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When going to eat at Wikert Dining Hall the culture can be scary if you are an outsider, but once you are in the system you know exactly where you belong. 

As a freshman, Hannah Sibbel was unsure when walking into the cafe at Morningside. “You could tell there was an arrangement, but I couldn’t pinpoint it right away.” 

After Hannah met people, she quickly learned the system and where to sit. “I was taken back because people were at specific spots and I didn’t know that was a thing in college. Each sport had a spot.”

Emma Schmitz, a senior at Morningside, describes the cafe as “family-oriented in a weird way.” She likes how it has a system so you know where everyone is going, “Everyone has their own system and it just goes together, making it feel more homie like.” 

Hannah describes the system to the cafe as “assigned seating that’s not assigned.” She describes what table belongs to who:

When walking into the cafe there are low circler tables, which is normally where band people sit.

The high tables next to the band people are where RA’s sit. 

The long table by the salad bar is the soccer table.

The big, long table in the middle of the cafe is where the football team sits.

The circle tables in the middle are where dance and cheer sit normally.

The high tables in the middle are where swimmers sit.

The tables by the sandwich bar are where the baseball team sits. 

On the far back wall near the door is where you can find the wrestlers.

And the far back corner is where the track team always sits. 

A former Morningside student, Alex Schmitz says that the culture of the cafe has been the same ever since he was a freshman. Alex graduated in the year 2018. 

“I don’t know how or when the system all started. I thought it was weird when I came to Morningside. I started to like it the more I got used to it.” Alex was a wrestler for Morningside. “Right when I entered the cafe I knew exactly where to sit, it is the same spot where the wrestlers sit to this day.”

Emma explained what it is like if someone sits not in their “assigned seat.” “If people outside of their sport and sit at another table people will look at you weird. And the sport that normally sits there will sit around you and make you feel unwelcome”, says Emma. 

When sitting back and watching how the system works at the cafe, people from different groups mingle for a short amount of time but not long enough to sit down. 

“It’s like going to a restaurant”, describes Emma. “When you go to the restaurant with your family and if you see someone you know at the restaurant you say “hi” and then go back to your table where you belong.” 

While sitting at these specific places in the cafe people mingle about what the plans are for the weekend, what interesting things happened at practice, and catch up on the latest gossip.  

“While I’m at the cafe, that is really when I connect with my friends,” said Hannah. “I get to know the people I’m around better, sometimes we just sit there for hours just talking and laughing about different things.”

As a freshman, Hannah Sibbel was unsure when walking into the cafe at Morningside. “You could tell there was an arrangement, but I couldn’t pinpoint it right away.” 

After Hannah met people, she quickly learned the system and where to sit. “I was taken back because people were at specific spots and I didn’t know that was a thing in college. Each sport had a spot.”

Emma Schmitz, a senior at Morningside, describes the cafe as “family-oriented in a weird way.” She likes how it has a system so you know where everyone is going, “Everyone has their own system and it just goes together, making it feel more homie like.” 

Hannah describes the system to the cafe as “assigned seating that’s not assigned.” She describes what table belongs to who:

When walking into the cafe there are low circler tables, which is normally where band people sit.

The high tables next to the band people are where RA’s sit. 

The long table by the salad bar is the soccer table.

The big, long table in the middle of the cafe is where the football team sits.

The circle tables in the middle are where dance and cheer sit normally.

The high tables in the middle are where swimmers sit.

The tables by the sandwich bar are where the baseball team sits. 

On the far back wall near the door is where you can find the wrestlers.

And the far back corner is where the track team always sits. 

A former Morningside student, Alex Schmitz says that the culture of the cafe has been the same ever since he was a freshman. Alex graduated in the year 2018. 

“I don’t know how or when the system all started. I thought it was weird when I came to Morningside. I started to like it the more I got used to it.” Alex was a wrestler for Morningside. “Right when I entered the cafe I knew exactly where to sit, it is the same spot where the wrestlers sit to this day.”

Emma explained what it is like if someone sits not in their “assigned seat.” “If people outside of their sport and sit at another table people will look at you weird. And the sport that normally sits there will sit around you and make you feel unwelcome”, says Emma. 

When sitting back and watching how the system works at the cafe, people from different groups mingle for a short amount of time but not long enough to sit down. 

“It’s like going to a restaurant”, describes Emma. “When you go to the restaurant with your family and if you see someone you know at the restaurant you say “hi” and then go back to your table where you belong.” 

While sitting at these specific places in the cafe people mingle about what the plans are for the weekend, what interesting things happened at practice, and catch up on the latest gossip.  

“While I’m at the cafe, that is really when I connect with my friends,” said Hannah. “I get to know the people I’m around better, sometimes we just sit there for hours just talking and laughing about different things.”

“The Cafe Culture”

You think you would get away from “cliques” when coming to college. Wrong. Morningside is known for its sports cliques.

You don’t really notice these cliques until you go eat at the cafe. There is an unwritten rule about where to sit at the cafe.

