The End… Almost

By Hamish Russell (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA).

Now that final exams at UMass Amherst are over, I thought I’d fill you in the goings on of the last few weeks. First up was the UMass Spring Concert, which featured the Goo Goo Dolls as the headline act – they were seriously good, despite it being almost unbearably hot and cramped in the Mullins Centre’s standing area.

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The weekend after the concert, I headed over to Boston to pay a visit to Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, where I was given a bigger event than I was expecting… The game happened to feature a memorial ceremony before play began that paid tribute to the victims and survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing that was carried out last year, and included a moving performance by the UMass Minutemen Marching Band.

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Once play was underway, the Red Sox lived up to the occasion, winning the game in impressive fashion by coming from behind and winning with a walk-off hit in the ninth – and final – inning (I had to check that with my roommate, still working on my baseball terminology).

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After the Red Sox game, exam season began to loom at UMass with essays being written and revision being avoided – almost as if I never left the UK. Despite this, the fun didn’t stop, with impromptu games of touch American football being organised among some of us international students. A few of us, with the help of a couple of Americans, even formed an intramural softball team which was enormous fun, especially when we managed to win a game. And now, with exams all over and my time at UMass up, my trip still has nearly two months left before I return home, so I’ll be posting about some of the adventures that I’ll be embarking upon… As long as I don’t run out of money.

Bye for now

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