San Antonio

A fiercely Southern state, San Antonio creates an isosceles triangle of unmistakable Texan-ness with its neighbors Houston and Austin. Two years ago I came here to Trinity University as a student doing research, now I return as an alum giving a talk. I chose to stay past my presentation to mingle with the students, which was a great choice.

1) The students are vibrant with character. J.J. has great taste in the visual media, including The Westing Game, Imogen Heap, and The Golden Compass; T. is the all-around cool guy you wish to show off to your friends since he is good at everything; C. is a Linux-toting hacker girl who isn’t afraid to mix it up with the guys in poker. Of course, there are also the assistants: Enrique, one of my poker mentors with a great appreciation for people and life, and Nathan, who sprinkles sparkles of humor in every event and lightens up every gloomy day (great, given the curious fact that it rained basically every day here).

2) El Milagrito (“the Miracle”) is still the Mexican restaurant of choice for 6AM, with $5 breakfasts that feed you for a whole day. Their portions are generous with no remorse for your stomach storage space, and their quality holds nothing back. The new founds for me are the barbacoa and the migas plates, both dishes to consider learning for future cravings.

3) The Tower of the Americas:

(source: Wikipedia) is one of the attractions which slipped by me two summers ago. To conquer my fear of heights, I went on this trip with many of the students and took in a beautiful visage of the city, a mosaic of lights and sounds at night.

On the top level of the tower, I approached and chatted with a group of four cute girls getting ready for a bachlorette party, because L. and I observed and made comments about one of them’s scarf. Later realizing that she was the lucky girl, I wished her good luck instead.

4) At the annual party at Dr. C’s house, I was treated again to a sumptuous meal presented by the happy couple, and took great advantage of my 21-year-old-ness by helping myself to five glasses of wine, three red and two white. Then I used the alcohol as fuel to play a few games of Horse with D., L., R., and Nathan.

The highlight of the party was playing Guitar Hero for the first time, against a 6-year-old Jonathan even. What clean and perfect design. ; (Source: Wikipedia).

Lessons? Thoughts?

a) People are really the ultimate drug in this world. My high from this trip will continue for at least a couple of more weeks.

b) Need to learn more ping-pong. Can’t wait until Balls of Fury comes out, though Ping Pong, which I saw recently, was definitely worth it.

c) Re-invest in Ubuntu.

-Yan