Unpacked, moved in, and (mostly) textbook-purchased, I'm pretty well set for my sophomore year, and I've recently been reflecting that there was much I had missed about this place during the summer, such as friends, faculty, classes and football (although not necessarily in that order).
Despite my happiness at getting back to these, I've found several unpleasantries that I had forgotten about but definitely haven't missed:
1. Is it raining? No, wait, that's just the sprinklers pelting me with blasts of water, although I'm clearly walking on the sidewalk. I'm convinced that the entire system is controlled by some sadist with a television monitor who enjoys booby-trapping the campus so that it's impossible to avoid the blasts of water at all hours of the day. Small countries get less water than the Notre Dame campus.
2. Why does it take me 10 minutes to walk from O'Shag to DeBartolo? It's because the thousands of other people heading in that direction seem determined to walk as slowly as possible. Fortunately, I'm fairly confident that will change come December.
3. What's more frustrating than an organic chemistry test? Navigating the aisles of the bookstore, only to determine that the books you need are "not in yet" and you will need to "check back soon." Repeating the process multiple times yields the same result.
4. Waiting in line at North Dining Hall for pasta, only to discover that it had been moved and replaced with a make-your-own-pizza stand at which seemingly the entire campus was located. The pizza was good, but I suppose I'm totally naïve for thinking that things would have been in the same place as last year. That would be too easy.
5. Midwestern lingo. Say it with me, "soda." "Pop" is a genre of music, not a drink.
6. The pervasive smell of ethanol wafting from Mod and North Quads (and I'm not talking about beverages). It does give a certain distinctive flair to that part of campus, though.
7. Awful, blaring music that's more obnoxious than Tom Daschle and can be heard at all hours of the day. Please don't subject the entire residence hall section to your misplaced definition of good taste.
8. And, finally, Inside Columns written in the vain attempt to be remotely comical.
Contact Joe Trombello at jtrombel@nd.edu.
