#34 Tom Landry Said It Best

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge football fan, and here in Texas, football is basically a religion. Legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry said it best: "Football is to Texas what religion is to a priest." Here, everybody looks forward to the weekend because there's high school football on Friday, college football on Saturday, and NFL football on Sunday. My school cafeteria even makes football shaped and decorated cookies (pictured below). If that doesn't show how much this state loves football, I don't know what does. I'm not originally from Texas, but I've been here for almost ten years. Most of life has been spent here. My formative years were here, so I learned to love the game from being around people who love the game. Now I'm one of those people who is totally into football season and anxiously awaits football season when it isn't. Because of this, one of the things that excited me most about college was being able to go to all of the football games. UT's Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium is the sixth largest collegiate stadium with a seating capacity of over 100,000. Who wouldn't want to be a part of that? Going to games is probably one of my favorite parts of the college experience. There is nothing like being a part of all the energy in that stadium. Hearing the cheers of the crowd, seeing the marching band play, hearing the sound of the cannon go off when the Longhorns score, putting your horns up, getting excited when the team does something right, getting angry when they do something not so right, all of it is amazing. Every time I go, I think to myself how lucky I am to be a part of all of it, how lucky I am to be there. I was lucky enough to be present at the October 6th game against the West Virginia Mountaineers in which the attendance record at DKR was broken. 101,851 people. And I was one of them. Granted I was suffering through the cold weather and wind in the thinnest sweater I own, but I was there. There really is nothing better than football in Texas. And football in general. If you're not a fan, become one. It's not just a sport, it's a way of life. Seriously. And also, feel free to get me Cowboys or Texans tickets for Christmas! I won't get into my obsessive relationship with NFL football. I love it too much. But that's a whole other story for a whole other time!

#33 A Lesson in Psychology

I learned recently in psychology class that the strength and longevity of memories is directly related to the amount of emotion felt during the event of their creation. This explains why the things we remember the most are the things that affected us in a large way--by either bringing us great sadness or great joy or some other impacting emotion. I know I will remember this past weekend for a long time to come because it was so much fun. There were several times that I just thought to myself how happy I was, which made the think of how much I need to get rid of the things that hold me back so that I can be that happy person all the time. Yes, it sounds silly, but I did have this epiphanic moment in the middle of a music festival with 75,000 people surrounding me.

This past weekend was the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival. For those of you who aren't familiar with ACL, it is a three-day music festival that takes place here in Austin, gathering over 130 musical acts from all over the world to play rock, indie, country, folk, electronic music and more on eight different stages. My favorite acts of this year were The Red Hot Chili Peppers (of course), Two Door Cinema Club, Childish Gambino, Florence + the Machine, Alabama Shakes, The Black Keys, and The Shins. I could go on and on about the acts, but I think you get the gist--they were amazing. In addition, it sells food and art from different vendors, a vast majority of them being local. Like I said, it attracts a enormous amount of people. Honestly, it's insane how many people are there. 75,000 people in a huge public park is crazy. But the atmosphere is incomparable. It's almost electric--you know there's something going on there. There is nothing like the sound of the music and all the commotion around. This year was my second experience at ACL, and I loved it just as much as last year, if not more. Not only am I continually awed by the power of live music, but I am also continually awed by the eclectic mix of people you find those three days at Zilker Park.

Another random psychology factoid, the most memorable events in our lives happen when they encompass all of the senses. At ACL, you can hear the resonance of the music across the entire park, you can see all of the crazy people around you, you can smell the local foods being sold by the vendors (not to mention the not-so-pleasent smells you come across), you can taste that food, and you can feel the beat of the music inside of you. All of these combined sensory experiences made me realize how lucky I was to be there, and there is nothing that makes me happier than that. I got to thinking that I need to be a happy, carefree person like that all the time and just let go of the thoughts that aren't good for me. It is for these reasons that I know ACL will always be an experience that I can look back on and remember fondly, and I can only hope to make all of my days as memorable as those three. I may not have Florence Welch crooning in the background of my everyday life, but that doesn't mean every day of my life isn't as special as the three days of ACL. So I guess, live every day like it's an ACL day!

#32 New Places to Wear...School Clothes?

In my last post, I introduced the new theme of my blog, Things I'm Doing. Like I said in that post, I was inspired to write about my new life in college one day in my early morning architecture class when we took a sort of class field trip to the beautiful courtyard of Goldsmith Hall here on my campus. Seeing it made me realize how much I'm enjoying my time here and how much I want to share my time with all of you. (Side note: the courtyard at Goldsmith is a microclimate, which is an atmospheric zone where the climate differs from the climate of the surrounding area--in this case, the microclimate is created by the building itself because of its square shape and open middle. The microclimate is a tropical one, so it is the only place on campus that can grow palm trees, which of course reminded me of home!)

