Living in Austin... I see some weird shit. From the drag rats to the transvestites on 6th to the RTF students, it just isn't your normal town. They even sell merch that says "Keep Austin Weird." Here's an example I managed to capture on my cell phone:

"I Brake For Amazons, The only Bush I trust is my own, PAGAN Special Forces, Support Your Local Revolution, No War On Iraq, DEFORESTATION: The Gateway to Hell, Against Abortion? Then Don't Have One, Who Would Jesus Bomb?, The most violent element in society is ignorance."

And a few gay and Pagan symbols.

woooooow.

-Brandon Valosek, Normal Austinite

Damn... can't sleep.

It's more or less three o'clock in the AM, on the cusp of a fresh Wednesday morning, with school starting in about six hours and forty minutes.

Given my current state of tiredness coupled with my apparently innate disposition to expostulate and endlessly expand on bullshit, this entry might be a little rough... so hang on!

While sitting here with the quite subconscious escape of sleep continuing to allude me... a multitude of perplexing thoughts enter into my head. For example, tonight my cell phone's batteries were running low. I'm not sure what blowhard was in charge of designing the warning system for such an event, but even a liberal arts major could figure out that the appallingly loud warning sounds/chimes and flashing screen does nothing to help the dying power source. Way to go Sony Ericsson!

As a quick aside.. after getting some fresh lettuce and onions etc. from the store, the quality of my midday sandwich has gone up SIGNIFICANTLY. Go ahead and get you some fresh fix'ns... it'll do wonders for your lunch.

The fact that I'm still awake can also be attributed to the addictiveness that is online user-submitted video sites, like YouTube and Google Videos.

Just looking through some stuff from the Top 100 of Google's videos, I saw the closest thing to a hover board since Back to the Future (I still want one by the way...), our current Mr. President flicking somebody off, and a video that just makes you say "wow that sucks.". At least I'm putting the broadband connection to good use, right?

Well I can feel the welcomed tug of tiredness creeping into my brain, so this is going to wrap up the entry. Hope it was as good for you as it was for me! Any maybe from now on... I won't let myself do late night entries. Stay tuned for more information regarding my upcoming living situation in Austin!

'Till next time,

-B.S. Valosek, sandwich architect

Postscript: My middle name IS Scott... convenient, isn't it?

Today I took my final for my US government class at Eastfield College. It was cake.... but we'll see when my grades come in. It was a different experience, going to Eastfield vs. UT, but I lucked out and got a pretty cool professor that was really opinionated, somewhat cynical... and just weird enough to make class interesting.

For those you of you unaware, I feel compelled to tell the sad tale of how I ended up going to Eastfield (~23 miles roundtrip) instead of Richland (~16 miles roundtrip).

It was my first day at Richland... I had printed out a map of the campus and my schedule off the internet.... and I was ready to go. I got there early too.... so I wouldn't have to worry about finding my class. My classroom was N212... So I found the N building.... but apparently room 212 doesn't exist! WTF mate? So I asked around and somebody told me there's a government class in 210, "It was probably just a misprint", somebody suggested.

So I sat in the class and when the teacher came and announced that this was a government 1 class (I was supposed to be in government 2), I realized I had screwed up.

So during break I went to the registrar and told them about my situation, and a large woman asked what room number my class was supposedly in. After I told her... she gave me a funny look and said, "Nope... there's no room with that number here. What's your professor's name?"

After I told her I got another really weird look. She typed it into the computer and squinted at the screen to make sure she was reading it correctly. Then she told me, "Hun, that professor teaches at Eastfield. You're at the wrong college..." Shit!

I must have accidently registered at Eastfield somehow... even though my second summer semester was all set for Richland. Go figure!

But now I'm done and will be attending Richland, and saving an ass-load on gas money too. Lesson learned.

I guess I should be more aware of the subtle clues I seemed to get. For example... next to my class room number there was "EFC" printed. What does that mean??? I had no idea until I realized it stood, of course, for "Eastfield College." Whoops!

-Brandon Valosek, clueless student

In regards to days I'd have to say that this one was pretty interesting.

I saw one of the most bad-ass things I've ever seen in a pond: a little turtle riding on top of a bigger turtle. I wanted to grab the little one and take him with me to my class... but I didn't want to traumatize the 3 year old kid looking on... although it would've been awesome to have some company in a room full of stale EE kids. Not to mention that fact that he most likely would be more intelligent than some of the guys in there... which brings me to the next topic of interest in my day.

Some people are just complete dumb asses. I'm afraid they have no hope... especially this guy I had the pleasure of sitting next to. He was attempting to do one of the labs in my EE class wherein you have to design a circuit on the computer and implement it in real life (see Nerdgasm).

First of all, he was a whiny little bitch. Calling the proctors over for every little step because his insignificant little mind couldn't even grasp the simplest of instructions (which could've easily been understood by a 5 year old), and complaining that his lab "just wasn't working." Not understanding the concept that computers do just what you tell them to do... he assumed that OF COURSE he was doing everything right and that "something was wrong with the program." Finally getting things straightened out (after 10 minutes of help by the TA) and getting his program onto the board, he couldn't get it to work!

He tried everything... re-downloading the program... checking the connections... flashing the ROM... nothing! Man his board must be bad! What terrible luck! No matter what buttons he pressed or switches he flipped, nothing would happen.

I guess he didn't notice that the board was clearly divided into two halves, and that one was labeled "FOR STUDENT USE" and one was labeled "FOR PROCTOR USE" in huge bold, black lettering.

And I guess he didn't notice he was mashing away on the unprogrammed "FOR PROCTOR USE" side.

But I definitely managed to zap a pic of his dumb ass before I left. He never did figure out that he was on the wrong side, and finally just gave up, slammed his books down, and threw his arms up in desperation (and realization that he really is a complete idiot), and walked out.

He walked back in about 5 minutes later to get his backpack he had forgotten.

After getting my lab done and checked it was time for me to head back home... in the pouring rain.

So as I said earlier, today was a day of days. If I can make it past this week of tests and survive finals... then I'm hoping to have a great summer... A summer of summers if you will.

Until next time!

I'm updating even though tonight I have to do laundry (which I haven't started), diffeq homework (which is most likely impossible) and a physics lab (which is pretty lame). Oh well... 'tis the life of a college student.

So spring break came and went... and it was awesome. I could go on and on about how extremely amazing it was to spend 5 days with my best friend and just relax and catch up, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't accurately portray how perfect this break was. SO I won't even try.

Something I CAN talk about is the nastiness that is the post-spring-break blues.

Here at UT we're done with holidays and breaks, so everyone has one more round of midterms and then the oh-so-dreaded finals week standing in front of the beloved freedom of summer. There's nothing like doing nothing for 9 days only to be hit hard by the realization that "OH SHIT! It's not summer yet!"

It seems now that everyone is just drudging on long from one homework to the next, murmuring "man I can't wait until this class is over..." and anxiously awaiting summer to get here. What a nasty feeling!

Summer can't get here soon enough.