FOMO, football, foul smell

Hey there,

Another week of classes, football and hanging out with friends! I’m getting into more of a routine, which is also getting a little boring, but adventures are coming up soon!

Monday 16 September

Spent this morning/afternoon working on an assignment for my journalism class that was due by tonight. It was a simple article review: 2-3 pages, summarise it, state my view, conclude. Super easy.

In the journalism class tonight we had a guest speaker – Chuck Swirsky, a play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Bulls. He spoke about the roles he’d taken over his life and what he’d done to get to where he was now and how they led to bigger and better things (e.g. doing an internship in college led to knowing certain people which led to full-time work). He also then stressed the importance of networking, manners and punctuality. It was a whole lot of stuff I’ve heard before, just with his personal twist, but I still always leave those kinds of talks with a renewed sense of inspiration.

Tuesday 17 September

Classes today were a little boring – more of my two criminal justice lecturers reading directly from the textbook, and in one of the classes we were doing a last minute review before our test next week.

Literally nothing else of interest happened today.

Wednesday 18 September

Another morning of procrastinating in my room before lunch at the Grill, where “Down Under” actually came on the radio haha!

In the afternoon I decided to head to Student Union to study there. I’m never really productive in my room, so figured a change of scenery might make me more productive. I got some work done before heading to my 4pm class. This week we did a one-on-one negotiation exercise which I found a lot better because then I was able to dictate what I wanted to negotiate. Also, the girl I was up against was a very soft negotiator so I got a lot of what I wanted haha.

Thursday 19 September

My criminal justice class today had a pop quiz. The thing about these pop quizzes, however, is that it’s simply signing the attendance sheet. We literally get 50 marks towards our final grade for attending the class that he happens to bring an attendance sheet to (he normally doesn’t bother marking attendance). How easy!

After this class it was the start of my weekend, so I went straight into weekend mode and didn’t get any work done.

We spent the night hanging out in one of the dorm lounges playing games. We started with monopoly, because one of the CA’s had borrowed it from another dorm. But in the middle of our game he had to grab it back off us because he had to return it. We calculated our scores and I won! We then moved onto playing King’s Cup, which is a drinking game that uses a deck of cards. We had to be sneaky, of course, because drinking isn’t allowed in the dorms (shh).

Friday 20 September

A leisurely day binge watching Netflix, before we all congregated in the kitchen for a family dinner around 6pm. We’re taking turns at making a home-cooked dinner each week, and this week was Georgia’s turn, so she made tacos. They were delish!

During dinner, CJ realised that she hadn’t submitted a group assignment for one of her classes. Unfortunately she only realised as it hit the time it was supposed to be submitted. Without saying anything other than “FUCK”, she jumped out of her seat, and bolted towards the kitchen door, jumping up onto the coffee table to send herself over the couch. It was the funniest, most unexpected parkour I’ve ever seen.

After dinner we headed off to the soccer game, where Ole Miss played Missouri (or MIzzou as they call themselves). The match ended 1-1, so a 10 minute overtime was played. No scores were made, so they went into second 10 minute overtime. Still no scores were made, so the match ended (finally) in a tie.

The rest of the group decided to go out, but I wasn’t really up to it, especially given that it was game day tomorrow and so it would be a big day, so I stayed home and had an early night.

Saturday 21 September

I was up this morning at 7:30am to facetime my friends who were all at Spaldo’s 21stbirthday party. After trying multiple people, Connor finally picked up. They couldn’t hear me but I could hear them, so Connor took the phone around the room and I got to say hi to a bunch of people which was really nice. I got quite a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out), but I’m glad they all, especially Spaldo, had a great night.

Since today’s game was rudely at 11am (way too early), I got straight into getting ready after the call. Georgia was still sleeping as she’d gotten home late last night, so I had to be super quiet. When I went to get CJ from her room at 9:45am, I found that she was still asleep. I waited for her to get ready (luckily she’s super quick) and we headed to the Grove. It was a lot busier this week, and there were actually soooo many California fans. I didn’t expect that considering they would have had to fly more than halfway across the country. But they were the 14thranked team in the country, so they’d have some pretty passionate fans. Additionally, the team is the best of the University of California teams, representing UC Berkley (the other two teams, from UCLA and UC Davis, are not as good).

The stadium was also a lot more packed this week, but in terms of my close friends, it was just CJ and I. Given that and the heat, when we found out that our Swedish friend Oscar and his roommate Sam were sitting on the other side of the stadium in the shaded area, we headed over there to sit with them.

The game was more disappointing this week since California were so good and we were making stupid mistakes, but we were warned to expect a loss so I want surprised. However, the game ended on a bit of a sour note because we supposedly made a touchdown but the ref said it didn’t count, and there was all this drama about how we deserved a review. What made it worse was that we were only 8 points behind, so with getting 6 for a touchdown and the potential to get 2 extras, a lot of our fans felt we were robbed. Alas, the final score was 20-28, and there ended the streak of home games (now they’re only going to be every fortnight).

(Me cheering after the Hotty Toddy chant)

(Me, CJ and Oscar)

(Me and Sam)

After the game we went and hung out in the grove for a bit with some of Oscar and Sam’s friends. I then grabbed some Qdoba (a Mexican fast food chain) in Student Union before heading back to the dorms. All the others had woken up and were chilling out.

We spent the afternoon/night in the courtyard/quad area in front of our dorm. We played with CJ’s AFL footy for a while, trying to teach the Americans and other internationals how to kick it, and stopping them from trying to throw it like an American football. We then settled down on a blanket and played a few rounds of King’s Cup. I’m surprised we weren’t pulled up for quite obviously drinking alcohol in the middle of a bunch of freshman dorms. I facetimed a few of the girls while I was outside and heard about Spaldo’s party.

The others decided to go out again, but I was so tired from the day and stayed home again. Plus, entry/cover charge into venues on home gamedays is ridiculous – one of them charges $50! Just to get in the damn place! I conked out early again.

Sunday 22 September

I woke up this morning feeling refreshed, but something smelt odd. I initially thought it was just a mixture of Georgia smelling like alcohol and the sun beaming into our room making the air warmer and thicker. Eventually I got up to go to the bathroom, and discovered that our sink was completely covered in and clogged up with vomit. Fantastic. Georgia had come home, thrown up, and left it there. I’m so glad I didn’t hear it happening last night. I was pretty peeved because it was so disgusting.

Eventually CJ messaged that she was going to the kitchen to make breakfast, and I joined her so I didn’t have to stay in the room. The others filled me in on the night and it turns out Georgia had drunk a fair bit. When I returned to the room she was still sleeping, so I just went about my morning (and opened the window haha). Just after I’d turned off the shower, I heard through the door her gasp of “oh my god”. She’d just found her mess. I came out to find her cleaning the sink and she was so apologetic.

CJ and I left and rode to a Softball game that was a practice match between Ole Miss and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, since it’s currently off-season for the sport. It was so hot and Ole Miss was smashing the other team, so we left halfway through. It was still good to watch, though.

I came back to find the room empty, smelling a lot better, and a note on my bed from Georgia saying sorry and she’d bought me my Starbucks order and a muffin. The poor girl was so embarrassed that she told me to let her know when she could come back to the room because she thought she’d been banished! All was good, and I more than happily accepted the apology and food.

(The note that Georgia left for me hahaha)

So that was my relatively uneventful week. Next weekend is going to be a lot cooler so stay tuned for that!

- Emily xx