hey fightin' tigers

I can hear the band playing in my head now...

Football starts in two days, and I couldn't be more excited. Perhaps it's shallow, perhaps it's barbaric, but man, if college football isn't the best thing to ever happen to academia, I don't know what is. I get to eat and drink all day and then go stand for four hours with 90,000 other drunk people and scream maniacally at a bunch of guys chasing each other around on the grass. It's awesome.

Football is huge at LSU. Huger than huge. Football is life in the fall. I remember last year, being so excited about the first game, and then Katrina hit. No game, no class, our campus was too busy being used as a triage hospital and media hub. For two weeks it was like that. Finally, classes started again, but most of the students, including me, were still housing family members indefinitely. A lot of people still didn't even know if their childhood homes were still there; they hadn't been able to go back in yet. Nothing was normal.

Finally, three weeks after we had expected, we had our first home game. Now this may seem trivial, but we needed to have that game. Our lives and our campus had been turned on their heads. Walking down that hill towards the stadium, I saw a sea of purple and gold, and remembered what it means to be a Louisianian. That game was a little bit of normalcy for us; and even though it was on a fucking MONDAY, even though we blew a 21 point lead at halftime to lose by a field goal in overtime (I'd like to think that little fiasco was a tribute to the Saints), it was medicinal, recuperative, necessary, for us to have that game.

It's like they say...we really do drink at funerals, and we really did need a reason to celebrate. Win or lose, we're always there for our team, and always up for a party. I'm really looking forward to this season, and I'm very grateful for many things in my life right now. My family's all alive, my hometown's coming back together, and so far the Gulf has been quiet. This is my last season at LSU, and barring any natural disasters, I plan on enjoying every minute of it.

...and keep the goal in view, victory for LSUUUUU!

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 9:32 AM