A tribute to first year

My first year has left me with an ostensibly “adult-like” understanding of the passage of time. Every midterm period will last for years at a time, and the good moments will fly by in an instant.

This is my documentation of the good times, the bad times, and everything that defined these two semesters.

Starting fresh

You’re given about a thousand expectations for what life in college is like before you ever set foot on campus, the most important of them being some deviation of the cliche, “You get to start over.”

True to an extent, for a guy like me from a small private school, everyone you meet is new. I’m no longer held accountable for my dumb, silly actions in high school.

However, you’re not suddenly going to be UT’s Don Juan. I’ve tried!

Dreams of a 4.0

I’m doing my best effort to suppress a laugh while writing this. Yeah, you start out with big dreams.

ACL

This was my first big-time music festival, so other than the heat stroke, it was fantastic! Highlights: Tame Impala, Father John Misty, and the overpopulation of frat-daddies.

Mac DeMarco

It was a dream of mine to fulfill an indie-head freshman year cliche by fangirling over Mac Demarcate. Seeing him at Stubbs was cool. Maybe waiting in line to see him at Waterloo was a bit excessive.

4:30 Dinners at the Castilian

Once dubbed the ‘Nasty Casty,” renovations have made this place a dream destination for almost-affluent-but-not-quite-Castilian-rich students. I’ll miss the daily early bird special and deviously empty coffee machine.

Too many info sessions

Oh, boy. The promise of free food really seems worth the effort in the beginning. However, the possibility of having to introduce yourself time and time again? Gotta say, just not cool.

Getting stuck in an elevator

If I may cross-promote a previous article, you can read all about my first-person examination of modern elevator infrastructure.

Late night Whataburger runs

First, it was the patty melt, now it’s the limited edition chop house cheddar burger. I’ll truly miss the face of those select few employees that saw us walk in and laughed at our strongest effort to appear both functional and presentable.

Kanye

The Life of Pablo brought the world together for about a month. Now, that chain of union isn’t as strong, but if you see me in the streets and chant out Chance’s verse in Ultralight Beam, I’ll probably buy you coffee.

The live music

How can you ignore this in the music capital of the world? For the first semester, every song and band was new and headbang-worthy. Gone are the days when college rock was a novelty. If I may refer back to my Mac DeMarco segment, you grow a little wiser and suddenly, oversized flannels and makeshift instruments no longer do it for you.

Round up

So many professional athletes in one location. I was surprised that they actually wear their jerseys out and about. Pretty cool if you ask me.