blake, the director of manna, andrew and i left for the philly airport on thursday morning and flew into houston at abt 4pm. rented a car and drove for abt 2 hours to college station, where texas a&m is. the part of texas that we drove through was really not too different from other parts of the US- greenery, some ranches, not the desert i had pictured in my mind (although some other parts of texas are like that). we dropped off our stuff at the gustafson's house, where we would be lodging. paul gustafson is a freshman in manna who lives in college station, and even though he wasn't going home for thanksgiving, his family was kind enough to extend their hospitality to us. paul's mum always made sure that we were fed :)
paul's dad, bob, is actually a princeton alum, class of '75 i think. what's even more amazing (coincidental, or should i say God-incidental) is that he majored in math in pton, and is now a math professor at A&M. he shared a lot of stories abt math in pton and in general with me, giving me a better understanding of the department, and i guess how the Christian faith fits in the whole picture. i really thank God for letting me someone who is both deep in academia, esp math, and is also a strong Christian.
dinner was spent with blake's parents at the dixie chicken, which is basically a bar i think. it apparently sells the most amt of beer per sq ft in the whole world :) right next to the dixie chick is an alleyway that is covered with thousands upon thousands of beer bottlecaps. crazy stuff :) after that we went to the stadium for this tradition called the midnight yell (even though it was held at 8pm this yr :P) basically the night before the game with UT, students would gather in the stadium to rah-rah themselves. 6 guys, called yell leaders, basically led the cheers. we went through some cheers, there were little peptalks/speeches, and there was a short poem recital that symbolized the sch's fighting spirit. the fans in A&M are often called "the 12th man", in that they are just like an extra man on the pitch for the team. there was one part during the ceremony where the lights in the stadium went out. at this time guys were supposed to kiss their dates, while those that were single would use their lighters/cellphones to shine on those that were kissing :P
the next day we met lauren (blake's wife) and little andrew (their kid) at the tailgate before the UT Texas A&M football game. for the uninitiated, tailgating is when before the game, families just get together, set up tents and chairs and chill out. lots of food, kids throwing footballs around.... a great family atmosphere. pton has a little bit of tailgating too, but nothing on the scale that we saw in aggieland (that's what college station is sometimes called, pple in texas a&m are called aggies). we hung out with some friends of lauren from college. great food, great company. andrew and i each got a maroon shirt to blend into the crowd (maroon is a&m's colour). before the game there was a parade where the band marched in along with the corp, that kinda reminded me of army :P
the game itself was AMAZING. there were over 88,000 pple in the stadium, mostly dressed in maroon. our seats were pretty good, i had a quite a good view of the whole game. although A&M was supposed to be the weaker team, we played really well and won the game :) that makes it 2 out of 2 for me- for the 2 games i attended, both times the team i rooted for won :D what really struck me was the sch spirit. the cheering, the students standing up throughout the game... and i think more than that, the fact that so many alumni came back to watch the game. i wish pton had that.... i guess AC had that to a certain extent, but not really either. different. but really the aggie sch spirit is a sight to behold.
for the rest of the trip blake was showing andrew and i around the campus and the places where he had hung out while he was still a student (he was class of 2000). college housing is really quite different there- only freshmen live in dorms, the rest pretty much live off campus. campus life must really be quite different.
all in all this trip was a good break from life in princeton. i haven't done touched work since tuesday evening... being in texas showed me the other side of college life, "the other education", as they call it. one thing that will always stick in my mind is the hospitality of the pple there. the gustafson's, blake's parents, lauren's siblings and friends.... everyone treated us like family, i felt so at home. many times i would feel just like one of them, even though just about everyone else was white while andrew and i were asian. i hope that in the future i'll be just as hospitable.
so that kinda sums up my short trip to the south. i'd definitely love to make another trip down there sometime :) for now it's back to work/sch/my life. haha. 3 more wks till HOME! :D