we wont ever be friends again!

August 2, 2008: Homeward Bound

Tonight is our last night in Oxford. I could go on for a really long time about how unbelievable it is that our time here is finally up. All week it’s been a strange mix of emotions for me; I’ve been anxious about getting home and seeing people and stressed about finals this weekend. And now that finals are over and my room is all packed, it’s a very bittersweet feeling. I’ve come to love Worcester College, and the thought of leaving my little room, the forbidden grass, the adventurous ducks, the fickle weather, and the awesome English accents is quite sad. I hate ends!

We spent a lot of time this week working on our movie for our Jane Austen class. We had six actors, who’s schedules we all had to coordinate in order to shoot scenes with all of them. The weather cooperated, thank goodness, and we ended up getting some great footage! I was in charge of the boom pole the whole time, and though I didn’t ever hit anyone, I got very close a few times. I’m not sure it’s a profession I should commit to long term!

This last week was full of sentimental “last moments”—the highlight being the Champagne reception we were all invited to attend in the Provost’s Gardens. These gardens have been under lock and key all summer, so getting to go in was a pretty big deal. We all dressed up in our finest, and went and drank champagne and met the provost (the president of the college) and took dozens of pictures together. It was amazing to look around and think that at the beginning of the summer I didn’t know most of the people that I’ve come to be so close to. We ended the evening with a joyous rendition of “Ramblin Wreck”…complete with the Fight! Win! Drink! Get Naked! cheer at the very end. We are a proud, proud, group of students! We spent the rest of the night editing our movie for our Jane Austen class.

Wednesday was another important day in GT Oxford Program history…it was the infamous GT vs. UGA soccer tournament. We all skipped dinner so we could see the entire game, which meant leaving at 6pm and walking two miles to the field! Just like at Tech, game day is taken serious by everyone. We all decided to dress up like we would for a game, which was khakis and yellow polos for the guys and cute yellow dresses for the girls. Most of us didn’t actually bring tech gear with us, so we had to improvise a little. We still looked pretty classy though! Unfortunately, game day is also a time that a lot of people drink crazy amounts of alcohol, and today was no exception. Even by the start of the game people were pretty wild---we had two of our guys trying to give the ref some cider throughout the game. The funny part is that he took some everytime! It might just be the first time in GT history that the ref of a game has been persuaded to make calls for GT instead of our opponents! My favorite part of the evening was the creative cheers and name calling that my not-so-sober friends came up with. One of the best was “uga’s dead” followed by someone else yelling “congestive heart failure” over and over again. A little too mean for me to cheer, but I did laugh a little. They also came up with names for several of U[sic]GA’s players, including Sleeves (he was wearing a long sleeved underarmor shirt and a cut off tshirt), Dorothy (he had red cleets on), and Wolverine (he had a crazy beard). Not thinking, when “Wolverine” ran close to us I noticed that it was a friend of mine from highschool and said to myself “Hey, that’s Boyd.” The hecklers heard me and were very excited that they knew the name of a player, so for the rest of the evening they tried to distract him by calling out his name. The final score ended up being 2-1, Tech winning! It was incredibly exciting to beat U[sic]GA at something, even if it was just a soccer game in Oxford. Some of them started cheering “Lets play football” as we sang our fight song, but we didn’t let them get us down. It was a great night!

The rest of the week was devoted to studying and preparing for finals. The computer room was full basically 24 hours a day, because in typical Tech style we had all procrastinated until the very last minute to finish end of term projects and papers. Some things don’t change regardless of where you are! Finals ended up going well, and our professor loved our movie! Here is a link to it if you are interested: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5426530675283409067&hl=en
We were all pretty proud of it…my favorite is the blooper real!

Tonight we all went to dinner at King’s Arm pub in town, and then to the pub on campus for “European Disco” night. We then made out last pilgrimage to the chip trailer just down the road from campus. We have visited those guys many times during the 6 weeks we’ve been here, and I will definitely miss those fries!

Now I am here in my empty room finished off my two liter of Coke and feeling pretty confused. At this point I just want to be home. This trip has been such a learning experience for me. I’ve grown physically (my pants are way tighter now than when I left…), emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. I had no idea what this summer would be like, and I definitely wasn’t prepared for it to make such a huge impact on who I am. Seeing the world has given me such a great appreciate for how fortunate we all are. I am so blessed to have a wonderful family, friends, school, and city to return to. If nothing else, this trip has shown me what a beautiful place home really is. We leave at 4am Atlanta time tomorrow morning, and return to Atlanta at 9pm tomorrow night. It will be a long day, and I cannot wait to get to baggage claim and give all my family huge hugs.

Thanks so much for reading…whoever managed to stick it out this long. Its been nice to think that people have shared in my experiences this summer. I might do a flight recap post later in the week, but for now….this is the end of Apodomeo 2008.

The end.