Ridiculing the ridiculous ridiculousness

This archived article was written by: Devan Roberts

Before I begin to ridicule the recent ridiculousness that has taken place at CEU, I would like to tell you, the reader, that I am aware that there may be completely logical reasons why these ridiculous events have taken place, but I know not these reasons. Therefore, being unable to explain why these events have been justified and therefore taken place, I will tell you what I do know: there is a lot of ridiculous ridiculousness happening here at our school and there needs to be some sort of reparations to those of us who have had to suffer due to reasons I know not. Rather than going into a lengthy detail of all the ridiculousness, I am going to single out one situation many of us faced during the spring break to show just how ridiculous things have gotten.
As many of you know, during spring break the cafeteria shutdown for over a week and not only did it leave many of the students without food, but they also closed early on Friday, without ample notice, leaving those students unable to stockpile food for the oncoming days in which they had no access to food. I was awestruck by the fact that Friday was a full day of school and all the students planning on eating dinner after they got done with classes were left with empty belly’s because the cafeteria justified shutting down even though the majority of the students were still on campus. I don’t know whose decision this was, but it was a ridiculous one. So the students are now faced with about nine days without food and no ability to prepare themselves for the oncoming struggle to stifle their hunger. How does one justify closing down the only source of food for many students when they were mandated to buy a meal plan for the purposes of keeping students from going hungry? Not to mention the fact that the food has already been paid for!
Reports show that the human body can go without food for quite a sustained period of time before dying based on numerous factors like metabolism, body weight, fat percentage and the state of there physical fitness, but regardless of how long one can go without food, the fact that we were mandated to buy a meal plan to prevent this problem in the first place is ridiculous enough in itself. The normal reactions for a person going without food three days includes the body beginning to get weak, confused, irritable, chronic diarrhea, bad decision making, decreased sex drive (heaven forbid) and immune deficiency, making the person susceptible to sickness. For me this presents a serious problem because I have a very high metabolism, low body weight, low fat percentage, my physical fitness isn’t the greatest and I live in Sessions where there are community bathrooms, need I say more? Keep in mind that we are talking about the effects after only three days without food. AND we still have six days to go! So how do they expect us to have a healthy body and mind to do our college work when we come back from spring break confused, irritable, making poor choices and sick from the lack of food. Plus the fact that we will be missing lectures due to the chronic diarrhea which comes at a moment’s notice and who knows what other kind of sickness we have picked up from the community bathrooms, which weren’t cleaned once over spring break, because our immune systems were weak from not eating.
So now the aftermath piles up and I am wondering how this has all been justified. My biggest frustration lies with the amount of money that the cafeteria/CEU gained by not feeding students for nine days. There was no notification that the meal plan cost would go up this semester, for those of us living on campus, and since we are in a binding agreement with CEU for two semesters, the problem lies with the college keeping our meal plan money at the end of the semester.
So I ask why don’t they charge us $900 for a meal plan, feed us for one day and then close down for the rest of the semester. This would provide the most profit for the school. It has been my understanding that the reason they make us pay for the meal plan in the first place is to prevent students from starving during the semester. So why, once again I ask, is it okay to leave us without food? Why?
I feel like this alone explains why I felt the need to ridicule the ridiculous ridiculousness that has happened during the spring break alone. So, what now? I think that the school owes us, the student body, a pro- rated refund on the days the cafeteria closed down and left many of us starving for a ridiculous amount of time. Not only did I personally have to spend the little money I had to feed myself, but it has left me without the ability to pay my bills, one of them being my car insurance. So, now I can’t drive my car to work, in Helper, because there is no insurance on my car and this continues to snowball until I have no money for medication or other needs I have. Simply put the decision to close down the cafeteria for the spring break without providing us the ability to use our meal plan money for food was ridiculous and has had severe consequences to those of us who relied on the college to keep us fed and healthy. Not to mention taking the money we paid the school to keep us fed is absolutely outrageous, period.
So please, someone, tell me why it is okay to make us pay for a meal plan to protect us from starving then turn a blind eye and make us go without food when the situation could have easily been prevented. Why not charge our account $50 and give us some canned food or let us use the meal plan at the library or just keep the grill open? Something could have been done to help us get through the spring break without starving and speaking of starving, the only reason I am still well is because of the graciousness of friends who took it upon themselves to feed me during the beginning of the break until I called my parents to come get me because I was out of money for gas, food and the cafeteria was closed. Even with their efforts I lost 10 pounds over the break and weighing in at 114 pounds, I don’t have it to lose. Regardless of all that has happened, I feel like hypocrisy has infested our school and there needs to be some reparations made to those of us who were mandated to pay for a meal plan for the exclusive reason given us: to keep college students from going hungry. This is unacceptable and I feel like the appropriate action now is for CEU to pro rate our meal plan and give us back the money we had to spend to keep ourselves fed over the break or give us a refund of our money at the end of the semester. If you feel frustrated because you had to deal with this yourself or you want to hold the school accountable for the ridiculous ridiculousness they have allowed to happen, PLEASE voice your opinion to those in charge of our well being and our meal plan.