Now that Restaurant Week is Over...

Now that D.C.'s Restaurant Week is over, it's time to assess the financial damage we all incurred by being lured into some of the city's best restaurants by 3 course, fixed-price lunches and dinners for $20.10 and $35.10, respectively. I told myself I was only to do 1 dinner. And that's it. My roommate and I made reservations at Vidalia (the duck was very good, but this post isn't about the food), and decided that would be by $35.10 + $7 for tax Restaurant Week splurge. I ended up spending more than $60, but the cocktails were really good, so it was worth it, right?

Then, the inevitable happened. I was roped into going to Zentan (great calamari, but again this isn't about the food) with a group of friends. The next night, a friend and I made an impulsive choice to try Oya (the Salmon was amazing, but really we're not talking about the food). Finally, a bored Sunday afternoon led to a visit to Cafe Du Parc (the Chestnut soup was unlike anything I had ever tasted, but it doesn't matter).

I waited a week to check my Mint.com account to survey the disastrous state of my personal finances. Sort of like how you wait a few days to check your grade for that 1 class you may not have done very well in. The total was staggering. $268. On 4 meals. And maybe a few cocktails. This prompted an emergency phone call home to ask my younger brother to intercept my credit card bill that gets mailed to the house every month. I had him shred it. My parents can never know how much money I spent that week. If they ask why my textbooks for the semester seemed to cost $300 more than they usually do, I'll just tell them it's because I'm taking this really intense Politics and the Internet class that I needed to buy lots of expensive textbooks for.

How much did you spend during Restaurant Week?

Can We Trust You With Our Money?

In our previous post that called for questions for SA candidates, some students were wondering why some organizations received a significant drop in funding while the SA spent large amounts of money on programming events like the Unity Ball.

Nick Fabiani wrote about what he called "flagrant abuses by the Aswani administration concerning financial matters" and identified the Unity Ball as one, while reader Elana pointed to how this year's SA "cut serious funding to a large majority of student organizations in an unprecedented manner," including an over-50% cut for her own GW Ballroom organization. Reader Omar also asked, "how can you regain our trust and confidence in such an important position?"

SA candidates: Is financially supporting events like Unity Ball, while cutting funding for student groups, a responsible use of student money? If yes, please explain to groups like GW Ballroom why slashing their budget by over 50% was good decision-making. If no, please explain to Aswani why his decision to fund the Unity Ball was bad decision-making.