As server virtualization proliferates and data centers shift to the cloud, organizations can deploy new applications faster than ever before. The problem is they can’t make network changes and provision network services fast enough to support these new applications and workloads. So deployment has to wait, and delays can result in opportunities lost to competitors.That is why companies are increasingly turning to VMware NSX to virtualize their network, enabling them to make network changes in software and bring up workloads in seconds or minutes. But there are a few caveats. Here are three tips for making your transition to virtual networking a success.Use the right type of hardware underlayA modern and scalable networking underlay can make all the difference in delivering the key benefits of an NSX deployment. Network virtualization is all about escaping the confines of the past. The last thing you’d want to do is run virtualized networking in a restrictive, proprietary environment that undercuts openness and is costly to maintain. Dell EMC Open Networking breaks the traditional proprietary networking barrier by disaggregating the hardware from the software, offering customers a choice in operating systems, hypervisors and services. And it offers this openness in a simple hardware configuration using fixed form-factor switches in 1 or 2 RU instead of a large switch chassis with slots that may never be used.Dell EMC Open Networking with VMware NSX combines the new paradigm of a virtualized network with a new paradigm for networking through disaggregation. Companies are using these two new paradigms to deliver superior security and network visibility, simplified and accelerated time to deployment, and the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) for NSX deployments in the industry.Enhance security with micro-segmentation and deep visibilityEvolving security threats put everything at risk, including your network. With the Dell EMC Open Network platform and VMware NSX, you can protect data through embedded security for both the physical and virtual layers.Virtualization of the network with VMware NSX offers software-based data center security using micro-segmentation and Zero Trust protection that is pervasive, granular and cost-effective. Open Networking provides exceptional visibility from the network core down to the user hardware. Combining NSX and Open Networking enables a much-higher level of networking security than previously available at an affordable cost.Choose a good reference architectureReference architectures can save you time and money and reduce risk because they are predesigned and pretested. A multi-tenant reference architecture is now available for a scalable solution using Dell EMC technologies, including Open Networking running Dell OS9 software and the VMware NSX network virtualization solution. This reference architecture is deployed on top of Dell EMC end-to-end infrastructure using Dell EMC Open Networking switches and Dell EMC servers.With Dell EMC, you also have a single point of contact for Dell EMC networking virtualization deployments. Dell EMC provides expert help in deploying virtual networking from initial planning to implementation.Ready to learn about virtualizing your network using VMware NSX and Dell EMC Open Networking? Download the white paper here.
“I’m changing gender. Will Dell support me in this? Will Dell still support me having a customer-facing role?”It’s been a while since I started working for Dell. It’s been seventeen years, so quite a while, really. Work is an important part of my life, along with my family, and so the ubiquitous “work-life balance” is key. After fourteen years working at Dell, an opportunity presented itself to work at another tech company, and I took it.After a couple of years away, my good Dell buddies were wondering if I might be interested in returning to the fold, and indeed I was. Other areas of my life were changing too, and issues I’d carried with me for decades were coming to a head. So, when Dell’s recruiter called me and asked if I’d like to come back, I had a whole new question to ask, a question a little different from salaries, roles and benefits.So, “I’m changing gender. Will Dell support me in this? Will Dell still support me having a customer-facing role?”There. I’d asked it. I’d actually said it out loud.One of the scariest conversations I’d ever had. Some of the most important questions I’d ever asked.For my entire life, some aspects of my identity had been wrong, and I didn’t know what normal was. How do you know a feeling is, or isn’t, “normal”? Inside me, something had finally clicked. It’s not as if there was suddenly a clear vision inside my head, there was no bright guiding light, just the truth, enough for me to say that yes, something is wrong. I saw a direction, but no path. I knew there would be challenges ahead, and that I wouldn’t want to move back to Dell if they were not going to support me in this period of intense change.So I asked my question, held my breath, and jumped in to the pool.When I surfaced, I was told