This week the office of Graduate Student Services hosted a wine tasting event. It was free of charge to grad students here, needless to say myself and several of my classmates took part in that.

A professional wine taster came and gave us a lesson on tasting wine. We also learned what types of wines pair well with what types of foods. We were able to taste four different kinds of wine with different types of food.

It was a nice way to ease some of the stress of school. This past week we had a midterm in my Student Affairs functions class. This week we have a paper due and several "reading cards" in another class. It is getting to be that point in the semester where we have a lot of work to do, both academically but also with our assistantships. I don't mind the busyness so much, since it means that the end of the semester is quickly approaching. I need Christmas break!!! With that said it's back to school work for me.

This weekend was the first huge home game of the football season. A&M played in-state rival Texas Tech and from what I read on ESPN it was a pretty decent game. Myself and my fellow cohort members had ambitious plans to tailgate and attend the game. Those of us who participated in at least part of it had a really interesting time.

Tailgating in Texas is different than in KY/TN (or really anywhere else in the country). Here most folks tailgate after the game, but those of us who were from places where you wear sweatshirts and coats to football games wanted a taste of home- therefore, we tailgated before the game. Bad idea. Well, maybe the part where we parked on the top level of a parking garage was the bad idea. Either way, I've got one heck of a bad sunburn on one arm to show for it.

I am not totally sure why people seem to tailgate after the game here. I do think, however, it has to do with one of two things- first, it's so freaking hot that you have to do it after the game otherwise you'll be too exhausted to make it through the entire game; secondly, you get drunk after the game to forget how bad your team is. I'm not sure which it is. My dad tells me it must be the heat, because at KY games they don't tailgate aftewards and the Wildcats are worse than the Aggies. He makes a good point.

The game was ok. My friend Kate and I left with like 10 minutes left in the first half. Here folks who are like us are considered 2%ers, however, I don't think we qualify for 2%. I feel like 2%ers at least watch the band before they leave the game. Maybe we are like 1.5%ers. After watching about 7 girls being carried up from the stands to the EMS units because they had passed out from the heat, we opted to leave before we became a statistic. It was hot! And, standing for three hours is not the most pleasant thing in the world. So, we left, went home and took a nap. That's the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

That evening my friend and fellow grad student, Katie, took me country dancing with some of her friends from Dallas. That's right folks, I learned how to two-step. It was rather fun, but I can't say that I'm any good at it. I had thought that country dancing was the similar to line dancing, but I quickly learned that it is not the same. Although I am not a very good dancer, I really enjoyed myself and had a great time. Hopefully we'll be going again soon.

These two photos are from my first Aggie Football game. The one on the left is the Fighting Aggie Marching band- they are freaking amazing! The stuff they do while playing is pretty unbelievable. The one on the right is me and my friend Ana during the game. My face is all funny looking because I was hot and trying to figure out how to take the picture on my new phone.














Here's a photo from the painting adventure- you can kinda see the color we painted it.

Well friends, I am finally all moved in and have everything set up. Just for fun I thought you might like to see pictures of my apartment pre-settle in.

This is me standing in my kitchen talking to Grace on the phone. That lovely thing that all the boxes are stacked on is the bar. You can also see my bathroom to the left.

These two are of my bedroom and you can see in the distance my three closets. I am blessed with more closet space than I can fill. I'm sure I can remedy that over the next two years!This is my spacious living room. I have a huge built in entertainment center that has much more shelf space than I currently have books to fill out. However, I'm sure that grad school will take care of that whether I like it or not!

These photos are from the day Dad and I moved all of my stuff in, so as you can imagine it looks much different now. My friend Nicole came to visit me over Labor Day Weekend and she and I painted the living room to a lovely shade of sage green. Eventually the large kitchen wall will be that same shade of green and the bedroom will have a chocolate brown accent wall with a lighter khaki on the others that is in that same brown family. I have the paint and the supplies to do these, I just haven't had the time!

