Another post, another Anchorman related title...but the similarities between the names of San Marcos and San Diego (mainly the word San, a name which scholars maintain the translation to was lost centuries ago...allright I'll stop, eventually)
This, if you haven't guessed yet, is a post about San Marcos. I have been wanting to write about this subject (San Marcos) for a long time. I have lived there (Sophmore/Junior year of Texas State...2003-04), and I chose to leave it, as many Texas State upperclassmen do, to live in Austin this year for various reasons...mainly oppurtunities to make money and support myself and the expenses necessary for remaining in school (rent/food/etc)...but also for other reason.
So here, uncensored and unabridged, is my dialouge on San Marcos. Enjoy.
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I like San Marcos...for the most part. I'll admit to that. I lived there on campus at Texas State University and despite the smallness of the town (and the realitive largeness of the school in the middle of it) I got along pretty well. I guess I'm starting with the things that I like about the place because I don't want this to be construed as a bitter and negitive rant and giving the impression that I hate the town...I definitely don't.
San Marcos is a beautiful town...by Texas standards it's a very beautiful town. It's the antithesis of the city I grew up around, Temple...which was an allright place but like most Texas towns it's very spread out, suburbanized and rather plain and boring. San Marcos is definitely not...it's dense, scenic, and clean. The buildings in San Marcos basically look really nice, and most notably it's on the edge of the beautiful Texas Hill Country. San Marcos has a special feel to it. It has a great deal of potentinal. This post isin't about Texas State (allthough as a part of San Marcos, Texas State is a part of what I am talking about) but I'll say that the campus is very beautiful as well. My favorite college campus in Texas that I've visited...well, I'm biased. I like UT alot...espeically the area around UT...definitely when compared with the dictionary definition of an ugly campus that sprawls across College Station (sorry Dan, I couldn't resist the oppurtunity).
Other good things, for a town of 35,000 San Marcos has a good number of cool places to hang out, great parks, a couple of cool coffee shops, nearby outdoor stuff, and of course, the river. But, as with any smaller town, it's saving grace, at least to a city-loving person like myself, is it's proximity to a much larger and far more dynamic and interesting city...Austin. Downtown Austin is only 25 miles away and that was always the number one thing I would mention when people would ask me if I liked it in San Marcos. "It's really cool, downtown Austin is only 25 miles away" I would state. It sounds like an insult (but it's really not) when I say that the best thing about San Marcos is Austin. In my opinion that's the truth and I'll explain it toward the end of this post.
But then there is a cauldron of rather ugly issues that lie beneath the quaint surface of the town. I think I'm going to speak to these in another post that will likely be titled "What's Wrong With San Marcos?". The living in Austin versus San Marcos as a Texas State Student issue, an issue that is often met with silence by most in the community, will be dealt with in another entry as well. I have my reasons for my decision to live in Austin, and I have theories as to why thousands and thousands of fellow upperclassmen have made the same decision, and they are theories that do not reflect well on San Marcos. I'll leave this one as a nice, sunny, and for the most part positive post about a generally nice town.
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2 comments:
Jordan, good stuff. But I am going to start keeping a tab of posts you say your going to write about then don't. :)
I've never been owned in a nicer way.
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