S T A T E M E N T
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, January 26, 2022 — 7
I’ll bite: Giving into the ‘Twilight’
renaissance
RILEY HODDER
Statement Correspondent
Design by Francie Ahrens
Page Design by Sarah Chung
The day I moved into my
dorm and my family left me, I felt
completely and utterly alone. My
roommate didn’t move in until
the next day, and I had just been
abandoned by the people I had
grown up with. It was me against
the world, and the feeling followed
me around everywhere I went.
This feeling only built up with the
revelation that I would have to eat,
in public, all alone, for the first time
in my life.
Of all the college experiences
I had mentally prepared for, this
wasn’t one of them. As I walked
down the steps into the Markley
dining hall, I could already feel
that familiar gnawing feeling at the
bottom of my stomach. The room
was swarming with people. With
every step, I became more aware of
my existence: My hair was frizzy,
my outfit weird, I was sweaty. Every
tripped step or awkward movement
around the crammed tables sent a
surge of anxiety through me that
was enough to tighten my chest and
make me shut my eyes.
There were so many people, so
many eyes, so many things to focus
on. I grabbed food, sat at a table
— my table for one — and hoped I
would fade into the background.
What I ate, I couldn’t tell you. I was
no longer hungry. I ate blindly and
ran.
In that moment, I felt so guilty.
This is supposed to be one of the
most pivotal moments of my life, and
I was too afraid to eat around other
people? To my disappointment, my
dining hall-phobia didn’t improve
as the semester progressed. When
I could eat with someone else, I
would. But whenever I had to eat
alone I was hyper aware of my
existence and terrified to move, let
alone eat.
I suffered in silence for weeks.
Going to dining halls became a
pointless venture. I was barely able
to eat anyway, so I opted for anything
I could make in the microwave —
ramen, soup or leftovers.
In short, I spent a lot of money.
Every day I thanked myself for
saving up over the summer, because
otherwise, I’d be going hungry. Yet
I never stopped feeling guilty; my
parents were putting their own
money toward my dining hall meal
plan, and my seemingly-irrational
fear was preventing me from using it.
Here at the University of Michigan,
dorm residents are required to select
one of these dining plans and can’t
opt out for a monthly allowance. If
I’d been given the choice, I would’ve
told my parents to just give me that
allowance instead.
While I was privileged enough to
accommodate my phobia, I couldn’t
help but think about my other peers
who might not have that option. I
was lucky to have some spending
money to buy myself snacks and
food between my weekly dining hall
visits, but what if I didn’t? What if
I was here on scholarship, or need-
based financial aid, and my only
viable option was to eat in the dining
halls when I felt that I couldn’t?
These
thoughts
about
inaccessibility had me concerned,
but as I assumed I was alone in this
feeling, I didn’t think much further
on it.
The first time I realized my
dining
hall-phobia
was
not
entirely rare was a dreary winter
morning in English 140, when we
were
discussing
inaccessibility
on campus. I volunteered how I
found it hard to eat in dining halls,
as they had the tendency to make
me anxious. I was surprised when
nearly the entire class agreed; almost
every person had an experience in a
dining hall that had made them feel
uncomfortable, or kept them from
eating.
So how big of an issue is this?
When I decided to write this
piece and look for people to talk to,
I was overwhelmed by the sheer
amount of responses I received.
While not all students were ready
to be interviewed, countless fellow
dining hall-phobes expressed their
discontent with eating in the erratic
environment.
LSA sophomore Alex Ngyuen
talked to me about his time spent
in the dining halls, but most
importantly, about what he had
been doing to avoid eating in them
entirely.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Covid Kitties Anonymous
Design by Sam Turner
Page Design by Sarah Chung
DRAKE GEORGE
Statement Correspondent
When it was announced that the
University was going online for the
rest of the Winter 2020 semester,
I remember exactly where I was. I
was laying on my stomach playing
Apex Legends when my housemate,
Maggie, practically busted down
my door. Her eyes were wide as she
pushed her phone out to show me the
email. The only thing I could say back
was:
“Duuuuuuude.”
I couldn’t believe what I was
reading. The concept of the world
temporarily shutting down was
surreal to me. For the rest of the day,
I aimlessly wandered around my
room, dragging my feet along the
blue carpet below me just to feel a
little something. The next couple of
days seemed to blur together, from
my classes moving online to most of
my friends leaving Ann Arbor to go
back home. My friends that would
relax in my room were now nowhere
to be seen, and there was a notable
emptiness.
There had been a buzz in my
theatre department class group chat
about our entire situation. People
expressed their shared loneliness,
fears of the world and a prospect that
stuck out to me most: cat adoptions.
My entire class was slowly but surely
making plans to adopt cats.
