(no subject)
It's been a while!! Wow.
Last weekend Chris, his parents and I went to Maryland for the Navy-Notre Dame football game. Chris' brother lives in Bethesda now, where he works for the NIH, so we were able to meet up with him while we were there, and he came with us to the game. The game was at Ravens Stadium in Baltimore (the Navy stadium in Annapolis simply can't handle us ND fans); it was fun, but the game was an easy one for the Irish to win and the excitement was nothing like it is at ND stadium. Plus, the Fighting Irish Marching Band wasn't there! So boo to that. We were treated instead to songs by the Navy band about old gnarly goats who beat Army mules and the like. And we were forced to endure commercials featuring Navy students tossing ND students out of windows. Don't ask.
After the game, however, we made a trip to Hopkins, which I haven't seen since I graduated. My goodness, I remember my final farewell to the campus after pulling out of the parking lot with Mike Sciscenti as we headed out to Atlanta. We parked behind my old apartment building, the Marylander, and walked down St. Paul Street, noticing the changes. Pike and Wawa have been torn down to make room for new condominiums. The whole slew of row houses that used to line St. Paul has also been demolished, and new condominiums have gone up in its place. Across the street from the Bradford new student housing and a fabulous new bookstore has been brought into existence. The bookstore just opened last weekend, but already the students are making good use of it! The old standards - Niwana, Rocky Run, Ruby Tuesday's, Xando, Sam's, Donna's - are all still there. Where the short-lived Cuppa Cabana used to be there is a new cafe opening. Video Americain is also still in operation (I always loved that place). We crossed over to Charles Street and peeked in at the Newman house (we didn't actually go in; neither Chris nor I had any real desire to disturb Fr. Ryan), and we had dinner, for old time's sake, at Ruby's. Then we cut north across campus, taking an old familiar route through the Mattin Center and through the walkway between Maryland and Krieger to get to the lower quad. We walked up to the breezeway and saw Gilman (always my favorite campus building) and Cafe Q in the library. Then we made our way to the freshmen quad and were surprised to find that they've erected gates and a security guard booth to block the entrances to the AMRs - now, to get by, you have to show your ID. So no pictures in front of Royce or Baker (mine and Chris' respective freshmen dorms) for us! Then we cut between the AMRs to the parking lot and tennis courts and found our way to Charles Street again; we headed north to University, then east to our car.
My goodness, it was delightful to see Hopkins again. I do miss it, and I'm happy to see the improvements to the campus, especially in the area of security. There were tons of new security call boxes both on and around campus; apparently the campus crime rate has dropped 60% over the past two years. I'm sure with Hopkins buying up the surrounding neighborhood (as they've been trying to do for years now) the area will get even safer, although I do think the area has lost something by becoming so Hopkins-dominated. The nice thing about Notre Dame is that it's never really had the desire to spread its tentacles throughout the city of South Bend; in fact, it bought land around the campus precisely so that construction wouldn't be done on it and that a buffer could remain between the campus and the city. As a result, both Notre Dame and South Bend are able to retain their own distinctive identities without infringing on each other. It's strange to remember the row houses with their overgrown, rat-infested yards that used to line St. Paul Street - which, though disgusting, were still things that dominated my memory of the "feel" of Charles Village. Now there are fancy new apartments, which look beautiful, but are character-less; they could be anywhere, in any town, whereas the row houses were distinctively Baltimorean. {shrug} I guess this is my nostalgia gone insane, when I start getting nostalgic over rat-infested overgrowth!
In other news, I sat down today for two hours and wrote my personal statement for PhD programs. I have the day off (ah, it's great working at a Catholic school!), and I figured it was now or never. It needs some revision, of course, but I'm fairly satisfied with it. My professors have agreed to write letters of recommendation, so I need to send them packets of information. But the ball is rolling. Please pray that I end up where I'm supposed to be!
Last weekend Chris, his parents and I went to Maryland for the Navy-Notre Dame football game. Chris' brother lives in Bethesda now, where he works for the NIH, so we were able to meet up with him while we were there, and he came with us to the game. The game was at Ravens Stadium in Baltimore (the Navy stadium in Annapolis simply can't handle us ND fans); it was fun, but the game was an easy one for the Irish to win and the excitement was nothing like it is at ND stadium. Plus, the Fighting Irish Marching Band wasn't there! So boo to that. We were treated instead to songs by the Navy band about old gnarly goats who beat Army mules and the like. And we were forced to endure commercials featuring Navy students tossing ND students out of windows. Don't ask.
After the game, however, we made a trip to Hopkins, which I haven't seen since I graduated. My goodness, I remember my final farewell to the campus after pulling out of the parking lot with Mike Sciscenti as we headed out to Atlanta. We parked behind my old apartment building, the Marylander, and walked down St. Paul Street, noticing the changes. Pike and Wawa have been torn down to make room for new condominiums. The whole slew of row houses that used to line St. Paul has also been demolished, and new condominiums have gone up in its place. Across the street from the Bradford new student housing and a fabulous new bookstore has been brought into existence. The bookstore just opened last weekend, but already the students are making good use of it! The old standards - Niwana, Rocky Run, Ruby Tuesday's, Xando, Sam's, Donna's - are all still there. Where the short-lived Cuppa Cabana used to be there is a new cafe opening. Video Americain is also still in operation (I always loved that place). We crossed over to Charles Street and peeked in at the Newman house (we didn't actually go in; neither Chris nor I had any real desire to disturb Fr. Ryan), and we had dinner, for old time's sake, at Ruby's. Then we cut north across campus, taking an old familiar route through the Mattin Center and through the walkway between Maryland and Krieger to get to the lower quad. We walked up to the breezeway and saw Gilman (always my favorite campus building) and Cafe Q in the library. Then we made our way to the freshmen quad and were surprised to find that they've erected gates and a security guard booth to block the entrances to the AMRs - now, to get by, you have to show your ID. So no pictures in front of Royce or Baker (mine and Chris' respective freshmen dorms) for us! Then we cut between the AMRs to the parking lot and tennis courts and found our way to Charles Street again; we headed north to University, then east to our car.
My goodness, it was delightful to see Hopkins again. I do miss it, and I'm happy to see the improvements to the campus, especially in the area of security. There were tons of new security call boxes both on and around campus; apparently the campus crime rate has dropped 60% over the past two years. I'm sure with Hopkins buying up the surrounding neighborhood (as they've been trying to do for years now) the area will get even safer, although I do think the area has lost something by becoming so Hopkins-dominated. The nice thing about Notre Dame is that it's never really had the desire to spread its tentacles throughout the city of South Bend; in fact, it bought land around the campus precisely so that construction wouldn't be done on it and that a buffer could remain between the campus and the city. As a result, both Notre Dame and South Bend are able to retain their own distinctive identities without infringing on each other. It's strange to remember the row houses with their overgrown, rat-infested yards that used to line St. Paul Street - which, though disgusting, were still things that dominated my memory of the "feel" of Charles Village. Now there are fancy new apartments, which look beautiful, but are character-less; they could be anywhere, in any town, whereas the row houses were distinctively Baltimorean. {shrug} I guess this is my nostalgia gone insane, when I start getting nostalgic over rat-infested overgrowth!
In other news, I sat down today for two hours and wrote my personal statement for PhD programs. I have the day off (ah, it's great working at a Catholic school!), and I figured it was now or never. It needs some revision, of course, but I'm fairly satisfied with it. My professors have agreed to write letters of recommendation, so I need to send them packets of information. But the ball is rolling. Please pray that I end up where I'm supposed to be!