Has anyone else noticed that unless you have a fairly extensive assortment of food stashed in your room, you’re likely to find yourself hungry with no way out of it in the near future? Ever notice that any time you happen to get a chance to go to the dining hall, you hit the in-between hour where there happens to be NO food anywhere, and you’re forced to resort to bulk candy?

I can’t avoid the fact that I’m always rushing from one place to the next, but when I take the time to stop at a dining hall to eat, I’d like for there to be something other than candy and bagels.

Something that has slowly begun to eat away at me is the schedule for the dining halls. It kills me that the College in the Woods (CIW) Dining Hall doesn’t open for breakfast until 11:30 a.m. on the weekends. Forgive me for being the person that hates sleeping late, but I get hungry for breakfast by 9 a.m. At 11:30 a.m., it’s not breakfast time anymore! The other thing that drives me to insanity (or just incredible feats of snacking) is the time the dining halls close. I’m lucky that CIW happens to be open until all of 8:30 p.m. on most weeknights, but I have to point out that at my house, with my family, we usually are considering what to have for dinner at 8 p.m. While it’s not the most healthy thing, I can’t eat dinner all that early. Even if I do, I just get hungry again by 9. The problem is that a lot of the dining halls close around 7 p.m.

That means the sandwiches and the grill close even earlier, so it’s really more like closing at 6:30. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that due to the work habits of many parents in these times, students are likely to be unaccustomed to eating before 7 p.m., or maybe even later.

I know the counterargument is that the Night Owl is open to deal with this very problem. My response? I said “food.” The Night Owl does not count. If we want to discuss unhealthy eating habits and the growth of obesity in the world, I recommend starting with research into eating solidified grease between the hours of 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. I’m just putting it out there.

The problem with the Night Owl is mainly that it makes the ordinary dining hall look like a dining heaven. I always notice those little brochures on the tables about eating healthy in college, or the posters Sodexho is kind enough to put up everywhere. Eating healthy is hard enough, but when the hours suck, it only gets harder. Not to mention the Night Owl isn’t nearly nearly as well stocked as the regular dining hall in terms of prepackaged things to grab (like energy or granola bars or I don’t know, things that fill you up without closing your arteries).

If I had my choice, I’d vote for making a 24-hour dining hall. At least do it during finals week, when no one is sleeping anyway. The idea behind the meal plan was to keep me from having a well-stocked grocery store in my room. If I can cover the entire food pyramid with a mere trip to my closet, I’d say we have a problem.

Molly Ariotti is a freshman political science major.