nooooo, we reached our final week as students of Ole Miss and not only did this mean the final week of the semester, but it was also filled with our final exams for the classes...
A lotttt of time was spent in the library, and because the university knew what a stressful time this was, they provided us with dogs that visited the library for us to pet the dream.
On our final Saturday, we threw a leaving party and invited all our American friends. We played British games and only played British music including busted and Steps.
This was so much fun, so many people came and I cried at the sudden realization that this American dream wasn't going to be my life forever. But five minutes later I was back to relearning the dance routine to 5, 6, 7, 8.
Early the next day, Hillary drove me and Charlotte to her hometown of Jackson which is the capital of Mississippi and took us to see the houses she grew up in and the schools she went to. We also went for lunch in an American diner and to the original Cups coffee shop. And then we explored the mall and shopping outlets since we have been deprived of shopping experiences in Oxford.
After, we drove to Madison which is the town where Hillary now lives and met her Mum, Dad, 3 sisters, 2 dogs and 5 cats. It was so lovely to meet them all, I've heard so much about them all from being such good friends with Hillary so I felt like I already knew them. Plus, she got to meet my parents when they flew out to see me so it would have been strange if I didnt get to see hers.
The next day, I had an exam at 4pm so me and the girls hit up the library accompanied by extra large starbucks to study all day. After our exam, Hillary took me home to shower and then Brandon had text me asking me to come over to help with an online exam we had to take for our class. I had already done most of mine but I was happy to help him. However, we ended up just chilling, I did some more of my exam on his laptop and we stayed up talking for a while with his roommate Hunter. On Tuesday I woke up about 10.30am and panicked because I had an exam at 4pm which I hadn't started to study for yet so Brandon took me home so I could go to the library. It was also my brother's 18th birthday so I facetimed him while I was in the library..
On Tuesday after my exam, Hillary picked me up and we went to get celebratory Sonic. We chilled at hers for a bit and then went back to mine, met up with Jo and Heather and went to McAllisters with Hayden.
On Wednesday, I didn't have an exam but I still went to the library pretty early to study for my next one. I met Hillary there and soon after met up with Char for lunch because I hadn't seen her since we were in Jackson. I went back to the library for a bit, got some work done then went to Walmart with Hillary before going back to the library.
On Thursday, I sat my last exam at 8am, came back to Trails to pack and then went for lunch with Hillary, Jo, Cesca and Hayden at South Depot, a Mexcian place on the Square. Hayden had brought us all presents cus this would be the last time I see him! After, I went round Brandon's again to help with his exam, this time we did do it but it took like 3 hours! He dropped me off of Hillary's who had kindly picked up all my stuff that I wanted to wear for our night at the bars. We had her whole basement to ourselves before going out it was really fun. We went to Roosters and saw the entire football team there again as always. It was really fun. Brandon picked me and Jo up and took us back to trails where we ordered Dominos and stayed up talking.
I stayed at Hillary's and we both woke up early on Friday so she took me home to pack up the rest of my stuff. Then I went up to Jo's to hand her all the stuff I was going to leave behind since she is here for the whole year. Hillary came over again and took me to Paige's to say goodbye to her and the boys and then we went to Ajax for lunch with Char, Cesca and Jo.
We didn't have much of a plan for our last night but we invited a bunch of people over to Trails and decided to go the Levee one last time.
We got Jimmy John's (sandwiches) on the way home and I didn't want to go to sleep because I knew when I woke up it would be time to go home to England.
As a final stance of departure, me and the girls went to the famous Walk of Champions on campus and took some photos.
I can't even begin to explain what an amazing time I've had out here and there's not even a little part of me that was wishing I could come home at any point (sorry mum). It's so hard saying goodbye to some people I could very easily never see again, but I have vowed to return to the States and I know I have many friends that would be happy to let me stay with them.
I can't thank you all enough for making my time at Ole Miss so incredible. I'll never forget it.
I have an upcoming goodbye/flying home post left to write, so I'll save most of the soppy stuff for that.
Speak soon
Em x
