I have walked into the dining hall to find today's sweet-n-sour chicken was yesterday's normal chicken and will become tomorrow's macaroni surprise. How do you get oily spaghetti noodles, rubber hamburgers and eternally dry rice? I will never be able to comprehend the workload at Notre Dame. Do the professor hold a conference in the fall and say, "Okay everybody, we've all decided the second week in November is a great time to have tests, papers, midterms, presentations and labs due." When it rains, it's a flashflood at Notre Dame and I am rarely wearing water wings.

Notre Dame students thrive on stress and they actually enjoy stressing others out. Stress is entirely and utterly unproductive. The only thing it is guaranteed to do is put holes in your stomach. To stress over obnoxious people does not make them cool. To stress about bad foods doesn't make them better. And to stress over work does not get it finished faster. To quote Bobby Brown at a freshman pep rally, "Relax, Relate, Release. Because tomorrow you better respect." Relax, take a deep breath, hold it, then blow it into your friend's face (never underestimate the power of humor). Relate and realize that everyone around you is busy too. Release, you are approximately a 5-10 minute walk from some thought-provoking spot on campus. Go there, sit, think and resist the urge to pull out your highlighter and coursepacket.

In my year abroad in Ireland, my Irish friends taught me to embrace the spontaneous things in life. They truly Carpe the old Diem. I vowed to integrate this philosophy in my daily routine, and it has made all the difference. I purposefully take inefficient walks from Debartolo to Knott that lead me past the Dome, into the Grotto and by the lakes. I ride my bike through large piles of leaves, and I take naps smack dab in the middle of the quad. Surround yourself with positive people and stay away from the obnoxious. Eat at the dining hall and try to appreciate the fact that you did not have to make the food yourself (anyone who has not lived on their own cannot comprehend this). The timing and magnitude of the workload here is intense. Grit your teeth, work as much as necessary and study to learn, not to get an A. The one usually follows the other.

Notre Dame is doing an excellent job training us to succeed in life. Study hard, enjoy your time with friends and make time for what interests you. You blink, and you are throwing your cap in the air and hugging your friends goodbye.

I'll end with a quote from "The Green Fool" by Patrick Kavanaugh, "I got nothing for my trouble except joy. But though the coin of joy isn't legal tender in the mundane shops of the world, it is in the lands of imagination, and I today, jingling my purse of memory, know I am rich."

Brick Maier

Resident Assistant

Knott Hall

December 5, 1999

• Our lives must be viewed as vocations
  
• Relax more, stress less
  
• Don't judge the way others live