Fatima’s U.S. Experience – VII & VIII Football and Rock Climbing

Fatima is a Visiting International student from Pakistan. She spent the Fall 2013 semester at the U of A. She shares her experiences in a series of blog posts.

VII – Razorback Football

The Razorbacks have been having a bad season. They have not only lost every single game they have played, they have lost very, very badly. Hence I was not all that geared up to attend a football game. The fact that I am not a sports person might also have something to do with my lack of enthusiasm.

The game experience was pretty much the same as my baseball experience. I did not understand it much or enjoy it much (that partially being due to the fact that it was very warm, and I was feeling nauseous). Also, we lost without me ever finding out why we lost. We were playing South Carolina that day.

But what was great about the going-to-the-game experience was the free stuff you got of it. I got a free t-shirt, miniature rubber football, a Chick Fil-A coupon for a free cookie. It made you wonder what kind of stuff we would have gotten if we had actually won.

Here are some words I learned: Scrimmage, quarterback, touchdown.

This game was the homecoming game, so it was a huge deal. Alumni had returned to tailgate before the game and the homecoming queen was to be announced – ‘The Most Beautiful Girl on Campus’.

The band and the cheerleaders and the twirlers were highly entertaining, so even though I am not a sports fan at all, I was not too bored. I loved the twirlers in particular.

I was relieved when the game was finally over. Twirlers or not, I will never comprehend why people are willing to stand in the sun for hours watching men toss a ball around – cricket, football, or whatever other godforsaken sport there is.

VIII – Rock Climbing

Rock Climbing!!

Outdoors activities or sports will be the death of me.
I say this because one day, my Resident Assistant Jenna told us she was taking a bunch of girls out to one of the lakes in Fayetteville, Lincoln Lake, and I agreed to go along even though I did not know how to swim hence would not be able to cliff-dive or go swimming.

It was a beautiful location though. Quiet and secluded, it looked like something out of a painting. It was amazing. Thankfully, there were things for non-swimmers like me to do. For instance, Rock-Climbing. I had never tried it before so I thought then was a good chance.

Beginners are never recommended to try climbing real rocks because it is always harder to find footing in them. I was a beginner trying to climb a real rock – you can imagine how it turned out. I started off well, but pretty soon my arms were screaming out for me to stop and I was just swinging mid-air, gasping for breath and asking to be let down. You could see the incredulity in the (extremely good-looking) instructor who was holding down the other end of the rope. I vowed to start practicing from that day on until I was good enough to climb real rocks.

I only went to the HPER once after that for rock-climbing. Just goes to show – I am incurably lazy, whether I am in Pakistan or the United States.

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