Things…

I have been thinking of what to add to this post most of the summer, so I suppose it is finally time to write it. The following are things I learned while in Texas. (I will probably add as I think of more).

** Disclaimer: As it has been pointed out to me numerous times this summer I am “clearly not from Texas”… In fact, before May 19, 2011 I never once stepped foot in Texas. I totally own that these observations are biased due to my outsider’s perspective and are very likely generalizations. I am not intending to be offensive, but it might happen.

So, I present to you Things I have learned in Texas….

Driving:

Texans love pickup trucks. I mean, I probably should have known this before I got here, but it is true I have seen more trucks in Texas then I have probably ever seen in my life. These are no ordinary sized trucks either I swear everyone has  4-door F150.

Texans love U-turns. Again, I have witnessed more U-turns in the few months I have been here than I have ever seen in Illinois.

The reflectors in the middle of the roads are raised above the ground slightly, I swear in IL they are sunken to be the same level as the road.. I will have to check to make sure I am right on this one.

Texas roads are weird. First of all they have weird names like F and B Road, or they include a lot of numbers like Farm to Market Rd. 2818. Also, sometimes you think  you are on a highway (indicated by number of lanes and/or speed limit… and then suddenly there is a stoplight. It is really strange.

Clothing:

I must say I have experienced some fascinating fashion trends here in Texas.

Texas moms particularly have interesting fashion sense. There were quite a few moms who THINK they could be mistaken for their daughter’s sister and insist on dressing like an 18 year. Not ok.

Texans (especially Texas Moms) love rhinestones. On everything. Shoes, jewelry, shirts, jeans… everything. must. be. bedazzled.

Texans love boat shoes. I swear everyone here has a pair of Sperry top siders. I wonder how many of them actually own a boat.

Girls here love running shorts. Seriously, every A&M female student wears running shorts and t-shirts, when they are not running.

Jesus:

Texans love Jesus. Obviously a lot of people love Jesus, but not they way Texans do. Almost every student I met goes to church regularly, is part of a bible study, etc.

Crosses are a fashion/decoration statement… and not necessarily religiously affiliated. Everyone has a cross (many of which are bedazzled). I have been told that in Texas a cross is the standard gift.. equivalent to candles or bath products in Illinois.

Other:

Texas is hot. Duh. But no, seriously it is hot.

Because Texas is hot, it is okay to sweat. Everyone does it. 

Everyone in Texas carries a cup/water bottle/mug/ whatever. Hydration is important.

How to handle heat exhaustion… I made it without experiencing it myself, but know what to do in case it happens!

People say some weird things. Like “fixin” and “ters” (which I learned is East Texas for TOURS). But people think I have an accent. Whatever.

Texas at night is beautiful. There is something about the way it feels/smells I will never forget it.

Trying new things is so worth it. I learned to step outside my comfort zone and do something I think I might not like.

There are some good looking (and incredibly nice) men in Texas.. just saying.

I kinda love Texas.

Food:

Everything really is bigger in Texas. Especially food portions.

Texans love meat. For real.

Texans love fried things. Chicken fried steak, chicken fried chicken.

Things I Did Not Learn In Texas:

How to say no to Sbisa dining hall cookies. Seriously, so delish.

How to sleep comfortably in a Twin XL bed.

How to enjoy cold showers (no hot water for a month and a half).

“But if you never try, you’ll never know”

My apologies to my blog readers (aka mom and dad) for the lack of updates. So here it goes… fitting over a month into one probably long update.

So to start out, A&M updates.

As I kind of anticipated, I have absolutely fallen in love with this school. Even though some people challenged my decision to do my internship at a large school, I feel as though my experience here has really confirmed that I do want to work at a large institution. I understand that it may be harder to find a job doing what I really want to do (working with first year students) at first, and that I may have to work at a smaller school to start. However, long term I would like to work for a large institution and will not give up on that dream. Only being about five to six months away from starting my job search is terrifying and exciting all at the same time. I am so blessed to have had this opportunity and will be forever thankful that the NSP office offered me this position (especially when A&M was my one “it will never happen” application— I guess sometimes we do get what we want). I love the crazy traditions here, and really admire the contagious school spirit. If I had an opportunity to come back to College Station to work full-time I think I would take it (plus I am interested in their PhD program).

Since the last time I updated I did a few things that are worthy of mentioning.