For those of you who don't know, I've recently begun my college years at The University of Texas at Austin. I know I've said before that I don't like to assume that I have readers who I don't know personally, but in the off chance I don't know you and you don't know where I go to school, it's UT! Since I got here about seven weeks ago, a lot of my time has simply been spent exploring. I'd been on the UT campus before since my uncle is an Austin resident and former Longhorn himself, but I was no where near acquainted with the campus when I moved here. Even seven weeks later I still don't exactly know where all of the buildings on this giant campus are. UT is referred to as the Forty Acres because that was the size of the university when it was first founded. Since then it has expanded tremendously, so getting around it is no joke. Forty acres would be a cake walk compared to what it is now. Anyway, because this campus is so large, there is constantly something new to discover, whether it be a cool looking library, a beautiful spot beneath trees, or even a nook between two buildings that can become a good study spot. The possibilities are endless.

I just love finding new places (on campus--not new places to wear diamonds. Sorry Marilyn, all I wear is school clothes) because it reminds me of the fact that there is always something new to see. Even though I may not be the biggest fan of change, I do enjoy finding new things that can make the changes easier. So far, that has come in the comfort of an old library, the sense of home from the palm trees in the Goldsmith courtyard, and the constant view of the iconic UT Tower.

To get to the message of this post, you don't have to be just starting college or just starting something new to find new things. There is new in the familiar. It is just a matter of going out and being willing to find those new things. We miss a lot in the day to day hustle of life, but if we stop and look around we are able to see the cool things that we might have missed out on before. So look around. There is beauty all around; it's up to us to find it.

Below are some images I've taken of places I love on campus. I do not claim to have any photography skills--just a cell phone enabled with Instagram!

Top row (from left): My architecture classroom that looks like a movie theater, the ceiling in the Life Science Library, and the Architecture Library

Middle row (from left): The iconic UT Tower, the Goldsmith courtyard that gave me my inspiration, and the modern Norman Hackerman Building

Bottom row (from left): Lounge area in the Student Activity Center, my favorite 100,000+ capacity Darrell K. Royal football stadium, and the Littlefield House

#31 New School Year, New Ideas

Since my last post, I've been doing some thinking about a new concept for my blog since the current theme isn't really fitting to my life right now. It's been a thought that's always on my mind--I will admit that it has taken a rather long retreat to the back of my mind lately, overshadowed by psychology readings and economics charts--because I do really want to continue with my blog. I'm an English nerd at heart, so writing has always been a great outlet for me. It would break my heart if I had to abandon my Things I Should've Done post (pun totally intended, by the way). 

With that said here's what happened today. My first Monday class is an architecture discussion section at 8:30 AM. I forced myself to wake up and I have to say, I was not excited at all to go to class. I mean who wants to get up that early on a Monday? Yeah didn't think so. So I dragged myself over to Sutton Hall, and the TA gave us the assignment for the day. It was to answer a series of questions about the thermal qualities of a particular building on campus. It was an in-class assignment, so we all got up from our chairs and walked over to the building we were to analyze. When I arrived at the courtyard of Goldsmith Hall, I was immediately taken back by the beauty of it. How had I never seen this place before? It's so cool. I thought to myself, wow, I am constantly surprised by all of the cool little spots my college campus has to discover. I then went through a mental rolodex of the places I've already found in the short time that I've been here and the mere thought of them all made me so happy. 

Of course, this event caused a huge wave of inspiration to come over me in the form of an idea. And here we have my new blog concept: Things I'm Doing. Not exactly the most clever name, but I think it keeps with my theme quite nicely! For now, I'll leave it at that. The above anecdote will serve as a preview for my next post! I hope you all like my new stuff. I know it's not what you're used to reading from me, but I think it'll be a more fitting perspective for where I'm at in my life right now. 

Enjoy what's coming! And without further ado, Things I'm Doing. 

#30 With This I Return To You

Alright, so I'm accepting the fact that I am a beyond horrible blogger. In all honesty, my blog is always somewhere in the back of my mind, but for some reason, lately I haven't had any inspiration whatsoever. For awhile I was troubled by this fact. I mean I'm calling myself a writer, but I can't think of anything to write? To say I was discouraged would be the understatement of the century. I don't want to be presumptuous and assume that I have a ton of readers, but if I do have readers, I've felt like a disappointment to you all lately. There is nothing better than getting support from you all, but I haven't been delivering lately. I got to thinking about this the other day, and I had a thought. In a way, it's a good thing I haven't been blogging. The premise of the whole thing is things I should've done. It's about regrets and wishing to have done things differently. If I haven't thought of anything to write about, I haven't regretted anything. College is about starting over and creating a new life for yourself. It's kind of hard think of things I regret when I've only been in college for about a month and a half. The only real regrets I have involve poor food choices and going to sleep a little too late. Nothing worth writing about. But instead of being mad at myself for not being able to write, I've decided that I'm happy with that. It's a good thing that I don't have any regrets about my college experience so far. I can only hope it will continue this way in the coming months. I'm pretty sure I'll continue to make poor sleeping decisions and wish that I hadn't eaten things that I shouldn't have, but as far as life decisions go, I can only hope that I'll continue on the way I have so far. College has been good for me. No regrets. Yet. Hopefully it'll stay that way. 

Here's where you guys come in. I'm wondering if I should change up the content of my blog. I don't really want to completely make a new blog because I love this one so much, but I'm worried that if I keep it the same as it is now, I'll just ignore it for another month like I did this time (which is horrible, but true). Any thoughts?

By the way, thank you guys for staying with me even though I've been horribly inconsistent. I promise I haven't been doing nothing. Let me know what you think about moving forward with the blog!