.. . 2B Wednesday, February 8, 2012 The Statement THE JUNK DRAWER 9 0 0 0 Wedesdy, ebrar 8,201 //Th Sttemnt 7BE Rolling your own burrito from last week: teach for america random student interview by laura argintar /illustrations by jeff zuschlag Do you think Teach for America should charge schools an extra $3,000 for each corps member hired? yes 26.2% no / 73.8% Online comments "The more important question is not whether $3,000should be spent on school supplies, but whether that investment would better improve student achievement than student placement with a TFA teacher... The goal of edu- cation is not to protect the jobs of low performing or ineffective teachers." - anonymouswolverine "We need to find ways to raise the retention rate of teachers, not lower them." - rocky42 Welcome to the Random Student Interview, where we run around without clothes on. Hey, what's up? How are you today? I'm good. Kind of a rough morning, what about you? A lot of the same. I got a stupid parking ticket this morning on North Campus. Do you think I have to pay it? Oh man, they get you every time up there! I go to the School of Art & Design and I always get them. It's the worst. You can pay them online though. I know because I get them so frequently, it's my homepage. I'm pretty sure I give Ann Arbor more money than the actual tax- payers. Any special plans for Valentine's Day? I don't know yet. I'm probably going to eata lot of chocolate that I bought myself. Are you seeing anyone special? He's definitely "special," but you know, nothing special. I wonder how he got into the University ofMichigan, then. How long have you guys been together? Long enough to score some good Valentine's Day gifts? I wouldn't be expecting anything radical from this guy, butI also wouldn't turn anything down either. What have been some of your favorite Valentine's Day gifts that you've received in the past? In the fourth grade, Cody [redact- ed] gave me two Starbursts and a tattoo necklace. It was pretty awe- some. Did you end up dating him? No, he broke up with me like two weeks later for Jiovanna [redact- ed]. I'll never forget it - clearly, since I remember both their full names. It really traumatized me. I stopped eating Starbursts. Ouch. What is the worst gift you've ever received? Does no gift count? One time I received a gym membership, which was weird. I really cannot believe that. How does that even happen? Who were you seeing? I know. There's a story behind it, but basically I kept going to my sister's gym as her guest and I had been abusing the privileges for weeks. She was only allowed maybe five guest passes and I think I went 15 times. So finally, after flirting with some of the guys at the front desk, they gave me a free month membership as a mock "Valentine's Day gift" incentive. Do you still go? Or more impor- tantly, do you pay? I kept going until the summer months began when they pretty much cornered me and were like "OK, this has been fun watching you run around in short shorts, but seriously, you have to start paying for a membership now or we're gonna start kicking you out." I was too embarrassed to go back after that, so I switched and started pay- ing for one closer to my house. But you weren't embarrassed ,about running around in short shorts? You do what you gotta do. It worked for a while. And it was totally worth it. (Laughs) I was, like, 17, and I thought it was cool. Interesting. Have you heard about the Walk of Shame Shut- tle? Yeah, I saw it posted on someone's- wall on Facebook. Sounds like a great idea. I want to use it to go to breakfast or something afterwards. I think it's pretty genius, but I don't know if I'd actually use it or just call a friend. It also sounds mildly unsanitary. Yeah, I guess the driver would have to seriously wipe down the seats after each customer. Also, gwouldn't want to be up in the morning that early to take kids . home. Normally if I sleep out, I don't stay past 8 am. j Well, if it's a Fridayyou could just try to blend in with the kids going to class. Or you could park your car some place close to the house and drive home - barring you don't get any parking tick- ets, that is.e - Samantha is an Art & Design seingo as O o oudpr A day at the mercy of strangers' food suggestions By Chloe Stachowiak 've never been to The Chop House. When I'm rushing to or from class with an empty stomach, Thai food doesn't even cross my mind. Like many of my peers, I reach for a sure thing when I'm hungry. In fact, my Ann Arbor eating is almost exclusively limited to a handful of sushi places (depending on which one I'm closest to) and the- occa- sional salad from Panera. I rarely branch out from this handful of restaurants, and when I do, it's usually with a friend who is, for whatever reason, sick of sushi and Panera salads. But I can't help but think I'm missing out on something - that an entire world of cafes, sandwich shops, and restaurants exists out- side my tuna roll and chicken salad palate. After all, aside from a few office buildings and parking structures, what is our down- town district but a mecca of upscale (and overpriced) eateries? Am I the only person in Ann Arbor who doesn't take advantage of these dining opportunities? I decided to seek out these answers the only way I knew how: by putting my appetite in strangers' hands. For an entire day, Iasked people off the streets where to go for each meal and what to order - no Panera allowed. 