Porch Profile: The Women of 231 Irving

By: Rose Rucoba – Porch Correspondent

FN: How did you all meet?
Grace McCormick: Katie moved from Maryland to Wisconsin going into our freshman year of college and I’m from Wisconsin as well. She lived next-door to my best friend and she was outside one day with a Dayton sweatshirt on. We connected and hung out once the summer before college, and then I ran into her during orientation. And Molly was on my floor in Founders and we had no friends and we just talked to each other.
Molly Fierstein: I’m from Maryland and Katie’s mom and my mom and her sisters all went to the same high school.
Katie Arensmeier: I didn’t know her until my mom called me one day and said “Hey, Molly’s aunt reached out to me and was wondering if you guys could go get dinner?” So we went to get dinner and ended up being friends.
GM: I saw them hanging out and was like, “Hey, I know her, too!” And then I inboxed Gabby the summer before freshman year, but then we went our own ways. And then she was in my orientation group, and then I switched floors because I had no friends in Founders, moved next-door to her, and Molly left her floor, too, and we all ended up being on the third floor of Marycrest together.
MF: Katie and I were on different wings of the floor as Grace and Addie.
GM: Slowly, all five of us started to hang out with each other.

FN: If you could give everyone in your house a superlative, what would it be?
GM: Addie is the loudest. She’s Most Likely to Burst Your Eardrums. You can hear her from a mile away.
Addie Rumer: You’re all welcome!
GM: What did we say about you, Molly?
KA: Molly is Most Likely to be Brutally Honest.
MF: Gabby is a teacher…Gabby is Most Likely to be a Teacher Who has Worse Handwriting Than Her Students. Grace is Most Likely to Never Cook or Burn Your Food. One time she put potatoes in the oven for two hours.
Gabby Scragg: It was one potato.
MF: And then she put plastic in the microwave and she texted us, “Sorry the house really smells…it was me.”
GM: It was Tupperware! I didn’t know it would burn! I put it in for like four minutes. But Katie is Most Gullible.
KA: They were debating Most Weird, but that depends on the day.

FN: What is on your bucket list?
KA: We have a whole bucket list on our bulletin board.
GM: We want to run through the fountain. That we haven’t done yet.
AR: Go out to the Hanger together.
GM: We want to go back to all our old rooms/dorms.
GS: I want to go to that little art shop on Brown Street.
GM: The Heritage Center! Oh, and I just went up to the cemetery and saw the sunrise. Did it!

FN: What is your spirit animal and why?
GS: I want to be a fish. I’m a fish.
Molly: Grace said she was a dolphin because she likes to swim. When was the last time she went swimming? Probably six months ago!
GM: Well I work at the Rec. I didn’t say last year.
GS: Molly could be a giraffe.
MF: Yeah, probably because I’m tall. I’m stuck with that one. Addie is a fox.
KA: I don’t like spirit animals.
GS: Katie is a chinchilla.
KA: No, I don’t like chinchilla. I’m probably a koala…Actually I’ll go with monkey. I don’t like to sleep. I’m not a koala. I’d like to be a monkey.
MF: Addie is also a koala, she’s a hybrid.

FN: What is your most embarrassing moment at UD?
GM: Addie, start it off.
AR: OK. This is so bad. One time, I was at the gym and I thought I was clicking the speed on the treadmill, but I was actually clicking the incline. I was at the front of the gym—
GM: And I’m at the back, watching her. She was like at a 90 degree angle, walking.
AR: I almost left and never went back.
KA: I’ve got another one. This involves me and Molly Fierstein. Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013: freshman year. My newly found friend, Molly Fierstein, had just turned 18, which meant on Thursday she could go to Timothy’s Bar and Grill. It’s 18 and up on Thursdays. So, being so naïve and young, her and me and my roommate at the time got ready. We had absolutely no alcohol in our system and decided to venture to Timothy’s at 9:30 p.m., not knowing that at midnight you were allowed into the bar. And even if you were 21, people don’t get to the bars until close to then anyway. So we literally got there and the bouncers felt so bad that they let the three of us in and there was absolutely no one there. We were mortified! We ran to the bathroom and were standing there like, “Oh my gosh! What do we do?” And basically we just left and it was terrible.
MF: My second embarrassing moment is when I turned 21… so I turned 21 on a Monday. At midnight, I was like, “Let’s go to Milano’s!” Go to open Milano’s…it’s locked.
GM: The only one I could think of was that I got kicked out of the Rec freshman year. I forgot to swipe and they took our IDs and kicked me out.
GS: I can’t think of anything.
GM: There was the time you flipped off the chair.
GS: Sophomore year, Grace, Addie, and me were together and I was sitting in my chair and just rocking in it. And I went just an inch too far…

FN: What advice do you have for underclassmen?
GM: Enjoy your time.
KA: We all just kind of like to go and do things on a whim. So just be adventurous.
MF: Find friends as weird as yourself. They’ll just balance you out.
GS: Don’t stress yourself out. Everything just works out. Don’t waste your time.
AR: It goes by so fast.
MF: And…Go Flyers!
GS: Nothing is ever as bad as you think it is in that moment.

FN: Shout out to The Green Man aka The Jolly Green Giant.
MF: Our Green Man is our sixth roommate. We adopted him this past fall when Addie found him on the street.
AR: He was my friend’s and they were getting rid of him, so I was like, “I’ll take care of him.”
GM: We’ve taken him on trips with us.
KA: He lives in a restricted area in our house.
GM: He used to talk, too, but his battery died, so now he doesn’t.
GS: Probably for the best.
MF: His Instagram is: green_man231. Snapchat coming soon.

If you are interested in being featured in Porch Profiles, please contact A&E Editor Cari Zahn at zahnc1@udayton.edu with the names of your roommates, your address, and one reason why you should be featured.

Photo courtesy of Annie Denten – Staff Photographer