If you play football you sit in the middle of the cafe at the “football table.” If you run track you sit in the back far corner of the cafe and sit at the “track table.” If you play soccer you sit at the long table by the salad bar called the “soccer table.”

If people outside of their sports sit at that particular table, people will look at you weird and the sport that normally sits there will sit around you and make you feel unwelcome.

There are tables at the cafe for people that don’t play a sport or not in a club. They sit in the booths or at the small round tables that can only seat four people or less.

The cafe is also known for the TVs playing Family Feud at supper time and getting all the details for the weekend plans. Sometimes people don’t even go there to eat, they just socialize.

The non-fiction book Nickel and Dimed focus on one main character Barbra Ehrenreich. Barbra is a successful journalist and decides that she wants to do a social experiment to answer the question, “How do poor people get by on minimum wage jobs?” 

Throughout the book, Barbra moved to three places around America to compare how people survive on minimum wage. She allowed herself to start out with enough money for an apartment and a car. 

She started her experiment in Flordia as a waitress earning $2.45 plus tips. Then moved to Maine working as a housecleaner for $6.65 an hour and on weekends for an old age home starting at $7 an hour. The final place she went for her experiment was Minnesota, working at Walmart for $7 an hour. 

Everywhere Barbra went she scrawled for affordable housing. At one point she was paying $245 (which was more than her salary) for a run-down motel that had no window screen or no lock on the door. 

When working these jobs she finds that her co-workers are hard-working people that a kind and generous. While working with them she tries to figure out where they are living and how they make ends meet. 

The author, Barbara Ehrenreich is a social critic, journalist, author, and activist. Barbra is most know for the book Nickel and Dimed. She is qualified to do this book because this was her own experiment and she was the one who lived through this experiment for three months trying to make it on her own with minimum wage jobs. 

Barbara wrote Nickel and Dimed for a social experiment to answer the question, “How do poor people get by on minimum wage jobs.” She hoped to answer the question as she went on a journey for about three months. As you will find in the book that is not doable. People cannot survive on minimum wage in America. 

Some methods that Barbra used in the book were interviewing, observation, and participation. Barbra was living the life of a “poor person.” while she was doing that when she talked to her co-workers about their life she would ask them questions. They thought she was just talking to them but she was secretly interviewing and observing them. Also, the whole time in this experiment Barabra was participating working her butt off trying to make ends meet. She gets emotionally involved in the story by living the lifestyle she is trying to figure out. 

I think Barbra Ehrenreich did a good job painting a picture in the reader’s head of what it is like to live as a lower class citizen in America. It made me open my eyes. I am normally usually aware of and gracious to the workers that I meet. But I will now be more aware of how much I tip and how the workers that are helping and tended to my needs are being treated because you don’t know their background.

Something that I think Barabra could have done differently in her experiment after she returned to her actual life, going back and visiting the places she worked at in those three months and talk to the workers she worked with to sit down and actually interview them to tell their real story. 

I would give Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America a 4 out of 5 stars. Worth a read!

BlackPink has been around for a while. They are an iconic girl group from South Korea. The group contains four members: Jennie, Jisoo, Rose, and Lisa.

BlackPink just released a new album on October 2nd called “The Album.” This album makes you want to get up to dance and sing along!

With only 8 songs on the album, it is full of a variety of beats, raps, and collaborations with Selena Gomez (Ice Cream) and Cardi B (Bet you wanna) making the album even more exciting to listen to!

BlackPink is easy to listen to and sing along with. They have clear sing-along quality with a mix of Korean in songs, making them unique.

BlackPink’s first album “Playing with Fire” sold more than 2.5 million digital copies in South Korea and became Blackpink’s second number- one hit on the Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart. This made Black Pink the first K-pop girl group to have such high demand.

After four years, fans have been waiting patiently for this girl group to come out with more. Even though only 8 additional songs in this album is disappointing, it makes people wanting more.

I would like to see in this album more emotion and slower songs. All the songs but “You Never know” are upbeat and fun.

I would give “The Album” by BlackPink an 8/10.

If you are a 14-19 year old female, this girl group is for you!

The first art piece that stood out to me is called ‘Rolling Fire, Eastern Lyon County, Kansas, 2005’ by Larry Schwarm from Kansas. This pice is a C-print.

This piece stuck out to more than most because of its color. It is a very bright orange color that filled the print and the edges are a darker tint of orange. I also really like how the smoke of the fire is still the bright orange but you can tell the difference between the smoke and the fire because of the movement of the photo. This pice reminds me of back home when farmers burn their fields.

The second piece I chose is by Phyllis Sloane, from Illinois called ‘The Straw Hat, 1983’.

This pice is a screen print and it is of a woman looking sad and lonely sitting next to a bag with a jacket and a straw hat sitting on top of it. When walking up to this pice I felt sad. The more I looked at it I noticed bags sitting next to her and instantly started creating scenarios why she would be sitting there with bags looking sad.