Flu, Frat Fail, Football!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to week 2 of classes, where everyone was just trying to make it through to Saturday for the first home football game!!!! You’ll come to find that my weekdays are never that exciting, but the weekends offer a lot more good stuff to report on.

Monday 2 September

Today was Labour Day in the US so we had the day off school. We cherished this day not only because it’s our one day off until Thanksgiving break in November (we don’t get a mid-semester break here), but because we’d just spent the whole weekend doing everything BUT homework, so we now had a day to catch up on everything. We were really good and separated ourselves if needed – some staying in their rooms and others going to study rooms in our residence hall. We had a break here and there to do a couple of things, like visit the Ole Miss merch store and grab some food, but other than that we were pretty studious.

We ended the night watching Netflix together in one of the lounges as per most nights, but towards the end I started feeling overly warm and cold at the same time. I could tell straight away that it was fever-type fluctuations, so I sent myself to bed straight away in the hopes that it was just a tiredness thing.

Tuesday 3 September

Woke up this morning feeling even worse than I did last night. It seems the cold I’d developed late last week had turned into something more. Fantastic. I didn’t have an appetite at all, but forced myself to have a chicken noodle soup that I’d bought the other day for my sore throat. I still went to both my classes, but was hardly able to concentrate and almost fell asleep in my late one (Georgia caught me with my eyes closed).

Everything was sore (especially my back and neck), I had a cold, I was still having feverish sweats, my throat was killing me, and I had no appetite. Other than going to those 2 classes, I stayed in bed watching shows. I kept taking some cold and flu Advil in the hope I would be better tomorrow.

Wednesday 4 September

This morning I felt no different, and Georgia, who was fed up with my even-worse sick snoring, told me I should go to the health centre and I agreed. After sussing out the process re. my health insurance, I walked down to the health centre (it’s just down from my residence hall) to see what the hell was up with my body. Even in the cold, air conditioned building I was sweating madly. I finally got called in by a nurse who asked general questions, took my blood pressure and temperature etc. and then called in the Nurse Practitioner (for those who don’t know, a Nurse Practitioner is a higher level of nurse, closer to a doctor, who can actually prescribe medicine and has other privileges etc. that regular nurses don’t have the qualifications for). She asked me some more questions, sussed out my ears and throat, and asked more questions. Turns out there was some kind of yucky stuff hanging around my tonsil area which was weird considering I had my tonsils removed over a decade ago. She sent me to get some blood drawn and a mouth swab and then we’d meet back to check the results. Her first words walking back into the room were “Yep, you’re sick as hell”. Greaaaaaat. Turns out my white blood cell count was triple what it should be, and all my symptoms aligned with the flu, so she prescribed me an antibiotic. She’s unsure how I obtained any of these illnesses since nothing is going around campus right now, so she suggested it’s probably just living in close proximity with a lot of people and my body isn’t used to it. She was still concerned about my tonsils, though, since the tests didn’t reveal anything about that, so she sent me to get a throat culture (a different test done on mouth samples). I got gagged twice by the nurse shoving cotton buds down my throat and nearly threw up. Best experience ever. After this I headed to the chemist to pick up my prescription and headed home.

As soon as I got back, I emailed my professor for this afternoon’s class that the nurses had advised me not to go to class and sent my health centre document so that I would be excused (absences must be excused because you only have one unexcused absence before you can be dropped or failed by the professor). He replied that I was excused, so I thankfully didn’t have to go through a 2.5 hour night class.

I tried to eat something more solid for dinner tonight, but my throat was still killing me and I hadn’t quite got my appetite back so it was a bit of a fail.

Thursday 5 September

I woke up feeling a bit better this morning, having started on my antibiotics, but still not fantastic. I emailed the professor of today’s class and excused myself, and that was fine with him too.

I’d gotten a bit sick of being bound to my room, so I decided to take myself to Walmart to do some much needed grocery shopping. It was good to be there by myself and go at my own pace, suss out new stuff, and buy what I wanted. As per usual, I left with way more than I really needed.

I felt well enough to join my friends for dinner in the Square. We went to an Italian/American restaurant named Proud Larry’s. I went easy with an entrée quesadilla and it was delicious. I’d finally got my appetite back so I managed to eat most of it (I’m yet to finish a restaurant meal here in America – their portion sizes are just so damn big!).

When we got back to the dorm, our CA was hosting a colouring and cookies night for our floor, so we had a leisurely night colouring, chatting and introducing everyone to Australian music.

Friday 6 September

Today I woke up feeling soooo much better! I’d had such a solid sleep (and Georgia said she barely heard anything out of me!), I had so much energy and I was super hungry.

I had to go back to the health centre to get the results of my throat culture. There was a lot of fussing around trying to find the person that was supposed to see me, finding where my results were etc. but finally I was told that my suspected ‘tonsillitis’ was Strep, which I’d most likely obtained from sharing food and drink and just being around a lot of people. I was assured that my antibiotics would fix it along with my flu (and I could tell they already were), and was sent on my way.