I told myself I would never get a pet
in college because it was irresponsible,
but the timing just seemed right. To
have a furry little friend that naps
most of the time and plays with yarn
seemed to be the perfect solution
to pandemic-induced depression. I
called my friend Sophia to confirm
that we were on the same page.
“Should we… get a kitty for our
house?”
“UH, FUCK YEAH. LET’S
GET A LITTLE COVID
KITTY!”
We didn’t get a
Covid Kitty(™)
immediately, but it stayed on my
mind throughout the sweaty months
of June and July. As the beginning of
August rolled around, we made our
way to the Humane Society of Huron
Valley to pick out a furry little friend
for us to raise. The one we found was
a tiny grey and white kitten with the
biggest green eyes I had ever seen.
“That one — like, of course that
one,” my housemate and I exclaimed
unanimously.
We proceeded to go through the
paperwork while the lady at the front
desk explained to us that the kitten
was feral, meaning he was incredibly
shy and unsocialized. I acknowledged
this with a brief head nod and verbal
grunt, but she was unsatisfied with
my response.
“Are
you
sure
you
feel
comfortable being able to take care
of this cat?” she pressed.
“How many students live
in this house with you?”
The answer was seven: seven
queer theatre students trying to keep
both toilets from clogging in a World-
War-II-era house. I understood why
she was questioning me. I was a tired
college student wearing elephant-
print sweatpants and a ripped up ‘My
Hero Academia’ t-shirt.
It was a big task to take care of an
animal, but I knew that I was capable
and responsible enough. I explained
how I had worked with a couple
animal shelters in the past and knew
how to coexist with underdeveloped
and ‘difficult’ animals. Our cat would
be taken care of, we assured her.
After the extensive and slightly-
tense dialogue between us and the
inquisitive front desk lady, we were
finally able
to adopt our new
little
mister — we
named
him
“Espurr” after the Pokemon. But
the lady’s questioning did leave me
feeling worried about the adoption
experience. I was fearful that I was
being selfish about adopting an
animal, that Espurr would be better
off back at the Humane Society.
I arrived home and was hit with
this feeling of fear even harder. As
soon as I let my new friend out of his
carrier, Espurr bit my hand and hid,
obviously not acclimated to human
interaction. That first night I cried on
the same blue carpet, petrified of the
thought of a cat who didn’t like me at
all. For the next month, he would hide
under a huge blanket, hissing at any
person who walked by. Sophia and
I had to forcibly wrap him in a towel
before petting him for twenty minute
intervals in order to acclimate him
to human touch. Through all of this
he would yowl and cry, leaving me
to wonder whether or not I was even
helping him.
Espurr eventually came around
to love me, but I became curious of
the other experiences the lady at the
front desk had had with college-aged
adopters, and why exactly there were
so many college students adopting a
pet, specifically a cat, during this time
of crisis.
A speedy Google search affirmed
my suspicion that my roommate and
I were not the only burnt-out but well-
intentioned college students seeking
a furry feline to keep them company
mid-quarantine.
In
a
study
published
by
the
Frontiers
in Veterinary Science, researchers
determined that since 2019, the web
searches for pet adoptions have
highly increased: “the RSV (relative
search value) ratio (2020/2019) for
both dog and cat adoption increased
by up to 250%.” I also found an NPR
interview where Cornell University’s
Elizabeth Berliner claims: “There’s
some statistics that represent that
1 in 5 pet owning homes adopted a
new pet during the pandemic. And
so we do have concerns about what
this adoption season will look like in
2021.”
Moreover, the effect of everyone
being confined to quarantine has
created a new ‘generation’ of pets: a
group of pets who have spent most of
their time inside with their humans.
While this wave of new quarantine
companions has provided much-
needed comfort, some worry about
how these recent adoptees will adapt
to post-pandemic pet life.
Researchers state that: “There is
a concern for separation anxiety and
possible abandonment of these newly
adopted pets when the owners leave
their homes for work in the future.”
This sudden change in routine results
in either a miserable pet, a miserable
owner, or both.
If this were the case, I wondered,
were there an abundance of pets
being returned after owners realized
they were in over their heads? While
exact rates of adoption returns vary
from region to region, there did
appear to be an overall increase in
returns at the start of the pandemic.
The Animal Care Centers of NYC
“saw 1,393 animals brought to them
last month (June 2021), more than
twice the number of dogs and cats
surrendered in February.” In the
Dallas area, cats and their kittens
were being left in bags on doorsteps in
this same timeframe.
With this horrifying information
in mind, I decided to ask people
my own age, those of the infamous
‘College Student Who Bought Cat
In Pandemic’ demographic, to see
what their experiences were like,
fiscally and emotionally, throughout
the adoption and post-adoption
processes.
My dining
hall-phobia
diagnosis
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com