Published: May 11, 2008 12:51 am            

Nuggets from my second year

College 201 column

AUSTIN — First and foremost, a Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers out there. Mine especially. Love you Mom.

Once again I’ve come to the end of another semester, and they seem to be flying by quicker and quicker each time around. Before I know it, it’ll be time to enter the (gasp) real world and start fending for myself. That’s a bit frightening. But that’s beside the point, I’ve still got two more years to go, and luckily my living situation is all lined up for the remainder of my college experience, so no worries there either. I figured I’d bring back something did at this time last year, and share those wonderful lessons and nuggets of wisdom I’ve gathered during my second tenure here at the University of Texas.

1. This place will never be free of construction…ever. The maintenance crew is always working on something, be it a new building, an old building, or something else. Their most recent project was to renovate the area around one of the fountains. Couple that of course with the huge stadium construction that’s been going down.

2. Females are extremely protective of classes that seem to be created for them alone. I’m of course referencing the “Women and the News” class I was enrolled in this semester. Most of the students in the class were polite enough, but there were still a select few who felt it necessary to shoot me and the two other males in the class dirty looks when we entered, as if to say, “I CANNOT believe that there are men in this class!” It got to where it was just funny towards the end, but when it first started going down it was a tad disconcerting.

3. I need to go to more concerts. The amount of shows I attended dropped dramatically this semester, and I didn’t think it was that big of a deal until I saw The Raconteurs last Friday night and it reminded me of just how much I love music. I wrote about all kinds of entertainment outlets for the Texan this semester, so I wasn’t relegated to just music like usual. But I think I need to get back to being a music writer solely. I will be taking over the Texan’s music blog next semester so that’ll get me back into the swing of things.

4. I still think I’m on the right path, career-wise. I won’t talk too much here as I know that I tell you guys every other day that I’ve found another reason I still want to be a journalist, but it comforts me to constantly put it in writing, which I guess is more evidence for staying in journalism.

5. I still procrastinate way too much. I didn’t neglect work enough to hurt my grades or my studies, but I did spend inordinate amounts of time playing on the Internet when I could have been doing something productive, like exercising or searching out new music to write about.

6. This year’s Austin City Limits festival is going to be off the charts awesome. I’ve started a new feature on my blog (robnroll.wordpress.com) wherein I post a song or video every day from an ACL artist, and even though I’ve run across quite a few stinkers, I’ve also found quite a bit of good music to make the festival worthwhile again this time around.

7. The story I wrote a couple of weeks ago about not being allowed into Six Flags has actually gained some popularity. One of the band members ran across it and posted a blog about it on the group’s MySpace page, and then some news agency in Canada known as Exclaim wrote about it as well. Maybe I’ll get a multi-million dollar settlement for Six Flags because they don’t want me spreading vicious news about their entry practices around the globe.

8. Spanish is hard to learn. I don’t care how easy people say it is. Es muy dificil.

9. Eight in the morning is way too early for a class about journalism ethics. It’s very hard to listen to details on how you can be moralistic and all that jazz when you’re trying not to fall asleep.

10. I’m really glad I didn’t go to Texas A&M. What in the world was I thinking back in the day?

There you have it. It wasn’t necessarily a list of what I learned, but hopefully it was entertaining. As you read this, I should be back in Palestine for the summer, so apologies in advance if the content of these columns starts to drift into incoherent ramblings, as all I’ll be doing is working and sleeping. Keep the faith though, ladies and gents, for I’ll do my best to keep you coming back.

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Robert Rich is a sophomore journalism major at the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from Westwood High School in 2006. He can be reached via e-mail at robert.rich@mail.utexas.edu

        

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