?”

With this text on my phone, I knew that I couldn’t make up an excuse and go home. The fact that she noticed I wasn’t there meant that she cared that I was there. Even though I felt that I had failed because of how late I was to the performances, she didn’t seem to think so or else her text would have been a lot more annoyed and less understanding.

So I turned around, and texted  her I had just parked and was on the way over. As I approached the apartment for the second time that night, I still felt the feeling of hesitation and insecurity but I had told LaJuanda I was on my way and I couldn’t break my word.

I climbed up the back steps of the apartment as LaJuanda directed. As I entered the back door of the dining room I heard the sound of girls singing an arrangement of “Long Hot Summer,” coming from the living room. As I walked through the apartment, Mike, LaJuanda’s boyfriend waved to me and whispered that they had just started.


There were people crowded into the living room sitting on the floor and couches and watching the group performing standing against the far wall. I squeezed behind someone sitting on a bar stool and there I saw LaJuanda in the back corner of the room.

Our eyes met and she smiled at me. In that moment, the tears of depression and failure that were welling up earlier came out in tears of joy. As the girls sang “The only place that I want to be is where you are, ‘cause anymore than a heartbeat away is too far,” I realized there really wasn’t anywhere I would rather be at that moment.

During the intermission, I gave LaJuanda a hug and made an awkward attempt at small talk.  I was out of practice and felt like I had no idea how to chill out at a party but for some reason, I didn’t really care.

The girls had a great second act with a really clever T.G.I.F. sitcom theme song arrangement. No, these weren’t professional singers but they had fun and were really into what they were doing. That energy is the most important thing in any performance and they had that going for them. It was clear that everyone in the room was feeling what they were feeling, no more hoping and wishing.

After the performance I chatted with LaJuanda and Mike for a little bit. I told her that I felt silly that I was worried that I would be late and that I thought that she was texting me in the middle of the performance. She asked me how I thought that her group did and I told her how much I enjoyed the song selections, the transitions and their energy.

I explained to LaJuanda I had to get going because I was off on a road trip early the next day and while she was sad that I couldn’t hang out, it was clear that she appreciated that I had come.

When I’m out with Ollie and Diana, I don’t have to think about my own feelings. My focus is on their needs. When I get frustrated that I can’t find parking and Ollie is in the car, I ignore those feelings for Ollie’s sake and power on.  Going out by myself forced me to confront my doubts and insecurities and if it wasn’t for that text from LaJuanda, expressing to me that I mattered, I would have given up on myself.

LaJuanda and I aren’t best friends. I have no illusions about that. But you don’t have to be best friends to have a significant and important impact on each other. You don’t have to be someone’s best friend to make a difference.

Some of the hardest moments of as a parent are when you aren't with your child.  It's important to remember that while these times are tough, you don't have to go through them alone.  

Frat Boy: Chrissie - Part 2

When I rushed PMA, Chrissie was proud and supportive. At PMA parties she would make sure to introduce me other people and always made sure that I was included on the dance floor, even though I had no idea how to dance at that time.

Chrissie wasn’t in SAI. I remember asking her why she never rushed and she brushed the question off as not a big deal. It just something she wasn’t into. So I was surprised when she rushed SAI that spring and joined.

I was full in. I went to every PMA meeting and almost every event. I dove right into the deep end. Chrissie didn’t.  When she joined spring being her last quarter at college; many other things were on her mind.

I remember questioning her loyalty to the group, when she wasn’t enthusiastic about SAI events. Why join if you are not going to give it your all? So I asked her after coming back from a PMA & SAI joint event why she didn’t show up. Being a freshman, I asked in a callous and judgmental way.

I’ll never forget the look in her eyes as her eyes met mine. It wasn’t that Chrissie was sad but it was that she was worn down. Yes, SAI was fun, but it was more of a undergrad's game. The general plan was that you join as a freshmen, do your major work as a sophomore and junior and then senior year, you watch the fruits of your labor and get to step back. Chrissie was a weird place where undergrads in that organization had seniority as a sister over her. As Chrissie explained all of this and how hard it was sometimes to be in a group but not feel like she was a totally a member, I realized the biggest similarity between us.

Chrissie always seemed like the life of the party. She always had friends around, right? Then why did she choose to live in the most anti-social dorm on campus. Then I remembered how many times I greeted her as she walked alone on campus and how many times I joined her as she sat alone in the cafeteria. Here is a senior girl, hanging out with a freshmen boy. If she was really that central in any social group than she wouldn’t be hanging out with me.

Chrissie and I both didn’t fit in with large groups. We didn’t have groups of friends. We were both searching for this by joining SAI and PMA but I did it earlier in my college career and somehow it worked for me in a way joining SAI didn’t work for Chrissie. Even after being initiated into PMA, that feeling of being on the fringes never left me completely and I think that’s something that Chrissie and me always shared.

