Why I Love UD

A few weeks ago I posted about one of my two favorite places in the whole wide world.  Well, my other favorite place is the University of Dayton.  All the recent Facebook posts about students moving back to campus or their younger siblings moving to campus makes me wish I could go back (for college again, not just to visit...visits are nice too though).  Today is the first day of classes, so what better day to post about UD?!  I'm really not sure I can convey all of the awesomeness in just this blog post, but I'll do my best to give the highlights.  :)

- Community! - How could I not start with the cliche reason everyone loves UD?  I don't even know how to describe it, but it's there.  One of the things I remember hearing in one of the videos shown at an event about the community is how EVERYONE holds doors opens for people behind them, no matter what or how far behind you that person is.  I realized that was so true around campus.  Everyone is so friendly and kind to each other, in little and big ways.  Even now in real life when someone doesn't hold a door for me, I automatically think "that person definitely did not go to UD."

- Friends! - Some of my very best friends are the ones I made while at UD. We have the best memories ever and will continue to for years to come :) (after we force all our own kids to go to UD so that we have an extra excuse to go back all the time)

- Basketball! - The UD Arena is consistently ranked as one of the best arenas in college basketball with the best fans. Basketball is also a great excuse to go back to campus.  This past winter, my friends and I went back for the game against Xavier.   We will have to figure out a different game to go back for this year though due to all of the conference re-alignment business going on.  Also, the Dayton Flyers fight song is awesome.  And I really like the fact that it's not one of the super big, popular schools that everyone has a t-shirt from.  So if I see someone walking around Chicago (or anywhere) with a UD t-shirt or driving with a UD sticker on their car, I know they almost surely went there (or have kids that do/did).  There is even a bar in Chicago with UD affiliation to go watch the basketball games at with other fans!  (This photo below was taken at Milano's at UD though)

- Tim's! - Most UD students either love Tim's to no end, or hate it and usually refuse to go. It's one of the dirtiest most college-like bars out there I'm sure.  I'm on the love end of the spectrum.  I really like to dance (not well, but everyone there is too drunk to notice anyways) and Tim's facilitates my love for dancing.  There are never good pictures taken at Tim's because nobody is capable of decent pictures by that time, so this is me and one of my favorite people to go to Tim's with, Brigitte - a Tim's VIP.

- Dining Halls! - UD had some pretty great dining halls. I don't have much else to compare them to though except the few times I visited ND (also great dining halls).  The fact that I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain a pound was pretty great too. If I went back to that lifestyle, I would gain at least 50 pounds in a week. Through my sophomore year, VWK was all-you-can eat and despite being in my picky eating stage still, I ate as much grilled cheese and pasta as I could.  Pita pizzas from KU, ice cream from The Galley, and chicken tender wraps from VWK and Marycrest were all my favorites.  I think I ate the exact same thing for lunch every day freshman year at the Empo - a turkey sandwich and a Crunch bar. The dining halls were also a great place to just sit with friends for awhile and chat and people watch.

- Ghetto! - I guess this goes back up to the part about the community.  For anyone who isn't familiar with UD, juniors and seniors (and 5th years) can live in the student neighborhood lovingly referred to as the Ghetto. Some of the houses even have their own names. When the weather is nice, everyone is outside on the porch or in the yard. Sometimes you can bring your couch in the yard...

- Dayton 2 Daytona! - This is the greatest vacation ever created...for college students; nobody else would survive this. It is also the unhealthiest trip ever created. There really isn't any other way to spin this besides a very cheap vacation with all UD students drinking all day long at the pool, beach, and the local hotspots for 6 days. I went 2 years and as much fun as it was, my body would not be able to handle something like that ever again.

The UDXC Team! -Probably the best group of girls ever.  I only competed on the team my senior year, but it made the year so enjoyable and I became friends with the best people!  Actually I was friends with the majority of them before senior year, but then running together every day brought us even closer.  I think it was during my training to try out for the team and then competing with the team that has made me realize my potential as a runner.

There's so much more I could say about UD and stories I could tell, but those are the parts that are most memorable to me.  Obviously, it's the people that make it so memorable, not just the place.  Oh, and I learned a lot and got a couple degrees.  That part is important too!

I'd like to especially wish a happy first day of classes to my brother Kyle and to the siblings of some of my best friends.  It's a family school.  GO FLYERS!!

UD Friends - Why do YOU love UD??

Why do you love YOUR school?

