First Day and Game Day!

Just as I expected, the past few days have been CRAZY! Full of going to class, meeting even more people, hanging out, staying up late, and of course homework! My teachers all have been great so far. My math teacher, who I call Gus, is easy to understand and willing to stop and answers questions during lecture. He constantly says the words "Spicy" "Yes" and "Ooooooook". We are going over material I have learned already, so I decided to count how many times he said "Ok" it was 50, in half an hour. My chemistry teacher is also really great! She has a million different grad/undergrad students to help manage our class of 250, and is constantly creating videos for us to watch in order to learn better. Both of those teachers have me doing homework every day, but that is the life of an engineer, so I can't complain. My Mechanical Engineering teacher, Prof. Wood, is really chill and seems to have everything under control. He teaches general mechanical engineering, drafting, and computer drafting. My last teacher is for "Voice and Speech for Smarties". She is a theater teacher who is down to earth and super excited to be teaching the class. We will be doing a lot of presentations in her class, so I am looking forward to the semester! My "First Year Interest Group", a class of 20 kids who are in the same Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering class as well, seems to be a good group of kids. The upperclassmen mentors and tutors are super excited to begin and introduce us to campus. I am already in a group text message conversation with about 5 other kids, and we met up to work on a chemistry assignment the other day. I am so glad I have my "FIG", or else I would practically know no one in Chemistry! On a side note, I have to wake up at 6:30 am EVERY morning to eat breakfast at 7:00 am, to get to class across campus by 7:45. I meet up with some friends, Eric and Andrew, for breakfast. So far, we haven't been late, but we already have predicted that we are going to push the time farther and farther back throughout the semester, until we are finally late to class, and then we will have to go back to the original meet up time! I have also made a few other friends (mainly band kids) who have been super fun to hang out with! I went to the bowling alley last night with them, it cost $4.25 to bowl one game (AMAZING). Unfortunately for me, I suck at bowling and didn't even break 50. Yeah, 50. I had several frames where I got gutter balls. Actually, every frame I got a gutter ball... Oh well, maybe one day I will practice and be better! Anyways, college has been amazing so far, and I now understand fully why people say it's the best time of your life!

The first football game of the season was also today! Univ of Texas vs. New Mexico State University. My horns had me worried, we went almost an entire half before scoring, and even then we let the other team score before we did! Oh well, we ended up beating them 56-7, so I am ok with it! I had a lot of fun dancing in the stands, yelling "Give 'em Hell Give 'em Hell GO HORNS GO" and singing "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You". My seats were seriously the best as well. I am just above and to the left of BEVO and to the right of the band! And only 10 rows up! The student section stood all the way up until the 3rd quarter, at which point we were already killing the other team, so many people began to leave. LAME. I of course stayed until the very end of the game, and it was a good thing I did, because Texas scored one more goal within the last minute and a half! It pays to stay, and that's all I'll say. It was weird seeing the band, and not being a part of it, who knows what I will do next year. But for now, I had an AWESOME time at my first official Texas football Game!

One Day More!

Wow! I can't believe I start school tomorrow! The past few days have been pure bliss, no responsibilities, hanging out with whoever whenever, and continuing decorating my dorm room! I keep hoping that I will be able to incorporate these fun times into my actual "attending classes life"! The past few days I have met people for coffee, walked across campus, then back to my dorm, then back across campus (all past midnight), Kerbey Lane at 1AM, student organization fairs, Start Fresh Fest, visiting others dorms, hanging with the mysterious Luis (valedictorian of my HS), hanging at the Laundry Mat, followed by breakfast way too early with band kids, an honors engineering meeting, a wing meeting, karaoke night at Jester West, visiting the Capitol, taking metro bus, seeing the gym, and printing college syllabi. And I didn't even tell you what I was doing when I wasn't doing those things. Trust me I could go crazy with the details but I won't! Just know, college is a blast, and I haven't even been here on my own for 2 days!

 
         Above: The "Luis"


It has also been craft week in the Katie World! Before I left home, I designed and hand painted TOMS for game days! I am kinda obsessed with them, sorry not sorry.

Sephra and I also created a bucket list board! It's got stuff like go to sporting events, swimming holes, eat at random places, and take pix by stuff! The not done stuff is on the top, and as we do the events with each other and friends, we will take pictures and move the sticky note from top to bottom! Sephra has quickly realized how obsessed I am with the words "#yoloswag" and "Holla Bless", so she incorporated them into the board, without me asking her to! She is awesome! Today I taught Sephra and Eric how to ride the Metro, so we rode it down to the Capitol and took one item off the bucket list!

We are about to head out to an event called "Gone to Engineering" and "Gone to Texas" Basically it is a spirit rally for freshman before the start of classes! Tomorrow we have class, then a million other events the rest of the week, and finally game day! I know I will be busy, but will try to keep posting!

-Katie

Official New Stomping Grounds

Well, it is official, I have moved into my dorm at UT Austin! I am in a newer dorm on campus and have my own private bathroom! I would say I am living the life!