that of course Dell would support me, if and when I decided to transition. Of course I would retain my customer-facing role, and that my management and team would fully support my decision, and my transition. Yet I still felt out of my depth. Such deep personal issues are entwined with life itself, with my deepest feelings, with family, with society, and with work. Finding the right answer, the right path was not simple, easy, or quick. There was no “right”, just a varied blend of good and bad, hope and pain. Through it all, prior to any decision to transition, my manager, supported by Dell’s HR team, was there supporting me. Knowing that they would not let the process, or conclusion, affect how I was seen at work provided a fixed point of hope.Ultimately, a decision was made, one that came at a price, but one that had to be made. Human Resources was wonderful, speaking with me about what I needed, how I’d like to proceed and at what pace. I sat down with their team, and they walked me through a plan to prepare my colleagues and customers for the change that was to come. They helped me plan the transition, and when the time came, supported me through it. On the day we’d set, I came in to work and met with HR and my manager. My name was switched over in the records – and my gender, too. A new badge. A new me.I met with my team the next day, and, though surprised, they were all incredibly supportive. Some close colleagues had been told in advance, but for most of them it was a day of change. I visited a customer that very week, one I’d met with just two weeks earlier. They too were incredibly supportive, including using my new name and pronouns throughout. Obviously I’ve heard a few accidental “him’s”, but nobody at work ever said a negative thing to me, and did their best to switch over as quickly as they could.Since then, I’ve presented at conferences and visited many customers across the country. I was doing the same work as before my transition, the very essence of what I was looking for, and felt I deserved. Work has been so supportive, from HR, to my management team, to my colleagues. The support I received made a huge difference to me during a deeply personal, intimate, and potentially traumatic process, a life change that is at once intensely private and incredibly public.There are myriad shades to people’s lives. No one experience can be reflected onto someone else. I know, though, that one of the threads that supported my life through the process of transition has been my job, and the people I work with. I’ll always be grateful to both.
Your organization’s global users demand and deserve a seamless experience; no matter where they do their work or where the workloads or data that they depend on actually reside. If you have been following our discussion of workload placement and the benefits of optimizing your organization’s infrastructure for your most critical workloads in this series, you know that cloud has been a constant theme. As we laid out in our last entry which explored migrations and how effective placement strategies evolve over a given workload’s lifecycle, there is no single answer to workplace placement. To ensure you are ready for whatever comes next, your best bet is a hybrid approach to IT that embraces multiple clouds as well as edge and data center technology and enables easy migration between any of these environments.As new applications need to be onboarded organizations must balance meeting immediate needs with sustainable long-term IT strategies. Your task then becomes looking at existing platforms and future investments holistically to optimize for the most critical needs on the fly. At Dell Technologies, we believe that one strategy clearly emerges for organizations to meet the requirements demanded of them: delivering a seamless experience across clouds. By focusing on consistency organizational requirements and application characteristics can drive more accurate placement of workloads to avoid costly repatriation and optimize cloud economics.Optimizing for workloads in a multi-cloud context means leveraging one or more public clouds and on-premise infrastructure together to maximize the agility, flexibility, scalability, and intelligent automation that your users’ workloads require. This modern strategy embraces existing platform investments as well as more recent investments to create overall alignment with your business and its top priorities. At Dell Technologies we support your applications, databases and emerging tech use cases everywhere. We can store, run & protect your organization’s workloads consistently across your distributed environment and help you met on your internal goals. Let us help you keep the focus on the workloads which are most important to your bottom-line by creating a unified experience across your public, private and edge clouds.Source: ESG Research Insights Paper – Understanding the Relationship between Cloud Management and Workload PlacementCustomers choose Dell Technologies Cloud because it provides a consistent experience across cloud environments with an