day of final and first day of austin

Wednesday was my final. I read the powerpoint slides for the lectures, and left it at that. Had lunch with and Marco. It was good. Then came the test. And while I have no idea how I did on it, I am pleased with what I wrote. aside: I recognize that individual feedback is time consuming and not easy. But it is central to quality education. If I wanted to do without, I’d just ask him to construct a reading list and go off and read for a semester. end aside.

Jubilant afterwards, I went to Tully’s to hang with , , and . Chatted briefly about this and that. Went home, played around online when I meant to go to sleep.

Went down to Jupiter with Josh, to save him from hypothermia. Had some olives while we talked about this and that. Then Ro joined us (he had been planning on it, but went to jump the van that Melissa is borrowing from Scott). And much conversation ensued, largely between Ro and Josh, in no small part about what is the ideal way to construct one’s love life. Josh is more relaxed on that front than I think I ever gave him credit for. Not sure about how much of that is recent development, and how much of that was personal misconception, but whatever. Ro, and it seems strange to me to say this, but he seems to not have alot of reality testing for his ideas. Not personal experience wise. It makes complete sense, Josh has more gay relationship experience than either Ro or I, though there are so many different experiences to be had that time quantity may not quite tell one everything one wants to know.

Afterwards, Asmara with , , , and for some good ethiopian food and a definite switch in conversational gears. Still, had fun, went home, and quickly fell asleep.

Woke up at like 2:30am. Did laundry, baked cookies for my Austin hosts (left a few for Ro and Melissa), packed, listened to mp3s. Left the house at like 5:30am. Much waiting at airports and sleeping on planes. Bus to UT Austin. My first impressions of Austin were brown, flat, spread out, and somewhat dilapidated. The downtown was better, but there were a cubic assload of cars on the road, and the sidewalks were empty. Did see a few cyclists, but they mostly looked recreational. No bike lanes. Kinda sad.

I saw arrive at the bus stop right as the bus I was on was pulling up. We walked past the stadium, chatting as he played tour guide. It was kinda fun. I gave him his cookies.

Bus-bus up to north austin. Grab pizza (sans cheese, ordered by phone from the bus). Chow and chat. picks us up to go to the movie theater. We stand in line. It remains unmoving. Sheena goes to the bathroom, and of course, it starts moving. =) Ticket stubs are required to get in, and Scott was a gentleman, and held Sheena’s jacket for her. Speculating it might contain the stub, had Scott hold some fly seats for us, and I went out and gave her the jacket. Sadly, still no sign of stub, but the ticket people relented and let her back in after everyone else had entered. Scott had sucessfully defended our seats, as the orc corpses scattered over the surrounding chairs attested.

A joyful 40 minutes of tv-show advertising (ugh) before the movie. Previews, including a sequel for Pitch Black (mmmm, Vin Diesel with shiny eyes, mmmm). And other shows of various quality. Then RotK. I thought it was good. I still like FotR better, but that’s because I like character development more than (admittedly awesome) battle sequences. I did find my favorite book scene to be appealing and well done in the movie (take that, Witch King of Angmar). Overall, it was a great filmification of the series. I’m sure I’ll watch it again, at some point. My inner pedantic tolkein fan is a little disappointed by bits, but still, ’twas good.

Back to Sheena’s mad phat pad, which is pretty damn cool. I should take pictures. Spent today catching up on livejournal, reading a bit, recuperating. Also, there is a small advantage to these isolated, disconnected suburban development streets. They’re great for rollerblading on while almost everyone is at work. =)