Legal Trouble :(

I don’t even know where to begin discussing the lessons I learned this past semester. It has been such a fabulous few months yet so very vital in forming who I am and will be for the rest of my life.

Now, I contemplated whether or not I should share this with the class, Professor Bump in particular, with the fear that people’s opinions about me may be tainted. However, I decided that since we are all fairly close and open with each other and I’m sure others have experienced this sort of thing to some extent, it would be just fine to share.

On my fourth night in Austin, my friends and I decided to go to a frat party together. As most do when attending a frat party, we had a few drinks, met a few people and enjoyed the evening. We left the party around one in the morning with the intentions of going back to Jester, hoping in bed, and getting a good night of sleep. Unfortunately, our night did not go quite as planned.

Having little experience with alcohol and my limit, I had over done it at the party and drank a little too much. Walking towards our building, I began to feel slightly uneasy and the effects were coming on. At about this time, a power hungry, evil little University police officer came towards us, insisting that we step inside and undergo an evaluation. Two other officers came who performed sobriety tests and proceeded to issue me and two of my friends Minor In Consumption (MIC) tickets for smelling alcohol on our breathe.


We were all three terrified. We had just begun our journey of freedom and were already being halted by a very unfortunate and devastating event. We cried (or at least I did) and tried to talk our way out of it, but to no avail.

The judge allowed us to do deferred disposition which means we had to pay $240, complete 8 hours of community service, attend 3 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, an alcohol awareness class, and serve 90 days of probation. Now, this was not thrilling, however it was better than being convicted.

I cannot say that I am glad that I got an MIC, but I know that I learned a lot from this event. Most importantly I learned that my decisions now, being out on my own, could have huge impacts on my life. I chose to drink and therefore I had to deal with the consequences. I am not going to lie and say that I learned to never drink again, because as many college students do, I enjoy going to parties occasionally. I did learn that it is important to watch whom you go to parties with, what you drink, and how much you drink. Had I been with unreliable friends and taken a drink with something bad in it from someone at the party, I could have ended up in a very compromising situation. Fortunately, my friends stuck with me and I knew enough to watch what I was drinking (unfortunately I was not paying much attention to the amount).

There are many ways to have a good time and parties just happen to be one of them.
I often times spend weekends with the kids in my hall going to dinner downtown and then back to Jester, making late runs to Kerby Lane or TCBY. But when I do choose to go to a party, I am much more careful than I ever was before and will always remember the lessons I learned my fourth night in Austin.