I grew up in a town on the outskirts of the outskirts in a part of Texas that just so happens to be the center of this spinning universe. As the center, it revolves so fast that as soon as you notice the change, you're back to the beginning again. It's called Panhandle, a place so bucolic you might confuse it for Mayberry if it weren't for the sign coming into town and the lack of a sheriff named Griffith. So that's where I'm from: the center of the universe, neatly tucked away just outside the reach of urban development, a Mayberry in technicolor. Now, though, I am a college student stuck somewhere between peasant and vassal, living alone but not lonely, in a shabby one room apartment a little over a mile away from one of the largest, most prestigious universities in the world. Whatever that means. If I had to enumerate my hobbies - in order to please this long-zoom, list-happy generation - riding my bike would be near the top. In fact, it would be my major if at all fiscally possible, but I don't see a demand showing up any time soon with all this hustle-and-bustle. The universe is spinning always, faster and faster.

Weeeee!

As for other interests, here we go: photography and drinking a cup of coffee with the right ratio of cream and sugar. Tack reading onto the end just for good measure.

I am a pre- journalism major (still an underclassmen). Learning to be precise. Focus. Tell the story. Find what's compelling.

Prior to attending UT, I was served in the Navy as a nuclear electrician onboard a nuclear submarine, the USS Charlotte.

Both of my grandfathers have successfully fought off prostate cancer in their old age. Cancer can't beat a young heart, I guess. One, my Papa Don, lives in Childress, Texas and runs the only bus station in town. When he had cancer, he would drive up to Amarillo in the morning on the days he had chemo only to turn right back around after treatment so he could go run the bus station. His tenacity brings a smile to my face no matter what storms may be raging. He's just a normal old man from the country at first glance: he wears button-down shirts with snaps that pull tight at his belly, glasses just a little too big, pants pressed with more starch than a field of corn, and boots that ante-date the Union. But inside, he's a lion. One who never gives up and never loses. The other, Grandpa Mickey, was a truck driver for longer than most redwoods have been trees. When he got cancer he went under the knife, and got back to his CO-UT run in what I'm sure was record time.