Go girl, it's ya birthday!

Hey there Everyone!

January 21 was my birthday! Yay! It just so happened that my birthday fell on a Friday & I only had one class, so needless to say, it was amazing! :) But before we talk about my birthday weekend fun I'm gonna back track to a couple of days before. The previous Friday was my college BFF Melanie's birthday so we decided to do something together. On Monday, we grabbed a group of our friends and headed to our favorite restuarant downtown, Doc Chey's. It was yumm and a good bit of our friends showed up to celebrate with us. Afterward Alex took us to get icecream at Ben & Jerry's & we jammed in the car to Whip My Hair. lol!

The next day, our basketball team played Tennessee so I headed there with Melanie, Natalie & another friend, Quatez. We lost by two points which were scored literally at the last second of the game...bummer! But on the plus we had great times & we had Cane's before...mmm. haha.

Now we can skip to the good part...back to my birthday :) So after a whopping 365 days of waiting Friday finally rolled around. It's a tradition at my school to head to the 24 hour dining hall minutes before your birthday to ring in your birthday at midnight! I grabbed the girls on my hall and Natalie and Melanie tagged along too. We crammed like 7 people into my roomates car and drove over to the dining hall. I was so excited that I was running around and jumping in the air like a little kid. But it was worth every second of excitement. Two of my friends met up with Melanie and I at the dining hall after the other girls from my hall headed back to the dorm. We talked about our home towns and then walked back to our dorms, waving at people who had left their windows open/blinds up in the dorms along the way (bahaha lame). When I got back to my dorm I was literally so excited that I couldn't sleep. Fb wall posts started flooding in & I was so excited for the events that were to come. But I forced myself to fall asleep around 2 so that I would have at least a tad bit of stamina for my class at 10:10.

Even though my class didn't start until 10:10, I was so excited that I woke up at 8 and couldn't fall back asleep. Spanish was my only class of the day & luckily it's my fave. I could dedicate a whole separate blog entry to my Spanish teacher. She is amazing! After class, I went to lunch with my roomie & then headed back to my dorm. I was a little upset. My roomie had to head back to our hometown for a wedding ceremony & Melanie was also heading back. Then I got a text from my friends in my hometown letting me know that they weren't going to be able to make it up to celebrate with me for my birthday. But, I wasn't about to get upset on my birthday. Luckily, I brought 16 candles and me & Natlie watched it and cracked up! No birthday could top Samantha's!

After sitting around bored waiting for the night to come, me & Natalie headed over to the nicer dining hall to eat with some friends. We ended up sitting with one of Natalie's friends and met new people! Yay! Afterwards, Natalie & I made a last minute decision to head to our school's gymnastics meet. They competed against Auburn (and won! woot!). They were AMAZING! I think that they are probably the most talented team at our school. There were two girls on Auburn's team that were great on the mat as well. One girl, who was black & hispanic like me (woot woot!), performed to a fusion of hip hop and reggaeton, which hit home for me :) I was really glad that we decided to head to their meet.

Then the real fun came! My friend Alex wanted to take me downtown to one of the clubs called Bad Manor. Me & Nat got dressed up real cute & headed to his dorm for some pre club fun and picture taking! haha. Then we headed downtown. They played Fancy (Drake ahhh), Stereo Love, and even a remix of the Red Hot Chilli Pepper's Otherside so you know I got it crunk! They were playing all of my favorite songs. woot woot! I had so much fun dancing like a fool. I even saw some of my other friends there too. It all seemed to fly by. It was probably 1 out of 2 of the best nights I've had in college so far.

Side Note: For girls who are going to the club. Here's all that you need:

PMILK

P=phone
M=money
I=id
L=lipgloss
K=keys

There is really no need for anything else. & please don't chug a giant purse with you. It's totally unnecessary & your shoulders/back will hurt by the end of the night!

& back to my birthday....so the next day my parents and brother came up from my hometown to celebrate with me. I brought Natalie along with us and we headed to Olive Garden. The Olive Garden in my college town is really beautiful. Rather than having the appearance of a restaurant it resembled someone's nicely furnish home. It was nice to spend time with my family. We spent our time amusing Natalie with our funny family jokes & stories and singing to Craig David on the ride there. I had a really good time!

After Olive Garden we headed back to campus to help set up for my school's Unity Ball. I'm in the Black Affairs Council's Cultural & Social Progamming Committee, which hosts various programs throughout the year. The Unity Ball is held annually in order to celebrate the anniversary of the desegregation of my school, hence the name unity. It's a formal event and most people dress like they're heading to prom.This year it was co sponsored by three other commitees so we had a really turn out of people. At first I was slightly skeptical because we hadn't sold a lot of tickets. However, it was a pleasant surprise when tons and tons of people walked through the door. The decorations were beautiful, there was a section to have your picture taken, a dj, & dinner was served. Best of all the people that came were MULTIRACIAL!! If you knew me before college, you would know that my group of friends from my hometown is very multiracial and we pride ourselves upon that. So it was great to see a group of people that reminded me of my closest friends from home. I had so much fun dancing with all my friends. The dj was awesome and played an awesome mix of hip hop, top 40, reggae, and even salsa!! I taught my friends how to dance the salsa to Celia Cruz's 'La Vida es un Carnaval' (and afterward me & Natalie even had an impromptu salsa lesson in my dorm lol), we danced the electric slide to my parents' favorite song (Taste like Candayy), danced to my new favorite reggae song (No Games) and Melanie taught us how to do the wobble. I was actually sad when the night was over.

Overall I had a great birthday weekend & I doubt that anything could top it :)
Thanks to everyone who made my birthday great ;)

Until later!

Jackie