Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

About 10 years after starting my first year in college, I realized something: college food is deadly! Not the fact that my university provided salads and whatnot. The problem was that at UCI everything was a buffet (well for those of us who lived in the dorms for extended periods of time). It's always amusing when I show my Japanese friends my drivers license where my portrait was taken just prior to entering. 10 years later, most response was like, "What happened to you?" Now, age is obviously one thing. And metabolism another. But probably the killer issue was the 5 years of dorm food at Pippins. I didn't hate it the way some do. In fact, I kinda miss it still. The fact that you could eat anything in mass quantities and have a fair variety really contributed to my 40+ post high school pounds. These days I battle against my youthful indiscretion of whimsical eating. Whenever I pass by the good ol' yakiniku buffet place, I have to grind my nails because I feel like I can easily load up over there. Even regular meals like bentou are dreadful because they contain high quantities of rice, which is starch and builds up in my body easily. Sigh. Thanks college for the memories (and weight!)