1. The NSP staff (minus Meredith who was in Destin, FL) went to the University of Houston to observe their orientation program. It was fun to go through an orientation that I was not all invested in, as it was easy to look at it very objectively. Though we did not see much of Houston other than the university and the restaurant we ate dinner at (which was an adventure in itself due to the waiter spilling my water on my plate, excessive sweating), it seemed like a great city.

Here is the NSP staff in the bookstore of U of H. We pictured messaged this to Meredith to wish her son Jackson a happy first birthday! 

Also, because I am excellent at creeping Facebook I found this picture from the pep rally at U of H’s orientation. NSP staff can be spotted on the top row :).

2. I was a little sad about spending my birthday 1,000 miles away from my friends and family, but I had a fantastic birthday here in Aggieland. My co-workers remembered me mentioning my love for “Ammie cake” (aka Texas Sheet Cake) and made sure to have it at our staff meeting. Funny story, apparently no one in Texas is aware of this cake and all claim it must be a “northern thing”. More research will have to be done to determine why this delicious cake is at all associated with Texas. Anyway, I started my birthday with check-in for conferences at Kyle Field. Not a bad start to my 23rd year! The Check-in OLs sang happy birthday to me, and I was required to wear a birthday sticker all day. I ended my birthday with online class with my cohort friends. Overall, it was a great birthday!

3. In the past month I also went on a leadership retreat with my students. As part of my co-advising duties I was able to choose weather I wanted to oversee the students on the leadership retreat committee or the banquet committee. I felt as though there was a little more weight to carry with the leadership retreat as it is an important part of training/development for the OLs— so I challenged myself by joining that committee. Really my students did all of the planning, and they totally rocked. I was so proud of everything they did, and was happy I got to go as it was my first time meeting most of the OLs (there are 80 students, and I really only see them in passing at conference events). Below are some photos one of my fabulous students took at the retreat.

My group figuring out how to get everyone (and a “vaccine”) to an unpictured hulahoop island.

Group jumproping.

In the afternoon of the retreat we did a high ropes course. I was a little nervous, but I felt like I should participate in order to set an example for my students. I have no pictures of that portion as we all had specific jobs in order to belay our teammates. I did take a picture of the course we did after we finished. It is hard to tell from this picture, but we had to climb up a pole and then walk across the inclined log. After reaching the other end we climbed a little higher and walked across a wire to the other end. It was a lot of fun!

4. I recently had the chance to meet the Texas A&M Yell Leaders. They do a yell practice at our orientation sessions, and are fun guys (and also pretty much A&M celebrities). For more info about this tradition go to yell.tamu.edu.

The Fourth of July was pretty uneventful here. Most of Texas was unable to have fireworks due to the ridiculous drought. I was able to get some homework done which was great, as the due dates for everything are quickly approaching. I was also able to get out of my room a bit to meet up with a friend of a friend, who was also nice enough to take me to a cook out today with his church group. I of course brought my own veggie burger with me as I am likely the only person in the state of Texas who does not eat meat. 

Speaking of not eating meat, I was going to go into my observations of Texas after I did my A&M updates, but it is 12:30 and I have work tomorrow. So, to be continued… next up my outsider observations (and some generalizations) about the great state of Texas (I’ll do this tomorrow, I promise!). 

Weekend in College Station

This was my first long weekend in College Station. I didn’t have many plans and wasn’t sure what I would do, but overall it was a great weekend. 

Highlights of the weekend include (unfortunately without pictures, I must get better at documented this):

* 5 mile bike ride— found some better areas of campus to ride too, but a wind advisory all weekend (25-30 mph winds) made it difficult to ride

* Dinner with Nick and Lindsay— at Wings N More more chicken, I have seriously eaten more chicken in the past two weeks then I have in probably the last 2 months. So much for going completely veggie, maybe after Texas

* Breakfast with Nick and Logan (Hullabaloo Diner— where breakfast burritos and pancakes come in enormous portions, but the french toast is just right)

* Intern/GA Pool Parties— we spent some time by the pool Sunday night and today I managed to get some sun without totally burning myself, after 22 years I am finally learning proper sunscreen techniques— only burnt my legs!

* My first Texas snow cone— I know what all my midwestern friends are thinking, but just go with me on this one. Texas snow cones are NOTHING like the ones in IL. They are actually delicious! 

* Bridesmaids— Seriously, Kristen Wiig is my favorite. I want to be friends with her. Not to mention movies in college station are $3.75!!!!

Overall, excellent weekend! This should be a crazy week as we have our first Freshmen New Student Conference. 700 students and their parents, bring it!

