July 2009 Archives

I have the distinct pleasure of writing this from a coffee shop in the great city of Austin, TX. I'm here taking my vacation for the end of the summer and checking out the University of Texas as a prospective grad school. I visited with one of the graduate advisors today so now the rest of the week is free for relaxing and checking out the city. I don't know if it's too soon to drop the "L" bomb, but I'm in love with this place. It's everything cool I've ever liked about anywhere I've ever been, all rolled into one. There's cool music, cool buildings and cool people. I'm lucky enough to spend the week with my fraternal big brother Sam (who moved out here for grad school), our good friend Zoe, and Zack and Caroline. Here's Zoe, Sam, and our friend Molly (who was just at the end of her vacation and left today) at Mount Bonnell, the highest point in Austin:
  And that's all. Blogs get vacations too.

I'm in a weird mood today, so today's blog is going to be strange. Promise. I overslept a little, and I've had two tours back to back.  I also drank a Slimfast for lunch, because time was short. It was really gross. Gross.

Today I'm blogging about college students getting crafty. I thought of that title shortly after drinking my gross Slimfast. Gross. A lot of the time, college students need to get things done, but sometimes they don't have enough resources like time or money. For instance, today I drank a Slimfast for lunch. Gross. It promised me protein and nutrients. It should've promised a stomach ache too. I sure got one. A better example is starting to cut out coupons for food to save a little money here and there and making sandwiches for work instead of buying lunch from a restaurant (although I do love some Jaybirds Pizza, located conveniently across Hardy Street). I'm talking about fiscal responsibility. It's an invaluable life lesson that I've learned in college.

Sometimes the craftiness is actually... crafty? My roommate and I bought our TV cabinet from the Salvation Army store for $15, and it only had one door.  I later turned that door into our coffee table by attaching some wooden legs to it. I wish I had a picture to show you. It was my very first home improvement project on my own.

There are even other times when the craftiness is just... unnecessary. Case in point: the turtle angel. Recently, some friends of mine came into possession of the turtle angel. I'm not sure how or why the turtle angel exists or how or why my friends have one. It's a stone sculpture of a baby angel riding a turtle. What? Anyway, my friends found it and decided to paint it a few weeks ago with Brad's girlfriend's large box of assorted art supplies. Here's Sam working on it: (sorry Sam):

And here's the finished product in all its angel-riding-a-rainbow-colored-turtle glory: Okay. You have to understand that we were really bored. Really. Really. Bored. Also, who wouldn't want a statue of an angel riding a turtle? You shouldn't think about it too much. The take home message today is that college students learn skills they need to survive. That's the moral of the story, and angels riding turtles are awesome. Question: If you can fly, why would you ride on an animal that moves so slowly? Maybe the angel is just resting. That's a more likely explanation.

Hey everyone. It's the middle of July. Except for the beginning, middle, and end of August and September, it doesn't get much hotter than this. I thought it would be appropriate to talk about one of my favorite memories of Southern Miss: the day it snowed. Actually, it has snowed twice since I've been here, but the first time was way cooler than the second.

I remember waking up very early the first time it snowed to the voices of students outside. I'm talking 7:00 AM early. College students don't know what that hour looks like. I looked out the window, and it looked like an airplane that was shipping cotton balls had been flying over campus and accidentally dropped all of its cargo. That was an elaborate simile. I got out of bed and grabbed my camera and made a trip around campus. I managed to get some pretty awesome snapshots.

Here's one of my favorite ones of Danforth Chapel in Shoemaker Square:

I got several cool pictures. Things just look cooler when they're covered in snow. One time I went to a party and wanted to look cooler so I covered myself in fake snow. That's a lie. I never go to parties. Kidding. I didn't cover myself in fake snow.

When I got back to my room, my roommates had finally woken up so we went walking around again. Snow in Mississippi is a guaranteed good time. Campus was alive. Families had come to campus to play in the scenic winter wonderland and students were out throwing snowballs or making miniature snowmen.

Below is a good group photo, perhaps the best group photo ever taken, of a few of my roommates and me in Brad's truck. We call it the "Danger Ranger." Brad is the one standing on top.

I feel like I'm not adequately expressing how awesome it was to have snow on campus, but I feel like it's pretty self-explanatory. Snow. South Mississippi. Danger Ranger. Also, the first time it snowed was also the same day we beat Guitar Hero III. It was a monumental day in all of our lives. The second time it snowed was a school day. I still had to go to class and work. The worst feeling in the world is going to class and work when it's snowing outside. It was one of the darkest days of my life. Not really. But it was close.

Hallow. That's hello with a funny accent. It's a busy day of tours for me, so I'll try to make this one quick. I had a really interesting weekend. It was the 4th of July so the university was closed on Friday. On Thursday after work, I drove to Lafayette with Elizabeth and Kyle to celebrate Molly's birthday. It was a ton of fun. We didn't get there until late, and we almost died in the rain on the way there.  It was well worth the trip.

For Molly's birthday present, I pressed my first single as a musical artist. The experience may or may not have changed my life. I'm not sure if it changed my life or not, because it's only been a few days, but there's a good chance it did. The coolest part of making a CD is giving it the "car test." (If you are a movie fan...Once ends with a car test) A car test is when you take music you've only been listening to on headphones or professional speakers and listen to it in a more natural setting, for example on a car stereo. Listening to my own music in my car was almost like an out-of-body experience, almost but not quite. I could tell it wasn't an out-of-body experience because I could still taste the delicious smoothie I was drinking. I bet when you have an out-of-body experience you can't taste things very well.

That was Thursday. On Friday, we drove back to Hattiesburg, and I went to see the new Transformers movie with Zoe, who works at the movie theater and got us in for free. I couldn't say I enjoyed it. I liked the first one. This second one was good if you like three-hour-long fight scenes.

Saturday, I woke up rather late and called Elizabeth, who was one of the few people left in town on the 4th of July.  We went to perform a Southern Miss ritual every student should complete: getting in a fountain. This time, however, I had the idea to get in the newest fountain at Southern Miss: the Trent Lott Center fountain. The Trent Lott Center is still under construction, but most of the outside of the building is completed, including the fountain. The Center's official name is the Trent Lott Center for Excellence in Economic Development and Entrepreneurship. The fountain is excellent. There are two different levels connected by a waterfall that appears to be a waterslide but in reality is a series of small concrete steps. The steps would probably hurt if you tried to slide down them, but we kept our cool and managed to walk up and down with ease. As you may have guessed, I've got some pictures:

We tried really hard (okay, we only really tried once) to take a picture of both our heads sticking out over the waterfall.  It didn't work out so well. However, Elizabeth does make a good statue: Later that day, I decided I should celebrate America with some friends.  We got downtown too late, and the festivities had ended.  I took a pit stop at Waffle House (where George Washington ate with his troops after he crossed the Delaware). We then went to someone's house to play America's game: Apples to Apples. I got four green apple cards, and I think my favorite was when I won the word "natural" with my card "flying monkeys." I'm not good at a lot of things, but I like to think I'm good at Apples to Apples and Scrabble. I love me some Scrabble. I closed out the holiday weekend on Sunday by playing Scrabble at T-Bone Records and Coffee and then reuniting with friends who traveled for the weekend.

This was my second July 4th spent in Hattiesburg, and I'd have to say that both of them were experiences to remember.