17 September 2010 · Comment [2]
Things that have happened since I moved to Texas three weeks ago that have garnered the sarcastic response of "Welcome to Texas!" from my classmates (who are awesome)
The mangling of my car
I got rear-ended while stopped at a light like, three days after moving here and they were driving a massive SUV which crumpled my perfect, adorable little car and it was so, so sad. All the more so because I just got the car in April and I was all like “look at ME, I’m an ADULT! Buying a CAR! By taking out a LOAN!” and then I got hit and immediately called my parents and was like “MOOOOOM! DAAAAAD! Some girl mangled my car what do I dooooooooo??”
Oh perfect little car, I’m so sorry I let you down.
“Sarah Beeeeeth! How could you let them do that to meeeee?”
(That’s the car when I first got it, in case you couldn’t tell from the dealer plates still on it and lack of manglement. I took a bunch of pictures of the damage for insurance purposes but looking at them just makes me sad.) But yes, the car mangling is on this list because when I finally arrived at the grad student party where I was headed and told everyone my sad tale, they were all like, “That’s Texas for ya!” Hahahahahahahahaha*hyperventilate*
No surprise here, I knew what I was getting into when I left California for a school that is proud of how many students it sent to fight in the Civil War BUT THEY WERE FIGHTING FOR THE SOUTH SO THAT IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF! Still, that doesn’t make it any less jarring to see banners for anti-choice protests hanging from school administration buildings:
Also, I’ve lost count of all the “Obamanation” and “Nobama” and pro-McCain t-shirts I’ve seen around campus. Fortunately, my department (architecture) is the school’s de facto art department (since it’s written into the state constitution that Texas A&M can’t have an art department?), so it’s chock full of heathen liberals! Also, sorry to talk about politics and religion on here and get all high and mighty about it, it’s just that living outside of my blue-state bubble is a new experience that I am still trying to get my head around.
The bugs that are everywhere and are slowly driving me insane
Thankfully I don’t have any pictures of these, but there are bugs everywhere and I am not mentally equipped to deal with them so I enacted a zero-tolerance policy within the bounds of my apartment but it’s sad because every time I kill one I become less human as explained in this delightful video:
Story from North America from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.
The other grad students said that you can’t walk through grass that’s taller than six inches because it has CHIGGERS. I can’t…I don’t…even know how to handle this place.
Also, this is largely unrelated to the bug issue but I am having such a hard time acclimating to the heat and every time I have to walk even ten feet outside I come out smelling like a cave person and it is sad.
Okay, that’s enough of the whining for one night. I’m actually really happy here and just thought it was funny how often I’ve heard “welcome to Texas!” sarcastically over the last few weeks, but then I didn’t know if I should write this list because of the whole site URL being the same as my name thing which makes me super paranoid about how things are going to reflect on like, my internet presence and it’s so dumb. But yes, things are going great here so far, all car-manglement and caveman-stenchiness aside. The other students are so awesome and my classes are really interesting and I only have class two days a week! And the rest of the time I’m actually excited to do my homework! So that’s great. And now I am going to sleep the contented sleep of someone who has three more days of a four-day weekend to look forward to!
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Are you sure the “Welcome to Texas!” was sarcastic? You’ve just hurt the feelings of hundreds of gun-totin’ Texans
— Chung · Sep 17, 06:21 PM · #
Aww, crap! The gun-totin’ ones are the ones whose feelings you want to hurt the least! And furthermore, if my sarcasm detector is off, that opens the door to a whole slew of other problems.
— Sarah Beth · Sep 17, 07:15 PM · #