Yogurt parfait bar draws excitement from student Zac Barnes. Sara Faraj | Washtenaw Voice
By Aina Zaidi
Contributor
For some students, the addition of a new yogurt parfait and salad bar to the Java Spot became a silver lining to help them through the pain of early morning classes. For Zac Barnes, an email communications major, the yogurt bar called for a class schedule change.
The yogurt parfait bar starts at 7:30 a.m. and lasts until 9:30 a.m., daily. When Barnes received the email on Tuesday morning informing students of the new yogurt bar, he almost immediately enrolled in an 8 a.m. class in earnest for yogurt parfait, despite having no need for the credit hours and being set to graduate in the spring..
Known for his love of emails as well as yogurt parfait, Barnes actually replied to WCC’s email to thank the college for pursuing an action he’d already requested in previous emails asking for more yogurt options in the Student Center.
WCC administration reportedly did not receive the initial email, as with any other email that Barnes earnestly sends.
Despite WCC emails being sent from an automated service and unable to be responded to, Barnes continues to reply to them, even with the warning “This email was sent from an automated service, please do not respond” written in red. A color change was approved last fall in hopes that Barnes would see the notice.
Once, Barnes somehow skipped over the warning too many times in a row and caused a power outage, resulting in yet another day off for a Monday class.
A look at Barnes’ schedule showed that he registered for ANT 164 (special topics in anthropology) in his yogurt-motivated class enrollment.
“I just registered for whatever was open and started early enough so that I would get the best consistency of the yogurt,” Barnes said. “If I’m being honest, I don’t even know what Anthropology means.”
When asked about why he scheduled a class if he only wanted yogurt, Barnes responded: “I’m not really a morning person,” with the tone of someone who thinks that’s a quirky trait to have. “I’ve been reading a book on external motivators, and I think this is the only way I’ll be able to motivate myself to get up early enough to taste that yogurt parfait.”
“The reason I scheduled an 8 a.m. class is because the yogurt is probably at a weird consistency at 7:30 a.m., and probably too watered down at 9:30 a.m., so I figured 8 a.m. was somewhere in the middle,” said Barnes, when asked why he didn’t just schedule a 9 a.m. class. “I’m not really a math major, so I couldn’t tell you.”
Barnes was later seen in his ANT 164 course, eating a yogurt parfait and replying to another automated email, this time causing a power outage that resulted in a day off for a Wednesday class.