integrated cloud infrastructure that runs both on-premises and in public clouds—covering compute, storage, networking, security & more. With consistent infrastructure and operations across public, private, and edge clouds, your users will be able to enjoy a familiar experience as they run, store and protect any and all use cases. We can and will help you architect a winning multi-cloud IT strategy built around familiar tools and existing skillsets so that you can take control of your cloud for better business outcomes.The integrated infrastructure which enables this cloud control the Dell Technologies Cloud Platform is VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail – a marriage of powerful Dell EMC hyperconverged technology with VMware. This turnkey solution is one way that we make our hybrid cloud strategy a real tactic you can deploy to meet internal needs. With this one, complete, automated platform, your organization will be equipped with a direct path to deliver Kubernetes at cloud scale. And now that Dell Technologies Cloud Platform supports VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 and VMware Tanzu™, your developers will be able to experience this seamlessness for themselves. Supports your end users’ modern, cloud native applications as well as their traditional, virtual machine-based instances with a robust developer platform that brings the power of cloud to more workloads.Meet the varied demands of all of your end users’ workloads with independent scaling of compute and storage for their cloud infrastructure. Furthermore, Dell Technologies Cloud Validated Designs provide you with even greater infrastructure customization to tailor the right environment for your most demanding of cloud native or traditional workloads. That means that with each cloud deployment, you can ensure that you are best meeting your specific business needs. From PowerEdge MX to PowerMax, PowerStore to the new PowerScale platform – all are featured in our pre-tested designs, which come with their own deployment guidance. 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This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. A seamless experience has become a requirement, and location is no longer an acceptable excuse. Organizations today have all accepted that cloud is more than a place; it is an operating model. But at Dell Technologies, we recognize that the workload placement conversation is not completed by only discussing data center and cloud. As Jeff White covered this last month in his own Direct2DellEMC blog, the edge is more than a place too. That is why cloud is an integral part of both the full Dell EMC stack and our advance edge platforms. Dell Technologies helps you optimize your infrastructure as needed, by bringing continuity and familiarity to your team and end-users.All of our advanced offerings are available with flexible payment options through Dell Technologies On Demand. And Dell Technologies On Demand also includes value-added services with ProDeploy, ProSupport and Managed Services, which can be paired with all financial consumption models offered. No matter the scale of your organization, Dell Technologies can help you create a seamless experience with the right technology for the outcomes you are working to achieve. Our powered-up portfolio will enable your organization to support those critical workloads and make any physical barriers invisible, so you can keep focused on meeting and exceeding expectations.For more on this topic, please visit here.All entries:Optimize Your Infrastructure for Critical Business WorkloadsPamper Workloads with Powered-up Performance From PowerMaxEase Workload Management with Trusted Simplicity From PowerProtectKeep Focus on Workloads with a Future-Proof InfrastructureMigrate Critical Workloads with Dell Technologies Services
President Joe Biden says the U.S. is ramping up vaccine deliveries to hard-pressed states over the next three weeks and expects to provide enough doses to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer or early fall.,Biden is calling the push a “wartime effort.” He said Tuesday that his administration is working to buy an additional 100 million doses of each of the two approved coronavirus vaccines.,And he acknowledged that states in recent weeks have been left guessing how much vaccine they will have from one week to the next. He called that “unacceptable” and said “lives are at stake.”
YULEE, Fla. (AP) — Officials say Florida animal welfare workers rescued 26 animals, including an alpaca, a lemur, three mini horses, dogs, cats, horses and a couple donkeys, following a vehicle inspection. Nassau County Animal Services says the animals were riding inside a single trailer being pulled by a vehicle with expired plates when it stopped Tuesday at a weigh station in Nassau County. An arrest report says the animals were extremely dehydrated and stressed. The 54-year-old driver was arrested for charges of animal cruelty and driving with a suspended or revoked license. Records didn’t say whether she has an attorney who could comment.
