College. Just the mention of this single word fills every high school senior with simultaneous excitement and anxiety. It carries with it the promise of growth, of change, of an upheaval of life as we know it.
 During my short 1.5 semesters here at Notre Dame, my beliefs have been challenged and my perceptions redefined. However, it’s not the big changes in ideology that you notice right away. That comes years later. It’s the small, somewhat trivial and often humorous changes in perspective that mark your growth. Here are four that I’ve experienced.
1. Brunch
No longer is the term brunch used to refer to an elegant mid-morning meal of fluffy waffles, poached eggs, and juicy strawberries reserved for the haughty elite…
…it has been redefined to mean a meal consisting of cereal, pizza, and a genetically modified banana. Conveniently taking place at the lunch hour, brunch is eaten by college students too exhausted from a night out to actually wake up in time for breakfast but still desiring to discuss the past night’s events in a breakfast setting so that it may at least appear as though their lives are in order. Â
2. Makeup
In high school, my makeup philosophy was “all or nothing.” And on most days I chose all. It’s not that I wasn’t comfortable or confident when not wearing a lot of makeup (trust me, those “nothing” days did exist). I just thought that makeup didn’t look quite right on me unless I went all out. Plus, I LOVE doing my makeup. It’s such a stress reliever!
Me on an ordinary school day.
I carried my philosophy with me to college and followed it religiously most of first semester. But somewhere amid the chaos that is finals and a fast-paced second semester I realized that the hour I regularly spent on hair and makeup would actually make a hefty contribution to my sleep bank, which at the point averaged 3-4.5hours a night.
So I toned down my “all” and cranked up my “nothing” and ended up with “some.”
Foundation. Brow pencil. Mascara on top lashes.
(Oh yeah, my hair color changed too…)
Although I still adore doing makeup, I have a new makeup philosophy: SLEEP
I spend time on my makeup when I feel like it, and believe it or not some days I actually like the “some” look better. *gasp*
3. iPhones
My college experience has lead me to one thought provoking question in particular: Were the first cell phones really indestructible or has our definition of destruction become more liberal?
It was 12:01 AM on November 15, 2014. A naked iPhone bit the ice. FACE. DOWN. The screen? Shattered.
“Get a new one”, they said.
“It’s destroyed,” they said.
Good thing I’m stubborn and refused to so. To this day my phone has survived an additional:
…plummet off my lofted bed by which I was rudely awakened.
…intense water damage due to my failure to locate my phone for 15 seconds after it leaped out into the toilet as I entered the bathroom stall
…fall onto the tile floor after I attempted to place it face down on my dresser but missed entirely
…further water damage from making brunch plans while in the shower
…loss of the home button as a casualty of the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day Parade
And it still works like a (dulled) charm, which begs the question:
Can one really label this as destroyed?
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But no single idea has been redefined more than…
4. Gender Relations
In elementary school gender relations were characterized by mischievous little boys who bore kissy-faces chasing little girls who were squealing because “Boys have cooties.”
Middle school was plagued by awkward school dances where boys and girls would cluster together on opposite sides of the dance floor and simultaneously “hit the flo’” and get “low, low, low, low,” while being careful to remain in their respective corners.
And upon hearing rumors about Notre Dame’s bizzare gender relations issues, I thought to myself, “Surely it can’t be worse than that time freshman year of high school when the boy sitting next to me at all school Mass refused to hold my hand during the Our Father.”
Yet ND gender relations proved to be all that, and then some.
If you’ve experience Notre Dame gender relations, no explanation is necessary. If you haven’t, none is adequate.Â
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Images: 1, 2, 3-6 author’s own
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