Week One

Howdy!  I survived my first week of my internship, and have officially been in College Station for a week. So far, I really like working at A&M and have really enjoyed Texas. The weather has been fantastic, 85 and sunny almost every day, but I keep getting warned it will not last and soon it will be 100+ degrees and HOT! I have a better idea of what I will be doing this summer, and while I knew this was going to be a great internship, I am truly getting some amazing experiences.

I will be doing three different things while I am here at A&M:

First, I will be working with New Student Programs. I will be co-advising the orientation leaders, working New Student Conferences, co-chairing the committee for Gig ‘Em Week (welcome week), doing some publications work, and anything else that comes up.

Because the president of NODA works in the Vice Presidents Office here, I will also be doing a project with her for the association. It sounds like I will be working on an online orientation training for new members of the organization. I will admit this project is a bit intimidating, and not something I know a lot about but it will certainly be an amazing experience to do a project that has the potential to have a huge impact on the entire organization. 

Lastly, I will be working with Residence Life to do a project. I will be doing some benchmarking and looking at the training A&M has for RAs, RDs, and professional staff. I am glad I will have the opportunity to work on some training, since I am definitely interested in selection, training and evaluation. The woman I am working with in ResLife seems like she will be a wonderful resource, and she is really wanting me to get a lot out of the work I am doing. She stressed numerous times that this project would help their office revamp training, but would also be something that would set me apart next year when job searching because of the level of assessment I will be doing. I can certainly get on board with that! 

Needless to say, I am extremely excited! The students I am working with (execs. of AOLP) are some of the most invested, motivated and caring students I have ever met. I am really excited to see them work this summer and see the hard work they put in all year pay off. Monday night is our first pre-conference and Tuesday kicks off our first New Student Conference. I have worked with the students the last two days for “intensive training days” which entails a lot of prepping for conferences. They had dinner gatherings on Thursday and Friday, which I’m glad I could be a part of. On Thursday they did a “warm fuzzy” activity in which they each had a canvas with a picture of their group. They were asked to paint something on everyones canvas to leave a mark. I was asked to participate, which was a bit awkward considering I met most of them that day, but it was fun. Here was the end result of my canvas, they did a great job… I love it:

I went for my first bike ride today. I can’t seem to find any bike paths, so I will have to get road riding. I only did 6.5 miles today, but am hoping to do more as I get more familiar with the area. I took a quick picture of Kyle Field on my ride today. My office is right next the stadium (this makes it pretty difficult to get lost, considering the size of the field). 

Maybe tomorrow, I will get out with my camera to get better pictures of campus.

And here are the long awaiting pictures of my room (okay, mom is the only one who is probably waiting):

Blurry, from my door:

My bathroom, which I am too claustrophobic to close the door in:

Sink Area: 

Main area:

Desk:

Fridge/ Tv— The door goes to a shared living room kitchen area:

I think that’s all for now! 

Officially in Aggie Land!

So, I wasn’t able to update the last couple days because of some internet issues.. but I am officially online and excited to share all that I have been doing. 

To back track a bit, as a I just got the pictures from mom… here are some pictures form the start of my journey. First of all, I must admit that I was not expecting to make such amazing friends as at ISU. Some of the members of my cohort have truly changed my life, and everyday I am so thankful that I have been blessed enough to have them in my life and to have them experience this crazy Grad School journey with me. At the beginning of the program, I never anticipated how hard it would be to say bye for the summer (it is only 2.5 half months, how will we ever survive next year!?). Anyway, Thursday night was a bit rough, but I love all of my amazing CSPAers, and I can not wait to hear about their summer adventures.

And special shout out to my amazingly amazing roomie who got up at 6 am to see me off (And don’t we look beautiful)!!

Also, here are pictures from when Dad and I FINALLY made it to the Texas border.

Today was my first day at work at New Student Programs here at Texas A&M. I am feeling really welcomed by everyone, and as I learn more about what I will be doing this summer I am absolutely ecstatic. I am really enjoying learning about all of the Aggie traditions, and can not wait to work with the student leaders and to meet the incoming students and their families!

That’s all for now!

Driving— Day 1

Well, I survived my first long driving adventure. Before the 500 + miles I drove today (from Normal to Catoosa, OK) I hadn’t driven for more than two hours. I didn’t take any pictures since I drove the entire way, but I’m sure there will be pictures at the Texas border tomorrow.

Currently I am in the hotel, of course freezing (anyone who has traveled with my dad will know why). 

Tomorrow it is off to college station!