I think I eat a relatively healthy diet – for a college student, anyway. I get in three meals a day, and I even meal prep sometimes. I eat my fruits and veggies – and if I forget, I’ve got my jumbo Emergen-C to back me up. But during midterms week, all rules are out the window. I’m lucky if I remember to eat twice a day or eat something green that’s not a venti iced matcha from Starbucks. In light of my most recent round of midterms, here’s a look back on the weirdest meals I ate to fuel me through a seemingly endless barrage of papers, presentations, and exams.
5. Cheez-Its Snapped Double Cheese Chips, eaten in the shower before I went to study in the PCL. I still can’t believe I actually ate these in the shower, but when you’re stressed out and about to pull an all-nighter, you gotta do what you gotta do.
4. Raising Cane’s fries and toast with a Diet Coke, eaten in a random church parking lot while I people watched. This was perhaps one of the saddest meals I could’ve eaten during midterms because 1. It was of absolutely no nutritional value and 2. I was too sad to remember to get Cane’s sauce for my fries. I didn’t even get chicken tenders. But hey– at least the people watching was fun.
3. Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Sour Patch Kids, and a 44 oz Diet Coke from 7/11, eaten in my car in the parking garage of my apartment while I ranted on the phone to my mom. I’m not sure why I thought this was the best I could do when I literally live a block away from Chick-Fil-A and P. Terry’s, but at least the Diet Coke theme is consistent.
2. Spaghetti noodles with microwaved frozen broccoli and parmesan cheese, eaten at my desk while I read a 90-page report about wildfires. Not the most gourmet dinner I’ve ever cooked, but I count it as a win because it had vegetables. My roommates felt so bad for me when they watched me make this that they told me that next time, I can just borrow their spaghetti sauce.
- Cracker Barrel chicken and dumplings with hash brown casserole, fried apples, and turnip greens on the side, and buttermilk biscuits for the appetizer and sweet tea to drink. This was exactly the comfort meal I needed after a long week of midterms, and I drove all the way to Buda in rush hour to get it. The first bite was so good it almost had me in tears.