I posted on my Instagram story on January 1st and asked what type of content everyone was interested in reading on the blog this month and was overwhelmed at the amount of "college" and "personal life" responses I received. Since I have a little over a week until I head back to South Carolina for the second semester of my junior year, it only seems fitting to recap the first semester. Get ready for a photo overload, fall semester is always crazy busy and I've got ALL the photos to document it.
Junior year started with me moving into my first apartment! Freshman year I lived in a dorm, sophomore year I lived in my sorority house & now I'm in an apartment with four of my friends. It took some adjusting to get used to apartment life but I loved every minute of it first semester! I love having my own room and bathroom, how close it is to campus & the college of education, and the fact that I have a kitchen.
Sorority recruitment at UofSC takes place prior to classes starting which I why I was back in Columbia so early on in the month of August. For those that may be new to Northern Prepster (welcome!) I'm a Delta Zeta at South Carolina and our bid day theme this past year was Ice, Ice, DeeZee. We welcomed home over 100 new members this year and easily used enough glitter in our hair and on our bodies to last us a lifetime (no, really, there's still glitter in our apartment, we can't get rid of it).
Saturday's in South Carolina during football are some of the best parts of fall semester. Despite having a pretty bad season, we still got dressed up in our garnet & black and cheered on our Gamecocks every weekend. I even came back early from Thanksgiving break to attend the South Carolina vs. Clemson game, as they are our rival and this is the last year it will be home while I'm a student here. I skipped it freshman year and even though it was a total bust this year, I'm still glad I got to experience a Carolina Clemson game at home.
Our first sorority function of the semester was Fall Band with the theme this year being Deezeeland Delight. The best part about this function was that my roommates and I ordered what we thought were normal sized cowboy hats but when they showed up, we realized they were child sized. They looked absolutely ridiculous but we ended up keeping them because it was too funny.
Parent's Weekend rolled around and since my parents and all of my roommates parents couldn't make it down for the weekend, the five of us ended up volunteering to sober monitor our parent's cocktail. Even though we didn't get to spend it with our families, we still had fun dressing up and getting to spend a night together outside of our apartment.
In early October my friends Avery, Maddie, and I participated in another sorority's philanthropy event that was a paint war. I did paint war my sophomore year but this year I came home wearing easily 5 more pounds of paint then last year (to the boy from the fraternity that got placed next to us, thanks for dumping the ENTIRE bucket of red paint on my head, really appreciated that, haha). My hair had blue streaks in it for weeks! But it was for a good cause and a fun (& messy) break from schoolwork and lesson planning.
Mid-October meant it was time for Fall Break. I flew home for the weekend and enjoyed getting to see my family & the cooler Ohio weather. I also got to go to a Blue Jackets game with my best friend Lauren as her fall break matched up with mine, which was so fun to get to spend some much needed time with her.
Later that month I finally got to visit the South Carolina State Fair. I had been trying to go since freshman year but always had exams and papers due that week and didn't have the time but luckily this year my schedule was a little bit lighter and I got to go for a little bit with two of my roommates, Maddie and Jess.
I became a grandbig this semester as my little, Katie, got her own little, Jessie. Our reveal theme this year was L'oreal kids shampoo bottles with our tagline being "no knots, no tears, no tangles in this fam!" I didn't start to realize that I was an upperclassman and getting older until Katie handed me my grandbig sign.
Our next function theme was Grease vs. Greece which was one of my personal favorites! Growing up, I loved the movie Grease so I had SO much fun getting to dress up like a Pink Lady for a night. I brought my freshman year roommate, Sophie, as my date and we had such a fun night, especially trying to see out of our giant sunglasses (shoutout to Amazon for those).
One of the cool things about the location of my apartment complex is that there's a small concert venue right behind us. When my friends and I found out that Chris Lane was coming to Columbia to play at that venue we immediately bought tickets. Chris Lane is one of my go-to country artists with "Fix" being my favorite song. You can imagine my excitement when he opened with that song. I lost my voice that night but it was 110% worth it.
One of my roommates, Lauren, turned 21 in early November and I had way too much fun decorating the apartment for her party. I was also in charge of the playlist for the night (an honor) and had so much fun celebrating her with all of our friends.
Right before Thanksgiving Break we had our semi formal. This year it was held at the children's museum in Columbia which I admittedly had way more fun than a 20 year old should have at that place. Mike Johnson from Hannah's season of the Bachelorette was also there, so that was pretty cool.
I drove home for Thanksgiving Break early the next morning after semi formal the previous night and got to spend a few days at home with my family & even get to go to another Blue Jackets game with all of my friends from high school.
Before I knew it I was back in Columbia for finals. Being an education major, I don't have written exams very often, usually it's just papers or presentations so my finals weeks aren't super stressful which is a huge blessing. I was able to convince my little and grandlittle, Katie and Jessie, to take a study break one morning and we all drove to Target and bought matching pajama and took pictures in front of the Christmas tree in the foyer of the Delta Zeta house.
First semester of junior year was definitely one for the books and I'm looking forward to second semester starting up here in a few days. It's crazy to think that I only have one more semester before I'm a senior, and just a little over a year before I graduate. It's scary and exciting at the same time.
xoxo,
Ri