On March 25 at 12 a.m., I was released from a 10-day quarantine in my room. Now this article is meant to be used as a comparison as to how I thought this was going to go before I was put in here. So to bring you all up to speed my mental state can be described as: unintelligible banging of my head on the keyboard of my laptop. Or in other words—mush. 

Now I do not know if I can blame this on being locked in a room or if I can blame food deprivation. Look to all the conservatives out there who are on board with waterboarding; I want to let you in on a little secret—you do not need a towel and water to get someone to spill their informational guts. All you need to do is tell them that food will be delivered at 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. and then never give it to them. Or there is always the option of saying you delivered it but just bringing it to the wrong building.

So basically, if you want to torture them, just pay for Sodexo to provide food to them! Because I do not know how little they know about campus, but based on their track record of delivering food to my door, I’d say it’s minimal. A number of times my food was delivered to the wrong building but the right suite. For instance, last Saturday I was texted by the people who live in Rosie East 401 that they had my food—I live in Rosie North. This is problematic to me because there are only four cardinal directions, and it is very easy to know which one is north. All you have to know is that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so if it’s dinner and the sun is to your left then you know straight ahead is north. But apparently Sodexo, just as they deny having bad food because they do not believe in recipes, also deny the existence of directions. Apparently if it is 4 p.m. and the sun is behind you then straight ahead is north. Yup, that’s how that works, good one Sodexo! Gold star for you!

But even if you do not know how the cardinal directions relate to the sun’s position in the sky according to the time then at least tell me this. If you know which one is south, since you know that is NOT the building my food goes to. Then which one is north? Is it to the right? Is it to the left? Or is it as every forking compass says it is and it’s directly across from South? Jesus Christ, Sodexo, your attention to directions is just as good as your track record of satisfied students—terrible. 

So maybe it’s the fact that I have not had enough food to sustain myself in here but maybe it is also just being locked in my room. To pass time I have been playing games on my laptop and Nintendo Switch and I have been grinding through “Luigi’s Mansion 3.” I have been playing that so much that now when I close my eyes, all I see is Luigi looking deep into my soul. He is sucking up all of my will to live and is leaving me just a shell. I now look out my window onto Chapels Field and see other people live in the outside world, I am reminded of each second of my 10 crippling days inside. I cannot say for sure if my descent into madness is due to the lack of food, my not being around people and only Luigi or maybe it’s because I haven’t been in the outside world in so long and now, I am just a bubble boy. So, although I do not know what the catalyst is I do know this—I know my forking cardinal directions better than Sodexo.    
Editor’s Note: If you are interested in reading Thomas’ experience at the start of his quarantine experience, please check out this article.