Zara Larsson came to Ole Miss!!!

Hey everyone,

This week was my 4thweek here and 3rdweek of classes. Today – the day I’m writing this – (the 17th) is exactly a month since I arrived in the US! Time is flying already but I’m having a ball!

Monday 9 September

As per usual most of today was super leisurely as I don’t have my class until 5pm. I started feeling a whole heap better today – probably helps that I didn’t push myself too hard over the weekend. My IMC (integrated marketing communications) class was alright, but somehow a class that’s supposed to mostly be about learning about collegiate and professional sports has turned into learning about management styles and a whole bunch of stuff I’ve covered in many high school and Uni business management classes before. Ah well, at least it was easy stuff to learn.

Tuesday 10 September

Again my big day rolls around. I still had a relatively easy morning, including riding to the Grill (the athletes’ dining hall) for lunch which is always a treat because the food is so much better. Plus we get a little workout in with the 5-10 minute ride each way. They had garlic bread there today, so paired with some pasta, I was in heaven.

My two criminal justice classes were like they usually are – a little boring since the professor simply reads over the reading he assigned to us to read before class, and doesn’t really add anything in that we didn’t learn from reading the work ourselves. The best part, though, is that when I get out of my last class at 7:30pm, I always catch the sunset, and so far they’ve all been beautiful.

Wednesday 11 September

Another day spent not doing a whole lot, just some studying and what not. My class was at 4pm and it was my business negotiation class. This time we did a negotiation exercise in teams of 3 and whilst the briefs had a lot of content and a lot of different things we needed to negotiate, it was actually a really great exercise and I felt that my team won on a lot of things compared to the team we were negotiating against. Our professor also gave us the great news that he’s pushed our midterm back a week so we have more time to prepare – relief!

Thursday 12 September

The day was nothing special, but I had my last class for the week and all we did was watch a documentary (with an Aussie narrator!) about drugs in Afghanistan and America’s influence and involvement in all of that. But after that class finished it was finally my weekend!

Some of my friends had heard there was a beer pong night at a small, new venue in town where a bartender we know works, so we headed out there for the night. It’s called the Oxford Cellar and its 21+, but because the bartender knows us he let us all in. We spent the night downing 2-for-1 drinks, playing some beer pong (I dominated) and chatting the night away.

We also had a mini photoshoot and got some good snaps:

We had a great night but unfortunately everything closes super early here so we were getting kicked out at 12:15pm. We caught the shuttle bus home, and had another little photoshoot at the bus stop, trying our best to get some pics with self-timer:

When we got off the bus on campus, we headed to our dorm’s kitchen for some food before all heading off to bed.

Friday 13 September

Some of my friends woke up quite a lot worse for wear today, so we had a very minimal morning. I felt a bit restless from sitting in my room watching Netflix all morning, so in the arvo I went for a 30 or so minute stroll around a little bit of campus and felt so good for it afterwards. I got to see staff setting up all the trash cans for tomorrow’s game day (we call this Trash Can Friday) and I treated myself to some Starbucks at the end.

Ciara and I then headed off on the bus to Walmart as we were desperate for a few things. We’re more familiar with the layout of everything around Walmart now and we’re better at going in and getting just what we need (rather than browsing every aisle and coming out with a whole lot of unnecessary stuff). And a bonus, we didn’t have to wait an hour for the bus this time!

Since the others were still recovering from last night, most of the girls and I decided not to go to a frat party and just stay in and watch a movie. We ended up choosing The Longest Ride and all ended up in tears – I think we all just needed a good cry and to then be able to laugh about it.

We hit the hay real early because tomorrow’s game day was going to be a big day.

Saturday 14 September

Game dayyyyy! Today’s game was a 3pm game so everything was happening earlier. We got up, had breakfast, and got straight into getting ready and pre-drinking.

We headed over to the Grove around 12:30-ish and first headed into Student Union to grab some food. We then wandered around for a bit since there was no Study Abroad tent and we didn’t really know anyone who had one. We eventually met up with some friends and hung out for a while and watched the cheerleaders and band perform.

The others didn’t want to head into the stadium until the last minute because of the heat (it was 34 Celsius but felt like 40!), but Ciara and I wanted to secure some good seats. This ended up not being an issue anyway given that it was pretty empty – not many people had rocked up to this week’s game (the Grove was pretty empty too). We later found out that it was simply because it was a non-important non-SEC team (Southeastern Louisiana) so people weren’t super fussed about missing it.

The usual pre-game antics were on (the band, the chanting, the fireworks, national anthem etc.) and then the game was on!

We were sweltering in the heat and I’d forgotten to put sunscreen on, so about halfway through the game we all headed over to the other side of the stadium because those seats were shaded.

The game was super close at the end and we quite easily nearly could have lost it, but we ended up beating SELA 40-29! Another win for the Rebs!

(Al - England, myself, and Bea - Germany)

(Oscar from Sweden singing All Star)

(An Ole Miss touchdown we saw from the front row in the student section!)

We all met back up at the dorms later on and drank some more before heading out on campus to find the frat party that was supposedly on. After walking around for about 20 minutes we couldn’t find it. We kept trying to make a bunch of plans that kept changing or falling through. Tired from the big game day and with a lack of decision-making abilities, a bunch of us decided to just go back to the dorm and chill. Others went out to the Square but I didn’t want to given that the bars and clubs charge mega $$ for entry on game day nights (apparently one of them is $50USD entry!!!).

Unfortunately I wasn’t getting to sleep easily and was still buzzing from the big day. At around 2am Vera messages our group chat saying that she’s hungry and is going to the kitchen to make food, and all of a sudden myself, Georgia (who I didn’t even realise was still awake) and Al all responded saying that we were too. So we all ended up having some late night vegemite on toast at 2:30-3am in the morning and chatting about nonsense until we finally went to bed around 3:30am.

Sunday 15 September

Slept in this morning (what else do you expect on a Sunday?) before a few of us biked to the soccer stadium to watch the soccer team play South Alabama. Again, it was super hot, but I remembered to put on sunscreen this time. Unfortunately the girls lost but it’s still always fun to watch.

We headed back to the dorm and chilled out for an hour or so before getting ready for the Fall Concert that was starting at 5:30pm in the Grove.

When we got there, a band from Memphis called Betcha was starting to play, and their 30 minute set was really enjoyable!

At 6:30pm Josie Dunne came on. I didn’t know her but she’s more well known around the US and has done some songs with some bigger names (e.g. Matoma). She was so full of energy and she really got the crowd going! Her voice was incredible, too.

And finally, around 7:40pm, we were graced with Zara Larsson! When I found out a few weeks ago that she was coming to Ole Miss, I freaked out! I love her music and am a big fan. She sang (and danced) do her biggest hits so the show was high energy and we danced almost the whole time. I was super disappointed, however, that she didn’t perform her song One Mississippi – would have been the most appropriate occasion I would have thought. The crowd wasn’t as big as I thought which was kind of disappointing, but I found out later that not many people around here actually know who she is?!?! I thought she was massive everywhere, but I guess not so much in the deep south. She left really abruptly which was also a bit disappointing, but nonetheless I really enjoyed her show and feel lucky to have seen her perform!

We grabbed some food from the Student Union on our way home, and settled in for the night.

Not a super eventful week but I had a great weekend! At least it was a step above last week and I felt a whole lot better. Be back next week!

- Emily xx