10:30 a.m. My Saturday morning started on South University Avenue. Though I was sport- ing bleary black eye makeup from the night before, I didn't shy away from asking for breakfast suggestions from the trendiest person I could find: a Burberry-clad woman in sunglasses who was the perfect comple- ment to her breakfast suggestion - Sava's for the Parfait French Toast. Though I'd never stepped foot inside Sava's, I should have known that the woman's appearance was a precursor to the classy establishment awaiting me. The leather gloves. The oversized shades. The lipstick at such an early hour. This woman obviously leads a classier life than I do, and this unfortunate truth unveiled itself the second I stepped inside the clean, crisp and well-lit restaurant. Everything was just too polished. The French toast I ordered was just as intimidating as the ritzy atmosphere, piled high with creamy yogurt, artfully arranged berries and pompousness. Nothing about the flavor itself wowed me. Despite the glamor- ous appearance and price tag, it tasted exact- ly like a piece of bread smothered in dairy and fruit. So maybe the dish wouldn't be showing up in my dreams anytime soon - a phenomenon my waiter had claimed to experience regu- larly. But at least it looked pretty. 2:30 p.m. My next meal felt a little closer to home, thanks to advice from a group of students I met taking a smoke break on a Kerrytown porch. "You have to go to Jerusalem Garden, get the falafel sandwich," instructed the leader of the porch posse, shielding her bleach-blonde hair from the wind. "And you have to get it with hummus and hot sauce." "It's just an Ann Arbor original," added her hairy friend in a voice as serious as his grizzly beard. "It's not like one of those cookie-cutter pita chips and hummus plac- es. You can get that shit anywhere in this town." The small, sunny restaurant was a nice change from the spread of Sava's, but Istill felt a little bummed at my porch friends' suggestion. It's not like anything was wrong with the food - the hummus was creamy and the falafel deep-fried to perfection - but my time there just didn't feel out of the ordinary. There was no mystery, no stressful- yet-exciting hunts through the menu, or the "let's all order different things so we can share" deals among groups of friends. Everyone there knew exactly what they wanted and what they were getting. What's the fun in that? 6:45 p.m. Lunch was a little less inspiring than I had expected, but I had faith that my luck would change when dinner rolled around. Maybe someone would instruct me to go somewhere fancy, where patrons wore real pants in lieu of leggings and entrees cost more than six dollars. And maybe, just maybe, that place would serve medium- rare steaks. But it seemed that fate and I just weren't on the same page. My dinner assignment was Panchero's Mexican Grill, the home of midnight munchies, belligerent conversa- tions and everything that comes with an embarrassing night of South U partying. A low price and DIY thrill, according to Sam, the curly-headed guy I met outside Espres- so Royale on State Street. "The townie secret is to order a side of beans, rice and a tortilla," he insisted, "and then just make it into a burrito yourself. It's cheaper than just ordering something off their menu." Needless to say, I was skeptical. What could the fast food Tex Mex place offer me that a local restaurant couldn't, especially when my BAC was "in the blue?" Admittedly, my Panchero's experience was almost exciting at first. I felt like I was cheating the system as I stood behind the burrito bar. At any moment a cook could point his leathery finger and expose me for the penny-pincher I was. But that never happened, and it only took one bite of my 4 makeshift burrito to drain its badass thrill. It was as lackluster and bland as it sounds - a mushy pile of.carbs that lacked even the simple touch of cheese or salsa. This is what townies eat for dinner? Epilogue And, like that, nine hours and 25 dollars passed me by. The part of me that wasn't totally bloated felt tinged with disappoint- ment. I didn't once walk inside a European breakfast cafe or swanky Indian restau- rant. I still don't know what Ethiopians eat for dinner, and the fabled Chop House remains a distant stranger - hell, I didn't even get close enough to the restaurant to peek in the windows. But maybe that's the point. Maybe there's a reason why students feel uncom- fortable in unfamiliar and expensive breakfast places, flock to the same Medi- terranean places for falafel and opt for cheap "Mexican" dinners instead of dish- ing out a day's paycheck for a meal. Eating out might be more about com- fort of routine than broadening horizons and palates, about playing it safe with old favorites rather than taking chances on the exotic and unknown. So unless my parents are in town to treat me to din- ner (in which case Main Street awaits), I think I'll just stick with my usual Panera .- salad and sushi rolls. I order the same ones every time.