First Date

My name is Katie, and I’m a 22-year-old grad student at the University of Texas. I have lived my entire life in the state of Texas, although I soon hope to change that. Today, I bought the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die and it is my goal, over the course of a lifetime, to complete everything in the book. I already went through and marked all the places I have been, so I only have 990 places or so to go.

I really like books. I love book stores and libraries. I love just touching books, reading their covers, flipping through their pages. For most of my childhood, books were my way of going to all the places and seeing all the things that I could not. I grew up in a very small town in Northeast Texas, so escape was often necessary. Today, when I walk into a book store, I want to take home everything. I think someday I’d like to own a book store.

I also really like movies. I mean, after all, I devoted five years of my academic life solely to them. I’m not really sure why I went to grad school, and for most of the experience, I absolutely hated it. But oddly, somehow coming out on the other end not only unscathed but also more accomplished (try cranking out a 115-page thesis in a little over a month) leads me to believe that it was probably worth it. We’ll see how beneficial it is in the long run, but already, I’m starting to think it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

It’s funny how you can never really tell the difference between good decisions and big mistakes until after the fact.