Homecoming week!

Hi guys,

This week was quite a busy one compared to others, but I had a great time! From completing several midterms to going on a three day bender over the weekend, and adding in the fact that it was homecoming week, I’ll definitely need a few days to recover from everything!

Monday 30 September

The morning was spent studying for a midterm I have later this week.

I had my usual class at 5pm, except I lost track of time so I didn’t get there until 5:15pm (oops!). I knew it wouldn’t be an issue, though, because attendance is marked via an online submission we make in each class regarding whatever topic our professor sets. It doubly didn’t matter, though, because she wasn’t even there this week. We had a male member of the athletic department do a presentation on the school’s sporting facilities and he talked about all the upgrades they’ve had in the past few years. It was mind blowing hearing the millions and millions of dollars and years it took to construct or upgrade these facilities, and how they go about obtaining funds for these projects. This was all this guy’s presentation was on, so by 5:45pm he was dismissing us. Score!

Tuesday 1 October

Today’s first class – my Drug Crimes class – was a revision class for our midterm we were taking this Thursday. Our professor basically handed us the test by reading out questions to the class to quiz us, but basically told us to write down everything he was asking or mentioning because it would be on the test. Sure! We were dismissed after half an hour because he had stuff to do and had given us all the revision material we needed.

During class we’d been having some banter in the group chat for our dorm’s wing (run by our CA). One of the girls had asked who was spreading the sick in our wing, and I threw CJ and Vera under the bus by replying with their room number. It wasn’t a complete lie, because CJ had spoken with me this morning about how she was getting sick because Vera was sick, but I knew this would annoy CJ and it would be funny. What conspired was a whole stream of childish banter and Georgia and I being annoying. On our way back from class we rang CJ and Vera’s doorbell (they live in a room designed to assist a hearing impaired person, so it has a doorbell that makes a very loud alarm sound and lights start flashing in their room. So suffice to say it’s extremely annoying and I love pushing it for a lol). CJ ended up coming to our room knowing it was us (cause we filmed ourselves doing it and posted it in the chat) and she started continuously and repetitively knocking on our door. This actually continued for a full 30 minutes before she finally gave up. She thought she was annoying us, but we’d just gone about our afternoon and put headphones in haha.

We went to our next class – Family Law – at 6pm and we received the results for our exams from last week. I got a 97! And Georgia got a 95! We were 2 of only 6 people who got an A (which here is 90-100). This was awesome considering it was our first time really learning any American law. Our professor even gave us a shout out for doing so well considering we’re Aussies.

After class we headed to grab food, and shortly after headed to the silent disco that was being held in the Grove! It was soooo much fun! For those unaware of the concept, you and everyone else are given a pair of large headphones that you pop on to listen to music, and you all dance around together. For those watching on without headphones, they have no idea what you’re listening to, and to them it’s silent aside from maybe hearing you sing. So it’s an inventive and fun alternative when music might not be able to be played out loud. They do it often in clubs around Melbourne. The headphones had 3 channels on them, and you could tell which channel another person was listening to by what colour their headphones turned – blue was rap music, red had pop music, and green was a mix between country and throwbacks. It got so rowdy and high energy, and I surely burned off my entire dinner from dancing around.

(Georgia, Vera, Paula and I)

Wednesday 2 October

I spent all of today studying for my midterm that I had this afternoon for my business negotiation class.

The midterm started off with an online quiz with 50 multiple choice questions. It wasn’t too hard, and I got an 84. We then moved onto the negotiation part of the exam, where our names were drawn out of a hat to partner us up, we were given our information sheets, and then given 30 or so minutes to prepare. We then had the rest of the class to do the negotiation, and it went really smoothly because the guy I was up against was really reasonable and we both wanted to help each other get a good grade. (Side note: I got my grade back a few days later and we got a 72 on this part. Not the best but I’ll take it!).

I spent the rest of my night watching episodes of The Season, which is a documentary-type YouTube show that Ole Miss creates to showcase our sports. There is a whole department dedicated to filming and producing the episodes and content, and they’re super high quality. We were apparently one of the first universities to do it, and now others have followed and are trying to recreate what we do. Anyway, so the best episodes they do and their main focus is, unsurprisingly, on the football team. Episodes will cover the entire week from training and game preparation, to the game itself, and they often take a focus on one or two particular players, telling us their backstory, interviewing them etc. I watched all of the episodes that had aired so far (they’re uploaded a few days after each game day) and I thoroughly enjoyed them! I recommend you give them a watch if you’ve got a spare few hours (each episode is about 20-25 minutes). Here’s a link to the playlist with all of this season’s episodes thus far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Zw8DRcSUI&list=PL4rDhuKsGKriGrKtgGk4BVhsxV8mqNMzx

Thursday 3 October

I spent this morning studying for my midterm that I had later today. Georgia and I quizzed each other again which was super helpful. We got into class at the usual time of 2:30pm, we had our quizzes handed to us at 2:35pm, and we were out of there by 2:40pm. Our midterm quiz was literally 30 multiple choice and true/false questions on exactly what he’d told us to study in Tuesday’s class. He also didn’t even care that Georgia and I were discussing our answers. How freakin’ easy.

