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