The Bumper Homecoming Blog!

Greetings from a legal alien!
So this is a little delayed as Homecoming was last week but the pictures and videos are now up for your enjoyment!
I’ll be honest, I’m still not entirely sure why it’s called Homecoming and though I asked several people, it appears I’m not the only one! In essence it’s a week long and though it happens in high school too, College is when it really matters. It involves people being selected for Homecoming King and Queen, a Pep Rally, performances by different music and dance organisations and the Big Football Game.
As you can see in the pictures the University is covered in flyers and banners throughout the week aiming to get voters for the King and Queen. There were about 10 candidates for each category. They all have campaign teams and hand out badges and candy to try and get you to vote for them. I had been told that some candidates make and give out cookies and cake so I’d decided I’d vote for whoever gave me the best snacks. That said, I was thoroughly disappointed when no one was giving out freshly made cookies! Until...the last day of voting when a very nice boy named Ben gave me a custard filled doughnut which was exceptionally tasty. I went straight from eating my doughnut to vote for him due to the presence of ‘baked goods!’ and my vote worked as he was made King!
On Wednesday of Homecoming week, there was the Homecoming Pep Rally which is meant to get everyone excited for the football game and typically involves all the different singing groups and dance squads performing. The videos I have posted show the cheerleading squad, Singing Statesman a male vocal group who are great and the dance team. The Marching Band also performed throughout the night. 1st, 2nd and 3rd places are awarded to the best teams. There are a number of events which went on throughout the week in which all the teams and halls of residence took part to get points and the overall winner was announced at the end of the week. One of the things teams can do to win points is ‘Adopt A Block’ where they are allocated a block of the area around the university and have to clean up all the beer cans and rubbish in the street left over from the weekends antics! For each full bin liner they got a point.
On the Friday night was Varsity Night Live which had more formal performances by the choirs, some individuals and the jazz bands etc. The University of Wisconsin Eau Claire is known as Wisconsin’s ‘singing university’ as we have the most and best music groups. One guy called Evan played an incredible sax solo for about ten minutes and the audiences jaws were on the floor, he’s in one of my classes and is madly talented. There was a comedian called Kelly Taylor who hosted the night and it was a really good evening.
This leads us to Saturday and THE football game! The whole week was leading up to it and it was very enjoyable as I’d never watched American football before. That said, it got pretty tedious as we won 37-0! The guys were hot though, and it was great to see the marching band perform in their official attire. Annie, Valentina and I all got dressed up in the morning with our football shirts compliments of the University bookshop, face paints and with ribbons in hair we headed to the game.
All in all it was a really good week, it was very different to the University experience back home where there’s no real feeling of spirit of enthusiasm. It’s really fun to see all the students go to the sports games and cheer on the teams, in Winchester I never even know when there are games on. Generally people have a lot more ‘school pride’ here which I thought I’d find corny but in fact it’s quite the opposite. Everyone got really involved through the week with voting, putting up signs and getting dressed up for the football game. It was a really fun week and the football team rules all!