Freshman Blog

Jimmy Bowers
Monday, September 7, 2009; 11:22 p.m.
Who wouldn’t want to blog about how great life at Notre Dame is? The only problem is, there are so many great things to talk about, almost (but not quite) too many. So, I guess I’ll just start off describing my journey by letting you know where I am right now and what I am doing. I’m sitting in the basement of Zahm Hall (Zahm House as we Zahmbies like to call it) and watching the Florida State-Miami game on our huge common room projector screen. There are a bunch of fellow Zahm residents down here with me, and everyone is desperately cheering for a Miami victory; we’re all convinced it would help our beloved Irish in the polls this week.
One day into the third week of classes and I can truly say it’s been quite a ride. Move-in, “Frosh-O”, homework, Domerfest, concerts, homework, classes, Nevada game (can you say shutout?), more homework. The move-in process was nothing like I anticipated. I expected the process to be hot, laborious, awkward, just pretty unpleasant overall. To my delight, it was quite the opposite. Signs from each dorm lined the streets on campus (many of them poking fun at others). One of my favorites read, “Cavanaugh: Protecting your daughters from Zahm for years” (did I mention they’re my sister dorm?). The signs were everywhere and they kept the long car line on campus entertaining. When our car finally pulled up to House, we were warmly greeted by ten students who immediately started unloading our car. After signing the housing contract in the basement, I walked up to find all of my luggage waiting for me in my room. Talk about service. My dad was quick to inform me that I was fortunate to be so close to the great hall of St. Ed’s (the hall where he spent many hours partying and not quite as many studying). After unpacking all of my things and getting settled in, I spent the rest of the day visiting different buildings on campus, signing contracts, filling out paperwork and tending to other errands. Along the way, my father introduced me to several of his friends from his days at Notre Dame. I met two Mr. Allare’s, and a Mr. Mitchell; surprisingly, all three had freshmen sons in my class. Helps to be a legacy, I suppose.
The next day marked the beginning of the storied Freshmen Orientation. The morning involved meeting a lot of the guys in my hall and University organized activities (like a picnic on South Quad and dorm meetings with parents). The real fun started that night, with the first of many secret rituals that initiated me into the Zahm Brotherhood. Sworn to secrecy, I’ll be brief and say that Night 1 of Frosh-O involved the War Memorial Fountain (more commonly known as Stonehenge), body paint, kilts, yelling, professing love to Cavanaugh, singing, and most importantly, the Golden Dome. It was a fantastic night, and the first of many to come. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into, and I think I still really don’t know. Supposedly, there are a lot more initiation activities coming.
Dorm life in Zahm is as close to living in a real house as a dorm can be, I think. In every dorm meeting the first weekend, they informed us of Zahm’s “open door policy”. They strongly discourage freshmen from ever closing their doors unless we have something extremely important to focus on. I tested out the policy and I haven’t looked back since. Upperclassmen will randomly wander in to my room while I’m on my computer doing work and they’ll take a seat and start chatting. It’s a great way to meet people, and it helps encourage the brotherhood that Zahm House breeds. Another “tradition”, per se, is that of the Midnight Maid service. The upperclassmen informed us that last year they voted to have the maids come in to clean the halls in the middle of the night as to not disturb anyone during the day. Though we were all a little confused by this, we took their word for it and went with it. It wasn’t until a week later that I learned what the midnight maid service was all about. While my roommates and I were asleep, an upperclassman snuck into our room and put the vacuum in the middle of our floor. He then took the wire outside and wrapped it several times around the doorknob so that the door would not open until it was unwound. This unknown upperclassman then plugged the vacuum in, and ran away. Now, this vacuum might be the loudest vacuum in the history of all vacuums. When that vacuum was plugged in, I woke to what I thought was the fire alarm. When my roommate got out of bed to see what was going on, he told me that there was a vacuum in the middle of our room. Not knowing how to turn this complicated vacuum off, we were forced to go out in to the hallway to unplug the vacuum. The process took close to two minutes in its entirety. And though it may be good for a laugh after the fact, this “Midnight Maid” has stopped by three times in the last three weeks, and “she” scares me every time. This is life in House in a nutshell.
Having tested out of First Year Composition and Calc 1, I was blessed with Theology, Philosophy and Psychology to go along with Business Calc II, a Science elective, and P.E. all during my first semester. I walked in to my Psychology class my first day and realized how different the class setting was in college. With a class of over 150 kids in the auditorium, the professor told us that class was not mandatory but it was encouraged. He informed us that he would never take attendance, and it was very possible, though hard, to pass without ever going to class. Coming from Archmere where my class size was rarely greater than 13 kids, I was in for an awakening. Adjusting to the college workload has not been as much of a problem as I anticipated, though I understand it is still very early in the semester. I’ve yet to take my first exam or write my first paper; needless to say, my next two weeks aren’t looking as easy. But so far, so good.
The climax of my time at Notre Dame so far came this past Saturday: home opener against Nevada. Though I had been to games before, I forgot how busy campus was on football weekends. I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of the marching band right outside my window; who can be mad about waking to a live performance of the Notre Dame fight song? The morning entailed visiting tailgates of my father’s friends (again, benefits of being a legacy), football on North Quad, a walk around campus, and finally, going to the stadium for the game. I’m sure anyone reading this blog watched the game so I don’t need to describe how well the game went for the Irish. To make a very long story short, Michael Floyd caught four passes, three of which were touchdowns. My seats are in row 34 in the corner of the stadium, right in the heart of the student section. I did my fair share of “crowd push-ups”; with 35 points scored, there were plenty of push-ups to go around. We picked up on all the student cheers and traditions pretty quickly. By half-time, my whole section of guys had the cheers and all the dances down pat.
After finishing up my school work early Sunday evening, I went for a run around the lakes right before sunset. I took a break from my run at a spot across the lake where I had a perfect view of the Golden Dome in the distance. I took a seat on a bench and admired the Dome for a good amount of time and felt very fortunate to be in South Bend. It is a great privilege to live and study at this University, and I plan on making the most of my time here. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for sending me to the school where I belong.

Go Irish.

Jimmy Bowers
Jbowers3@nd.edu