WTF!

Aight I gotta vent a little, two things I need to get off my chest. This is mostly directed at UT....mostly.

Yes, I am a graduate student, stop asking how an undergrad got an office or is a TA.

Yes, I just turned 22 two weeks ago. What does this mean you ask. That means I'm smarter than you were when you were 22, or I am smarter than you will be when you turn 22.

So UT people....back up off.

On Being A Grad Student

Okay, I'm almost 2 weeks into this grad school experiment and lemme tell ya, its not what I expected. I was starting to feel stupid towards the end of the summer, and I was ready to learn some stuff, preferably marine related stuff seeing as I am a marine science graduate student. I also thought that grad school would finally be the time when I got to learn about the stuff that interests me, and only the stuff that interests me. Well I was wrong. My classes this semester consist of biochemistry, intermediate biostatistics, and some teaching course for new TA's. Thats 9 hours of what I can tell isnt very marine related, let alone biology related. Apparently I will have to wait until I get to the marine science institute to learn any marine science. Maybe I should have picked a 2 year program at a school already near the coast, but then what would I do with all the money UT will supposedly throw at me sometime in the near future, and yes fingers are crossed. But instead it looks like I am in for another year of regular type college + TA'ing, then two years of marine stuff, which I guess is fine by me because of this schools and programs reputation and the aformentioned $$$.
And the other grad students dont seem to be much like me either. They think they are better than undergrads just because they are in graduate school, I try to keep thinking that I'm just trying to make it out like they are, so hopefully I dont come across as arrogant or cocky or acting like I am better than anyone. Smarter yes, better than no.
TA'ing will be an experiment unlike any other, I just hope the kids dont come to me needed me to teach them, cause I'm liable to be as lost as they are in this course, reason number 1 of many that first semester grad student shouldnt get upper level classes to TA. Also I dont know how to run a disussion session, we didnt have any of these at UNCW, so the first few weeks of that should be interesting, I'm just glad I dont have any of those for the classes I'm taking, talk about boring.
Well more to come if I survive another week. Not so much hard yet, but I can feel it coming.

Things I learned on my first day of Grad School

Today was my first day of grad school...well kind of, only one class and no TA duties. Tommorrow the real fun starts with the TA stuff. But today I had the pleasure of a 3 hour graduate level intermediate biostatistics course. First off I have never had a formal statistics course...so I probably shouldnt even be in this class. I was just thankful that the professor doesnt have a thick accent, but he thinks computer program language jokes are hilarious. I didnt understand 75% of this first lecture, but he said it was ok if we didnt understand any of it, but I dont reakky believe that. The class is 3 hours long once a week and it will be the death of me I can already tell. The coolest thing about the class is that the 4 story building its in has escalators all the way up and down, I kid you not.
But I also ran some other errands on campus such as finding the closest bathroom to my office, buying a biochemistry book, and walking forever to get across campus several times and back to where I park my car. Most of the buildings on campus I've been in dont have both mens a womens bathrooms on the same floor right next to each other like most buildings do, they like to put them on different floors and not even necesarrily directly above and below each other, so its an adventure when you have to pee, which I guess adds to the alure of UT, I dunno. I saw an albino squirrel yesterday, it was awesome. and speaking of the squirrels, they are like half the size of the monkey squirrel back in the day at the Honors House, but they arent scared of people, they will just sit on top of the garbage cans and stare at you as you walk by. And I think that white people are not the majority at this school, definitely much more diverse than UNCW, but thats not very hard to accomplish.

Everything is Bigger in Texas

So I'm in Texas now, have a washer and dryer. Got cable and the internet yesterday. I feel reconnected to the world, yet so far away from the world I know. One of the first things I was told when I got out here was to stay optimistic, and thats been a little hard. Life seems to want to throw roadblocks in my way everytime a turn around and have something new to do. Every problem I've had to solve out here has only revealed new problems. But hopefully by the time i go to my first class tomorrow everything will be settled and I'll be all ready to get this grad school thing on a roll.
There are 6 marine science grad students here in Austin right now and 4 of them r TA'ing for the introductory oceanpgraphy for non-majors class, one other guy is TA'ing for another low level non-majors course, and I somehow got comparative animal physiology, which is an upper level class required for any bio type degree here, and any bio major from uncw just cringed with fear in remembrance of their animal phys experience. But even better than that I dont have a lab to worry about, oh no, discussion sessions all around. So that all has me nervous as crap.
The good things are here too though, wonderful townhouse, gorgeous weather, and only 9 hours of classes. So hopefully the classes wont be too bad and I wont have any brats or know it alls.
And oh yea our football team is ranked #2 and I'm supposed to have season tickets and I'm amped about that.

Pictures

so i dont know if anyone checks this anymore or not, but i put a lot of pictures from curacao online finally...check them out!

Texas here I come

So I've spent the last few days really trying to get my self ready for this move to texas. I'm trying to distance myself from wilmington mentally, not the people mind you, but this awesome place...and lets just say thats hard. I'm installing new speakers in my car for that long ass drive and I've been buying stuff for the townhouse, so we'll see how this goes for the next few weeks.

