Upgraded But Still Grounded

The delicate balance between not forgetting where you come from and raising your personal standards is a difficult one to manage for all who ascend to a higher socioeconomic level than that of their upbringing.

During my freshman year at GWU, while trying to find and define myself in this new space, I struggled with this balance. One of the first signals that I was losing the battle was my commentary on our cafeteria food.

As a freshman, our dining plan included $700 for our cafeteria (J Street) and $1000 flex dollars for some of the nearby restaurants/stores. Totaling our meal plan to $1,700 a semester.

With a significant amount of changes done to the cafeteria before our arrival, one of the hot topics that year was J-Street, our cafeteria, for lack of better words “sucked!”

Hearing it so much, I began to embrace the idea as well. Given that I spent some of my $1000 buying gift cards at CVS to spend on shoes, I was all for having more money available to spend on outside vendors whenever the conversation came-up.

Then one weekend early in the second semester, my friends from high school Danny and Tunji came to visit. Hungry after getting our haircuts, we went to Wholefoods to get some grub. Since they’d come to visit me, I offered to pay for our meals.