Tuesday 20 October 2015

Its time to Look Back and Act Forward


October 25th through October 31st marks this years Remembrance Week here at SU and what an absolute honour it is to be involved this year. In the past I've always seen previous scholars pictures and head about how much of a moving ceremony it is that takes place on our beautiful campus. Lets just hope the weather stays dry or doesn't snow!

This years 35 Remembrance Scholars have been amazing in involving myself and Joanna into their plans for the week and I cannot wait to be a part of it. 

This year, myself and Joanna decided that it would be a privilege to represent the Lockerbie 11 - the eleven residents of our small hometown in Scotland who were killed the night of the attack along with fellow Lockerbie Scholar, Andrew McClune. We both felt it was so important for these 12 figures to be remembered along with the 35 amazing students that SU lost. Back home, families were broken and worlds were shattered, and this year, its our responsibility to act while we are here, in honour of these people we lost. 

This year marks the 27th anniversary of the Lockerbie Air Disaster, 25 years since the Lockerbie Scholarship was set up and the 13th Anniversary of Andrew's death. And its just so coincidental that its suddenly came back in the news with the announcement of the two new possible suspects!How weird!?

I have tried so hard not only to remember Andrew through the work of the scholars and each even we have planned for the week but also, through knowing how much of an amazing and aspiring curler he was, trying to get a team set back up in his memory. Unfortunately, the ice rink south of main campus no longer affiliates for curling so there is nothing I can do on campus in order for a team to be organised. However, after meeting with Doc Mason, who's son played in the SU team with Andrew when he was here, he told me that before every game after Andrews death, the team would huddle, put their hands in and shout "For Andrew". I want to be a part of that. I want to do something for him. It seems that achieving second place in the 'Andrew McClune Memorial Trophy' back home 3 years on the run still isn't enough for me to feel like I've done enough. Something else needs done on campus and I'd love to be that person who solves that missing piece of the puzzle. 

Our week of remembrance begins with the homecoming football game on Saturday. SU vs Pittsburgh where the dome that is usually packed with people screaming "Lets Go Orange" will fall silent for a minute in memory of those we lost that night, 27 years ago. 

In memory of these people we must 'Look Back, Act Forward' and most importantly never forget! 

I cannot wait to be a part of it. This experience just keeps getting better and better.

Sunday 4 October 2015

Family Weekend! :D

As promised, a blog post dedicated to my Uncle Martin who made the long, overnight journey to come and stay with me this weekend for campus' family weekend! * big cheesy grin inserted here * After not seeing him or any of his family for so long, unless it was through the power of facetime, it was so lovely to finally see him again!

I had lots planned for us and there were a lot of opportunities here on campus that had been planned especially for family weekend. There was the Kenan Thompson the comedian from 'Kenan and Kel' or SNL as he is now on. The Big football game on the Saturday, Syracuse VS LSU (Louisiana State University). This was a big game due to the fact, Louisiana are number 8 in the nation and Syracuse are no where near that, yet we have been playing our best we have ever played in a long time this season and managed to secure a 3-0 form our past three games. All the acapella groups on campus help an evening for us to go and watch, along with loads of other things! - theres too many to name to be honest.

So, Friday night - Uncle Martin arrived at Judy's house as thats where we were both staying for the weekend, and I went there after classes on the Friday to go and see him. Uncle Martin had got himself a parking pass for South Campus, so it meant we could park the car and get the bus right onto campus, not realising that parking was free on campus all weekend! - DOH! However, we were able to park right outside my dorm and were then able to take advantage of the free food in Sadler dining hall - some more than other as Uncle Martin went back for seconds :P . We then met up with my roommate Katie and our friend Katie - the names weren't going to be hard for him to remember - and we headed to see Kenan Thompson! I was excited for this, even though I had no idea who he was, the Katies reassured me he was funny and we should go, so we did! And he was, just for a short period of time, which was disappointing. However, tickets were only $5. It should have been $20 but no one told me family tickets were $15 but nobody questioned it, so I shouldn't really complain.

A quick walk around campus to show Uncle Martin where I was living before the short drive back to Judy's and an early night before the big LSU game in the morning! I was so excited about this! So excited that I left myself half an hour to get breakfast, showered and ready for the game - I missed sleeping in a double bed that felt like clouds when you lay on it, not a single bed with a solid mattress. So I overslept a little, we still made it to the game and boy was the dome packed and noisy! There wasn't only loads of orange, like the scenes I was used to as I entered the dome. There was so much purple and yellow from all the LSU fans! I knew this game was going to be exciting.

Uncle Martin REALLY enjoying the football!
The LSU tigers ran out on the pitch, the dome echoed with screams from their fans and boos from us loyal SU fans. The tension built, "code orange" was displayed on the big screens and the place roared as the smoke rose and the boys in orange ran out. My goosebumps were huge, I just loved this! I was in complete heaven in this place! The game started and of course I still didn't understand a thing that was going on and us english had our own opinion about the 'lazy players who only ran for 30 seconds and needed to come off because they were tired'. We knew this wasn't the case but I'm used to rugby where the play is constant and there is no switching about. Dad had already raised his concern for me and Uncle Martin attending the game together and we are both just a gob on legs and dont really think about what we say, so there was a lot of "get up and deal with the pain you big bas****" I couldn't help but laugh, I was having a great time!

The scoring kicked off and both teams got plenty touchdowns, LSU sadly more than SU and they ended up taking the 24-34 win. 

A wonderful dinner at Judy and Ed's was had before we headed out to "An Acapella Evening" as mentioned before ^^^. It was so much fun and reminded us both so much of Pitch Perfect, which we decided was like THE best movie ever, although he hadn't seen the second one - he has now, he text me the other night telling me that it brought back memories from our weekend together :') 

Sunday came and we planned to go shopping as winter here is crazy cold and I had a few jumpers and a few hats. Basically, I was not prepared for what was coming, at all. So we decided to head to Costco - not like the one in the UK I can tell you that! - for the majority of our needed items. Between my uncle Martin and myself we have a pretty good sense of direction! So getting somewhere - with the help of satnav - wouldn't be an issue. We thought. We headed on the right road, everything was looking good! Neither of us had been to Costco in Syracuse before so we did rely a lot on the satnav which told us we were approaching our destination, an exit off the freeway appeared, yet it didn't seem close enough to where our final destination was so we decided against taking it and we would just take the "next exit". We then DROVE PAST COSTCO AND THERE WAS NO 'NEXT EXIT'. So we came off at the nearest exit and turned around, hoping that there would be an exit in a similar place to the one we should have taken, but of course, there wasn't. So another journey past where we needed to be, off the freeway and turned around AGAIN. We joined back on and took the correct exit this time. Costco was on the right hand side so Uncle Martin decided to turn right, thinking that it would take us to where we needed to be, bearing in mind, everyone else here was going straight on, however, we turned right, there was no one in the car park. It would have been just our luck that it was shut right? but it wasn't! We just went in the wrong way. Anyway! We got what we needed and headed out again after our free slice of pizza and a soda, all because I'm an SU student, how fab is that!? :D We then hit Walmart, Target and Dicks Sporting Goods in Destiny USA Mall. We managed to get all we needed bar some winter boots! 

Our weekend was then complete with dinner and Dinosaur BBQ and Gannon's ice cream! There aint no better way! It really was truly amazing with my fabulous uncle and I cannot thank him enough for making the long long long journey to come and see me! Love ya lots and hopefully see you soon! xxx


Myself and my Uncle Martin! - Cheeeeese!