Hey y’all
Hey “you all”, my name’s Brian and I am going to attempt this first-year blog. See how formal that first part was? That’s how I’m used to greeting people…you all, you guys, etc. because hardly anyone uses y’all in Maryland. To us it seems quite cliched, plus our accent just doesn’t fit. I first came to UT during orientation and everyone from around here was saying y’all constantly. It seems that y’all had replaced every other noun in casual conversation, and no one noticed but me. Every time I heard y’all, a buzzer went off in my head; I just didn’t understand what was happening. Who really uses y’all? I guess everyone…for me at least it’s gonna take some getting used to. It doesn’t help that everyone notices that I’m “foreign” when I try to use y’all myself. It’s a mark of social shame if you can’t say it fluidly.
My obvious difficultly with y’all kinda represents everything that has happened to me in the past two weeks. Everything is better, and different, in Texas. Air conditioning, BBQ (go to the Salt Lick it’s INSANE), actual sun with no other weather, the sheer number of restaurants named after people with two first names, the grocery stores, the diagonal traffic crossings, the weird people, the number of e-mails I get in a day. Even McDonald’s sells different specials (namely the strawberry lemonade and spicy McChicken, both of which are phenomenal. BTW, I love food). Oh my I could go on for so long about every minor detail that is new and unfamiliar here. But blogs shouldn’t be too long-winded right? I couldn’t say, I’m new to this blogging business too.
It would be easy to say that everything I’m new to is really overwhelming…and it is, but that sounds too negative. I really appreciate the new experiences I’m having and the friends I’m making. My new friends understand how different I am; they have a list of restaurants to take me to because I’ve never been (Chili’s is on that list…I know, right? Who hasn’t been to Chili’s?). I’m even having fun with the classes I’m taking (yes, it’s school, and no, I’m not crazy. Except for the amount of parentheses I use). I am taking M408D, UGS303, CS315H, CS313H, and REE301. These didn’t make any sense to me for a long time, and I’d rather not explain it because many people will stop reading this. These abbreviations roughly translate to Multi-variable Calculus, Art of the Uncanny, Data Structures, Logic, and Russian Culture. So far these classes have been pretty rigorous (I am already doing a lot of HW), but it’s on things I find interesting. I specifically chose Modern Art and Russian because I enjoyed reading their Wikipedia pages, which is of course legitimate and 100% accurate. That’s the kind of thing you can do at UT, even as a freshman. Choose your classes based on interest, not just time blocks (although 8:30 is REALLY early in the morning). My CS courses are great too, my professors are natural-born comedians but also know what they are doing. And math is…well, it’s math. We all understand what that means. I hope to spend a lot of time sharing interesting things about my classes on this blog, because I want to relate how much I like what I’m learning. It’s really nuts that college is enjoyable beyond the freedom, extra time, better food (Kinsolving buffet wassup), people (so much more polite in Texas), and football (ahh next week will be amazing I have tickets). Those were my original reasons for coming here, and now I can add school to the life that I’m having fun in.
So much is different on so many levels, and like y’all, I will have to get used to it. But it’s only because I want to (I secretly love y’all, it’s so cool in a way Texans don’t understand). And that for me is the point of college. Yes, absolutely you want an education. But who says you can’t also appreciate what you have to do to get that education? Who says you can’t be happy in the place you live? Who says we can’t be eager and excitable when we learn just because we’re still angsty teenagers? Honestly, college will change your perspective on a lot of those questions. Some people might discredit me because I’m a two-week freshman, but I really (if naively) believe I’m already really different. I have a ways to go, but one day I will say y’all without getting the funny “Oh, you’re new here” look.
1 comment September 1st, 2010