Humphrey said the luncheon was an important opportunity for the donors because it gave them the opportunity to meet students who were affected by their contributions to the College. Friday evening events concluded with a concert by Bellacappella in Little Theatre at Moreau Center for the Arts. “During this unique opportunity, the donors are able to physically see how their donation is used by being able to meet the recipient of their scholarship. They are able to see that their donations are not being used to purchase mahogany desks or a tapestry rug, which occurs at other colleges and universities,” she said. “Rather, they are affirmed that their money is used to fund the most important part of Saint Mary’s: the education of women.” In honor of the funds contributed to Saint Mary’s College through charitable donations, donors were invited to campus Friday and Saturday during Donor Recognition Weekend. Visiting donors also were able to participate in several activities throughout Friday afternoon. A spiritual retreat called “Journey of Life” was offered to donors in the Augusta Hall Conference Room at Saint Mary’s Convent. At the conclusion of the retreat, Sr. Mary Louise Gude, vice president for Mission, led guests on a tour of the Sisters of the Holy Cross Heritage Room. Donors were also given a chance to pray at the labyrinth, led by Judy Fean, director of Campus Ministry. In addition, donors were able to meet the 2010 “New Voices” scholars in Welsh Parlor in Haggar Hall or watch the Belles tennis match against Adrian College. Saturday’s activities began with a roundtable discussion about the life and character of Sister M. Madeleva Wolff, former president of the College. After the discussion, current President Carol Ann Mooney gave a presidential address to the donors. Both events were held in Carroll Auditorium in Madeleva Hall. Throughout the weekend, donors were able to experience life at Saint Mary’s to see firsthand what impact their contributions made to the College. The weekend also impacted students, sophomore Julia Humphrey said. In addition to spending time with donors Friday, an appreciation luncheon was held Saturday for students who received aid from donations. “As the recipients, Saint Mary’s and the students who receive scholarship money can show their appreciation for the donors in a small way by hosting a luncheon,” Humphrey said. According to the schedule of events for the weekend, donors were able to be a “student for the day” Friday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Donors had the opportunity to sit in on a variety of classes throughout the College, as well as to take meals in the Noble Family Dining Hall or Cyber Café with students. “Spending time with [donors] Sally and Andrea really showed me the importance of Donor Recognition Weekend,” Humphrey said. “As one of the keynote speakers expressed, ‘When God gives, we give back.’ This is true for both the donors and the recipients.” After the luncheon, donors were able to tour Spes Unica Hall and Madeleva Hall throughout the afternoon. Mass was offered in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit in LeMans Hall. After Mass, a reception was held in the Student Center Lounge. The weekend concluded with dinner in the Noble Family Dining Hall.
Wilson, who served as hall president last year, said more than 700 people have confirmed their attendance on the Facebook event page. “If you only make it out to Carroll once, this is the night [to go],” said senior Rob Wilson, a Resident Assistant in Carroll. “Carroll Christmas has grown quite a bit over the years,” Lewis said. “We started out with about 150 people in attendance and now have over 500.” This year’s event also marks the 10th Carroll Christmas for rector Fr. James Lewis. Lewis said the residents of Carroll Hall are excited about planning the event each year. The Christmas season unofficially kicks off tonight with the 13th annual Carroll Christmas, when many students will make the snowy trek to Carroll Hall for the dorm’s signature event. The residence hall will also collect donations for Toys for Tots at the event. “It’s really nice to do something charitable during the Christmas season,” he said. “The dorm community threw Carroll Christmas into high gear about five years ago by increasing the decorations, food and drink, and adding the opportunity to have pictures taken with Santa,” Lewis said. “More recently, we added Mrs. Claus and Santa’s elves to the mix.” “It’s very competitive,” he said. “Yes, the guys will bake cookies, and no, they never win.” The annual event, which drew more than 1,000 students last year, will feature a Christmas tree lighting, a cookie contest and an opportunity for pictures with Santa Claus. “It’s great that we are able to get such a high number of people to participate, given that we are the smallest dorm on campus,” he said. Wilson said Carroll Christmas is a great bonding event for the residents of Carroll Hall. “We had tremendous help from our entire dorm, especially our freshmen,” he said. “Everyone has really embraced the event.” The Student Activities Office (SAO) funds Carroll Christmas, Wilson said. Lewis said the cookie contest became a big part of Carroll Christmas. “My favorite part of Carroll Christmas is Christmas Karaoke,” Wilson said. “It’s a really fun time to be able to just sing Christmas carols with a bunch of your friends after a week of preparing for the event. I would say it’s definitely most people’s favorite part of the event too.”
