{"id":5133,"date":"2015-09-11T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/?p=5133"},"modified":"2015-09-09T14:48:51","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T19:48:51","slug":"atx-my-favorite-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/2015\/09\/11\/atx-my-favorite-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"ATX: My Favorite Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-5134 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/09\/P1080219_HDR_1-2-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"P1080219_HDR_1-2\" width=\"210\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/09\/P1080219_HDR_1-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/09\/P1080219_HDR_1-2-1024x767.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/09\/P1080219_HDR_1-2.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>My freshman year at UT felt like one long, endless, horrible day. It was my backup plan to say the least, and a place I ended up due more to my parent\u2019s desires than my own. I actually paid for housing at A&amp;M! (dark days for me)- Austin was not a place I wanted to be; it was\u00a0a dirty hippie town with too much pop culture for me to handle. I spent my days dreaming of the east coast, of the\u00a0beach, just wanting to get away. Between the &#8220;foreign car drivin\u2019 [frat] dudes&#8221;, their &#8220;road rage attitudes&#8221;, and a pretty nasty oral infection: my freshman year went a LOT like Blake Shelton\u2019s day in &#8220;Some Beach&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Blake Shelton - Some Beach (Official Music Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JTT2LEyjdC4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>[Editor&#8217;s note: Shelton&#8217;s YouTube account apparently does not allow this video to be embedded in posts published on sites like this one.]<\/p>\n<p>Shockingly, once I left my dorm room and ventured out into the UT atmosphere- aside from just going to class and back- I realized maybe I was being a little close-minded. I joined a spirit organization on campus, the Texas Angels (also very much instigated by my mother, she\u2019s very persuasive), and began to branch out a little more. I found my niche in an otherwise overwhelming city and I have gained several close friends over the past year, I definitely wouldn\u2019t move to the east coast now, even if I had the opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone told me how incredible Austin was and how much I was going to love UT before I left, but I was way too fixated on a some beach fantasy to even give it a shot. Every time I listen to this song I want to go back in time, grab myself by the shoulders and scream STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES! THE BEACH SUCKS IT\u2019S JUST SAND IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES AND JELLYFISH AND THE OCCASIONAL WARDROBE MALFUNCTION! Blake Shelton was clearly having a rough day, but out of that came a really catchy song with a very happy vibe that makes me think even Shelton knows he\u2019ll feel better tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-5138 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/09\/tumblr_mk9f79EoKN1riqywyo5_250.gif\" alt=\"tumblr_mk9f79EoKN1riqywyo5_250\" width=\"188\" height=\"153\" \/>I\u2019m not sure why this song still makes me think of my freshman year of college, maybe because I\u2019d still love to live a life in constant vacation-mode, or because you can\u2019t get take a trip down 35 without getting honked at by some road-rager at least once, but regardless, I turn the radio up every time it comes on. As I\u2019ve grown to love and engage with the beautiful city of Austin, I\u2019ve also grown to realize that Austin is a city where I can truly be myself, I can interact with great and interesting people, I can even drink a margarita and I don\u2019t have to worry about when the last time I applied sunscreen was. ATX <b>is <\/b>my beach.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My freshman year at UT felt like one long, endless, horrible day. It was my backup plan to say the least, and a place I ended up due more to my parent\u2019s desires than my own. I actually paid for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/2015\/09\/11\/atx-my-favorite-beach\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5133"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5189,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133\/revisions\/5189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/countrymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}