As if you didn't already know

As the title would suggest the topic of this post is something anyone who has the perseverance to still be coming here would already know.

I've been going to school at the Texas State University in San Marcos for the last few weeks now. I'm actually living on campus, have a dorm room, and a roommate (although he is never really around and doesn't sleep here).

The main reason I'm writing this is just to get some more writing practice in. My English 1310 (which is College Writing I) teacher has assigned a number of different papers, writing assignments, and short essays throughout the year and I thought I could get some practice this way.

So what do I spend my time doing in college?

Well I've been getting up early again (7 A.M, may not be early for most but it sure as heck is for me). I've typically been going to the gym on the weekdays which I don't have classes, that's Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Actually I have 2 classes on Wednesday, but they are both only an hour long and are spaced several hours apart. The rest of my classes I take on Tuesday and Thursday, and it's pretty much back to back from 8 AM till 5:00 PM, with a hour-and-a-half space around noon for lunch. When you look at it like a work day that's really not so bad, but it does mean a lot of studying needs to get done. Speaking of studying, the amount of studying you need to do totally depends on the class. For example math (which is College Algebra) I am more than a little bit behind in thanks to not having done it for so many years, and as a result I need to study much longer and harder to keep up in that class, but I'm managing.

Apart from the classes there's lots of recreational things to do here. My dorm is about 5 minutes walking distance from the local park where you can go swimming, tubing, play volleyball, cookout, basketball, skate, or just generally chill.

The west side of campus (a good 15 minute uphill walk for me) has the rec center which has about 4 full sized basketball courts, racquetball rooms, and a 53 foot rock wall to climb. According to the folks there it's the third highest in Texas, and I've been doing that quite a bit. There's also every type of weight machine imaginable, around 50 or so treadmills, a few dozen stair steppers, bicycle machines, and free weights galore. The best part is that it's all free (apart from the rock climbing which charges 45 dollars for the semester) and you can go pretty much whenever you want.

The food is one of the things here that I'm a bit disappointed in. It's not that the food itself is bad, but a meal plan was required and is rather expensive, and looking back I'm sure I didn't get enough. I bought 150 meals for the semester, and now two weeks in I've already used almot 20, and that's been sparing. Next semester I'll definetly go for the 200. There are 2 different all you can eat buffets, and a number of food court style dining areas, so there is quite a lot of variety in the food.

In addition to all this there's also the whole "party" thing. Apparently (and I say apparently because I don't know of anyone who's experienced this and been around to tell me about it) there is a tradition amongst the fraternaties and sororities every year when the new freshmen come in called "Rushing". This is when each fraternaty or sororoty holds a bunch of parties and events in order to recruit new members. Most of them have little booths set up around "the Quad" (which is the main walking area in between classes and on any given day between 8 AM and 3 PM will be packed out with around 3000 students) where they try to get people to join up. Due to this there are a lot of things to do on the weekends, and lots of parties to attend.

One final thing about campus life is the fact that there really isn't ever much time to do anything. Always rushing from one class to the next, or to go exercise, or study, or do something with friends. On that note I'll leave you and hope that you enjoyed this small insight into the new goings on in my life.