(no subject)
HI IT'S BEEN A WHILE, PERSONAL LJ...
but really this can go here instead of plurk, it'll be so much easier.
so my roommate, joy. she's a generally nice person. she is super-duper liberal, which really isn't an issue at all because politics is the one thing we don't talk about in this apartment. personally, i don't have a political affiliation because i'm not informed enough about any party to make a decision. anyway, like i was saying: she's very liberal. totally into organic food, all that kind of stuff. normally, it wouldn't bother me.
but she won't eat canned vegetables.
that, in itself, is not a problem. i like fresh veggies just as much as the next person. but we are college students. we can't afford to go to trader joe's and buy fresh vegetables all the time. scratch that: joy can afford to, the rest of us can't. she comes from a very wealthy family. to illustrate this, let me tell you about her living situation last year:
her parents paid for tuition, a dorm room, and a meal plan for her. that's roughly $18 thousand for the whole year.
1) she did not use any of her 500 meals. she said the dining hall food was "too unhealthy" and she didn't want to "poison her body" with all the fat. first of all, the food here is better than any cafeteria food i've ever had. it is relatively healthy, but yes, it does have fat in it. that's because most college students don't eat three regular, square meals a day and need the extra fat and calories to stay semi-healthy and not lose tons of weight and get sick. the freshman fifteen is because a lot of freshies aren't used to the college lifestyle, and do their best to work in three meals a day. the rest of us just don't give one flying fuck and eat between classes whenever the hell we can.
2) after the fall semester, i don't recall joy ever staying in her dorm room. she lived in an apartment with her boyfriend (and mine, and another guy) for about four months. not once during that time did she a) pay rent b) pay for utilities c) buy food. she just expected everything to be handed to her. she wouldn't even take the bus some days, and dragged her boyfriend out of bed to drive her ass to campus.
okay, so. the other day we were making tuna casserole. simple enough: boil the noodles, heat up some cream of mushroom soup for the sauce. i was happy enough to leave it at that. but not joy. i had to go to the store to get some milk and she asked me to pick up mushrooms and spinach and peppers so she could put it in the soup (her even wanting the vegetables came about because she told her boyfriend that she was "actually getting sick from not eating vegetables for three days"). i didn't want to start a fight over something as stupid as getting veggies, so i said sure. whatever. it'll be a one-time thing.
so later we're making dinner, whatever. i bring up the subject of canned vegetables. this was our conversation:
joy: well, i don't like them because they add too much sugar.
me: you can buy vegetables in their own juice, or just in water, you know. and they really aren't all that unhealthy at all.
joy: i just like fresh ones better.
me: yeah, me too. but you know, when i was growing up, we didn't really have a lot of money, but my mom wanted us to eat well. so canned vegetables were kind of all we could get.
joy: i guess i just came from a slightly more privileged background than you.
said as casually as if talking about buying a book. because yeah, being able to have your family pay for tuition/room/board and then not take advantage of half of it makes you only slightly more privileged than the rest of us. i know she probably didn't mean it to be insulting, but she's a senior this year. i don't understand how she hasn't yet grasped the fact that not everybody can have the things she does. i mean, my family is doing a bit better than when i was a kid, but we still don't go out and buy fresh veggies whenever we feel like having peas with our dinner. we still get canned vegetables, and we probably always will. i understand joy wants to eat healthily, but in college, it just really isn't practical for all of us. so i've decided that the next time she asks me to pick up vegetables for her, i'm just going to tell her that i can't afford it and she'll have to make do. because honestly, i'm not going to spend $4 on a pound of fresh carrots that i have to peel and slice myself when i can get them in a can for 89¢.
also, i stocked up on canned veggies today because they were on sale. i plan on serving them with dinner tonight.
but really this can go here instead of plurk, it'll be so much easier.
so my roommate, joy. she's a generally nice person. she is super-duper liberal, which really isn't an issue at all because politics is the one thing we don't talk about in this apartment. personally, i don't have a political affiliation because i'm not informed enough about any party to make a decision. anyway, like i was saying: she's very liberal. totally into organic food, all that kind of stuff. normally, it wouldn't bother me.
but she won't eat canned vegetables.
that, in itself, is not a problem. i like fresh veggies just as much as the next person. but we are college students. we can't afford to go to trader joe's and buy fresh vegetables all the time. scratch that: joy can afford to, the rest of us can't. she comes from a very wealthy family. to illustrate this, let me tell you about her living situation last year:
her parents paid for tuition, a dorm room, and a meal plan for her. that's roughly $18 thousand for the whole year.
1) she did not use any of her 500 meals. she said the dining hall food was "too unhealthy" and she didn't want to "poison her body" with all the fat. first of all, the food here is better than any cafeteria food i've ever had. it is relatively healthy, but yes, it does have fat in it. that's because most college students don't eat three regular, square meals a day and need the extra fat and calories to stay semi-healthy and not lose tons of weight and get sick. the freshman fifteen is because a lot of freshies aren't used to the college lifestyle, and do their best to work in three meals a day. the rest of us just don't give one flying fuck and eat between classes whenever the hell we can.
2) after the fall semester, i don't recall joy ever staying in her dorm room. she lived in an apartment with her boyfriend (and mine, and another guy) for about four months. not once during that time did she a) pay rent b) pay for utilities c) buy food. she just expected everything to be handed to her. she wouldn't even take the bus some days, and dragged her boyfriend out of bed to drive her ass to campus.
okay, so. the other day we were making tuna casserole. simple enough: boil the noodles, heat up some cream of mushroom soup for the sauce. i was happy enough to leave it at that. but not joy. i had to go to the store to get some milk and she asked me to pick up mushrooms and spinach and peppers so she could put it in the soup (her even wanting the vegetables came about because she told her boyfriend that she was "actually getting sick from not eating vegetables for three days"). i didn't want to start a fight over something as stupid as getting veggies, so i said sure. whatever. it'll be a one-time thing.
so later we're making dinner, whatever. i bring up the subject of canned vegetables. this was our conversation:
joy: well, i don't like them because they add too much sugar.
me: you can buy vegetables in their own juice, or just in water, you know. and they really aren't all that unhealthy at all.
joy: i just like fresh ones better.
me: yeah, me too. but you know, when i was growing up, we didn't really have a lot of money, but my mom wanted us to eat well. so canned vegetables were kind of all we could get.
joy: i guess i just came from a slightly more privileged background than you.
said as casually as if talking about buying a book. because yeah, being able to have your family pay for tuition/room/board and then not take advantage of half of it makes you only slightly more privileged than the rest of us. i know she probably didn't mean it to be insulting, but she's a senior this year. i don't understand how she hasn't yet grasped the fact that not everybody can have the things she does. i mean, my family is doing a bit better than when i was a kid, but we still don't go out and buy fresh veggies whenever we feel like having peas with our dinner. we still get canned vegetables, and we probably always will. i understand joy wants to eat healthily, but in college, it just really isn't practical for all of us. so i've decided that the next time she asks me to pick up vegetables for her, i'm just going to tell her that i can't afford it and she'll have to make do. because honestly, i'm not going to spend $4 on a pound of fresh carrots that i have to peel and slice myself when i can get them in a can for 89¢.
also, i stocked up on canned veggies today because they were on sale. i plan on serving them with dinner tonight.