Sheesh! It’s been awhile since I have been able to get on here and say a few words…by now it’s probably clear that that means I will have more than a few words to say…Oh well.

I am happy to report that school has started for the students and I STILL love my internship! We had a full 4 weeks of training before the students came back to school, so I was definitely ready to start seeing some clients and getting busy. My schedule is filling up and I am excited to be doing an assortment of Counseling-Center type things this semester–group, outreach, supervision, learning about the afterhours HelpLine…WOOOOHOOOO!!!

As far as fun stuff goes, I will work backwards since Wylie beat me to it for our weekend in Aggie Land…though I will have a few comments to add there!

TODAY–Sat. Sept. 12: It was very rainy and we were feeling lazy at first, so we caught up on some of our TV watching…that was nice. We thought that the rain would stop us from heading out to Caldwell, TX (about 20 miles) for the Kolache Festival…but we were wrong! We made the trek in the rain and found that at 3pm most of the kolache vendors were ready to get the heck outta that rain, and so we got 1/2 price kolaches! We sampled about 8 different kinds. My favorite was the poppyseed, then the raspberry, and the cinnamon roll (although I don’t think this counts as a kolache). Other than that, they all kind of just tasted like a danish. Some of them were gross and we didn’t even try them. I had a major attack of the sugars by then anyway…I understood why they were also selling giant sausages on a stick…something to cut the sugar! There was a polka band playing fine tunes and some people even dancing in the rain! I wished that the day had been nicer for their sake, but there were still quite a few folks enjoying the festivities.

We then went to Target because Wylie had some gift cards that were burning a hole in his pocket and I needed socks for when I wear dress shoes to work. Now I am writing this and we are relaxing. I still feel a little sugary, and am looking forward to some black bean and corn tacos when I get done here…

YESTERDAY: Fri. Sept. 11: HOORAY! Wylie was born today…well, today, but a couple years back!!! We had a very fun day…I get done with work on Fridays at 12:30 (because I work late other days, not because I am a slacker) so he also took the afternoon off and we went to a fancy-pants place in town with a vegetarian menu for lunch, and then to see Inglourious Basterds. (The movie, I will note, was actually pretty funny. I laughed out loud a few times and didn’t think that the trailer was accurate for the amount of violence–I had been wary of seeing it because it looked like it was going to be non-stop…it wasn’t that bad. I did cringe and hide my eyes a few times, though.) Then we came home for a little birthday celebrating at home–we had 2 kinds of pie (pizza and Dutch Apple, which I found at a local place that makes them from scratch and sells them to you unbaked so that you can feel like you are part of the process. I appreciated that. Except, some of the guts of the pie spilled out during baking and were on the bottom of the oven and made it very smelly and smoky in the house. I did not appreciate that. I think our oven needs to relax. It is an oven. Things will fall to the bottom….)

THURSDAY Sept. 10, 2009–Our first softball game was rained out! BOOOO!! We did, however, have 2 lovely practices before this. There were rainbows at one of them. There are actually a lot of rainbows here because there are tons of tiny little rainstorms that come and go in 10 minutes or less and the sky surrounding them is blue…kind of wonderful, in ym opinion!!! Good for leprechaun hunting, too!

LAST WEEKEND! See Wylie’s post for the details. Parts of it were pretty incredible. The dinner at the General’s house was kind of odd. I managed to insult his wife a little bit on accident…but I didn’t get fired on Monday, so that was good. Apparently the hiring of the general as the VP of student affairs is frought with a bit of political drama that is interesting to hear about, if you like that sort of thing…I usually do. He mainly roamed the lawn with a cigar, and that was awesome. Then we headed to the Dixie Chicken, where we also made friends with two gentlemen from San Francisco who were here on business with the university. It was nice to have some fellow outsiders to share in the awe of midnight yell. I think Midnight Yell was one of my favorite things. There were probably 30,000 people there. At midnight. To Yell. You get to kiss at the end though, which is fun. And whenever the Aggies make a touchdown. The game was cool to go to as well. I am thankful that my training director is generous with her spare tickets and her tailgating spot! Tailgating is one of the best inventions to go along with sports, if you ask me! I liked seeing the differences in the football culture between College Station and Auburn. I will say this: The students at A & M are WAAAAAYYYY more mellow than the students at Auburn, and the scene was more relaxed here. Although, the whole student section yelling in unison is pretty intimidating!!!

Well…that’s about it. I told you I would have a lot to say. I will try not to wait so long next time!

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.