Things I love about UIUC!

This weekend I decided to write about my life at UIUC because I figured I never really wrote about how awesome it is to be an Illini! I guess we just get so used to living here everyday that we often forget how precious it is to be a part of this campus. So, this post is all about my life at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - because it's special! :)

Alma Mater always greets you with love and blessings

It has been almost 1.5 years since I joined UIUC, but it feels like just the other day that I got here! I remember I fell in love with this campus and the people here from the very first day. The people here in this twin city are so kind, welcoming and helpful that I never felt out of place. 

Places I love on campus - I never get enough of the gorgeous architectural structures here. Starting it's journey as Illinois Industrial University in 1867, and named as University of Illinois in 1885, the university will soon turn 150 years old [1]. I love how all the beautiful historic structures tell the stories of the past, especially the Altgeld Hall (commonly known as Math Building) and the Foellinger Auditorium. Both of them are more than 100 years old, and Altgeld Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Buildings in 1970 [2].

Backside of the Foellinger Auditorium in spring

Another very special part of the university is the library. UIUC holds the pride of having the largest public college library in the nation holding 13,158,748 volumes, and ranked as the second largest college library after Harvard [3]. The Main Library was actually the first place I visited on campus on my very first day since I'm working as a Graduate Assistant (GA) here, and it totally blew my mind away. It has a great environment and I especially love the main reading room on the second floor. During my first week of GA orientation, even before our classes started, I luckily met the coolest people there - Katrina, Alonso, Nate, Madison to name a few. And I'm glad that I can call these awesome people my close friends, who made me feel special here from the very beginning :)

I also like the lake side on the engineering quad, especially during spring and early summer. Busking in the sun while reading book, playing with the dandelions by the lake or just have a slow walk around the quad after work are probably my favorite things to do there.

Engineering Quad

The next thing I must mention is my department - Graduate School of Library and Information Science (soon becoming the iSchool at Illinois). I should write a whole post on that because it's a super awesome place to be! It's great program with lots of resources ranking no. 1 in the nation, and all the people - students, professors, staff - everyone makes it special. I feel like I had a lot of opportunities to grow in last 1 year, and definitely met some of the greatest people here, who I know I'll keep in touch even when we graduate. It wasn't an easy decision for me to leave my comfort zone in Japan but I believe I made the best decision by coming here, which I'll never regret.

Fun things to do - Fun time is really something precious when at grad school :-/ Being full time student and working half time doesn't really leave me or most of my friends with much free time but we do fun stuff here. Krannert Art Museum and Spurlock Museum on campus provide us with the opportunity to enjoy art exhibitions. There are always many cultural shows and performances at the Krannert Centre of the Performing Arts. We have two nice movie theatre in downtown Champaign - the Art Theatre and the Virginia Theatre. I absolutely love the vintage look of the Virginia Theatre! And there are often concerts at the bars like Pizza M or Iron Post. 

Having brunch at Radio Maria, or dinner at my favorite restaurant Seven Saints with friends, going to movies and concerts or just having fun time at home with some good food, good music, and good people - these are enough to keep my spirit up :)

The gorgeous Virginia Theatre 

Concert night at Pizza M 

We also get a lot of stunning sunrise and sunsets here, probably one of my favorite things here. So, my camera is full of sky photos. Also, we have pretty cherry blossom in spring, gorgeous fall and beautiful snow during winter. May be I'll write about them and post those seasonal photos on some other post. I'll wrap up with two photos I took at the arboretum this morning. The sun was peeping through the trees and lighting up the lightly snow covered grasses, and they were dazzling brightly like small pieces of diamond. That scene just made my day, and these are the precious things that make my everyday life special here :)

UIUC Arboretum 

Sparkly grasses

Reference

1. "A Brief History of the University of Illinois." A Brief History of the University of Illinois. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2015. <http://archives.library.illinois.edu/features/history.php>.

2. "Mathematics." History of Altgeld Hall, Department of , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2015. <http://www.math.illinois.edu/History/altgeld_history.html>.

3. "The Nation's Largest Libraries: A Listing By Volumes Held." ALA Library Fact Sheets. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet22>.