#97: Hating the other dining hall

When it comes to eating meals, Notre Dame Students like to do what is fastest and easiest.  Even though plenty of them have cars on campus, they rarely go to off-campus restaurants to eat, and even though there are two dining halls on campus, Notre Dame Students rarely switch between the two. 

Most students typically go to the dining hall that is closest to their dorm because it is most convenient.  They can walk there for lunch on their way to class, and they can get there quickly and without hassle for dinner.  In the winter, Notre Dame Students do this because they also like to walk through the snow from their dorms to the dining hall in athletic shorts, just to show how little the weather affects them (even though it does).

By only going to one dining hall, students grow accustomed to sitting in the same area and seeing the same people.  Students from West Quad and South Quad consistently go to South Dining Hall (referred to by saying “South” or “SDH”).  These students yell out either “right-right” or “right-left” to tell their friends where they will be sitting, and before long groups of friends know exactly what side of what aisle to look to and walk down in order to find their friends.  These groups will instinctively know second and third choice seating areas in case their chosen area is occupied or closed. 

Students from North Quad and Mod Quad consistently go to North Dining Hall (referred to by saying “North” or “NDH”).  These students will determine where to sit before they get their food, and will leave coats, flip up chairs, and place IDs on their chosen table in order to mark their territory.  While both halves of campus have their different customs in their chosen dining hall, the one thing all Notre Dame Students share is a hatred for the dining hall in which they do not regularly eat.

Students who regularly eat at South complain constantly about the “modernism” that exists at North.  They hate the fact that the dining hall has multiple levels almost as much as the televisions that exist inside it.  Furthermore, South regulars hate the fact that they can never find their friends when they eat at North.  Why, they wonder, would you waste time saving a seat with your ID, when long lines are forming in the food distribution areas?  South regulars spend inordinate amounts of time looking for their friends when they eat at North.

The biggest complaint that South regulars have about North, however, is the food distribution system.  Food stations at North are seemingly spread throughout the dining hall in a maze of doorways that is akin to a funhouse.  South patrons are used to the single room in their dining hall where they can quickly make a loop and see what the options are for dinner.  At North, most students know what they are going to get before they enter the building and make a beeline towards the room of their choice.  Because it is impossible for Southies to find food in North, they pretty much only go there when they are looking for two specific menu items unique to North: pasta stir fry and make-your-own-pizza.

North patrons have similar complaints about SDH.  They find it impossible to find their friends in the large crowded rooms of tables that all look the same (see #36), and since they aren’t regular Southies, they don’t have a proper system in place to find their friends.  Their biggest complaint, however, is the abomination that is the SDH food distribution system.  When Northies enter the center part of SDH (where the food is distributed), they see a crowded and congested mess of confusion.  There are people EVERYWHERE, with lines pushing into other lines, and people waiting in two lines at similar times.  If peppered flank steak is the meat entrée, the salad bars become engulfed in the line of steak-eaters.  If there is a particularly enticing pasta dish, there will be an impenetrable line preventing hungry eaters from getting to the pizza or waffle-making sections.  Making matters worse are the indecisive Southies who don’t intricately plan their meals ahead of time by checking the menu online.  They add to the congestion by wandering around the food area looking through all of the options before they make a choice.  If NDH is overly organized with rooms for different food, SDH is an underorganized mess of confusion that Northies will never be able to understand.

The ironic thing about dining hall loyalty at Notre Dame is that both dining halls generally serve the same food.  Sure there are some notable differences like make-your-own-pizza, but when push comes to shove, students can pretty much get the same food at either dining hall.  Because of this, while Notre Dame Students will always loathe eating in the dining hall they don’t frequent, eventually all Notre Dame Students will come to hate the repetition at BOTH dining halls, and will begin to have more trips off-campus to places like Rocco’s, Bruno’s, Chili’s, and even Red Lobster.

#95: Running around the lakes (and other places)

Probably the most athletic students in the country (aside from the military academies), Notre Dame Students love to exercise.  While they certainly love playing basketball (see #76), football, and dodgeball, lifting weights in The Rock or Rolfs, and taking yoga classes, by far the most popular form of exercise for Notre Dame Students is running. 

