Annnnd... They're Off!

Today was my first day of university classes ever. Prior to coming to Texas A&M, the only college experience I had was the 5-week semester of French I I took two summers ago.

It was a little like the first day of seventh grade all over again; you know that feeling. Nervousness about getting lost. Will my teachers be nice? How will the other kids in the class be? Did I forget anything? If you think getting turned lose in the big world of high school, where you are no longer escorted to class by a teacher and you have to keep up with your own assignments is nerve-wracking, you can expect that finding your way to your very first classes ever as a university student in a huge campus with 50,000 people could be a mite more intimidating. Add keeping track of not only when and where all your classes are, when assignments and tests are due, but also balancing a daily planner of social and religious engagements, and you can bet it's a period of intense and quick growth in the maturity department.

Fortunately, my first class was not until 12:40 (I'm not lazy, it just worked out that way; I'm getting up for an 8:00 AM history class tomorrow), so I had plenty of time to prepare, and it's a good thing I did. Gig 'Em Week has been immensely helpful in finding my way around here, so it was hardly a matter of finding the right building, although the paranoid part of me was worried the schedule or map might be wrong.

After fiddling with my backpack, which turned out to be huge and kind of clunky, and making sure I had all my textbooks, then checking out my bike, which was just brought up yesterday, to make sure it was working properly and to get the hang of it again, I left very early to have some time to look inside the All Faiths Chapel on campus not far from my dorm. I had heard there is a piano inside, and I had the opportunity to sit and play for the first time here for a few minutes. It proved to be very therapeutic, and I was glad that the songs I can play from memory/by ear were a medley of hymns. It was nice to remember that as chaotic as my life has suddenly become, I can always find a center and refuge in God, who is always unchanging.

After I played "It Is Well With My Soul," "How Great Thou Art," and "In The Garden" (all of which are very appropriate for finding solace amidst loneliness and confusion), I arrived an hour early at the building where my French class was to be held. While waiting, I communicated with Austin's municipal liaison for NaNoWriMo about some planning processes for this November, and it was nice to be reconnected with a friend from home about an event I love.

I'm glad to say that my first class ever at Texas A&M University was my French III class; a couple of things made it a positive way to start off the year: First of all, my professor is a very nice woman who seems very dedicated to her job. She spoke in French to us the whole time, but I could understand most everything, which was extremely helpful in boosting my self-confidence. Secondly, my friend Lara whom I haven't seen for three years is also in the class, so having a friend helped make it a little less frightening. And lastly, I love the French language, and I'm so eager to continue studying it as part of my International Studies major, so it was a pleasant and engaging way to begin classes here.

I went to lunch with Meghan and one of her friends before heading to my Introduction to Linguistics class, which consisted mainly of receiving the syllabus. It is a larger lecture-type class, but the professor seems capable, and the syllabus has piqued my interest in regards to what we'll be studying.

Lastly, I went to a meeting led by my Anthropology professor to get his syllabus and learn more about the online course he has set up en lieu of a traditional, lecture-type class. I'm not sure what was wrong with the other students in there, but I thought he was hilarious. He seems like a very interesting, knowledgeable man (who has apparently been working here for almost 40 years). My favorite part of the whole thing was when he said that he thought it important that we study the future of human interactions, especially with regards to the Middle East, since my generation will be making the decisions, but he planned to "check out of the place before it all blows up." I hope he is just as witty, amusing, and engaging in his video lectures. The topic sounds absolutely intriguing.

And fortunately, the meeting was shorter than I had expected, so I was able to catch the end of the meeting at St. Mary's for people interested in the music ministry. The director is such a friendly, welcoming guy, and I am very excited to work with him. On top of that, I had the good fortune to meet two other very talented pianists (and they're Catholic! :D), so it looks like the start of a good friendship (albeit, a possibly competitive one!)

All in all, a good day and a good start to what will hopefully be a good school year. Now I've just got to get up at 8:00 tomorrow for a U.S. History class and then my Shakespeare Lit. class...

Meditation on the Feast of St. Monica

This week has been so full of activity that I can hardly remember everything I've done, but it has been a great opportunity to get to really know my way around campus and meet new people. I'm really starting to settle into my new home.

Home: how strange to have lived in the same place for my whole life and now to call elsewhere by the same name. But as I'm in International Studies and I hope to travel and live in Europe someday, I suppose I'll have to get used to calling many places home, though I suspect nowhere is quite like home except when we die and reach our true Home.

