dawgs til we die

We make sacrifices for the Dawgs. This weekend, the sacrifice was comfort. The day began with 12 UGA college students piling in and out of a five-seater Ford Explorer ...what we do to save a dollar for parking. Our hopes were high and we walked lightly, ready to face the eye of the Tigers (s/o to Katy Perry for her rockin' new song).

Tailgates on tailgates on tailgates... and Stephen and I proudly held up our signs as we walked by each and every one of them. Comments on our posters ranged everywhere from: "Hey, I'm a Clemson fan... and that's pretty funny" to "We LOVE Miley! We LOVE Miley!" Obviously Clemson fans yelled the latter comment as well.

It was a fun day. Full of tailgates and food and friends and new friends and rain... Just kidding, the rain part wasn't fun, but was still part of the day nonetheless.

Game time couldn't have come any slower, and the Dawgs needed us. So we were prepared to not lose our voices - and by prepared I mean we had a big bag of cough drops that we kept replenishing ourselves with every time the Dawgs were on defense. OOOOoooohhhhHHHH!

The game crept by, but the time on the clock ran out and our hopes were crushed before we knew it.

As I watched the orange swarm grow in the middle of Death Valley, a zombie exodus of red and black was happening all around me. Can't say I wasn't about to join the zombie march though. But for the moment, I sat there motionless.. head in my hands - defeated and hopeless.

I looked at my friend to my left - he was taking the Dawgs' loss a little harder than me.

We both looked pitiful; a much needed pep talk was in the works. We talked it about for a long while. But it wasn't until we said "this loss only hurts our pride" that we were able to overcome our sadness.

The perfect song began to play as we smirked about our epiphany - "On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons. It only took a slight nudge of the elbow for both of us to recognize that we were about to take it to the next level.

No questions asked, we began dancing like fools in the top deck seating of Death Valley. And just when you would have thought that we had overcome our sadness, that we had taken the next step on our right feet, that we had conquered and defeated our bitterness towards Clemson. Nope... Just nope.

When I mentioned "the next level," I meant that I watched my game partner, Stephen, viciously rip up orange pom-poms in front of both UGA and Clemson fans while also informing the last stragglers in the stands that we (the Dawgs) are still on our way to becoming national champs. Although we looked ridiculous, my whole being became completely immersed in a mixture of satisfaction and joy.

Sure, we got some looks... some pretty weird ones if I'm being honest. But we left that stadium with our chins held high... proud to be Dawgs.

a blast to the past

There are few moments that I become so overwhelmed that the only way I can release my emotions is through throwing some words down, trying my best to remind my future self of how I’m feeling in this exact moment.

This is not unknown knowledge, but social media is big right now. Everyone is facebooking, tweeting, and instagraming about all the cool things they do, the weird people they see, and how bad/good they can look in a selfie. Only a couple times out of the year is my newsfeed completely immersed in just one topic. Last night: the VMAs. More specifically, Justin Timberlake.

JT came out on stage escorted by the unique and electric movements of his limbs. He wowed the crowd from the get-go. And every time a new set of beats reached the thousands of ears in the Barclays Center, the audience went wild. It didn’t take JT much to have his suitors... I mean, fans, on their feet, hands up, and voices loud.

As if JT himself, his dance moves, and his voice wasn’t enough, the place then faded to pitch black – leaving the crowd and all the TV viewers wondering what was coming next. The blue-tinted spotlights seemed to be having a seizure as everyone noticed four figures rising from the depths of the stage. I knew those figures, and so did everyone else. N’SYNC was back, flooding the whole crowd (well, those of us born before 1995) with a strong sense of nostalgia.

But what was happening on stage was too awesome for me to even bother getting emotional. I tried not to cry, and instead I just imagined the reactions of people happening across the country in that very moment.

JT didn’t leave us in the early years of the millennium though; he ended with his most recent hit, "Mirrors," bringing us back to 2013. So JT’s performance wasn’t just a good performance. For people my age, and maybe others too, it was a performance that took me on a journey through the past.

I imagined my 2001 self – hanging my first N’SYNC poster on my bedroom wall. I imagined my sassy middle school self singing "Cry Me A River" to all my friends. I imagined myself putting earbuds in my first generation iPod to listen to “My Love.” I then imagined myself just six months ago listening to JT’s newest hits on the 20/20 Experience.

So maybe I do get emotional because it’s surreal to see someone who is so, so good at what they do. Or perhaps it’s because JT has been doing his thing since my childhood, and every note he sings attempts to take me back to a time period in my life that I’ll never experience again. But regardless, what his friends say is true – “It’s music you can see.”

intro

If you kept up with my blog at all this summer (see top bar link "86 days of summer"), then you know I have a blog... had a blog.

If you asked me one thing I miss most about this summer - I'd say writing. I miss writing film reviews. I miss writing experiential and advice papers. But most of all, I miss writing blogs about my day-to-day happenings. Writing helps me remember - because if you're a close friend of mine you know that "remembering" is not one of my strong suits.

It's my senior year at the University of Georgia (Go DAWGS - s/o), and I, as well as many of my fellow dawgs, have some exciting events upon us in the near future.

But as much as I love my Dawgs, this blog isn't about their season (although I will be writing about it quite a bit). It isn't about all the epic concerts that are happening this fall. It isn't about breaking news. It isn't about my friends. It isn't about Athens. It isn't about the future.

How did I feel in that exact moment? What was everyone else thinking? Did that just happen?

You must be thinking - all those questions are really vague.

My response: Good.

Because just like you, I don't know what this blog is about. I don't know what tomorrow holds. But what I do know is that there's always a story to be told.

And Here's A Video Dedicated To The Title Of This Blog Post