Students’ Views

It feels nice to begin blogging again. I haven’t done anything of the sort all summer, and have plenty to type about. You see, I worked at a girl scout camp called Camp Texlake all summer and taught girls how to sail. It was pretty amazing, and provided the exact contrast to school that I was looking for- I was outside, I was in a mentoring role, I was in a social environment 24/7.

I have too many stories to delve into it further, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself, so let me move on to this past weekend. My cousin Bianca, who goes to school in Phoenix and whom I had not seen since high school, came to visit me here at my new apartment-style dorm at SU. We had been planning it since the end of last semester, so I tried to make it as eventful a weekend as possible, and am pleased to report that I had some success.

I picked her up Friday at around 1:30pm and the first thing we did was eat lunch at this Thai food place next to UT Austin called Madame Mam’s. It was amazing! A friend from camp, Sara (her camp name was Pinto) ate with us and I said goodbye to her for the immediate future because the following day she was heading back to Virginia to school. After eating we went to see the capitol and walked down Congress Ave. and I showed her 6th street, the party center of Austin. It was only the afternoon so no partying was going on, but I wanted to bring her back soon to see the contrast between the day life and the night life.

We came back to my apartment and invited some friends over and played catchphrase. It was really fun because I was losing motor control and was gesturing wildly and losing the ability to properly use my tongue. ;)

Saturday, we woke up in the late afternoon and waited for the headaches to subside before we went out to eat lunch at a local Mexican restaurant called Dos Salsas. I had flautas and was very satisfied. That evening we got together with some friends of mine and headed down to downtown Austin, to see the night life. We walked around and got a feel for the weirdness of Austin and then went to an 18 and over joint called Paradox. I’m not much of a dancer, but the girls had fun and I only mildly embarrassed myself and we left at around 2am.

Sunday was a pretty awesome day. We hung around the apartment for the beginning as usual, and then headed over to a friend’s dorm to watch There’s Something About Mary, which I thought was funny, but not hilarious. After that Bianca and I went to downtown Austin again, this time for Batfest, the annual festival where they close down the bridge and hold a festival on it. People eat, buy stuff, watch the bats come out from under the Congress Ave. bridge (all 1 million bats refused to come out that night until it was pitch dark though, and we didn’t see them) and there is live music at BOTH ends of the bridge. We saw the Flobots perform, who sing that Handle Bars song which I know all the words to because it’s AMAZING!!

No, I didn’t see Paige. But I did see someone I hadn’t seen since high school Junior year, and that was a surprise. I also saw another SU guy named Rob, and he was probably actually with Paige’s group, but the only reason I saw him was because he was on someone’s shoulders during the concert.

Anyway, we came back to the dorm and called it a night. It was nice to go to bed before 12am for once.

Monday wasn’t a do-nothing day either, we made the most of our last day together. We had a picnic with some other friends of mine in San Gabriel Park which is about a mile from the school (really nice place) and then we all headed back to Austin to Barton Springs Pool with my brother Alec. It was the first time I had been myself, and I must say the spring-fed pool lived up to my expectations. Afterwards we ate Chipotle and lemon pepper wings from Wingstop while watching A Knight’s Tale back at my apartment. This was, of course, arguably the most relaxing day. I still did absolutely nothing for school, though, which made this morning quite interesting.

I had to get up at 5am to take Bianca to the airport, and it was sad to see her go. But after this weekend I for some reason feel like I’m ready to take school head on. I didn’t have that last week. Hopefully I can take control of this semester right away and make the most of it.