Why I was sad to leave Oxford for Argentina

While everyone at Ole Miss was getting back into the swing of things for the start of spring semester, I was busy preparing myself for studying abroad in Argentina. By the time I left in March, there had already been at least one spring party, which is basically the substitute for grove weekends in the spring semester.

Studying abroad in Argentina was something that took a while to wrap my head around — like hey, I’m not going to be speaking English for the next five months, but it’s totally cool I’ll be able to handle it. I kept thinking, how am I going to be able to handle it without my friends? Spring semester is the time when the snow clears off the ground and you and your friends start planning your diets for that “spring break bod” or the “spring formal bod,” but even more so, you start planning your weekends for the spring parties.

Whether it’s Ivy League, Groundhog Day, South Seas, whatever your favorite frat is, rain, snow, or sun… you’ll be there in your ridiculous cutoff shirts and shorts, stuffing beer from the trucks into your pants, running around in the mud, only to end your day caught in the rain waiting for the buses to take you back to campus while you say to your friend, I’m Definitely going to be too old for this next year (spoiler alert: you aren’t).

Not only do we make memories in these fields, but we live for those Saturday nights after a day of drinking lukewarm Natty Lights, surrounded by hundreds of other college students trying to forget it’s not summer just yet and you do in fact have class on Monday.

You have two options on how to spend your Saturday night: You either decide to continue your rampage and go out to the bars, or come home to Domino’s delivery with three dozen of your closest girl friends and try to wash off the [insert sorority name here] hearts [insert fraternity name here] you oh-so-cleverly wrote on your skin with black permanent marker.

The Sundays after spring parties with friends are even better: You spend them trying to cure that “I’m never drinking again hangover” so you can start studying for that Accounting test you have Wednesday night (which, in reality, you should have started studying for weeks ago). Then you just plain give up, and end up going to the Rebs baseball game or binging on Grey’s Anatomy or Friends on the couch together until 9pm.

While the week ahead brings you nothing but pain and long nights in the library, you know come Friday you’ll be doing the same thing all over again, because there’s another spring party on the way. While I was sad to think about all the shenanigans I’d be missing this spring semester while I was off in Argentina, I knew my friends would be just fine. Meanwhile, I’d be taking advantage of every opportunity presented to me abroad, while also counting down the days until I get to see my friends again.