So, this past weekend was our Aggie weekend. Aggie’s are, as Wikipedia says “The school’s students, alumni, and sports teams are known as Aggies.” We figured that we could get to know the people that we are surrounded by, plus it was the first Midnight Yell and football game of the year, so we immersed ourselves.

Friday was a busy day. It started after work with dinner at the General’s.The General is the VP of Student Services (I believe) over at Texas A&M, so he is kind of a big deal, and Teresa’s high up boss, not her immediate boss. It was a dinner for all of Student Services, about 50 people it seemed. It was good, free food and drinks are always good. After dinner, we went with one of Teresa’s coworkers, and her boyfriend, to the Dixie Chicken to kill some time before Midnight Yell. The bar started out kind of empty, but the later it got, the busier it got. The first part of the video is at the Chicken. I like the guy at the end of the first clip with the Roscoe’s shirt on. He has some moves. Around 11:30 p.m. (I believe) we headed on over to Kyle Field for the Midnight Yell. I took a bit of video from both outside the stadium, and inside. It was crazy. College kids all over the place! About 99% of people were wearing maroon or white (school colors). We shuffled into the stadium and they had us fill the student section, one whole side. We all did some yells (you might know them as cheers), and had a surprisingly good time. We got home around 2-3 a.m., it was a ling day.

Saturday started with some sleeping in. After the lazy morning we got ready to head to the mall so we could get the shuttle to the stadium for the first football game of the season. We were meeting a couple of Teresa’s coworkers for some tailgating action before the game. I should note that we did not purchase tickets. Seems that one person at Teresa’s office gets free tickets from the sports department and shares them from time to time. They were really good seats. back to the day, we spent some time outside the stadium with beer and burgers. Just before halftime Teresa and I headed into the stadium. She wanted to see the band, and I like hanging out with her, so I tagged along. The band was great, I have quite a bit of video of them. They did a lot of neat maneuvers on the field that weren’t very visible from our seats. Seats higher up would have had a great view. After halftime we decided to see some of the game, and listen to some of the yells, so we watched the third quarter. After the quarter ended we got back to the tailgating spot for a little longer before heading back to the shuttle for the mall. Oh, Texas won the game, they were playing against New Mexico I believe.

Sunday was not an Aggie day, it was a day of resting and getting ready for Monday (Labor Day) because both of us were working.

So…this weekend marked my second week of work–still planning on going back again on Monday–and 1 month here in Bryan! Hooray! We celebrated by going out to dinner at Cafe Capri, the same place we went on our first night here. Delicious again…and a reminder that these 12 months will go by swiftly!

As Wylie mentioned, we had dinner with most of my cohort and their families on Thursday and we discovered that pizza rolls are better than pizza at Double Dave’s…we will have to sample some others. The other awesome thing about that night was watching 4 year-old’s make friends. It seems like they have it right—the eyeballed each other, saw they were the same height, said, “My name is ____” and they were off and running. That was it. Seems so easy that way. Why does it seem to get so much more complicated later in life? After dinner we walked around campus a little bit and ended up at the Dixie Chicken for an adult beverage. We saw many people playing dominoes and many animal heads on the wall. It seems like a nice place to hang out. Although, the college kids come back next week, so we are not sure how much we will go there then…

Yesterday I got to go to “Fish Camp” with the other interns and the director of the counseling center. Freshmen here are called “Fish,” so it was not something nautical, but rather a whole lot of freshmen doing a whole lot of cheering. We left here at about 6:30am and drove 2-ish hours. The “Fish” spend about 3 days up there learning the traditions of A & M and how to do all the cheering that will be required of them during the football games, etc. It seems like it is probably fun. It reminded me of student council conventions or something–where everyone is trying to show that they have the most spirit for their team and some very zealous folks dress up or dye their hair to match. We talked to them a little bit about the counseling center and showed a video about the services we offer. We did this for 3 groups and then came home. It was a very interesting day. I was tuckered out at the end of it, and happy for a nap and a nice dinner at Cafe Capri.

Today we tried the bagels at Blue Baker at about 11:45, and we learned that “breakfast food” is only to be eaten at Blue Baker before 10:30am–they had turned the toaster off, so we ate our bagels untoasted, which was fine. However, since Wylie and I are rarely up and moving before 10:30 on a weekend, Blue Baker is probably off our breakfast list…Then we ran some errands–got a softball glove for me, and braved the “best” grocery store that is near campus. That was kind of bad thinking on my part because it was a little crazy with folks moving in to town. They do have lots of good stuff though, so I will remember that at a later time, when it will not be so crazy.

We just finished the third Indiana Jones movie, and it was good. I liked them all! (The second one was a little cheezy, but Data was in it (from the Goonies), so the cheeze was overlooked, for the most part!)

Getting ready now for another week of working and maybe planning an adventure for next weekend…any thoughts on where we should go?

Yesterday Teresa and I went to the Division of Student Affairs Annual Summer Social after our work days were over. We weren’t really sure what to expect except what the flyer had on it. It sounded okay, and it would be a good chance for me to meet the rest of her cohort, and actually get out of the house.

So, after I finished up my work day I got in the car and drove to meet Teresa at her office. It’s a nice office with a bunch of room, and way too many chairs in it. After cooling off for a bit we headed on over to the Student Recreation Center where the hoedown was going on. It was a quick event, about 1.5 hours, that included dinner (BBQ for non veggies, potatoes for me), a sing-along (three songs that not many people sang along to), a lesson on how to do the Aggie Chicken dance (it’s just the normal chicken dance everybody knows), trivia (we didn’t know this was happeneing), a dessert competition (Teresa made cookies but we were too late to be in the competition, or they were scared that she would win), and a dollar sale (we kept our dollars in our pockets). Whooh! It was a fun evening, I was glad to get out of the house and meet some people, though it felt like an awkward first-meeting kind of place. We will all meet again I am sure.

Afterwards we went home and just lounged around, the whirlwind evening had us wiped out.