Things to Do In Bryan/College Station

We're getting ready for a big move, to another college town. When we visited our new city, I asked the hotel concierge/college student what people in Blacksburg like to do for fun. And while he threw out a couple of ideas, he admitted:

There's not much to do here.

That was the same answer I got when I first moved to College Station and asked what people did for fun. People said that other than the movie theaters, there was nothing to do. And, after five years of living here, to that I say:

YOU'RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH!

There is SO MUCH to do in this town, if you just look around once in a while. (Yes, movies are $4.50 with a student ID*, so yes, that is a good option. But it is by no means the only option.)

*Hint: It doesn't have to be an A&M student ID. And it doesn't matter if you were 18 in the photo and are … definitely closer to 30 than 18 now.

So I'm going to share a few things we've done and tried and experienced during the last five years of living in this college town. And I'll even share my secret weapon for finding things to do.

Fountain outside the Memorial Student Center (MSC).

Things to Do On Campus
There are tons of musical and theatrical performances on campus, especially near the end of each semester. We've watched (and Matt has performed in) dozens of Percussion Studio shows. We've watched a cappella singing groups The Femmatas and Hardchord Dynamix. We've gone to dance performances. We've been to lectures, including one by an Apollo astronaut. We saw the '80s band Chicago in concert. We saw the Blue Man Group when the MSC OPAS brought them to town. We've seen free outdoor movies and one-act plays. Look at the campus and city calendars to see what's going on!

Things to Do If You Like Drinking
There are several wineries and microbreweries in town. Messina Hof is probably the most famous — they do wine tastings and tours, and their restaurant is great — but don't overlook Perrine Winery, a little winery storefront that just opened a few years ago. They do a lot of custom fruity wines and pairings. Their tastings are fun; we used to have book club here all the time.

There's also the New Republic Brewery, which is kind of off the beaten path — they only have three or four of their beers on tap at a time, but they have live bands and food trucks come out on Friday nights. It's worth overlooking the fact that they're located in a storage shed.

There's always Northgate as well, but if you're not a college student you can sometimes feel a little out of place; but if you insist, hang out at O'Bannon's. The Proudest Monkey in Downtown Bryan is better than most of Northgate for young professionals; trust me, you need to eat something, because their mixed drinks are STRONG. Their yuppie fries are covered in Parmesan and are amazing, and they have pretty good tacos too.

Grab some friends and head to Painting With a Twist, and you can drink wine while you get a painting lesson and get to keep the masterpiece you create. (Bring your own wine and snacks.)

Teaching my sister to two-step at Hurricane Harry's.

Places to Go If You Like to Dance
If you want to dance on a weekend, Hurricane Harry's is great for country dancing and two-stepping. They often have famous country bands performing, so check who's playing.

Salsa dancing? Go to the Village Cafe on Wednesday and Saturday nights. If you go at 8 p.m., they have a lesson followed by an open dance floor, and tickets are cheap. Plus, they have a good selection of beer, and it doesn't matter if you have a date or not.

If you're looking for something like weekly dance classes, check out Dance Centre CS for tap, belly dancing, burlesque and ballet.

Things to Do at Your Local Church
Get involved in a local place of worship! Many of the churches have events at least every couple of months, especially on holidays. Ours does holiday events like the Easter Eggstravaganza and Trunk or Treat, in addition to hosting an annual 42 Tournament and Chili Cookoff, and plenty of small group activities and studies. Plus, more musical performances!

Things to Do If You Like Museums
The George H.W. Bush Library is excellent. There are two art galleries in the Memorial Student Center (MSC) on campus, and they are always rotating their collections; once, the Forsyth Gallery had a collection of Degas sketches, and another time, they had a selection of intricate quilts. Sometimes the galleries also have student art. The Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History is pretty good as well. (Though their butterfly releases are not as exciting as you think they're going to be, unless you have kids — they don't release all the butterflies all at the same time. I was expecting a swarm of them, and was disappointed.)

At Texas Reds 2012

Things to Do If You Like Live Performances
Go downtown to the Grand Stafford for live music of every genre. They have performances several nights per week. Downtown Bryan also has First Friday every month, where they have various groups performing throughout downtown, including local musicians and dancers. They also offer free movies and performances at the Palace Theater downtown. If you like theater, check out the 3rd Floor Theater, also downtown. And of course, there is live music all weekend at the Texas Reds Grape and Steak Festival that happens every fall.

