Graduating Rice in three years is hard. It’s hard, specifically, to fit in all the cool/dumb stuff college students in Houston are supposed to do. I only got 75% of the shenaniganery, 75% of the bad ideas for Fourth Meals, 75% of the totally unnecessary personal drama. Also, I graduated before turning 21.
This past weekend, my old roommate Rory and I created a Houston Bucket List of Stuff We Really Should Have Done By Now, and then we did them all. Here’s that list, plus a few other Essential Rice Experiences I finally got around to in the years after graduating. They’re mixed together randomly. Also, they’re graded.
Going to Beer Bike. Freshman Year: old friend from elementary school arrived in Houston during Beer Bike. Missed it. Sophomore Year: lived off-campus, slept until 11 a.m. Final Year: it rained.
Two years after graduation, my chance finally came. The Rice alumni tent was the best part, anyway, because it had free St. Arnold beer. It doesn’t anymore. You have to pay for it.
The bike race was kinda fun, and some of the old alumni were fun to catch up with. Some of the other ones were more of the “ugh, I was hoping not to see you” category. Probably not worth it now that the drinks aren’t free. Grade: B-
The sculpture in front of Rothko Chapel is dedicated to Martin Luther King. Let’s ask Patricia’s dad what it means!
The Rothko Chapel. Houston’s modern architecture sanctuary for meditation, with all-black paintings by Mark Rothko. This is one of the few times where Rothko paintings have worked for me, because they’re explicitly placed in a setting meant for quiet contemplation. Also, the chapel has copies of all the sacred books, including Baha’i, which is cool.
“This would be a good place to think about a major life decision,” I told Rory.
“This is a great place to dress like a Goth and stare disapprovingly at everybody,” two girls told us inside. Only they didn’t tell us. They just dressed like Goths and stared disapprovingly at us. Grade: A- Read the rest of this entry »