Earlier this month, the National Academy of Sciences selected a Notre Dame professor to join a risk assessment committee evaluating plans for a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) animal disease research facility. Ahsan Kareem, the Robert Moran Professor of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences, will use his expertise in wind engineering to assess how the building would withstand natural disasters. “One looks at scenarios to be sure the basic safety steps are built in,” Kareem said. According to the DHS website, Kareem will work with 16 experts on the committee considering plans for the Planned National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), to be built in Manhattan, Kansas. The building will house those conducting research, creating vaccines and medications for livestock and training professionals to respond to diseases spread from animal-to-animal and from animals-to-human. Because the NBAF will contain strains of viruses like Foot and Mouth Disease and Classical Swine Fever, it is of the upmost importance that the building withstands natural disasters. Kareem serves on the second committee to review the NBAF. The first committee’s recommendation lead to the revised plan currently under consideration, he said. “In this case, if the building collapses, it is a serious problem,” Kareem said. Kareem said final funding from Congress rests on the recommendation of the committee on how the building would fare in probable risks. The committee also contains veterinarians, microbiologists, meteorologists and risk-assessment specialists. “It’s a politically hard item because it is mandated by Congress, and they want to make sure everything goes well,” he said. “Whenever Congress wants an unbiased opinion they go to an academy.” Kareem said the appointment process selected completely unbiased members, as the Academy of Science posted nominees’ biographies online for public objection and circulated the list of members to relevant interest groups. The Academy does not compensate the experts in order to ensure the accuracy of the recommendation, he said. “Everything is in the open; it’s very transparent,” he said. The facility’s location in Manhattan, Kansas, the heart of tornado alley, makes the building extremely susceptible to tornadoes, he said. “Manhattan is an area where there have been strong tornadoes. Anytime, anything can happen … One must look at the risk … of tornado strength,” Kareem said. “Then we look at the structure to find the weak links.” The DHS website explained that despite the risk of tornados, the NBAF will benefit from this location on the campus of Kansas State University, the location of existing facilities for similar bio-security research. It will also be near a major hub of the veterinary pharmaceutical industry. Kareem was selected for his expertise on the impact of high winds and other natural phenomenon, he said. Kareem investigated the collapse of a scissor-lift on campus that killed junior Declan Sullivan in 2010, and has explored buildings that have failed in hurricanes. He has also served for six years on a committee on natural disasters for the Academy of Sciences, he said. “In our profession, you have to do these kinds of things if asked,” he said. The committee will meet next week to make its final recommendation on the project, which is projected to be operational in 2020. Although this project for the DHS is more sensitive and classified than other projects, Kareem said he uses the same methodology when considering the NBAF plans. “What is the possibility of something happening, what are the consequences, and how do those consequences affect society,” Kareem said.