Sometimes I get scared

My brother and I are much more similar than I thought. Heres his most recent post (I take no credit) that he wrote after our conversation during the NBA draft.

"I just have to respond to the NBA Draft a little bit. First I'll say that I am, as you know, a die-hard fan of college basketball. I root for Duke, of course, but first I am a fan of the sport itself. I only watch the draft to see where the prominent college players go, and other than that I only watch the conference finals and the finals just to keep up with what's going on. That's because the NBA is a mockery of the sport. I could go into greater detail about how the NBA is too full of egos and nobody plays defense and the refs don't call anything and it's the hardwood equivalent of professional wrestling, but that's not what this post is about. I found out tonight that starting next year, players will not be able to enter the draft until they are at least 19 years old and a year out of high school. As much as I hate that so many talented but unexperienced players go straight to the NBA out of high school, and they would be benefitted so much by going to college, somehow I think this rule will make things worse. The intent of this rule is to force high school players who would have been drafted out of high school to go to college, but what will really happen is that they will now either A) play in Europe or a semi-pro league in the US (the equivalent of the baseball minor leagues), or B) go to college for a year. For an individual player, this is a great idea. Any player, regardless of skill level, is still raw in high school and has not played with or against other quality players in a quality league. The experience one player recieves from even one year in college is tremendous, but overall it will kill the college game and turn it into a farm system for the pros.As it stands, there are already too many college players that decide after a year or two years that they want to go to the NBA, but with this rule in place, they will be making the decision to leave after a year before they even get to college, and that year in college will turn into a formality. So here's what I propose: Get a panel of the class coaches in the NCAA, and develop an agreement where they say to prospective recruits "If you come to my school, you're going to graduate." The LaBron James' of the world who really want to go pro right away will be sentenced to the D-League, but the Chris Paul's and the Carmelo Anthony's won't be enticed to leave early. I know Coach K would support and follow up on an idea like that, I can't think of an ACC coach who wouldn't. Williams, Williams, Hewitt, Prosser, Sendek, Gillen, are all class coaches, and I know the ACC fans take their basketball more seriously than anybody else. If John Swofford, the ACC commissioner would agree to something like that, he's the one with the power to make it happen. Even to set up at least a two-year deal, just within the conference, would make a world of difference in the college game.The NBA does not exist without the NCAA, and everything that happens here is mirrored there. Just look at the rivarly. I shouldn't have to tell you which rivalry, as there's only one that matters. These two schools are not only the pinacle of college achievement, with more combined National and ACC championships than any other two schools, and an almost unbroken Final Four appearance streak between them, but their success continues to the NBA. As of tonight, they are the top two schools in first round NBA draft picks, and the only two to send four in the first round in one year. The difference? No Duke player has gone on to win a professional championship. The only ones to win any national championships came as assistant coaches back at Duke, and of course formal Blue Devil Jeff Capel took the CAA championship as head coach at VCU, and Tommy Amaker and Quinn Snyder are also conference winning Duke alumni. What's my point? Duke raises perrenially successful teams, and college teams at that, while UNC raises superstar players, transcendent of their teammates like Jordan and Vince Carter. Anyway, back to my point.Since a deal like that's not going to happen, and all the major basketball conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 10, Pac 10) are going to turn into breeding grounds for kids going to college for a year, I imagine that the mid-major and lesser conferences that are going to be the saving grace of college basketball. You can't rouse the pride and the passion that is the NCAA when no one face is in it for more than a year. You can't coach a team like that year after year, and you can't even make accurate brackets and rankings because nobody knows who anybody is year to year, and you certainly can't have a Duke or UCLA type dynasty without senior player leadership. Therefore it's going to be the lesser-known schools that will become the heart of the game and eventually dominate. Kids who want to go to the pros will go to the big-name programs, and kids who want to play competitive and passionate college ball will go to a school like UAB or Gonzaga. These schools that win their conference's automatic bid to the dance are always fun to watch, just for the stories, and that's what the college game is about. The kids at the lesser-known schools will stay, partially because they have to. These schools get less national exposure and attention, and the programs exist pretty much exclusively within their local fan-base. And usually the kids at these schools are student-athletes, meaning they are there to get a degree, and they also play basketball while they're there. And that's what college athletics are about in the first place - as a supplementary character-building establishment. So while Arizona and UConn are making dirty deals as middle-men between high school seniors and sleazy NBA agents, the schools of the SEC (major football conference not really known for basketball except for Florida), SoCon, and WAC, among others, will become the big basketball show of the future. And of course you know what I'm about to say next. One of the most prominent rising sub mid-major conferences in the NCAA is the CAA. Between UNCW, VCU, and ODU, our fine basketball-oriented conference has the potential to become the new ACC, at least in terms of play style, league parity, and internal competitiveness and passion. Go Seahawks.Why does this matter? If you don't know, get the hell out of my state."

And my note big ups to Utah for producing the #1 draftees in both the NFL and NBA drafts this year, never happened before.