Nausea

Having just come from the NSA meeting I am sickened by the student mindset that has apparently followed me halfway across the world. During the meeting a discussion about the school's cafeteria was held which the students used to whimper about anything that did quite please them to a T about the cafeteria. Complaints included the lack of variety in recipes, the supposed unhealthiness of the meals, unfiltered water for use, the poliferation of certain ingreadiants in recipes and several other things that for many reasons I found upsetting. I work at said cafeteria and as such feel some loyalty to it but have found myself often times complaining to myself and my group of friends about the food. The fact that I do not voice these complaints outside of this groups comes from an understanding that I have developed about any restaurant and this small cafeteria specifically. I understand that the cafeteria is working with limits space, staff and money. I also understand that any restaurant, cafeteria and home works on a regular set of recipes that are rotated and no one place can feasible be constantly serving new recipes due to the need for some order in the kitchen, the ability to order supplies 1 to 2 weeks in advance and several other things that fall under the simple running of a cafeteria. As for the complaints about the heathiness of meals I must point out that every meal has a salad bar available, the majority of meals also have 1 to 3 other cooked vegatables available and when eaten in reasonable portions none of the main courses or deserts poise any greater hazard to our health than the meals students would actually be cooking for themselves if they were responsible for their own meals. Having paid attention to the way students CHOOSE to put their meals together I have come to the conclussion that it is their own choices that make meals unhealthy not the meals in and of themselves. The request for a water filter is one that I myself could find myself agreeing with if it had been coupled with the suggestion that NSA funds be used to purchase and maintain said filter. It is by no means the cafeteria's fault that the water in the area has a large amount of minerals in it and filtered water is not provided anywhere else on campus for students. If the students wish for this change to occur they should then take responsibility not only for the idea but for the monetary implimentation of it. And the final issue that I am going to address here before going off to a much desired cafeteria meal is the frustration I feel at finding the same greedy attitude in students over here. Comments were made in such an antaginistic format as to show that they had not given any thought as to how much work simply goes into running a cafeteria and the fact that for the people in charge, running it is their full-time job. They would very much like to address students issues but they cannot drop everything or meals will not get made and then the students will have even more to complain about. I guess it just saddens me that the same nitpicky and ungrateful attitude that troubled me so much at PUC has found its way to infect an otherwise happy campuss half a world away.