As you might imagine, I've been really busy since I arrived here. It's been about a month and a half of non-stop activity. I started my first week in TX with Hall Director Training and after two weeks of that the exhaustive work began. RA training started and we began preparing the hall for opening. Opening day went really well. We weren't ever really busy and I only had to handle one parent issue the whole week. It was such a blessing because life in Hobby hasn't been that peaceful since! I have to admit, however, that I missed the chaotic energy of good ol' Wright/Maddox move in days- it doesn't quite seem like move in day when you get to spend the entire day on the couch in an air conditioned room.

My residents are great and so are my RAs- spontaneity seems to be the hallmark of our building this year. I've only had a few issues with residents, a staffing issue and some off-the-wall maintenance problems. The oddest thing I've had to handle so far was a room flooding from a sprinkler outside it's window- the window was closed too, figure that one out! My RAs and I couldn't help but laugh at the situation (of course this happened at 12:30 a.m. when no landscapers are around) but the poor resident didn't think it was so funny. Maybe he will soon. The other oddity has been rumors going around campus about me firing RAs with post-it notes- even though A&M is a huge campus it certainly has some of the same characteristics of smaller schools!

I am enjoying my classes for the most part. It is much more fun to study something that you are actually interested in rather than something you have to study to graduate. Granted, that doesn't mean that I actually study any more than I used to- some habits seem to be hard to break! I told myself that I would stay on top of reading and other assignments, but like always that hasn't happened yet- maybe by the time I graduate from A&M I'll have that "skill" under my belt. Don't count on it though.

Texas is pretty cool so far and by that I am not referring to the temperature. There are some decent restaurants here and we (my Cohort and I) have had fun getting to know the town. College Station really isn't as small as everyone says that it is- there are more stores and things here than my hometown so I think I can handle the "smallness". It's definitely not Nashville though. Things here are really different than back home- for example people here drive trucks just for the sake of driving trucks. And when I say trucks- I mean the huge ones you can't see around in traffic. I would say that more of my residents drive massive trucks than know the appropriate uses of 4-wheel drive. I suppose it's true that everything really is bigger in Texas.

The heat here isn’t unbearable- by the way. It is much hotter here however it is also much less humid. I would take the heat over the humidity any day.

When my friend Nicole came to visit I picked her up at the airport in Houston and she and I spent the day in the city. Most of our day consisted of being stuck in Ikea (which was pleasurable) or being stuck in traffic (which was not). If we were actually moving in traffic it's pretty safe to say that we were lost. There were moments when we thought we might actually die in Houston. But, we finally made it out, but not without some good laughs and some good Ikea purchases. I'm going to have to go back there again (mainly to Ikea), but next time with someone who actually knows how to navigate the city.

To all my Nashville friends, I miss you a lot. I have still not found a suitable replacement for Bongo or Pancake Pantry, but I have found a great SATCO like establishment that has some great tortillas. Also, Freebirds definitely lives up to it's reputation. I have to admit, though, that there aren't any BBQ places here quite as good as Judge Beans, (if their are I haven't found them) but I suppose Rudy's will suffice. Anyway, I am planning to come visit in October Fall Follies weekend, so make sure you have time to see me!

FYI- I had to get a new cell phone- long, long story (no worries, flushing was not involved this time around). So It's a new number and I just haven't gotten around to calling everyone yet. If you haven't talked to me recently, send me an e-mail and I'll give you the new number.

Much love my friends. I must return to writing my first grad school paper (it’s due Wednesday so I guess I’m getting better- normally I wouldn’t have started until Tuesday night). I hope not to take so long to update you next time, I'm sure you were going crazy waiting!

Miss ya'll let me know what's going on in your lives!

Hi friends! This blog will be my way of keeping up with my friends and family during my graduate studies adventures at Texas A&M! Gig Em' Aggies!!

I'll be moving to College Station Wednesday, so be praying for safe travels!