I never thought I’d miss Notre Dame’s library.

With its ugly brown cardboard box walls and perpetual scent of moldy paper, I thought I’d never want or need to go back. Sure, I spent most of my waking hours while on campus in the building — but time doesn’t always equal emotional affinity. In fact, I thought given all the time I forced myself to spend in there, the more prepared I would be to leave it for a whole year.

I don’t miss the building itself; I should preface what I’m about to say with that. I do not miss the cardboard box design (Touchdown Jesus literally looks like a cereal mascot on the front of a box, try and convince me I’m wrong), and I don’t miss the uncomfortable wooden chairs and 1970’s elevators.

You know what I do miss, though? The convenience.

Hesburgh Library was about a ten minute walk away from my dorm, and that ten minute walk was just close enough to make it convenient and just distant enough to give me some mental separation from home. When I went there, I could try to convince myself to be productive. I didn’t always succeed, but at least I tried.

In DC, though, I didn’t really have a good go-to library. I went to one of the DC public libraries on my first days in the city, but it was a little too far away to make it into a regular study space. I ended up spending a lot of time at Brookings’s library, but it was too close to home and much too close to work. It was in the exact same building as my cubicle, and that’s never a good thing.

What Brookings Library did have over Hesburgh, though, was windows. And you could open them to get some fresh air! I know Notre Dame is concerned about kids trying to throw themselves off the 13th floor of the library during finals week, but I sure would have appreciated the ability to get some cool night air on the evenings I got stuck there late. I would have also appreciated the ability to throw myself out a 13th floor window during finals week.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life this semester in Washington, DC. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Dress: Target

Jacket: Ann Taylor