We had several hours to kill now before tonight’s festivities, so I just watched some Netflix and enjoyed the fact that midterms were finally over!

We eventually started getting ready around 8pm, and headed off to the Lyric around 9:45pm. We were going to the homecoming formal! This was one of those cliché American experiences we had to have, because we don’t have things like homecoming in Aus. We had a bit of a boogie, ate some food and hung out with some other friends.

The others were bored as there wasn’t much to do, so we all headed over to the Levee to get some drinks. Entry was free and there were drink specials all night, so needless to say we got pretty loose. Towards the end of the night a bunch of us were sat chatting to one of the bartenders who loved that we were all internationals. We just took the piss out of him cause his name was Trip (what a stupid name). It was even funnier when he told us that the random dude who was sitting near us had the same name as him but spelt with a double p (Tripp). I’ve come across some Americans with some strange names, but this has to be one of the worst.

We then somehow ended up at Pita Pit and I managed to order myself a Souvlaki Pita and chips. I was extremely disappointed, however, when I realised that ‘chips’ was a packet of crisps, not hot chips (because duh, they’re called fries here).

I ended up somehow facetiming my friends and then spent the rest of the night sending them videos of me ranting about shit. I don’t actually remember how I got home (I think probably the free shuttle bus), but I kept sending videos to my friends even after getting home, and then eventually crashed maybe around 3am.

Friday 4 October

Unsurprisingly slept in quite late this morning, but I actually wasn’t feeling too bad after last night. I took a trip to Walmart because tonight was my night to cook fam dinner and so I needed to get supplies.

We went and watched the newer footloose movie in the common room, and then we headed to the kitchen where I started prepping dinner. I was making my chicken pasta bake, which takes about an hour to prepare, so I got it ready so that I’d just be able to chuck it in the oven later.

We eventually all congregated for dinner in the kitchen around 6:30pm, and everyone really enjoyed my food (and to all the haters: no, I didn’t burn it). It tasted a little different because I couldn’t use exactly the same ingredients as what I use at home, but it was still a success!

We decided we wanted to go out again tonight, so we started getting ready shortly after dinner. We had some friends who live off campus come to our dorm and we played drinking games for an hour or so before eventually catching the free shuttle into the Square around 10:30pm.

It took us a while to decide where to go because everyone was charging higher than normal entry because it was gameday weekend, but we eventually found a new place called Fill-Up with Billups which is a restaurant by day but a bar by night. The bar service was quite slow but the music was good and its always a good time going out with friends. Again I’d had a little much, especially since Oscar bought us 3 shots each when we first arrived at the bar.

We all disbanded at some point during the night and Vera and I ended up catching the shuttle back by ourselves. We were having such a great dnm that we nearly missed our stop haha. We caught up with the others in the kitchen in the dorm, and we scoffed down some vegemite toast and had a massive dnm.

I eventually headed to bed around 3am again.

Saturday 5 October

Yet another sleep in again today, but woke up in great spirits because it’s GAME DAY! I loved Nashville last weekend, but I missed heading to the Vaught to watch the Rebs play!

Today’s game wasn’t until 6:30pm, so we had a leisurely morning getting ready and pre-drinking. We headed out around 3:30pm, stopped by the Rebel Market to grab some food, and then made our way to the Grove to tailgate.

I got to be right on the Walk of Champions whilst the players walked through. We spent the rest of the pre-game wandering between tents where we had friends before heading to the stadium around 6pm.

The student section was soooo full today so we didn’t get to sit where we normally do or close to the front, but I didn’t really mind because it made me so happy to see such a full stadium! This was what I’d expected from football games. The game was so good and we ended up coming out with a win! I’d been told all week that we were going to lose because Vanderbilt seemed to have a good reputation, but we ended up beating them 31-6! It turns out I’d been given misinformation and we were always tipped to win because Vanderbilt aren’t doing well at the moment.

We eventually made it out of the stadium around 10pm and headed back to the dorms. I was way too tired to go out and party more, so I spent the rest of the night watching some shows in bed.

Sunday 6 October

Woke up at 11am this morning feeling pretty good, just super drowsy. I took myself to the dining hall to get some breakfast. I’ve never been to Sunday breakfast at the Rebel Market, but they had bacon, eggs and tater tots (potato gems)!!! This was a great feed.

I spent the afternoon writing this post, eating Vegemite toast and watching some shows. We peeled ourselves away from our screens and beds at 6:30pm to go and get some dinner, and then again at around 10pm to go and get ice cream (good decisions). Other than that all I managed to get done was re-enrolling at Deakin for next year.

It’s been such a fantastic and memorable week! The next few days of recovery will be worth it. I can’t believe I’m already a third of the way through my whole trip and that we’re halfway through football season! Also, it’s 1 month until my 21st birthday and 1 month until Dad comes to visit! Time is going way too quick, but I’m trying to make the most of it. Hotty Toddy!

- Emily xx