Notre Dame Students are constantly running in different places across campus.  They run on treadmills in their dorms and at The Rock.  They run loops through the quads and fields around campus.  They run on elliptical machines in Rolfs while watching TV and reading People Magazine.  They run the roads to and through Saint Mary’s.  However, most often students run around the two lakes on campus.

Running around the lakes is the single most common form of exercise amongst Notre Dame Students.  They love to make the two-mile figure-eight around the lakes so that they can see all of the sites such as The Grotto (see #61), the reverse side of the Dome, and (of course) Carroll Hall.  Sometimes through treacherous patches of mud that destroy their pristinely clean running shoes, Notre Dame Students will run hundreds (and sometimes even thousands) of miles around these lakes over the course of their time at school; with the lakes always looking the same and the route never really becoming repetitive to Notre Dame Students.

While running is partially about exercise for Notre Dame Students, it also has other advantages.  Though Notre Dame Students like to be seen running so that they can show everybody how athletic they are, oftentimes their running is not very athletic.  If they are running inside, they will make sure to spend more time chatting with friends they meet than they do actually running. 

When they are running around the lakes, they will oftentimes make their running into a date and jog alongside their long-term relationship partner while neither really breaks a sweat (see #99).  Despite the fact that running has all of these great advantages for Notre Dame Students, they will still need to have a more concrete reason to justify all of their running and working out, and they find this purpose via charity runs. 

Charity runs like the Mara Fox Run, Finish on the 50, and the Holy Half Marathon give students the justification for working out while also making them feel better about themselves by raising money for charity (and they usually get t-shirts for running them, see #35).  These service-oriented students want to do good for the world, and these events give them a chance to put their running to a good use. 

Furthermore, in running these events, Notre Dame Students get even more excited about running and invariably start talking about how they are going to run a marathon.  Notre Dame Students love talking about running marathons because it shows their friends how much more running they are doing, and it also shows how dedicated they are to working out and raising money for charity (because Notre Dame Students prefer running marathons for charity).  However, in the end most Notre Dame Students will eschew running marathons for leisurely runs around the lakes.

#65: Riding Bikes in Adverse Conditions

One of the great things about Notre Dame’s campus is that the residential and academic buildings are all relatively close together.  Students can easily walk between the most distant buildings of importance (so, not including Carroll) without exerting an inordinate amount of time or effort.  This pedestrian campus is promoted by an abundance of sidewalks and a lack of cars on campus.

Despite the convenient layout of campus, many students still feel the need to pretend like they are going to a large state school by riding their bikes between buildings.  Because of the short distances, these students will undoubtedly spend more time locking their bike then they will actually riding it (because locking bikes is necessary to prevent them from being stolen—or even worse, finding them hanging in a tree somewhere).

While this biking can be seen merely as a leisure activity in the summer months, Notre Dame Students inexplicably continue to ride their bikes in the inclement weather that lasts from October until May (see #43).  Whether it is snow, sleet, ice, hail, wind, or rain, the biking contingent of Notre Dame Students are relentless like postal workers in their insistence on biking.

These students will put plastic bags on the seats of their bikes to ensure dryness, and then they will hit the ice-covered sidewalks in their perilous quest from their dorm to DeBartolo Hall to the Dining Hall and back.  Never worrying about the inevitable loss of traction, these students will slide across the sidewalk, crash into pedestrians, and get even wetter than their sensibly walking counterparts.

Ultimately, most students will realize that bicycles were simply not built to be ridden around in the adverse conditions of the South Bend winter.  These students, however, will choose not to leave their bike in one place throughout the winter, but will walk their bike across the slick and icy sidewalks so that it will still be with them when the day comes that conditions are more desirable for biking.

#62: Tailgating at Actual Tailgates (as opposed to houses or frats)

Notre Dame Students love football and they love drinking.  Therefore Notre Dame Students love tailgating.  However, tailgating at Notre Dame is different than at most schools because students rarely tailgate at off-campus houses and there are no fraternities to host game day parties.

