So before I get to my main topic for this post which is food on campus I want to talk briefly about the filming which was done on campus last week. So nowadays everyone one knows pretty much what Facebook is even if they don’t use it themselves. Some director eventually got the idea to make a movie based upon the founding of Facebook which took place primarily at Harvard University. This director (David Fincher) happened to be the man who directed the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Game, Fight Club, Se7en, and Alien 3. So as you can see this guy is actually a big deal, its not just some random person directing the movie. They decided to have Jesse Eisenberg who was in Zombieland and Adventureland play Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. Justin Timberlake is in the movie too, but unfortunately he wasn’t on the campus or people would have made a much bigger deal about this shooting. So how does all of this relate to me? Well since Harvard doesn’t allow commercial films to film on their campus the team who is developing the movie about the founding of Facebook, known as “The Social Network,” decided that our campus looks close enough to Harvard for them to film here. So several weeks ago we saw this announcement informing us this would happen and the general area where it would happen.
Needless to say the entire student body (well at least those who read the message) was excited about what the message said, but some were actually angry that they would be using our campus as a “stand-in” for Harvard. I was at first but at the same time it was really interesting because I had never seen what its like when they’re filming and actual movie with a director as amazing as the one for this. Originally I didn’t intend on going to see what was happening during the filming aside from walking by but when I was on my way to Mason Hall to film something for Hopkins Interactive I saw the entire crew set up in front of Shaffer Hall and needless to say it caught my attention. On my way back I stopped and watched what was going on for a while and took some pictures of the set. The crew was very thorough with what they did to make sure our campus looked like Harvard. On the bulletin boards where we normally keep our student activity flyers they replaced them with all Harvard flyers and changed the lettering on our buildings to match the building names they had in their script. This angered some of the students but it was understandable. At one point they were actually filming outside AMR I and II which a lot of students could see as they were trying to walk back to their dorms from dinner. All in all it was very interesting to see how everything went down and get a few pictures of the set to show your friends. Below are some of the pictures that were taken by Homewood Photography during the whole process as well as one from my BlackBerry which shows a fake flyer they put up.
This is a really great picture of the huge helium filled light balloon they used to illuminate the entire scene.
This is another great picture taken during the night shooting that shows how close they let students get during the filming of this scene which was essentially just Jesse Eisenberg running across the upper quad.
This is a great picture of what the set looked like during the day when they filmed in the front of Shaffer Hall.
Here’s a schedule for the Harvard football team which I found when I was walking out of class the next day. They actually had caution tape up around these boards to ensure students didn’t mess with them.
So now onto the other main topic for this post: food on campus. So one of the most important things you need to know about a campus is how the food is. Its important because you’re going to be living here for most of the year, and so you end up getting all of your food on campus. So there are several different dining halls on campus. The main one which is used by
all Freshman is known as the Fresh Food Cafe (FFC). The FFC is great because its buffet style and it has a LOT of seats so you can go there with your friends, eat as much as you want, and talk with other people you might meet there. While this is the only dining hall that you can eat at throughout the entire semester according to your dining plans, you still have some money you can spend at other upperclassmen dining halls. At these places you have to use Dining Dollars which is essentially cash that can only be used at these places. For breakfast you can go to Einstein’s Bagels in Charles Street Market (which is amazing, if I didn’t restrain myself I’d go there for breakfast all the time). Charles Street Market itself is like a huge convenience store and you can use dining dollars for anything you get there. For lunch there’s Levering Food Court which has a deli, a grill, a salad place, and a pizza place. I prefer to head there on my way back from Psych class to get food before the big lunch rush hits and because its right on my way back to my dorm. For dinner there’s Nolan’s which is right below Charles Commons. The great thing about Nolan’s is that even if you don’t want to get food you can go there and just hang out (they have TVs and a few pool tables and they have events every night of the week).
Here’s a picture of the FFC from the outside (its right in the center of the bottom half of the image). This shows how convenient the location is for students living in the AMRs – AMR A and B are visible immediately above it and to the left while AMR II is visible on the right side. Its a bit of a walk for students living in Wolman, McCoy, or Hopkins Inn but its no big deal.
Aside from all those choices you can use J-Cash at a lot of the places along St. Paul street which is literally right off of the campus. Some of the places you’ll find there are: Subway, Cold Stone, Chipotle, Starbucks, University Market (the equivalent of a 7/11 with a grill, their food is AMAZING and I go there too much), and a bunch of local places farther down. Right across the street from Wolman/McCoy you also have Tamber’s which is a great little diner-style place and you can always take the CollegeTown bus to Inner Harbor or Towson for other options. So you really can go to a different place to eat each weekend which is really amazing.
I’ll go into a little more detail about the FFC since that’s what all prospective students should really worry about since they’ll be eating there the majority of the time. First of all let me say that there are two dining plans you can choose from: Unlimited Meals per Week @ the FFC and 100 Dining Dollars per semester (this is what I have this semester) or 14 Meals per Week @ The FFC and 250 Dining Dollars per semester. So I ended up deciding to change dining plans because I don’t eat more than 14 times at the FFC like I thought I would so I could use the extra dining dollars. Once you get to college you may find that your eating habits are completely different, there are some days where I’ll only eat twice and others when I’ll eat more than 3x. Now that I know what my eating habits are like since I’ve been here I know that I want to change my dining plan. So like I said the FFC is buffet style and they have a deli station, a grill station, a salad bar, a sandwich station, an action station, a “homestyle” station, a pizza station, a vegetarian station, and a desert station. Almost every station changes what they have from day-to-day and during each meal which is really good. The only problem is you might find that some nights you’re not in the mood for anything there which is exactly why you have your dining dollars and other options on campus. The action station is where they allow you to make custom entrees that changes each night such as a pasta, macaroni, or a cheesesteak. The homestyle station usually has stuff like turkey or roast beef, potatoes, etc. The food at the FFC is really good but unfortunately I find that when I go there what’s available to me isn’t all that different from what I saw there the day/night before or there just isn’t anything that I want. This is because when I was here for the summer university program 2 years ago we were only able to eat at the FFC for the entire month so the food is a bit boring to me. I still go there as much as possible because its also a great social place and even if you’re not hungry you can find someone you know there and just take a break from whatever else you’re doing.
Thats about all I’ve got for this week. If you come to visit campus I would definitely suggest you try to eat at one of our dining halls to get a feel for what the campus food is like, and if you’ve already done that try one of the places in the adjacent neighborhood, you can’t really go wrong here. So for funny videos I’m going to do 2 this time because the first one is a bit short. My first one is a dog which basically talks in this video and its just amusing to watch:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXo3NFqkaRM. Sticking with the Batman theme from last time here’s a great video that came out right after the movie “The Dark Knight” which shows what the movie would have been like if Superman was there too. I laugh hysterically every time I see this video, its very well done:http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1884973. Feel free to post a comment if you have questions about anything I write, or visit our forums (http://apply.jhu.edu/forums) if you have questions you’d like all of the students to see. See you in two weeks!
