2-1 !

At 11:50 PM On Tuesday, July 7 I was sitting in Two Stick Trivia, awaiting my 21st birthday. If I had been in my hometown of Boston, I would've been "legal" for 50 minutes already, able to buy my own drinks from Midnight until the 2 or 3 am close of most bars in Boston; but in Oxford, things are different. For one, bars rarely stay open after 12 AM on weekdays, let alone sell drinks. They also don't card, so the thrill of buying my own drink was surpassed by the fact that I had bought my own in drinks in the bar the previous week as well. So, you might ask, what made last night special?

Well I'll tell you. As I sat in the bar, answering random facts and watching my birthday cake shot (which I had to take at 11:50 PM because not only do they stop serving after midnight but they also clear all drinks by 12) I realized that this birthday was special for a number of reasons. And not just because I can now freely enter any drinking establishment of my choice anywhere in the world. Although I had dreaded the idea of having my 21st birthday in Mississippi of all places, I realized that my experience here has overall been a pretty good one, and I appreciate a lot of the people I've met here so far. When I turned 21, everyone around me, with the exception of my best friend Ameerah C. Phillips, was someone whom I met within the last 6 weeks. Many of them I had just met that night, or within the last several days. Despite this fact I was surrounded by people who had become fast friends, and were thoroughly invested in making sure that I had the best time possible on my birthday. They even brought cupcakes into the bar!
At summer school on the morning of my birthday Principal Joe Sweeney made me cupcakes Vice Principal Connor Sweeney gave me a crown. One of the highlights of my new found adulthood was sitting in summer school with a burger king crown on my head, surrounded by a puzzle of the USA reading and coloring with a 3 year old boy. Sounds kinda crazy/lame but I had fun, which is exactly what birthdays are all about.

Later that night, I had a more traditional 21st birthday celebration complete with bar hopping, bean bag tossing, vampire-themed dance parties and late night fountain trips. I had a great birthday, mostly because of the great people that I've met here in Mississippi, and I'm happy to have spent my birthday here surrounded by some of the coolest people I've met in my 21 years of life.