“You got your… freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, JV jocks, Asian nerds, cool Asians, Varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don’t eat anything, desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks, the greatest people you will ever meet, and the worst: Beware of plastics.” –Mean Girls
I’m just going to come out and say it: Lower Dining Hall is like the cafeteria in Mean Girls. Now before you shake your head no and disregard this statement, hear me out! We certainly don’t have the same divisions as showcased in the hit 2004 movie, but let me tell you, the division is there. Spend just five minutes on the top floor of the dining hall near Addie’s, look down at the people below you, and you will see exactly what I mean. Call it a social experiment, an observation of the social stratifications of Lower, or me just being a little too distracted by what’s going on with those around me. Whatever it is, one thing I know is true: Lower Dining Hall is like the cafeteria of Mean Girls, but fortunately “The Plastics” are nowhere to be seen.
Let’s start with the obvious: the long tables in Lower. I have always noticed that athletes, who are usually awake earlier than most of the student population, are able to snag some of the best seats in the house and get the long tables of Lower. They can be spotted in their BC Under Armour gear that makes us all secretly wish we were athletic enough to be a Division I athlete… or to date one.
Then there’s always the either “going to” or “came from” the Plex crowd. Rocking the newest lululemon gear with yoga mat in hand or wearing gym shorts and athletic sneakers, this group always looks fit, healthy, and makes you wonder whether you really should have that chocolate chip cookie for dessert. They tend to migrate together in Lower, mostly at round tables, and happily multitask between socializing and sipping water out of their Camelbaks. They can also be overheard trying to figure out if butter is a carb.
Then there is my personal favorite: the studying crowd. In the morning, they spread their stuff wide across a “high table” as if those last twenty minutes of cramming will be the difference between a C and an A on their midterm. They usually don’t even look up from their books as they attempt to eat breakfast and cram, which mostly results in spilled coffee on their laptop. They continue to study even as they’re being stared down by groups of suitemates eyeing their table. You go, scholars, you go.
Just to throw out a few more different groups of people in Lower: groups of 8-man suites who are pretty much always sitting at a round table and rarely say a word to one another because they’re all too busy on their phones. Also, off-campus students who can be spotted carrying around everything they own with them (note: may be mistaken for Newton residents), and the freshmen who wander around trying to figure out how Lower works and where all their friends are sitting. These freshmen are also often the same people who don’t understand the system of Addie’s: beware of their inability to understand that there is more than one line. And no, you cannot scream out in frustration “She doesn’t even go here!”
There’s also those people in Lower that we sometimes overlook… the couple who is having their first date in Lower, the people who are not in a good mood because their morning omelet or lunch wrap wasn’t made to their liking, and even the couple that just cannot stop making out and you’re wondering if they’re ever going to come up for a breath.
Okay, I admit, maybe these divisions aren’t exactly like those in Mean Girls. I mean, this is college, and Mean Girls is supposed to be set in high school! But maybe Tina Fey had a point, maybe we are all more alike than we think… there’s certainly been a time where we have been the disappointed omelet kid, or the person cramming on the high tables of Lower, or even that person who was confused about the lines in Addie’s. Maybe Lower is just a little bit like Mean Girls and maybe we, as students, are all a little more alike than we expect. Note: if this means there is an Aaron Samuels as Boston College, I want to meet you and push your hair back.
Photo Sources:
http://ioneglobalgrind.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/mean-girls-cafeteria.jpg?w=630&h=620
http://www.thebcobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/IMG_2102-300×225.jpg
http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/060511/14210__meangirls_l.jpg