Quarter-Year Mark!

 Hello there again!  Thanks for coming to my 3 month anniversary of moving to Austin!  It's kind of hard to believe.  The weeks just fly by...

Before I begin, I just want to mention that I'm becoming more aware that people outside of my intended audience (friends and family back at home/school/etc) are actually reading this thing!  If you are one of those people, to you, I say, Willkommen! (That's German for "Welcome")  Feel free to contribute at any time! 

I'm just going to write some little bits about things I think people might be interested in.

Work
It's hard.  As one of my coworkers put it, new hires out of college have an "astronomical" amount to learn.  Good to know that my lack of knowledge is normal.  Still, it makes it difficult sometimes when I want to be as productive as everyone else.  But the people are really cool, the material is really interesting, I'm seeing progress in myself, and my mentor is especially great.  He's really patient with me, knows when to push me, and knows when to walk me through something.  Overall, I think it's a good situation!

Master Pancake and the Bull Ride
So I made this post that talked about the Alamo Drafthouse and if you haven't seen it, check it out here.

Now let me tell you about Master Pancake.  It's these three guys that do these comedy shows at the Drafthouse.  They have a viewing of some movie or TV series and then they sit in the front row with microphones, cracking jokes and making hilarious commentary during it.  They also do a skit in the middle of it, in which they dress in costumes.  It is absolutely hilarious.  A while back, I went to one that made fun of the Star Trek series (both the original series and The Next Generation), and last weekend, I went to one on the Breakfast Club.  I hurt from laughing both times.  If anyone plans on visiting me...let's try to coordinate it for one of their shows, because it's great.

After seeing MP last weekend with some church friends (thanks to my friend Janice for planning it!), we decided that, since we were already downtown, let's live it up a little!  We decided to go to a country bar downtown.  I could tell you all about it.  Or, I'll just put this video here...

My First Cooking Experiment
This past week, I tried to experiment a little, with a little help over the phone from one of my best friends' mom, Mrs. P!  The reason I wanted to try this was actually from an experience I had in France 4.5 years ago.  We ate in a blind restaurant, where it was pitch black, all the servers were blind, and we weren't allowed to bring anything that emitted light in.  I still don't even know what I had to this day, but it tasted like fish and pasta, and it was really good.  Great start for experimenting.

So maybe...tilapia, this tomato alfredo sauce, some linguine, some sauteed mushrooms, some cracker crumbs....it'll be awesome, right?
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Actually...it kinda looked like vomit...

It wasn't horrible, actually.  It's just the sauce was so heavy, it didn't click well with the very light fish.  But I sort of liked the cracker crumbs, although G didn't like it as much.  And the noodles were really thick, and I didn't cook them long enough.  Some lessons learned, including sauteing mushrooms!  If you have any more tips, feel free to contribute.

Missing School 
Not this past Thursday, but the Thursday before was freshman move-in day back at Illinois.  I've been missing home/school/friends/family for a while now, but dang.  That was pretty hard that day.  I don't think I've ever missed anything so intensely before.  It was the first day in 4 years I wasn't moving into my dorm.  I really miss it and the community there.  I felt like I had a purpose from God there.  Now, I feel like that's all in the past, and I'm currently struggling with my faith and my purpose here in Austin.  I know there is one, so as Jamie, the Very Worst Missionary (one of my inspirations as of late) was also encouraged, I need to keep going. Even if it's hard at times.  So, that's what I'll do, seeing what God has in store for Austin, and I hope you'll keep reading along!