Students at schools across the country enjoy the pageantry of college football with tailgates.  Most of these tailgates occur within a system of houses and Greek life, however, and rarely involve a vehicle with a legitimate “tailgate.”  Students at these schools wear dress clothing that can’t be comfortable for the games, they play beer pong on porches, they do multistory beer bongs, and they yell obscenities at any fans of the opposing team that happen to walk past their house or fraternity.  Ironically, most of these students will never actually make it anywhere close to the stadium as game time approaches. 

At Notre Dame, however, students enjoy tailgating at actual tailgates where they can complain about the shirt while wearing it (see #2), claim to have inside information about the football team (see #8), be nice to opposing fans (see #13), form small circles (see #24), complain about the weather (see #43), network with alums (see #85), and of course, do things that are SO College (see #11)

As freshmen they like to wander the Joyce and Stadium parking lots hoping that random alums will offer them free food and stories about the good old days.  As sophomores they will seek out tailgates hosted by distant relatives of minor acquaintances where they will get free food and potentially sneak a beer or two.  As juniors, Notre Dame Students will now be friends with these distant relatives of minor acquaintances and they will confidently go to the tailgates knowing that they will be offered plenty of free food and alcohol. 

As seniors, some students host their own tailgates.  While some of these students live close enough to campus where they can attempt to throw a state-school-style house party before the game, other students obtain parking passes and throw tailgates in parking lots such as the infamous Radio Tower (or X) Lot. 

Students who throw these tailgates do everything that they can to make sure that their tailgate is the best tailgate.  They get ridiculous amounts of beer and meat.  They play terrifying drinking games such as full beer flip cup, and they shotgun beers at regularly scheduled intervals.  These students will try to convince underclassmen to come to their tailgates, but the underclassmen will be too scared to show up.

Ultimately, Notre Dame Students love tailgating.  Unlike their peers from other schools across the country however, when the game starts the tailgates end.  Nothing is more important than the game.

#49: Sweatpants

Notre Dame Students love sweatpants. While this is not shocking because of the cold temperatures that are almost always prevalent, the degree to which Notre Dame Students wear sweatpants is exorbitantly high. At Notre Dame, sweatpants can be worn for any and every occasion and are almost always appropriate even when they are inappropriate.

In most areas of the country and world, sweatpants are only really appropriate for people when they are working out or relaxing in the comfort of their own homes. People might wear sweatpants when they are jogging or when they are watching a movie in their family room, but they will rarely wear sweatpants out of the house for an endeavor that is not based in athletics.

At Notre Dame, students wear sweatpants everywhere. While it is almost never appropriate, students wear sweatpants to class more often than not. Notre Dame Professors are awestruck by the level of informality that students bring to the classroom wearing hoodies and sweatpants to classes like they are training to run a marathon. These students don’t think anything of their outfits as they are dressing similarly to the rest of their peers.

Not only do Notre Dame Students wear sweatpants to class, but they also wear sweatpants to mass. In many parts of the world going to mass is one of the most formal parts of the week that sees parishioners dress up quite formally on Sundays. At Notre Dame, however, dorm masses make it possible for students to worship on Sunday nights without changing out of their sweatpants, sandals, and t-shirts. While these masses probably are some of the holiest outside of the Vatican, they are also some of the most informal due to Notre Dame Student’s favoritism for sweatpants.

Because Notre Dame Students like to wear sweatpants so much, they also are sure to make customized pairs of sweatpants a lot. Just as Notre Dame Students like to make T-Shirts (see #35) they also like to make sweatpants to wear with their customized t-shirts. Students will make sweatpants for their dorms, sweatpants for clubs, and sweatpants for their class. The only question will be: what color do they want their sweatpants to be?

