The Official Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar

The Official Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar

The Official Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar

    Homecoming Week enchants all on campus

    Homecoming is always a time for fun, maybe even the fantastical. This year’s theme, “Once Upon a Homecoming,” makes me believe there will be a magic, mobile pumpkin barreling down the road to whisk me away from my uneventful 8 a.m. lecture class. We as college students like to believe there is a “happily ever after.” Why else would we put ourselves through four more years of schooling? We believe if we can make it through this, surely there is some worthwhile outcome to the hardships of, say, studying chemistry and physics. At the end of our struggle, we can proudly march across an elaborate platform in front of friends and family, and gracefully smirk at our  professors much like a triumphant Disney princess. The evils of insomnia and standardized tests has been defeated. Now give a little twirl in your graduation garb. You’ve earned it.

    This year’s Homecoming theme makes me feel there are possibilities out there, and I cannot help but walk sturdily forward, doe-eyed and optimistic toward my “happily ever after.”

    I remember my first homecoming. I was an incoming freshman, not in the know of any university events. I remember walking toward the Student Mall, and then suddenly becoming very distracted by the larger-than-life sheet signs hanging before me on the balcony. They were all hand-painted, I noticed. The sheet signs featured Roomie the Lion in different renditions of famous Broadway musicals, adding a light and humorous feel that contributed to the fellowship we as a student body share toward our mascot amidst the obvious hard work and dedication it took to make the sheet signs. 

    Many university students take homecoming very seriously. The homecoming staff wants you to experience an emotion. I think the point of the sheet signs was to make the viewer feel excited about the further events that are to transpire. It was to evoke that same anticipation reminiscent of your days in high school when you went to your first pep rally. You were called to puff your chest out in pride and support your team for all that it is.

    I, personally, really enjoy the concept of “Once Upon a Homecoming.” I am anticipating the green and gold decorum and Roomie high-fiving folks as he makes his way across campus. I am anticipating “Gumbo Ya Ya” and watching the sun setting beyond the bonfire in the open Cook field. These events played a part in making my freshman year at the university very charming and worthwhile. Those events are still relevant to me and have special placeholders in my storybook of experiences that will end with my personal “happily ever after.” Watching the bonfire embers burn and feeling the immediate wave of heat simultaneously pushing back the crowd of students felt almost magical. Homecoming and the events that comprise it will truly display what it means to temporarily experience what it is like to live in a fairy tale. 

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