May 5 12:50 am
Lily and me at my most school-spirit-y.  #17 on my list of things I will miss about Berkeley: The Idea of Game Day When I came up for CalSo (orientation) the summer before freshman year, I was an obnoxious seventeen year old with a penchant for cowboy boots (they were really hip in LA at the time, I swear) and over-excessive use of black eyeliner. All of the other kids in my group wore gray, nondescript sweatshirts and American Eagle jeans. One defining moment: upon receiving my new school ID picture, I commented that I looked like I lived on a farm (I think it had something to do with my bangs). The boy sitting to my right glared at me. “I LIVE on a farm,” he said. But, by far the largest difference between my new peers and myself was that they were all hella into football, and more frighteningly, school spirit. At one point over the orientation weekend, we were all at some luncheon in the Pauly Ballroom when, all of the sudden, the Cal marching band stormed into the room crashing cymbals and blowing horns. Instead of cowering under the table - my instinctive reaction - everyone started cheering, smacking their plastic cups down on the table to the rhythm of the band. Oski Bear paraded around, weaving throughout the tables, and a few Cal cheerleaders (or dance team members, whatever they’re called) jumped up and down with smiles the size of the campanile stretched across their faces.  I was shocked. I was dismayed. I was completely out of my element. My tiny liberal-arts-centric high school not only lacked a football team - we didn’t even have a field (we used the park down the street, where we ran laps around crazed squirrels and homeless people). When the administration announced we would have to wear P.E. “unforms” (which I think were black bottoms and white tops of our own choice? I don’t really remember), students freaked the fuck out and held sit-ins in the principal’s office. I can’t imagine how we would have reacted to cheerleaders. I walked out of the building, ears ringing, wondering how I would ever fit in come August. The first game I ever went to was a few weeks into freshman year (the only year I had tickets, since you get them for free when you’re a freshman). I had just broken up with my high school boyfriend earlier in the week and I was teary and depressed (and most likely also hungover) and wanted to spend the morning holed up under my duvet in my dorm. I whined as my friend Lily, dressed in blue and gold, dragged me out of bed and into the Cal student store where she bought us these ridiculously ugly long necklaces adorned with shiny blue and gold balls the size of Christmas tree ornaments. We went to this frat, ATO, and drank mimosas on their enormous roof and looked down at the hoards of people crowding the streets below and I started to feel a little better about life, because it was sunny and I was getting drunk before noon and I felt like such a legit college student. My high school had been so quintessentially unconventional and now, here I was, about to go to a real football game without any pressure to act jaded or unimpressed. Now, as a college senior with four semesters of game days under my belt, I still don’t like flat beer, frat boys, or football. But, I truly love game days. They make me feel such strong school spirit (which, okay, I also feel when I’m driving around home in LA and see cars with Cal bumper stickers on them. I get this strong urge to roll down my window and yell, “Go Bears!” I try and repress it.) It’s definitely not about who wins or loses the game - no matter how many times game strategy is explained to me or how good our team is supposed to be this season, I just do not care. What I love about game days is the smell of free bbq on frathouse lawns and how packed the streets become and how everyone feels like one cohesive (blue and gold) unit. I’ve got game days down: I eat a bunch of free veggie burgers and get drunk and take a nap during the game and wake up when everyone’s leaving the stadium. I sit on rooftops or frat balconies or (these days) my own front porch and watch students, alumni, and Bay Area residents stumble through the streets with, depending on the game’s outcome, exuberant yelps or hunched shoulders. Sometimes, if I’m in a particularly good mood, I even yell at the opposing team’s fans. I still have issues with the Cal marching band, though, which I think is mostly the outcome of living on Piedmont and hearing them rehearse for hours and hours on way too many evenings. Come on, guys. Does anyone want to hear you play, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day over and over? No. No one does.  p.s. Lily, how our hair has changed…

Lily and me at my most school-spirit-y. 

#17 on my list of things I will miss about Berkeley: The Idea of Game Day

When I came up for CalSo (orientation) the summer before freshman year, I was an obnoxious seventeen year old with a penchant for cowboy boots (they were really hip in LA at the time, I swear) and over-excessive use of black eyeliner. All of the other kids in my group wore gray, nondescript sweatshirts and American Eagle jeans. One defining moment: upon receiving my new school ID picture, I commented that I looked like I lived on a farm (I think it had something to do with my bangs). The boy sitting to my right glared at me. “I LIVE on a farm,” he said.

But, by far the largest difference between my new peers and myself was that they were all hella into football, and more frighteningly, school spirit. At one point over the orientation weekend, we were all at some luncheon in the Pauly Ballroom when, all of the sudden, the Cal marching band stormed into the room crashing cymbals and blowing horns. Instead of cowering under the table - my instinctive reaction - everyone started cheering, smacking their plastic cups down on the table to the rhythm of the band. Oski Bear paraded around, weaving throughout the tables, and a few Cal cheerleaders (or dance team members, whatever they’re called) jumped up and down with smiles the size of the campanile stretched across their faces. 

I was shocked. I was dismayed. I was completely out of my element. My tiny liberal-arts-centric high school not only lacked a football team - we didn’t even have a field (we used the park down the street, where we ran laps around crazed squirrels and homeless people). When the administration announced we would have to wear P.E. “unforms” (which I think were black bottoms and white tops of our own choice? I don’t really remember), students freaked the fuck out and held sit-ins in the principal’s office. I can’t imagine how we would have reacted to cheerleaders. I walked out of the building, ears ringing, wondering how I would ever fit in come August.

The first game I ever went to was a few weeks into freshman year (the only year I had tickets, since you get them for free when you’re a freshman). I had just broken up with my high school boyfriend earlier in the week and I was teary and depressed (and most likely also hungover) and wanted to spend the morning holed up under my duvet in my dorm. I whined as my friend Lily, dressed in blue and gold, dragged me out of bed and into the Cal student store where she bought us these ridiculously ugly long necklaces adorned with shiny blue and gold balls the size of Christmas tree ornaments. We went to this frat, ATO, and drank mimosas on their enormous roof and looked down at the hoards of people crowding the streets below and I started to feel a little better about life, because it was sunny and I was getting drunk before noon and I felt like such a legit college student. My high school had been so quintessentially unconventional and now, here I was, about to go to a real football game without any pressure to act jaded or unimpressed.

Now, as a college senior with four semesters of game days under my belt, I still don’t like flat beer, frat boys, or football. But, I truly love game days. They make me feel such strong school spirit (which, okay, I also feel when I’m driving around home in LA and see cars with Cal bumper stickers on them. I get this strong urge to roll down my window and yell, “Go Bears!” I try and repress it.) It’s definitely not about who wins or loses the game - no matter how many times game strategy is explained to me or how good our team is supposed to be this season, I just do not care. What I love about game days is the smell of free bbq on frathouse lawns and how packed the streets become and how everyone feels like one cohesive (blue and gold) unit. I’ve got game days down: I eat a bunch of free veggie burgers and get drunk and take a nap during the game and wake up when everyone’s leaving the stadium. I sit on rooftops or frat balconies or (these days) my own front porch and watch students, alumni, and Bay Area residents stumble through the streets with, depending on the game’s outcome, exuberant yelps or hunched shoulders. Sometimes, if I’m in a particularly good mood, I even yell at the opposing team’s fans.

I still have issues with the Cal marching band, though, which I think is mostly the outcome of living on Piedmont and hearing them rehearse for hours and hours on way too many evenings. Come on, guys. Does anyone want to hear you play, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day over and over? No. No one does. 

p.s. Lily, how our hair has changed…

Comments (View)
blog comments powered by Disqus