I didn’t realize this at the time. I just knew that my friend just didn’t feel like she belonged. It would have been easy for her to walk away from SAI. She didn’t have to follow through with her obligations, but she did.

After four years in PMA, I found myself in the same spot that Chrissie was in the end of her senior year. That feeling of being in the center was no longer there. My time in power had passed and the rest of my life had taken priority. How do you deal with this? You can be dragged out kicking and screaming and complain about how the underclassmen don’t know what they are doing or you can do what Chrissie taught me by her example:

Leave with grace and dignity. Accept the consequences of your actions and accept the hand that life has dealt you. Hold your head up high to those that would tear you down and always leave them with a smile. Dignity doesn’t mean you are a doormat, rather it means that you are never a victim and you never feel sorry for yourself.

In the last couple weeks of the school, Chrissie put away the college clothing and dressed more professionally. She complained less about others and she seemed to walk with a stronger purpose. The confidence that had once intimidated me had transformed into a maturity that impressed me.

Chrissie was my older sister in college and she took care of me. She was proud of whatever accomplishments I managed, no matter how small. I never told her so, but I was proud of her. When I told people in college that she was my friend, I felt like somebody, a person that mattered and as I write about her now, I still do.

Parenthood Week 62 - The Party: Part 1

I don't get out much.  

It has been almost two years since I went out and did something social without Diana or Ollie. I was very protective of Diana during her pregnancy and the craziness of Ollie’s first year of life didn’t leave a lot of free time. I was okay with this fact but I knew that I was important that I push myself out of this pattern. So when LaJuanda invited me to come over for a party that would include a performance of her acapella group she sang in, I told her that I would come, but I no idea the struggle that night would bring.  

LaJuanda had invited me to parties earlier but I either declined because Diana was pregnant and I had to take care of her or I’d laugh it off because the performance would be at 9pm and that’s WAY too late for this new parent to be out. The thing is that LaJuanda kept asking me to come and in this way, I realized that it would mean something to LaJuanda and our friendship for me to come.

I met LaJuanda when she was a freshmen her first night on campus. I had graduated at that point but my wife who is two years younger than me was in marching band with her. I remember LaJuanda being timid and displaying a quiet thoughtfulness.  I saw her around that year and we would be friendly with each other but mostly our interactions were limited to an exploding fist bump.

Years later, we ended up both working as assistants at the same school and we agreed to car pool to and from work. Over the twenty-minute drive we bonded over marching band memories, stories about mutual friends and puppies (this was the first year we had Buffy). We became friends over this time and I would regularly invite LaJuanda to social gatherings and to hang out.

There’s many great traits about LaJuanda. She’s smart without being cocky, she’s funny but also sensitive and she is empathetic with a incredible capacity to understand people of all ages.  The most amazing thing about LaJuanda is when she looks at you and smiles; she makes you feel like you belong.

The performance was at 9pm. I wanted to get their early around 8:30, so I would need to leave the house at 8. Ollie goes to bed at 7pm, so I could take a shower around 7:15.  Parents, as you know plans rarely go as hoped. Ollie didn’t get to be until 7:30, then I had to unclog our bathtub which was in really bad shape. By the time all of this was done it was 8:15. Okay, forget the shower.  I threw on a clean Doctor Who t-shirt, combed my hair, washed my face and I was out the door.

The driving went fine. I was in the area around 8:50, but then the parking was killer. Billy Joel was doing a concert near-by which meant is was nigh-impossible to find an open spot. Usually in Chicago, all you have to do is circle the block a couple times and something will open up.  It wasn’t like that this night.

After not finding parking in the immediate area, I worked my way outwards. Every block I went through, every open spot then ended up being a fire hydrant frustrated space. As the minutes passed, I was feeling more and more like a failure. How could I not be able to make this evening work?  By that time, I found a spot, it was 9:30, a half an hour after the performance was scheduled to start. 

By the time I parked, I wanted to go home. How could I show up this late to a performance that was probably already done? None of these people are married or have kids, how could I survive at this party? I walked down the street towards the apartment crossing my arms, holding myself and feeling tears well up as the warm summer evening breeze felt cold and made me shudder.

Standing in front of the apartment building, I could hear the party and I could see the light upstairs.  What was I going to do? Show up after the performance? Apologize awkwardly? I can’t do this. I can’t even make it to the event on time, let alone be social. Maybe the reason I haven’t gone out on my own with friends is because I don’t know how to anymore, maybe I’ve been using Diana and Ollie as an excuse.

So I turned around and headed back to the parking lot. I started formulated an excuse that I would send to LaJuanda. I could blame it on Ollie. Chances are, LaJuanda didn’t even notice that I wasn’t there for the performance.

As I crossed the street to the parking lot LaJuanda texted me. . .