Longhorn Confidential

So sorry to neglect you the past 2 weeks LC readers!

I cannot believe how fast the semester goes by in graduate school. Since my classes do not have final exams, my semester will be ending on December 7th!! In the mean time, I still have 2 huge group projects and a paper due this week, a presentation in 2 weeks, and then 2 ten page papers due the last week of class.

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No kitsch dictionary definition today. Identity crisis day.

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So yesterday I turned 19! It was weird being so far away from home and having to call my parents for birthday wishes and having all of my Facebook comments from my high school friends end with “I miss you,” but I loved being at UT for it, so I’m not complaining.

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Listening to: Moondance — Van Morrison (NOT a podcast… It’s hard to write to spoken word…)

MDR,

It occurred to me as I was writing my last blog that I mentioned podcasts. Twice. This got me to thinking about how great podcasts really are. They can be about almost anything. They’re portable. Best of all, for students, they’re free!

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This past week was one of the best so far since I’ve been at UT. First off, it was great getting to meet all of my blogger teammates at Mellow Mushroom this past Wednesday. They are all very interesting and I can see why they were picked to blog for LC.

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This past Saturday I celebrated my 21^st birthday.
I started the day by going to my favorite breakfast spot, Juan in a Million. Seriously the best breakfast tacos I have ever eaten, period. Some might say I had very modest activities to be turning the big 21, but what I have learned in college is that there is nothing more fun than quality time with your “real friends.”

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I feel really silly about this, but I just realized I’ve never really written anything in here about one of my two major organizations — Longhorn Legislative Aides (LLA)! Essentially, we’re interns for Student Government, and we do research and attend meetings with reps and execs and do all sorts of other little intern-y things for them. I’m specifically assigned to Katina Rajunov, admin director for the exec board and I adore her.

Also, and most importantly, I am in love with the 16 other LLAs. Not only are we always doing our 5 office hours a week together, but we talk constantly, go out to lunch weekly, and when our Sunday LLA meetings are canceled, we normally just schedule our own stuff and hang out anyways. These kids are amazing and I’m so, so happy we are together and yeah, I’m geeking out.

Reason for all of this gushing is that Friday we all (mostly all, actually) attended the Celebration of Leadership Dinner which was put on by the Texas Parents Association. Not only was it crazy fun to dress up and go to a fancy dinner together, but it was really inspirational to see all of SG and all of these other amazing campus leaders together in one room. Picture of all of my loves below!

These are the LLAs! We're all freshmen, we're all friends, and we're all loving SG and UT. And the blonde girl on the right in the brown dress is Sierra, our agency director, or Mama Sierra as we sometimes call her. She's the best. Ever.

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For some reason professors like to schedule exams the class meeting after a holiday, specifically Halloween in this case. For each of the four years I’ve been at UT I’ve had to deal with studying and tests the day after a night out on 6^th. It can get pretty hectic considering the fact that most people spend the entire night walking around 6^th Street looking at costumes and taking pictures with random people. I remember freshman year I was out almost all night even though I had a test at 8 a.m. Fortunately I was prepared and still managed to score an “A” but I’m not sure that I’ll always be that lucky.

I’m just curious to know if professors do this intentionally or if it’s just a big coincidence and my bad luck? Whatever it may be, I had fun this past weekend. I spent Thursday and Friday nights working as usual, the parties were fun and many people dressed up. I didn’t feel like I needed a costume since I’m stuck behind the table most of the night but I did end up accessorizing with a construction hat I acquired a few years ago.

Saturday night I made a last minute decision to go to 6^th street and check out the exotic costumes which meant I needed a costume for myself! I had nothing except the construction helmet so I decided to improvise and used a few model building materials I had laying around to complete my construction outfit which apparently meant I was “Handy Manny” who I knew nothing of before people mentioned it to me. Anyway 6^th was fun; I was a bit confused for a while due to daylight savings and ended up going home a bit early but I was ok with that, I had tons of studying to catch up on anyway…

Now that the holiday is behind us, it’s time to look forward to Thanksgiving!!! Lol. No not really, not yet at least. I just survived the first half of one of my worst weeks of the semester. I had a test, an outline for a 15 page research paper and a couple of 8 a.m. meetings and it’s not over yet. The good thing is that once I get through this week I’ll practically be done with school for the semester. Friday I’ll be presenting the design developments of my studio project at the school of architecture. It will probably take at least 5+ hours for the entire studio (class) to present so I’m preparing for a long day. Aside from that my organization is participating in a few events while hosting a “Chips & Salsa” social at the Anna Hiss Gym near Dean Keaton, it’s going to be a stress filled day.

Well… it’s time to say goodbye for now. Hopefully things will brighten up next week when the workload isn’t too bad. Until next post…

p.s. pictures are from previous years. Not just fall 2009.

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One of the best weekends of the year is coming up – the Longhorn Alumni Band football game.  Hundreds of past Longhorn Band members come back to perform a halftime show and attend a football game. Longhorn Alumni Band was the first organization of its type in the nation, beginning in 1967 with just under 70 people. Now the organization boasts over 3,000 members!

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FORGET HALLOWEEN. THIS WAS SO MUCH BETTER.

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