Things to Do If You Like Sports
Obviously, go see some Aggie football! The Powers That Be have spent the last year revamping Kyle Field to make the experience even more epic, and I've heard they're not done yet. We can now hear the announcers from our house, so that's happening. Basketball games at Reed Arena are quite fun too. We've also seen the Harlem Globetrotters there. Oh, and don't forget to check out the Brazos Valley Bombers minor-league baseball team. On certain days during the summer they have dollar beer nights or cheap margaritas, and they serve Blue Bell ice cream.

Other Activities
Go to a rodeo at the Brazos County Expo — they have events all year, including some non-horse ones (the first bridal show I ever attended was also at the Expo). Get involved in your community with  Citizen's Police Academy or Citizen's Fire Academy (both Bryan and College Station offer fire academy, and I've heard that College Station's program is better). Volunteer with Keep Brazos Beautiful. Play laser-tag or go mini-golfing at Grand Station.

"France," at 7F Lodge

Places to Sleep
There are a couple of nice bed and breakfasts that I didn't know about until I'd lived in College Station for several years. The first I've talked about before, 7F Lodge. Can't recommend them highly enough! The second is The Nest B&B; I haven't actually stayed there, but I attended a baby shower in the main lobby area, and it was a very cute, remote bed and breakfast that looked well cared for.

Need more help finding things to do? Hint: I regularly look at community calendars to find out what's going on. Some of the best ones are Visit Aggieland, Downtown Bryan and Maroon Weekly.

I'll probably do a second post about my favorite places to eat here, as well. I pride myself on having tried most of the local restaurants in town. :)

Anything that you love to do in this area that I've missed? (Sorry I don't have a section for family-friendly fun, but … I don't have kids so I don't have many suggestions on that front.)

Honestly

This post was written in March. It's still brutally relevant. I can feel myself starting to fall into that desperate, frustrated place again, so I thought it was about time to share.

For the last two weeks, how have I been holding it together? With a lot of stress and inadvertent crying.

Yesterday, we had a church council meeting. It was heated with discussions about where we want our church to go, where we want to be in five years, what our faith needs to look like if we expect those things to happen, and I was already exhausted before we even started digging for the answers.

After the meeting, a woman that I respect but am not super close with, asked me how Matt's job search was going, and I immediately burst into tears.

I apologized for it too. "I'm sorry. This keeps happening. I can't make it stop."

She gave me a hug, and reminded me that, in nicer words than I'm going to say here, we women really can handle a heck of a lot of shit happening to us, as long as we feel secure. And when we don't feel that security, it makes dealing with all the shit that much harder.

Matt received a job offer from a university really, really far away. It was a really, really good offer. We discussed it non-stop for over a week, before determining that, at this point in our lives, maybe it wasn't the best decision for us to commit to living that far away from our families for that long (minimum six years for tenure, maximum FOREVER). He felt good about this decision. I agreed that, long term, it was the right move to turn it down, but in the short-term, I couldn't believe he was willing to turn down a sure thing, some kind of security when we've been flailing to stay afloat for months.

Or maybe it's just me, feeling like I'm sinking? He feels confident that something else, something better will come along. And I … it's not that I don't believe he's telling the truth. It's just that you can't KNOW. KNOWING you'll eventually have a job does not make it easier today, when uncertainty is all you have.

I couldn't turn off the faucet. My face leaked and leaked, all the way home, sitting in the carport with the radio blasting, Matt coming out to find me sobbing against the car window. And it continued to drip as he brought my things inside and wrapped me in a blanket and held me.

It's nice to know that even when I can't hold myself together, that I've got someone else to help keep me intact.

Two Graduations

Last Friday was a crazy day. As I mentioned before, both my sister and husband were scheduled to graduate from their respective universities on the same day, and it was really important to everyone (ahem, certain family members) that I pick sides and choose just one of them to attend. But I refused; neither one was more important than the other, and it was important to me that I be there for both.