Speaking of which, today I visited St. Mary's Catholic Center here, which is fortuitously just across the street from where I live. It is literally within walking distance and is as far or closer than many other places I have walked to on campus. Having spent most of the day at the library with my friend Meghan, I had decided to stop by the anthropology building to check on a class that is still up in the air and realised that I was not far from the church, and it was 4:30 so I might be able to make it in time for confession.

Stepping into a Catholic church is always a restorative experience for me. While each one may appear completely different from another, they all share the same hushed, otherworldly atmosphere of divinity-come-to-earth, the gateway between caelum et terra. It is so reassuring to be able to go anywhere in the world and to be able to step out of the world into another realm where one can truly feel a part of the Communion of Saints across not only space, but across time as well. And with the constant bustle and activity around campus during this transitory week, when many things are changing, it was a true Godsend to be able to find a sanctuary of peace amidst the chaos, and a place that I can just as surely call home as I can my parish in Austin.

I truly believe that it was no chance incident that I visited St. Mary's today. It happens that August 27 is the feast day of St. Monica, mother to the great and much more famous St. Augustine, whose feast day is tomorrow and whose Confessions I have been reading recently, and her story is an interesting and inspiring one, to be sure.

You see, St. Augustine was not always the holy man he eventually became, and it was only due to the grace of God through the prayers of his mother for thirty years that he abandoned his immoral lifestyle and became a baptised Christian. But beyond even this, St. Monica earlier in life broke her drinking habits when she was accused of being a drunk by a servant, and she later developed a reputation for being an excellent listener and peacemaker.

All this is to say that I could not help but feel that she played a special role in my seemingly spontaneous urge to visit St. Mary's today to receive the sacrament of Reconciliation and afterward attend daily mass. And just at a critical point of transition in my life when I'm becoming a young adult like her own son, charged with making my own decisions now. In the short time I've lived here, I've already had to turn down four invitations to parties where I knew there would be drinking, and given the close quarters in which we students live now, there are bound to be disagreements, so I feel especially thankful for the witness of St. Monica to truly be an instrument of peace amidst a "crooked and perverse generation."

I'll close with a short quote by the great woman herself as she was lying on her deathbed speaking to her beloved Augustine:

My son, as to me, I no longer find any pleasure in this life. What more I have to do here and why I am still here I do not know, since I have no longer anything to hope for in this world. There was only one reason why I wanted to stay a little longer in this life, and that was that I should see you a Catholic before I died. Now God has granted me this beyond my hopes. For I see that you have despised the pleasures of this world and have become his servant. So what am I doing here?

"For I see that you have despised the pleasures of this world and have become his servant." That I might be able to live up to such words myself someday I can not only hope, but try.

St. Monica, pray for us.

Welcome to Life

On Sunday, I moved into my dorm and officially began my life as a college student. It has been a really surreal experience, not just for me, but for my friends from high school who are also at A&M with me: one day, we were talking about college being in the distant future, and now, it is finally here. It's difficult not to still feel like a high school student sometimes, though, but knowing that all the other freshman are in the same boat, coupled with the genuine friendliness of the place, makes the transition into this new stage of life much easier.

On Monday, I woke up at around 8:00 because my feet were freezing (unfortunately there is not a thermostat in my room; don't know who planned that one), and after a breakfast of dry cereal and a cereal bar- as I don't have milk yet since the refrigerator was just plugged in yesterday- I set out with my classmates from high school to pick up our textbooks and explore the surrounding shopping areas near the school and ended up discovering that there is quite a wide range of retail stores and restaurants in otherwise small College Station.

We came back for lunch at the dining center nearest our dorms (we all conveniently live near each other and the main avenue for shopping in College Station) and then split up for an afternoon rest in our rooms. During that time, my excitement was beginning to wane ever so slightly as the shadow of realism set in, and I began to feel quite overwhelmed as I consulted my schedule and wrote all of my known social events for the next month into my weekly planner. While doing that, I received a text from my discussion group leader from Fish Camp as well as my older friend Sam, a junior here, letting me know there was free barbeque and a movie on the quad. However, it was beginning to thunder and rain lightly, so I opted to go with my classmate Trever to a cheap chicken place called Layne's instead, where he was having dinner with his own discussion group.

It turned out to be the wiser decision, I think, because I ended up sitting across from a senior International Studies major who happened to be going to France this semester to study abroad. I had a fascinating conversation with this extremely amicable girl about the major and other similar interests and ended up with yet another contact and friend at the university.