When University President Fr. John Jenkins announced the campus-wide Advancing Our Vision initiative in February 2011, he challenged the Strategic Funding Committee (SFC) to identify internal changes that could generate about $20 to $40 million in savings for the University’s budget. At the time, Jenkins asked the Notre Dame community to assess its financial needs as “a way to look inward to identify resources to advance Notre Dame’s aspirations,” according to the initiative’s purpose. Twenty months later, after the committee analyzed more than 100 potential opportunities for increasing revenue and savings, that goal is taking shape on campus without any job or pay cuts. Linda Kroll, associate vice president for the Office of Budget and Planning, said the goal of Advancing Our Vision was to determine the “best and most appropriate” uses for funds already included in the University’s $1 billion annual budget. “We asked ourselves, ‘What are creative ways and ideas we can come up with to look at resources that are already here?” Kroll said. “Then we can use those resources to do things that we’d like to do long-term for the University, whether it’s enhancing financial aid for students, developing new programs or building facilities for emerging needs.” Between February and August 2011, the committee, which included Executive Vice President John Affleck-Graves and Provost Tom Burish, identified the internal changes that would meet Jenkins’ challenge to repurpose what amounted to two to four percent of the budget. “[Advancing Our Vision] is really a program of asking people to do things differently and conserve resources where they had the ability to do that,” Kroll said. “As an institution, we’re looking to recapture resources that were saved so we can move the University forward.” Kroll said Jenkins and the SFC appealed to Notre Dame departments, employees and the SFC working group for potential savings ideas. The working group, headed by Affleck-Graves, then examined each idea and analyzed its feasibility and potential for a favorable return based on the investments of time, money and energy required to implement a given change. “Several subcommittees were formed with subject matter experts who could go deeper into the analysis of a specific type of change,” Kroll said. “That analysis would go back up to the working group before moving onto the oversight committee, who then voted on the ideas that seemed the most appropriate and would have the highest return potential for getting to the [$20 to $40 million] goal.” Jenkins reviewed the final recommendations for the initiative last fall, and he announced in September 2011 that the committee had identified at least $30 million in recurring funds that could be redirected inside the budget. Kroll said many of the recommended changes have already been implemented. The programs to economize the budget range from the installation of a voice-over IP phone system and motion-activated sensors on light switches to the promotion of web-based conferencing services and the improvement of printer efficiency. Areas of particular focus were travel, procurement, food and beverage, printing, technology, the University’s libraries, employee benefits and waste reduction, as well as process improvement and organizational structure review, Kroll said. “The Office of Continuous Process Improvement has been working with departments to break down their work processes and rebuild them to get rid of any inefficiencies or redundant steps,” she said. “The Office of Human Resources is also partnering with leaders of various departments to look at organizational structures of employee positions to make sure our people resources are aligned to be prepared to leverage services for the future.” Kroll said Human Resources considered the responsibilities of employees in any given position. “They make sure the employee’s work is logical and puts them on a trajectory of career progression,” she said. “We need to make sure people feel valued, that they are doing valuable work and that they’re directly contributing to the University’s mission.” Advancing Our Vision’s initiatives also helped improve employee services without making any pay or employment cuts in the process, Tammy Freeman, director of talent management and human resources strategy, said. In addition, there was no decline in hiring this year. “At other universities, including Harvard and Stanford, things are much more severe,” Freeman said. “People did lose jobs. Even among private universities, I think we’re pretty unique in the approach we’ve tried to take. “In looking at how we use our resources, we haven’t cut any of our training budget for staff. We’re continuing those programs and continuing to develop people, so our priorities have stayed intact.” Senior human resources consultant Mark Kocovski said his department viewed Advancing Our Vision as a means of improving the University for both employees and students. “The leadership of the University charges us with being good stewards of all the financials, the tuition dollars,” Kocovski said. “We need to make sure that we do that and commit them to the people.” One initiative that achieved this goal was the recent construction of the Notre Dame Wellness Center, which provides primary care, laboratory services and a pharmacy to all employees and graduate student families, Freeman