Because I hate myself and love sitting through multiple, multi-hour graduation ceremonies Because I love my sister and I love my husband, I bought a plane ticket to get from Dallas to College Station between the two ceremonies. It's normally about a four-hour drive, and the ceremonies were spaced six hours apart, but without being able to account for Friday rush-hour, college town traffic (both coming and going), or the timeliness of either ceremony, I figured the 32-minute flight was the better option. And dagnabbit, I made it to both.

Rachel's graduation was first, and since I knew I was going to have to leave the ceremony as soon as her name was called to get to the airport, we made sure to take pictures the night before. I love that she painted her mortarboard hot pink. It definitely made her easy to spot in the crowd.

So proud of her!

I got to watch her walk and receive her diploma, and then my dad and I were super awkward as we tried to edge out of the bleachers and escape the basketball arena in front of everyone's flashing cameras. I felt bad because we literally had the worst seats ever for a quick and inconspicious departure, and I hope we didn't mess up anyone else's experience.

(Apparently it's been a really long time since I've flown anywhere, because this trip was my first experience with those full-body scanner thingies. I don't know that I see what the big deal is. Also, it's been long enough since I've flown that my Dramamine had expired. Risk it? Risk it.)

My sister- and brother-in-law picked me up from the airport and we made it to Matt's ceremony with 10 minutes to spare, though the processional was so enormous that it could have spared us a few minutes if necessary. All of the Ph.D. candidates walked near the beginning of the ceremony, and Matt had a huge smile on his face as his advisor placed the hood around his shoulders.

Dr. Hubby!

We also left his graduation early, a much easier feat in A&M's giant basketball arena. The ceremony was more than three hours long (1000+ engineering undergrads), and I hadn't eaten anything all day besides a peanut butter sandwich and some Pop Tarts I picked up at the airport. Sustenance was necessary. (As was, apparently, a nap, since I kind of fell asleep in our living room while Matt's family and I were waiting for Matt to get home.)

Once he arrived, we celebrated with hot apple pie and vanilla ice cream. His family is having a bigger, official party for him in a couple of weeks. And we might have a third party too, for his grad school friends, because we like parties. :)

I'm really glad I was able to be there for both graduations, but the downside was that I didn't exactly get to spend any time with either Matt's or my own extended family since I was running around so much. I wish I'd gotten to spend more quality time with everyone.

I Never Thought This Day Would Come

You guys, it literally just hit me. Matt picked up his tickets for graduation yesterday. He is graduating with his Ph.D. in two weeks.

TWO WEEKS.

He has been at this university for like, eleventy jillion years. (Okay, nine. But still. NINE YEARS.) And in two weeks, he'll never have to go to school again.

I mean, let's be realistic. He'll probably still be working at a school, if all goes as we'd like it to. But he'll never have to do another professor's bidding!

… Okay, that's not true either. Especially if he winds up getting a post-doc after this.

So basically, life will not change at all.

But it's a huge not-changing-at-all.

I Started Thinking About Stress, and Realized I Just Need to Punch Someone

There is always something to worry about.

Will we make it through this semester of grad school. Will the dissertation get completed. Will Matt get a job. Where will we move. Will the next interview go well. Is this the right place for us to be. Is this job the right opportunity. Will we be okay staying in one place for the long haul. Will this be good enough. Will we be happy.

I've always been a worrier. I am an expert at it. I should teach a class.

But I've been getting stress headaches on and off for weeks now. And I'm spending so much time worrying, that I'm concerned I'm developing squinting lines between my eyes, and that if my hair could grow really fast, it'd be like Tim Allen's in The Santa Clause, where his beard grows white and long before his eyes.

I was at my women's group the other day, and the speaker talked about how we come home to unwind at the end of the day and crash on the couch in front of the TV, but how that's not really relaxing, because we still get up and feel just as tired and just as stressed afterward as we did when we sat down. And how we have a hard time actually relaxing, and how we don't even know what it means to relax anymore. And it's true. I get a decent amount of sleep and most of the time my work doesn't feel all that strenuous, but these headaches! And the ever-present exhaustion! And my inability to remember simple things like what I'm supposed to be doing today, or that important thing I wanted to say two seconds ago before the conversation inadvertently took a different turn.

I need to be taking better care of myself.