#43.5: Days Notre Dame Students Like

Throughout the school year there are many days that students get excited for. Some of these days they know are coming months and years ahead of time, while others take the school by surprise. All of these days, however, bring a level of excitement that makes most of the student body very happy. Here they are:

1) USC Game [only in odd years]

2) Day/night before the USC Game [only in odd years]

3) First Friday of the Fall Semester [or whenever each dorm throws Dis-Orientation]

4) First Home Game

5) Saint Patrick’s Day

6) Michigan Game [an even year replacement for #1]

7) Room Picks [varies depending on dorm]

8) Blue-Gold Game [mainly due to PigTostal]

9) First Day of Spring [Halter Top Day]

10) First Big Snowfall of the Winter

11) The Day the Annual ND-SMC Viewpoint War reaches its Zenith

12) First Day of Winter Study Days [due to Christmas Parties]

13) Last Night Dorms are Open in the Spring

14) First Bookstore Basketball Games

15) Day Beer Garden Re-Opens at Corby’s

#43: Complaining about the weather

When prospective students apply to the University of Notre Dame they probably don’t know about most of the things on this list. They probably don’t know about the definition of hooking up (see #21) or where they will be getting pizza after a night of debauchery (see #14). They might know about Lou Holtz (see #23) and Saint Mary’s (see #38), while they have almost certainly never been to Finnegan’s or The Backer (see #20 and #26 respectively). However, if there is one thing that prospective students know when they apply to the school, it is that the weather in South Bend is absolutely awful.

South Bend has weather patterns that are somewhat similar to Siberian tundra or the real world in The Matrix. The sun refuses to shine on Notre Dame between October 1^st and May 1^st and there are only a handful of days each year that can be described using the word nice.* During the darkest months of the winter, snow falls at dramatic levels across the region and temperatures reach lows that are unheard of in most of the lower 48.

Despite the fact that all students know the problems with South Bend weather long before they attend the university, the students continuously complain about how bad the weather is and how they wish they lived in a more enjoyable climate. These complaints happen before class starts while they are taking off layers of coats, gloves, scarves, and hats. They happen at November tailgates where the beers aren’t put on ice to get cold, but they are laid out in the sun in order to get warm enough to drink. They happen when it snows at the spring game, and when it rains on the few warm days of the fall.

Not only will Notre Dame Students relentlessly complain about the weather they knew they would encounter in South Bend, but they will use the poor weather as an excuse. Some students will use the weather as an excuse to drink more (as there is nothing better to do in the cold winter months). Other students will use the weather as an excuse not to drink (because it is too cold to go out to parties, or to even get alcohol from the store). Students will use the weather as an excuse to skip classes and they will use the weather as an excuse to wear sweatpants (see #49).

However, the never-ending stream of poor weather in South Bend causes students to be even more excited for the beginning of spring (or as Bill Simmons calls it, Halter Top Day). On this day, which comes unexpectedly and at a different date every year, students rejoice. Shorts and skirts are worn and South Quad is covered with people playing games, tanning themselves, reading books, doing work, and just generally relaxing. For one day each spring Notre Dame Students do not complain about the weather because they know they need to embrace it while it lasts because the next day it will probably snow.

*Luckily in the spring of 2009 these three days fell on St. Patrick’s Day, Pigtostal, and the 22^nd birthday of one Bob Kessler

#7: UGGs in Snow

Due to the hostile environment in South Bend between the months of September and May, Notre Dame Students must be prepared for every possible kind of inclement weather.  Coats, hats, gloves, scarves, wool socks, long underwear, and snowpants are all necessities for braving the elements.  Most important amongst the winter clothing is boots, and for Notre Dame Women, the only type of boots that can be worn for speed, traction, warmth, dryness, comfort, and style are UGGs. 

Never mind the fact that UGGs were designed to be worn on Australian beaches after surfing, Notre Dame women are convinced that they are the best possible footwear for the winter months.  Do they keep your feet dry?  All it takes is a quick coat of water-proofing spray to make UGGs waterproof, snowproof, and backerproof all in one sitting.  Do they keep your feet warm?  Absolutely they do (provided the wearer of said UGGs does not actually walk through any snow).  Do you move quickly in them?  Typically not.  Do they have traction for the icy patches of sidewalk that were not particularly salted to the requisite levels?  HELL NO!

But UGGs are the most stylish boot out there.  Many Notre Dame women actually own two or three pairs just for when one is inevitably too wet or too dirty to wear.  Do they care about the hazards of destroying their stylish footwear in the grim and grime of a South Bend winter?  Of course not.  She who does not wear UGGs in snow is not fulfilling her duties as a Notre Dame Woman.