PROstruction (Nathan)

As a sophomore, I haven’t seen much of the cafeteria. I’ve bought a few lunches. I’ve eaten my fair share of Munchies. But I haven’t had any memories in the cafeteria (unless you consider getting cut in the line a memory).

However, in the few visits I have made to the cafeteria, it has become clear to me that the place is a mess. I have to watch where I walk to avoid stepping on the garbage piled on the ground. I have to maneuver through crowds of people due to the inadequate size of the cafeteria. I have to hold my breath and pretend that I can’t smell that smell.

The cafeteria may be as mysterious to me as Manti Te’o’s girlfriend, but it is time for change.

As a school that strives itself on being the best, our cafeteria is one of the few things that are holding us back. Our field that was once gross and ugly is now a shining trophy of our school’s achievement. The same can be said for the office, library and D-building.

Our next task must be the cafeteria. The disgusting, crowded and antique lunchroom is inadequate for such an evolving, modern and technological school.

Having suffered through this cafeteria’s inefficiencies, it appears as if this change should be met with open arms. But a few groups and clubs have reasons to oppose the construction.

The staff room will be relocated to one of the portable classrooms. The Classes of 2013 and 2014 will never be able to use the cafeteria or bus circle ever again. The Boy Scout Troop and Korean PTSA will have to meet elsewhere for the next 18 months. Sports teams will be unable to have their end-of-season banquets in their usual location. Parents and students will be stuck in the traffic of the Student Parking Lot. Quite a few people are going to be negatively affected by this.

However, in a year-and-a-half, it will all be worth it.

The cafeteria will be up-to-date, clean and admissible. We’ll have a new set of classrooms in the expanded building. The new, modern Smart Lab will help kickstart our school’s evolution into modern technology. Our cafeteria will no longer be our Achilles Heel.

It will be our gem.

CONstruction (Robert)

During the upcoming winter break, our somewhat beloved cafeteria will be demolished. Razed. Destroyed. Now this doesn’t bother me so much, I’ve used it a plenty to get my lunch everyday and it’s nothing great . When I heard that there was going to be a complete overhaul of the place, I was ecstatic. A brand new center, with more space and two whole stories? Muy bueno. Then I saw the estimated date of completion: Summer 2014. My dreams were crushed. My hopes were shattered. I felt like Luke Skywalker when he found out that the DeathStar was fully operational.

This timeline means that juniors will never get to use the new cafeteria. Our last memories will be the hordes of people storming the annex where you can get real food. We will forever look back and think about the people who blatantly stole food, the weird gunk on the floors, the seemingly never clean and always damp fold-up tables. Is the current cafeteria building even worth being remembered?

Will the freshman and sophomores look back one day and go, “Man do I miss being battered by backpacks bumping into me as I try to enjoy this food”? Will they sit down and reminisce about having to clean the sticky gunk off their shoes?

I’m not ungrateful for the cafeteria; I‘ve used it all the time, but the upkeep has always left something to be desired. Organized lines, space for more than 30 people inside, clean, operable kitchen equipment. All these morph into one perfect space.  The new cafeteria is going to be great, and if you’ve seen the model in the office of it, you know it too. Organized. Streamlined. Pure awesome-ness. Too bad that half the school will never know what its like.

Does it have to take a year and a half to make a two- story cafeteria and classroom building? I know that they can only work certain times during the day and week, but there has got to be some way that they could optimize the time. My final memories at the school next year won’t be interlaced with thoughts of this beautiful, brand new facility that shades parts of the rally court. Instead I’ll remember the food trucks and years of waiting in long lines that feel like you’re waiting for medicine in a sanitorium. I know I don’t speak for just myself when I say that  we want our new cafeteria, and we want it sooner rather than later. I mean, it took them less than 6 months to put a fully working soccer/baseball/ field hockey field. Does it really take that long? Not that it really matters to me, seeing how I will probably never even set foot into the place. So freshmen and sophomores, enjoy it you lucky jerks.