I desperately want/need to get a massage, and am trying to save up my "fun" money to get one. I need to start doing my Pilates videos again, because it feels good to stretch and move and breathe. I need to spend less time in the evening in front of my computer and more time behind a book, because then my eyes don't hurt so much and my soul feels better. I need to spend more time outside, because Texas' four perfect weather days are coming and I don't want to miss them, and also apparently I could use some sun because my doctor tells me I'm slightly vitamin D deficient (which I am not worried about; mostly I just want to punch her for making a big deal out of nothing every time I visit).

What things do you consider vital to your own self-care? If you could punch someone/something, figuratively, who/what would it be? (Now I'm onto thinking about things I'd like to punch, and I'm really into this topic right this second.)

I'd Like You to Meet Someone

This is Dr. Matt. Yeah, that's right. I got me a husband with a Ph.D. :)

He is a badass that did a fantastic job on his dissertation defense, and passed with flying colors. His committee didn't even have any content changes to his 153-page paper! Which is pretty much a miracle.

Obviously, things have been a little crazy over the last few weeks, and posting is likely to continue to be sporadic since so many of our plans are still up in the air and I'm barely holding my ish together. But I'm really proud of Matt, and wanted to share such a big accomplishment.

(I feel like I haven't talked to ya'll in forever. What have you been up to?)

The Questions We Ask, and The Ones We Don't

Last week, in a moment of intense frustration with how life is going at the moment, I wrote a draft post that was basically like, "EVERYONE STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS ABOUT MATT BECAUSE I AM TIRED OF TALKING ABOUT DISSERTATIONS AND GRADUATIONS AND MOVING AND NOT KNOWING." It was angry and full of fire and spit.

I decided I should let the post sit over the weekend, because I knew that there was a good chance I would eventually calm down and regret spewing vitriol all over the internet. Good call, Past Allie, because after letting it marinate for a few days, I realized that I'm not frustrated by the questions themselves. When it comes to our close friends and our families, I'm happy to talk about possibilities, and worries, and my insecurity about what comes next, even if it's all things I've said before.

Rather, I'm frustrated by the fact that a lot of my day-to-day interactions with people are only surface level, that the only things people know about me are the answers I give to these few questions, because they're the only questions anyone bothers to ask. And I'm frustrated by it because, I feel, it gives others the impression that waiting on Matt to graduate is the only thing I have going on in my life.  It's not. But I don't get asked a lot of questions about how LIFE is going.

I'm keeping myself busy. I'm leaving Matt alone to do his work and making plans to do things for myself, to keep my soul happy. I'm visiting my family and taking classes and going out with friends, and someday maybe I'll tell you about all of it, because it's way more interesting than what's actually happening in my house, which is this:

Day 12: Matt is in my office writing his dissertation. He has consumed 23 Diet Cokes and four cups of coffee in the last six hours. He thinks he broke the coffeemaker. He definitely moved all my work stuff.

Day 13: Coffeemaker not broken, just leaked all over the counter. Out of Diet Coke. Elliott sleeping on a giant parka in the office. Dishes piled four feet high in the sink. Matt still writing. 

Day 17: Matt wrote until 1:45 a.m. Know this because it scared me awake when he opened the door to brush his teeth and go to bed.

Cat, learn how to do some dishes.

—————

There's this girl I see at a lot of networking events. We don't know each other well, but we work in similar fields. We're probably pretty close in age, and by all means should have things to talk about, but every time we see each other, I feel like a fake. We smile at each other, ask how business is going, laugh and say "Oh, great!" and then we find an excuse to talk to other people. I literally know nothing else about her. After this happened yet again earlier this month, I realized that I hated myself for doing that, for not asking anything else, for not knowing what to ask her.

When I was in high school and college, my dad always asked people what they liked to do for fun; a good question that has nothing to do with work. It cuts down into the part of you that people don't know about, leaving behind unimportant things like what you do to pay the bills and asks, What do you do when you're not doing what you DO? What makes you come alive? What was worth waking up for today?

So simple. What do you do for fun. I need to come up with some good questions like that. I don't want to be a surface-level person anymore. The thing that I'm really tired of? Small talk. Small talk for small minds, or what have you. I'd rather have a big, big mind.