As if the day hadn't been busy enough as it was, at 10:30 that night, my high school friends and I got on a charter bus loaded with other freshmen to go to a promotional at Target, which ended up being chaotic and kind of a waste of time, except for the freebies we received. Basically, the College Station Target was closed to the general public, but packed with college freshman lured in by the opportunity to win stuff in a free raffle and the "discounted" prices. I'm not sure how the managers managed to keep people from just stealing things, but after a short visit, we promptly returned to the buses and back to our dorms.

Universal Studios, Queen Mary, and Hollywood

I had expected Universal Studios to have even more thrilling rides than Disneyland, but disappointingly, they only have a few "rides," and I found them to be so-so. The Mummy rollercoaster was intense, but too short, and the Jurassic Park flume ride was more annoying than fun with the various dinosaurs constantly squirting us with water from their mouths.

Still, the shows there were really good, especially the tour of the studios and backlot, where you're never quite sure what is going to happen next. The animal actors show was also entertaining, and the "Backdraft" presentation about creating pyrotechnics wasn't exactly educational but still interesting, as was the presentation about creating special effects thanks to the wit of our "host."

While we were making our way towards one of the shows in the park, an unexpected boon befell us. A young woman approached us asking if we would be interested in sampling frozen beverages (like Icees or slushes). Normally, we would avoid such solicitation, but it was hot, we got free cold drinks that few other people have yet tasted, and in addition, they'd throw in a coupon worth five dollars for anything in the park. I'm technically not allowed to disclose any informaion about what I tasted, but of the five different Icee type drinks I tried, most of them were pretty good, including (surprisingly) a sugar free one that was just as good as any regular drink I've had. When all was said and done, it was a welcome relief from the heat outisde as I got to sit in an air conditioned office overlooking the walk below for about twenty to thirty minutes and try free frozen slushies.

Since our visit to Universal Studios took only one day instead of the two we had planned for, we took the next day to visit the Queen Mary, a retired cruise ship from the Cunard line (the same one as the Titanic) whose life spanned the decades from the 1930s-1960s.

Upon boarding the ship (which is massive, by the way), we first took the "Ghosts and Legends" tour, which takes you through the swimming pool room (where supposedly the water never drains from the floor of the pool no matter how many times they pump or mop it out), the boiler room (by far the creepiest room of the ship; we descended in an elevator about 36 feet below the waterline outside. Basically, I was standing on a metal walkway four feet off the very bottom of the ship's hull in a vast, very dark room where the boilers used to be.) Of course, they tell you that everything is based on reported sightings and encounters with the paranormal, as the ship is haunted, but everything that happened to us was clearly rigged up to freak us out, such as when the previously damaged bow of the ship began "flooding" with water from outside and we "evacuated" the chamber.

For the rest of the day, we sauntered around the various decks, exploring the ship and watching a nearby modern cruise ship load its passengers and luggage at an adjacent dock. To end our stay on the Queen Mary- which, incidentally is also an hotel, although we didn't stay in it, for which I'm glad- a character by the name of James led us on a guided tour of the ship and explained its various uses throughout history, from cruise ship to battleship during World War II.

Oh, and I can't neglect to mention my short visit to The Scorpion, a real, Soviet-era submarine docked right beside the Queen Mary. If you're ever visiting the ship, don't bother with the sub, as it is cramped, hot, and- most unnerving- "still in operational condition." I had to pity the poor Russian immigrants who work the tacky giftshop full of Cold War-era junk with various Russian words on everything, and I'm still not sure how the United States obtained the submarine.

Our last time spent in So Cal was in Hollywood. To put it bluntly, Hollywood is overrated. It was cool to see the sign on the hill and to walk along the walk of stars and visit the Chinese theater, but the walk of stars is like being in downtown Austin, where it's hot and dirty, not to mention there are a lot of weird people wandering around.

And you know something's wrong when you see Elmo and Barney, complete with little children asking for autographs, flanking the Playboy bunny. Funny, but true.

The houses on the drive up the hill toward the Hollywood sign were ok, but you can tell they're old, and personally, I didn't care for the style of many of them.

We did dine out in style in Beverly Hills (8 miles from where we were staying in kind of the ghetto) since my mom works for Houston's and gets free food at any location. Beverly Hills was pretty nice, and even though it was getting pretty dark, we still managed to see some very nice homes before returning to the hotel.



Probably the most interesting thing that happened while we were there was walking right into the filming of the ABC series Brothers and Sisters at the observatory not too far from the Hollywood Sign. We were very surprised to discover how close we could be to the action, and although Sally Field wasn't there, we did see Calista Flockhart and Matthew Rhys.

Our time in beautiful Southern California come to and end, we proceeded to drive up to San Francisco.