Dayton Diary: A bite of nostalgia

When I moved into my 16-by-8 room for two in Founders my first week at the University of Dayton, I had a letter waiting for me. 

My roommate and I opened it to find a bucket list from the previous residents of room 414. Addressed “To the new residents,” the letter instructed us to go all around campus doing the things that just “scream UD.” 

I checked off a few of the items on the list in my first semester, but the pandemic kicked us out, and the list was swiftly forgotten. 

Jumping ahead two-and-a-half years of Zoom classes and social distancing, I was packing to move back to campus for my last semester. That’s when I came across the letter once more. 

It seemed obvious it was directing us toward the greatest last semester of college. So we went to Tim’s and DD’s food truck. We ran through the fountain at Kennedy Union (although it was turned off, we did it in spirit). 

In the last week of class, we trekked up the hill to Marycrest. We were on a clear mission: get a monster cookie. 

I had enjoyed this coveted skillet cookie topped with ice cream, but my roommate never got that part of the list checked off — until now. 

In the dining area of Marycrest, we felt incredibly old and out of place. To blend in — and more transparently, to feel nostalgic — we started loudly spouting off anything we could think of that gave off the impression we were a bunch of first-year students. 

A fly on the wall of Marycrest that evening would’ve overheard our table complaining about our CMM 100 class and first-year orientation, discussing which dorm we lived in, talking about venturing out into the student neighborhood for the first time or wearing our student IDs on lanyards around our neck.

There is no doubt in my mind that a group of first-year students at Marycrest now have the funniest story to tell their friends — how they overheard three “first-years” shouting over a monster cookie.