October, I hardly knew ye...

Okay, October's not quite over, yet, but it has flown by! And, even though I was wearing shorts just a few days ago, it seems fall may finally have arrived. Right now, it's 75 degrees, but this morning it was 50 and I saw two people wearing gloves. True story. Anyway, what have I been up that's made the time go by so quickly? Well...

Kickball season started a couple of weeks ago. Yes, kickball. Pat and I are both playing on my school's team, Dublin Hardcore (it's a library joke that I haven't been here long enough to fully understand). Our player numbers are all Dewey Decimal numbers. Pat's is 621 for Applied Physics and mine is 641 for Food & Beverage. And you thought it didn't get any geekier than Theta Ballers... ;) So far, we tied in a scrimmage and lost both of our regular season games. But, we improved from scoring no runs in the first game to scoring three in the second, so I think things are looking up.

Last game, I was really awesome and ran full speed directly into the ground. It didn't hurt that much when I first stood up, but eventually several injuries surfaced: I got dirt so far under my fingernail on my right thumb that it really stung for a day and then got infected (gross, I know); I have a bottle-cap sized scab on my left shoulder and I did something that wasn't visible or disgusting but really painful to my left thigh. And that's on top of face-planting in the dirt in front of 30 people. Did I mention I'm awesome?

A couple of weeks ago, we went to this place called Threadgill's to see The Gourds. The Gourds, for those of you who don't know, are a bluegrass-y rock band that did a cover of Snoop Dogg's Gin & Juice. The cover was featured on a recent episode of My Name is Earl, if you happen to watch that show. The show was, first of all, outdoors in October and I was wearing short-sleeves. It was also totally awesome. They are excellent performers.

Despite the fact that I feel like I just started school, I also had my advising appointment for next semester this month. Next semester ought to be good; I'm taking some classes that are actually library-related (this semester I'm only taking one library class and 3 core classes): Collection Management, Research, and most likely an independent study on library services for incarcerated persons.

Elsewhere in library-world, I started volunteering at the Austin Public Library and I toured the Hogg Regional Foundation Library last week. At APL, I'm shelving books. It is what it is. The RFL tour was really interesting though. It's a library of foundation information. What they do, essentially, is help grant writers. They have a large collection of resources on who offers grants and for what purposes and how to write grants. They also do grant proposal editing and a few other things. It's really a hidden gem, I think, for non-profits or grad students looking for money. I was really impressed with their operation and I kind of wish I needed to write a grant so I could spend more time there. Or that I could just work there.

Hmm...something else has been going on this month...what is it...

Oh, wait, I know. Football and Baseball. Life is good. GO SOX!

Trish in Austin

So we finally arrived at our home-sweet-home and learned about even more amenities (including a furnished guest house that will fit six comfortably for $99/night *hint hint*wink wink* and a pet sitter that has a relationship with the complex) and I got to see it for the first time. It's perhaps even better than I thought it would be. Eventually, I'll post pictures, but after six weeks (I guess it's a little weird that I'm writing in the past tense about the move but back-dating the posts, sorry 'bout that) we still aren't done moving in. Once classes started, it just dropped way down on the priority list, which has been hard to deal with. I'm the kind of person who unpacks for a trip as soon as she walks through the door. I do not like for things to be in boxes. But, I digress. Back to Trish's time here with us!

That night we ate a BBQ place picked by Trish: Artz Rib House. She picked it because the review said it had vegetarian fare. My grilled veggies were absolutely delicious, but even better was the pecan sweet potato pie we had for dessert. Hot damn.

On Tuesday, we squeezed in as much Austin goodness and touristy times as we could because Trish was leaving Wednesday while I was at Orientation. We went on a Duck Tour (I highly recommend them), ate at the Iron Cactus (where they make the guac right in front of you!), toured a little of UT's campus, and hit up the pool at our apartment complex. Then, we hit the town. Sixth Street is the bar/club/music scene in downtown Austin. We went to a bar called The Library that I actually really liked. Then we hit up B.D. Riley's and Daddy's. It was an excellent night.