What are your favorite questions to ask others? And while we're on the subject, what do you like to do for fun? P.S. "Blogging" is a cop-out answer. Give me something crazy that no one knows. :)

An Extreme Extrovert and Grad Student Widowhood

I feel like I haven't had a whole lot to blog about lately. I could blame that on myself, and how I haven't gotten out of the house a lot recently, but that's not true; I get out plenty.

More likely, I think that I'm just bummed a little that I've been alone a lot over the past few weeks. Matt's finishing up the final bits of his research that he needs in order to write his dissertation. He's chugging along on that paper and prepping to defend it. In between those, he's applying and interviewing for jobs.

Meanwhile, I go to networking socials and church events and club meetings because I'm an extreme extrovert and need the social interaction. But afterward, I come home alone, have dinner alone, and then Elliott sits on my lap and we watch re-runs of Friends, or I putz around the house or work on projects until Matt comes home from work.

I've always imagined myself as this independent, feminist, I-can-do-it-all-myself, don't-need-a-man-to-make-me-happy type of girl. Matt wasn't around for the majority of our first years together, since we lived in different states, and I got used to filling my schedule, finding others to fill that emotional need I had to connect with people day in and day out. I was always surrounded by friends so I never had time to feel lonely.

But real life is not like college life. I don't have people to distract me all the time anymore. I fill my social calendar as much as possible, but still find these moments where it's just me and Elliott, alone. I feel way too dependent on other people for my happiness. Maybe that was true in college too, and I just never thought about it.

But I can't ask any more of Matt. He's already doing so much. He goes to work early and comes home from work late, trying to get everything done so he can graduate. He's still involved in a lot of things, and he volunteers, and soon he'll be teaching a class on top of everything else.

And I will still be around when it has all blown over and the diploma is hanging on the wall.

This is what it's like being married to a grad student in his last semester. And this, too, shall pass.

Where Life Will Lead

As kids, we're asked all the time what we want to be when we grow up. At various points in my childhood, I wanted to be a dancer, a country singer and briefly, a doctor before I realized that blood freaks me out. In high school, I wanted nothing more than to move to New York and become a magazine editor.

To this day, my favorite recital picture. 1994.

My brief stint with singing. And fake hair. 2002.

(I was a member of a group that would go sing at nursing homes. And apparently, at the Fourth of July.)

I was such a goober. Interviewing the band Blue October for my high school magazine was the highlight of the year. 2004, I think.

We're asked so often as kids what we want.  And then we spend our entire high school and college careers working toward the dreams that we've developed over the first 18 years of life, with the expectation that the thing(s) you choose to do in school will be what you'll spend the rest of your life doing.

I kind of expected that at 26, I'd know what the hell I want to do with my life. And I don't.

—————

Matt says this is his last year of grad school. If all goes as planned, he intends to walk across that stage in May, get his Ph.D., and get the heck out of dodge. He's been talking a lot lately about the future. Will he have to get a post-doc? Will he be qualified for tenure-track professorship positions? Where will we go to pursue these dreams?

And the one that's been nagging me: what about me?

It's selfish. I know. But I graduated college and moved straight to College Station to be with Matt, knowing it wasn't the right market for my chosen career path. At 21, I knew what I wanted, career-wise, and I made a choice not to pursue it. (And let's be honest. I can complain all day long about it, but I know if I could do it all again, I wouldn't change a thing.)

I always expected that, despite my choices thus far, at some point I'd finally get the chance to get my "real" career off the ground. But now I'm not even sure what that career should look like.

—————

The other night, Matt and I were talking about a job he wanted to apply for, somewhere far away from our families and in a smaller town than where we are now, and I found myself in tears. So I did the only reasonable thing I could think of, and called my friend Alyson, who also chose to follow her husband and put her career prospects second.

She reminded me that nothing is permanent. Just because you're doing something that is not your dream job today doesn't mean you won't get the chance later. Maybe you won't even want the same things later. Just because you're not in the big city you dreamed of doesn't mean there are no options for you. And just because you move somewhere, doesn't mean you're stuck there forever if you hate it.

She admitted she doesn't know what she wants out of life either. And it made me feel better to know that I'm not the only one.

—————

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? What did you end up doing? And are you happy?