CJ, Georgia, Vera and I decided to go for a little shopping afternoon to a new section of town we hadn’t been to yet. We visited a bunch of discount stores such as Ross, Marshall’s, Five Below and Old Navy. I ended up coming out with a jumpsuit for an upcoming gameday. We also went to a Hawaiian restaurant for lunch where I had delicious grilled chicken and veg and fried rice. Our waiter was a cute old Asian man named Charlie who was obsessed with the fact that we were internationals, and he even brought us free coffee cake for dessert. We definitely tipped him well.

After heading back to the campus post office to pick up some packages, we headed back to the dorm to get ready for another frat party tonight.

We eventually headed over to Alpha Tau Omega and it was madness. The line was huge to get in because girls were welcome (we got straight through) but boys had to be rushing (in the process of trying to get into a fraternity) to be allowed in. All our friends managed to get in by pulling the international card. They had a stage decked out back with rappers performing, and their whole 4 story mansion was lit up and disco lights were beaming out of every window. We ventured upstairs to see what was going on, and it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect of an insane, Project X-type party – the staircases were covered in alcohol and packed with everyone trying to get up and down, every bedroom was open with people chatting and drinking, beer pong was going on in the communal areas, some rooms had their eskies open and there were massive lines trying to get in and grab free drinks, and everyone blocking the corridors by people chatting or making out. Also, music was blaring at all times of course. It was actually pretty cool.

We headed back down to enjoy some of the live music before it suddenly stopped and we we’re being told over the speakers that the fire alarm had gone off inside and everyone had to evacuate to the other side of the street. Everyone was very annoyed, and it took a good 10 minutes to get everyone out before the fire truck could come through. Turns out some idiot had lit up a cigarette inside the house where a working smoke alarm was.

My friends were all really annoyed by this and decided they wanted to go out in the Square instead, so 12 of us piled into 3 Ubers and headed into town. We ended up at Roosters again (the blues bar) and danced the night away to a rock band while I sipped on my waters (trying to be good and not drink while on antibiotics).

We ended the night with some tacos from a food truck.

Saturday 7 September

Before I start, some terms you should know:

Tailgating – a social gathering where tents are set up with camp chairs, food, barbeques etc. for people to gather together and hang out before the game starts

The Grove – a park area in the middle of campus where tailgating occurs

Walk of Champions – a footpath that leads from one end of the Grove, near Student Union, to the other, close to the stadium, that players and team staff walk along before each home game to interact with the fans and to be cheered on by all in the Grove – an Ole Miss tradition

We had a leisurely morning given that we’d all slept in, were all still tired, and some were hungover. Also, the game wasn’t until 6:30pm and tailgating wasn’t going to be in full swing until 3:30pm-ish.

We eventually made it over to the Grove at around 4pm and found the international tent and had some free food. I was astounded at just how big and busy the whole shebang was, and it was honestly a dream come true since tailgating was one of the parts of Ole Miss culture I was most looking forward to. I got goose bumps when I reminded myself that I was standing amongst the country’s best and most well-renowned tailgate. Everyone was decked out in red (since it was a red game today) and in a great mood.

(With Ciara and Georgia)

(With Susanna)

(With Vera)

At about 4:15pm the buses rolled up at the Walk of Champions (which the international tent happened to be right next to) and the coaches, staff and players made their way down the walk. We all lined the walk and cheered the team on while the band played in the background.

After all that was over, we hung around the tent some more, and I took a stroll to check out the rest of the Grove.

At around 5:15pm we headed towards the stadium because we wanted to get good seats in the student section (because there are no assigned seats there).

We got a really great spot and it was at one of the goal ends. We took some photos, chatted away, and took it all in while the rest of the stadium started filling up.

(Susanna, Georgia, Ciara and I)

(Me and CJ)

As kick off time approached, the pre-game entertainment started. The band and cheerleaders performed, the national anthem was sung, fireworks went off, and music was blasting at pretty much all times.

When the players ran out, coloured smoke was blowing everywhere, everyone was shaking their pom poms, and the stadium was roaring.

The game kicked off promptly at 6:30pm, and it was electric. It was a lot more stop-start than I expected, but I already knew that the games went for several hours. Each quarter is only 15 minutes, but they end up going for 40+ minutes each. Some of our friends ended up leaving at half time because they found the game too long and boring. Over the course of the night we learnt all the little chants and hype activities that go on during the game, and I spent most of the game standing because I was so into it.

(This is a video of the second of four touchdowns)

The game finished at around 9:50pm and the final score ended up being 31-17 – we beat Arkansas! This made my first game experience even better!

Here are some other clips from the game:

We piled out of the stadium and followed the crowds back to the dorms. After stopping by Papa John’s to pick up a quick and easy pizza dinner, we went back to the kitchen in the residence hall to eat. We were all so exhausted that we went to bed because it had been a long but amazing day.

Sunday 8 September

I got to sleep in today while the rest of my friends went on a paddle boarding day. Unfortunately when I went to sign up for it the other week it had already filled up :( (turns out there was only 8 spots)

I spent most of the day in my room writing this post, watching some Netflix, and reminiscing about yesterday and how I can’t wait to do it all over again.

A group of us spent the night planning out our social events for the semester so that we could see what weekends we had free to possibly take a trip somewhere. It’s all still in the works and we’re sussing finances with a few things but it seems like we’ve got some exciting things in store! We’ve got a few interstate adventures in the diary woo!

Catchya all next week. Hopefully I’ll have some more interesting stories than the flu!

- Emily xx