Football season is here!

Are you ready for some foooootbaalllll?!?!

Happy Sunday and happy football day! 

You would think that I would be perched right on the couch watching all the games, checking my fantasy players' stats, and all that jazz. but no. I'm not. I'm working on a case study on Sephora's marketing and media problems for my marketing management class. It's a power point that I may or may not have to present. We all have to do one, but the professor will pick only one unlucky soul to actually present. And then while that poor, unfortunate, person presents the rest of us criticize their work. Remember that whole 'shark feeding frenzy' I talked about a few weeks ago? Ya. That's gonna happen tomorrow. 

What. Da. Fuq.

And knowing my luck, I'll get picked. And I'm going to end up like this little seal…

Sucks to suck.

So that's my Sunday in a nutshell. Solid.

But let's change the subject. I left you all with how I've been sorta homesick and stressed. 

Well the stress isn't gone, it is better but not gone. You can tell because whenever I'm stressed my lower back hurts (blaming my mom for that one) and I start using icy-hot and heat pads to help so I go around with this lovely smell of bengay and icy-hot, that minty, weird, kinda like you're in a doctor's office, sickly smell. I just tell people it's my new perfume. Seems legit. Like right now, I'm typing all this and my lower back is on FIRE and I could have sworn it was supposed to stay on the icy part for a bit longer and my roommate is sure to complain about the smell but it's cool. I'm fine, totally fine. (my dad always says that when I say I'm 'fine' it's actually an acronym.. f-reaked out, i-ncoherent, n-eurotic, e-motionally unstable. thanks pops.)

Why all the stress? Well for starters I just stress. A lot. Class=stress, work=stress, laundry=stress, making dinner=stress, deciding what book to read even when it's for pleasure=stress, etc. 

(I'm working on it.)

But why now? See the above photo. Yeah, I'm not all that excited for tomorrow's class. But not even that is what's really really stressing me out.

Intramural flag football starts tonight. All that training, scheduling, hiring, comes down to this. Tonight. Here we go.

I can't really put to words what exactly has me so flipped out about it. The prep work is done, all that has to happen is for teams to play. That's it. But I'm so incredibly nervous that something will go wrong, or someone will get hurt, or  something won't work out. Totally irrational. Even if something does happen to go wrong, it's usually fixable. Ask my co-workers and boss back in Davis, this is not new. This isn't even surprising. But everyone in Illinois seems to take things a whole lot slower and easier. So when I stress just a little bit they all act surprised and say, 'relax, it's all good'. 

If only they could see me now, they'd probably put me in a mental hospital. 

Those 'Keep Calm and Carry On' posters really grind my gears. Um excuse me, you can't tell me what to do! You don't know my life! and what's the deal with the crown?? Let's be real, nobody can rock a crown and be calm except for the Queen.
And that's only because she was born with it on. 

I'm weird, I know. So instead of talking to a shrink I'm going to blog about my stress and hopefully become a little less stressed because of it. I'll let you all know how that goes. 

So this weekend though. FUN stuff happened. i.e. First home football game for the Salukis! 

Which also means the first tail gate. 

Quick background…Davis doesn't really tail gate. There is a little area to do such by the stadium but it was always kinda lame, you needed a pass or had to be an athlete to join so that was super exclusive and super lame if you ask me but ya, never went to a college tail gate shindig. 

But boy, oh boy did Saturday make up for it!

Salukiville tailgates. And they tailgate like champions. 

Quicky version of what a Saluki tail gate entails:

-Multiple parking lots filled with trucks, cars, RV's all in the name of tailgating. 

-Tents set up with live bands, hand outs, booze and food.

-Lots of games, i.e beersbee (beer-frisbee), flippy cup (they say 'flippy' out here instead of just 'flip'), bags (cornhole), redneck darts, bp, you know…the works. (no snappa to be found. that might be a little difficult to play at a tailgate. I'm gonna try to bring it to the next one though.)

-Cops everywhere. But SIU allows alcohol on campus. Score. So lots of beer and as long as you can walk and talk they don't care. Keep the peace and you'll stay out of trouble. (Totallllyyy different than Davis.)

-Families, students, alumni, Carbondale folk, they all come out for football. It's crazy. And people said numbers were down this year due to the heat. sheesh.

-Lots of koozies. Lots and lots.

(Koozies are like gold out here. People kinda freak out about them and everyone seems to have a collection of at least 10 or so. People will even bring them to the bars and use them. We NEVER used koozies. Ever. I doubt people in california know what they are. I still don't use one. And won't. I held a can in a kookie for a friend and it felt weird, not feeling the cold aluminum in my hands.)

There is so much pride here for the Salukis it really is awesome. You stand out really badly if you're not in school colors on game day. We ended up at an RV where a little boy of 5 was decked out in Saluki maroon from his hat to his shoes. He was playing bags and he was super adorable. He drank his capri sun and loved to show off his Bags skills. He was a total ham and every time we turned away to talk while he was impressing us with his bean bag tosses from 2 feet away, he'd say 'Gurls, I'm frowing now!' in a sassy, cute wittle, voice that meant "pay attention to me!". So. Cute.

After a few rounds of bags, booze and lots of smoldering in the heat we left for the game. We had been tailgating for 4 hours (good god, it's like a sport out here, who can tailgate the hardest and longest) the game started and we headed into the stadium. It's not a huge school but the stadium isn't half bad. I'm pretty sure it's the same if not bigger than Davis's and Davis has a lot more students.The game was pretty good, although we lost in overtime, but the whole experience of my first Saluki football game and tailgate was all around really great. 

Definitely doing that again. And apparently basketball season can get crazy too. Yay!

The beginning of the infamous tailgate. Trucks on trucks on trucks.

My tailgatin' crew.

It's koozie time. (Didn't drink with it.  One step at a time.)

My wristband for tailgating. Ron Swanson would be proud.

Almost game time, Salukis starting to pile in. 

Home of the Salukis :) Go dawgs!

And it was a great day. Now I'm going to work on my presentation for marketing and then I'll head out to the flag football fields so I can see for myself that everything is a-ok. and then we start all over again on monday. Oh and go pats! They barely got that win, but a win is still a win in the books. So excited for football season! 

To be continued!