said. Human Resources also developed a retirement incentive window as part of Advancing Our Vision. “The Wellness Center was designed to save health care costs but at the same time provide better services to employees,” Freeman said. “[The retirement incentive window] was actually somewhat positive because people who were thinking about retiring got kind of a bonus to go ahead and make the decision to retire.” Kroll said one of the only areas in which benefits were reduced for employees was in purchasing football season tickets: Employees no longer receive the 20 percent discount as they did before. “Football is in high demand and people want access to it,” Kroll said. “Employees will still receive a discount in that the season ticket rights fee non-employees pay to buy tickets is waived for employees.” As more programs are implemented as part of Advancing Our Vision, Kroll said the University will now monitor the success and outcomes of new programs, and determine whether they matched projections and estimates and track expectations in the future. But as universities across the country assess their economic and financial situations, Kocovski said the unified effort by the Notre Dame community to search for internal solutions is unprecedented. “I probably haven’t seen greater collaboration between departments across campus,” he said. “Everyone is trying to see how to make those dollars stretch, so that collaboration has gone a long way.” Freeman said the University’s commitment to its vision and mission as a top-tier research university with a Catholic character has also made the initiative a success. That approach is driven by the unmatched spirit of Notre Dame and the unity of everyone on campus behind a common vision of the University, Kroll said. “Notre Dame is a special place, so you can get people really motivated to do what’s best for the institution,” she said. “They’re willing to put their personal departments and interests aside to make Notre Dame the best it can be. That spirit was very much a part of this program, even if we were asking people to change the way they do things.”
TOLEDO, Spain – While most students witnessed Notre Dame take down the Trojans from their homes Saturday, many students abroad cheered on the Irish in cities around the world and at all hours of the day. Junior Laurel Komos is studying in London, England, but watched the match-up from Athens, Greece, beginning at 3 a.m. local time. She and her friends streamed the first half online and saw the second half from a sports bar adjacent to their hostel. “The only other person present was the hostel and bar manager, and he spent most of the time cleaning the floor and preparing for the continental breakfast that opened at 7 a.m,” Komos said. “At some points, he would stop and watch the game with us, and he was definitely interested in our reactions to American football.” When the Irish won around 6 a.m. local time, the students had to avoid waking up the people sleeping next door. “It was hard not to cheer our brains off, but the jumping up and down, high fives and silent cheers were definitely still a fun way to celebrate,” Komos said. For junior Caroline Thompson, lack of sleep and impending final exams posed no obstacle to watching the game online at Trinity College Dublin. She and approximately 15 other students watched kickoff in a common room at 1 a.m. Only five fans remained by the end of the game. “I specifically remember being up by nine points with four seconds left in this game and telling my friends to not celebrate just yet since the game is not over,” Thompson said. “When the clock hit zero, I jumped out of my seat, into the arms of my friends and immediately played the Alma Mater on my iPod.” Junior Jenny Loconsole watched the game at her international school in Toledo, Spain, beginning at 2 a.m. Like Thompson, she did not let herself celebrate until the clock ran out. “When the Irish won, my thoughts were ‘Miami, baby’ and also ‘How many non-Notre Dame students can I text right now to brag?’” she said. “The answer turned out to be roughly half of my phonebook.” Thompson said watching senior linebacker Manti Te’o’s postgame interview was the proudest moment of the game watch. “To see any team with such hard-working, faith-filled and overall respectable athletes pull out a victory is inspiring to me, and it’s all the more uplifting and exhilarating to have that team be yours,” Thompson said. “In short, I just thought, ‘Thank God I go to Notre Dame.’” Thompson said the game reminded her of a conversation she had with friends after attending the United States Naval Academy game in Dublin, Ireland. “After our win [against Navy], the kids in our program joked about the possibility of the Irish going undefeated the semester we are abroad,” she said, “and here we are.” Although she knows friends will comment about her missing the football season, Thompson said huddling around a computer to watch the games in exotic locations with fellow students created life-long memories. “If anything, a stronger appreciation for this school grows within you when you are removed from campus,” she said. “And if I do happen to receive jabs about missing the season, I’ll be sure to remind those people that they have Ireland to thank for bestowing their ‘luck of the Irish’ on the first game that started this golden season.”