My parents and I drove into Austin yesterday morning, then we went straight to the bank, found a parking spot and finally checked in at the baseball field. Check-in only took five minutes, then we were off to the races to unload all of my dorm stuff in an hour. Luckily, my sweet roommate, Sephra, and her family offered to help carry in tubs, so the whole moving part was easy peasy. Sephra came up with a great idea to bunk my bed and then put hers underneath at a 90 degree angle as well as her chest of drawers underneath. Our dads and her mom, all being engineers, took charge and figured out how to bunk the beds. It was quite the ordeal, but now we are all set up and have a lot of extra room! Sephra and I proceeded to spend an additional 4 hours unpacking and setting up all of our items. We made quite the team, and I think we are both really happy with how it turned out, I know I am.

After the unpacking ordeal was over (or so we thought), my parents and our family friends, The Ebels, went out to eat! We went to Hut's Hamburgers, an iconic burger shop on Sixth Street, and spent the evening making jokes and eating good food. Ms. Bea insisted that we walk up and down Sixth Street to "work" off our burgers. Most of the bars/clubs looked pretty chic and fancy, but of course I won't spend much time there until I am 21!

At the end of the evening, I headed home to my dorm and put a few decorations. Sephra and I chilled for awhile, until some of her friends from her high school called and asked to see our dorm. It was ONLY 11PM so we said, "sure, why not?" Ajmal and Colton met us on our floor (who knows how they got past the ID check door) and we showed off the room. They were quite impressed, especially since they live in Jester West, one of the crappiest dorms on campus! We also went and saw their dorm, and hung out before they walked us back to ours around midnight!










The next morning, Sephra and I were up pretty early. She had to set up a bank account and I am just an early bird.... ugh. I caught up with Eric Mayhew, a friend from high school, and we hung out for most of the day. He showed me his dorm in Jester East and told me that his goal was to be O-U-T of the room when his roommate arrived to move-in. My dad texted me while we were at breakfast, saying he got some carpet and to meet him by the dorm to help bring it to the room. My dad had mentioned earlier putting in wall-to-wall carpet, but after setting up our room, I didn't think we would end up going through with it. BUT somehow coincidentally, the hotel that my parents were at was putting in new carpet and after talking to the carpenter, my dad got two rolls of leftover carpet and hauled it off. After an afternoon of cutting carpet, moving around more furniture, unrolling it and creating perfect diagrams,  I now am one of the very "privileged" students with carpet. Eric didn't know what he was getting himself into when he offered to help so he could avoid his roommates move in. Of course, after we were all set up, my dad offered to help Eric fix some stuff in his room, so we ended up running into the roommate and helping him carry in boxes! Afterwards, Sephra, Eric, my parents and I went to Players and got some fries and milkshakes. It was definitely a well earned reward after carpeting all day long! My parents and I ran a few more errands getting last minute stuff (a toilet seat cover a much needed necessity) and I am now finally chilling in my dorm room. Of course, who knows I might be out again in an hour! Anyways, that is all for now!

-Katie

Not Quite There Yet

Hello! My name is Katie Dennington, and I am an incoming freshman at The University of Texas at Austin and will be studying Mechanical Engineering (unless I change my mind). I am looking forward to my move to Austin on Friday, August 23 and can't wait to meet new people, go to Texas football games, and have adventures!

I began this crazy process of the "college life" by attending Orientation and Camp Texas. Both of these experiences were filled with hundreds of introductions of "Katie Dennington, Magnolia (Just outside of Houston, you know the Ren Fest?), Mechanical Engineering" so I met hundreds of people, but only befriended a couple! At Camp Texas, my group the "Raging Reptars" became really close, and I hope to see them again on campus. We, as a group, took 3rd place Cheer, cleanest color war team, and 1st place Skit! I think that our ability to work together as a group really enabled us to be so successful, not to mention there was this hilarious kid named Brian who really pulled through for the group. Even if I only meet up with these people a few more times during my time in college, I will always cherish the memories they gave me.

Although it might sound that I am completely enthused to move out and start a new chapter of my life, I can never forget my high school best friends. By my senior year of high school, ten young adults had found each other and formed "Big Dog Nation". The Big Dogs did Homecoming, Halloween, Christmas Band Concert, countless bonfires at homes, school plays, games of "Werewolf", Spring Concert, and of course Prom together! It might sound like a clique to many of you, and you are completely right, it was, but being a part of that group really allowed for each of us to grow and express our true personalities. There was no hiding who we were, we just got together and had good times. Yesterday, I watched on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, as five of my best friends moved into their new dorms at The University of Houston, Texas A&M University, Rice University, and Baylor University. It was so hard watching their social networking updates, knowing that those sites will be the main form of communication for the Big Dog Nation members. We have Google+ Hangouts in order to video chat, but knowing my best friends, it will be hard to get a lot on at once because everyone will be so busy and active! The rest of the "Big Dogs" move out this weekend, to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, Sam Houston State University,  and TSTC. I will dearly miss all my friends, and I can only hope that I will find a group like that in college. I know the members of Big Dog Nation will all be successful and get exactly what they want out of life.

I know this is a pretty lengthy post (but it is only following the style of how I talk and tell stories in real life, long and almost never a point to it), and I doubt that I will ever have so much time to sit down and write another of this length. But I wanted to start it off on a good foot, so enjoy my crazy antics as I continue posting and be warned Star Trek WILL come up!