Things I Love: Part 1

I recently made a list called "Things I Love" in a journal.  It was easy to come up with a few things but also kind of hard too.  I tried to think of little things that make me happy.  I decided I'll share them here and I plan to continue adding to my list regularly, so I'll post the things I love in small groups.  I can't overwhelm you with too much love and happiness all at once!  I tried to steer away from putting any food or people on the list because obviously I like a lot of different foods and a lot of people and I wanted it to be more like situations or things I can do that make me happy.

Group dance songs, like the YMCA, the Macarena, the Cha Cha slide - These songs are just plain fun to dance to.  I like them because they force people to dance that wouldn't normally get up and dance themselves to any other random song.

Wearing matching outfits with someone - This is probably the best thing ever. Especially to races. Catherine and I wear matching outfits in the turkey trot every year. Rachel and I wore matching outfits in the Green Bay Half Marathon - slightly different though because hers was Packers and mine was Bears. And this picture is when Sherm and I wore matching outfits for the Tim's Cornhkle tournament.

Making up my own words to songs - I really like doing this.  I have a great version of "Last Friday Night" about staying in and studying for the CPA exam. This is also a really big practice in the Smith family for birthdays and special occasions.

Chocolate milk - I can and do drink insane amounts of chocolate milk. It goes well with anything.

Glitter - I know some people don't like glitter because it can be messy. But really, glitter adds so much to any craft.

The University of Dayton - Such an amazing place. For so many reasons. Number 1 probably being all the super cool people. The cliche reason to love UD is the community, and it's the truth. Per Grace's request, I will do a whole post on UD sometime.

Afternoon naps - Just another reason to miss college.

Watches - I really like wearing them. Running watches or regular watches. My favorite is my gold Fossil watch.

I ran 4.5 miles yesterday, just a normal run.  There really wasn't anything too exciting about it.  I ran south down the lakefront path for a bit and then back north through the city.  I really need to stop running on the city streets because it is really annoying and slows me down a lot. And people are rude and walk 2 or 3 people wide and don't move out of my way.

Last night I tried a Banana Bread Beer.  It was actually pretty good even though I don't like bananas (I realize this is very bizzare for a runner not to like bananas) or banana-flavored things usually.  I would recommend it.  I didn't look at the name of the brewery on the menu, but just Googled and concluded it is Wells Banana Bread Beer.

Do you love any of these things too?

Have you tried any good beers lately?

Fast 400s and Random Thoughts of the Day

I met Mac at the track tonight to get in a speed workout.  He came up with a few things for us to do, but for the most part we made it up as we went.  Here's what we did:

1 mile normal
1 mile of striding the straight-aways and jogging the curves
4 x 400m fast
.25 walk, .25 jog cool-down

This workout seemed short, but it was tough.  We did the 400m repeats as a partner workout so the "rest" was doing a plank while the other person ran their 400.  My times were 1:22, 1:28, 1:31, 1:32 so obviously I started a little fast.  I haven't done this type of speedwork in FOREVER so I really am not a good judge of my pace.  Even though the total mileage of the workout was short, I was happy with it because it felt like we really worked hard.

Teenage Dream was on the radio this morning.  In case you (a) don't know me well enough to know how much I love this song and (b) didn't read my post on Monday which once again reiterated how much I love this song, now you know.  It makes me the happiest when I hear it on the radio because that means that probably about 415,603 people in the Chicago-land area are listening to it at the same time as me.  But those people probably aren't having as much fun dancing in their car as me and sending 10 second videos of myself dancing in my car to my friends.  Thanks to snap chat for being such an enabler of weirdness and how to pass time while at red lights.

My mom left for Disney World tonight.  She is going with Aunt Sonja, Hanna, and Jane, for what seems like a fun little girls trip.  I went with them a few summers ago and we had fun and I got my fill of Disney theme parks for the next couple years at least.  I know it's the happiest place on Earth, but I think it can be a little too much to handle.  I would rather have a relaxing vacation.  I would like to do the Disney Marathon Weekend again though!!

 

Something else I really love is matching outfits.  In a journal last week, I started a list called "Things I Love."  One of the items on the list is matching outfits.  Hanna and I have matching outfits sort of in that first picture with our stripped shirts, green shorts, and awesome 3D glasses.  I don't think we even planned that out.  But we are cousins and able to do cool things like that.  And now I want to share other things that are on my list of "Things I Love" and I know everyone is just dying to know but I will hold off for now and highlight those in future posts.  I'll probably talk about matching outfits again too because obviously Angela and I plan to have matching outfits for the marathon!