I entered a Duke lottery for the first time, and it was an Experience™

Like any good senior, I tried to get Duke tickets yesterday.

For some background, I’m not the biggest sports fan and I recently called school spirit a form of groupthink in a column. I do like sports, and, as a North Carolina native, I spent my entire childhood playing basketball and going to games. But it’s too much for me to be emotionally invested in something that 1) will make or break my mental wellbeing and 2) I have no control over.

I don’t like being physically close to a huge crowd of people. I once went to one UNC basketball game with my boyfriend at the time, and someone literally turned to face me, made eye contact with me and then proceeded to sneeze on my arm. Not really a fan of that.

I also don’t like doing the chants. I’m sorry because I feel like I sound like an asshole, but it’s really just because I don’t know them, and I also get stressed out during games and can only focus on the game.

But going to the Duke game is something different. Duke games are special.

So, in the name of school spirit, I went to pint night at He’s Not Here, drank a Blue Cup and then embarked on my first time entering the lottery system. Here’s a play-by-play (sports!) of how it went:

6:15 p.m. I searched for UNC on Spotify to get myself pumped and ready for this process, which I’m positive will stress me out. The first thing that automatically came up was “Unconditionally” by Katy Perry. Not what I was expecting, but I'm listening to it anyway. It’s fine and I’m happy to hear it.

6:21 p.m. I search “how do i get duke tickets unc student” and get 596,000 results. I click on the first one from Go Heels. It does not make sense to me, and it also looks like it’s information from the 2014-2015 year. But I’m also kind of tipsy from He’s Not. I click away.

6:27 p.m. I click on The Daily Tar Heel’s link, “The golden ticket: How to sign up for the basketball lottery,” an article from last year. To be very clear, this is not intentional on my part. I was literally just working through the results, and a DTH link just so happened to appear second on my search. I click on the link that tells me to sign up for the lottery.

6:29 p.m. The link took me to the Go Heels general admissions site. From what other people have told me, this is not the link I want. I click to the student sign-in page because that feels right.

6:34 p.m. I don’t know what I’m doing. I know my PID and not my password. I click to reset the password.

6:36 p.m. I’ve reset my password, and I’m logged into the Go Heels student center. Good for me! Still not sure what to do, so I click on student tickets again. A very obvious link basically says, “Do you want Duke tickets?” and I’m like, “yes, thank you.” I click on a link that says “Find Tickets.” So far, everything’s going great and I’m feeling cautiously optimistic. At this point in time, I’ve stopped listening to Katy Perry.

6:39 p.m. I tell the website that I want two tickets and am promptly informed that I need fewer than two. That’s fine. I tell it I want one and proceed to checkout. I update my payment information for fun because I haven’t updated it since I was a sophomore living in McIver and things have definitely changed since then, and it’s always about moving forward with your life.

6:42 p.m. My order has been completed. As I’m looking at the page that’s reviewing my information, I’m still not really sure what’s going on. Did I do it? I think I did not because that seems too easy. Also, it says my student request was processed, and "request" means not automatically real and tangible. Context clues.

Still not sure what to do from here, though. I am listening to a song called “Cocaine Jesus,” a far cry from the Katy Perry that we started with.

6:45 p.m. I got a confirmation email saying I did the thing. One of my assistants who knows about sports and tickets comes into the office. I ask her what is happening. She says I have to wait about a week to see if I got tickets or not. That seems ridiculous to me, but, OK, here we are. In conclusion, I think we’re done here for today.

Final thoughts: If I really cared a lot about this, I’d be really angry that I didn’t have immediate gratification one way or the other. If I did not have someone to ask about this process, I’d still be waiting for results from this endeavor, and I’d be upset about it. Also, I hope I get tickets for my senior year.

However, if I don’t, I’ll go to my home (aka Linda's) and watch the game there with tequila — my preferred method of participating in sports culture.

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@sarahvassello

swerve@dailytarheel.com