Imagine Dragons and the Beginning of Springfest

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Mercedes

Spring is on its way! These past couple of weeks have been very busy, as I’m sure most of you can understand. One of the events the Student Association (SA) puts on is Springfest, which is a week of fun activities that give us things to look forward to when finals are quickly approaching. This week is Springfest, but last week is when the SA got the Imagine Dragons to come and play for us which was pretty amazing! TU students got in for free which is an extra bonus! They also sold over 4000 tickets to the public which meant there was a huge crowd! My friends and I were the first people at the barricade and Dan Reynolds gave us all high-fives. We also shared a moment during Underdog, when he pointed to me and sang the verse while I sang along and our eyes locked. I know realistically this doesn’t make us best friends but I like to imagine it does! It was an awesome night with an amazing band of really genuine guys! Springfest is this week and the theme is “The Wonderful World of TU,” so an example of some of the fun events that will be taking place are, Lilo and Stitch Luau, Mulan Training Camp, Princess and the Frog Mardi Gras Carnival, Toy Story Pizza Planet Arcade, and Cinderella Carriage Rides with the Cinderella Ball later that night! Lots of activities and lots of fun is on the agenda for this week here at TU!!

My roommate Jessica (right) and I (left) at the concert:

Also for the encore they all came out wearing TU t-shirts and they said they wanted a piece of TU and Oklahoma to take back with them, which was incredibly cool!:

At the end of the concert they gave the set list to Jennifer, who lives in my suite, which as crazy! Just in case you’re wondering what they played here it is!:

Snow Day and Service Day

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Mercedes

We had our first snow day but unfortunately it did not result in a snow day from school! Nevertheless the snow made campus even more beautiful than it typically is. Originally I am from New Jersey so for the majority of my life I got white winters every year, but after living in Arizona for so many years I forgot what it meant to actually have to walk in the snow on your way to class. It was definitely a nice experience though and I enjoyed watching people have snow ball fights and build snowmen. I even saw guys building a snow fort outside of the John (John Mabee is the all male dorm) and by the time my class was over i came back outside to see it was even furnished with chairs and all!

The view walking out of the Admissions building!

McFarlin Library and one of many snowmen!

Also last Saturday was service day as someone posted about earlier! I went to an elementary school and the building they are in was a junior high but it was closed for a year and the elementary school just opened. They have been slowly but surely making a ton of improvements. It was too cold on Saturday to paint since originally we were going to paint hopscotch patterns outside. Instead we created a template so when it does warm up a bit they have a good idea of where to paint. The hopscotch patterns were from the United States, Nigeria, and Great Britain. I worked on the one from Great Britain with Kerry who lives with me. Together we made this massive template:

Hopscotch Great Britain style!

I was very proud of us! After that we moved on to cleaning out a storage room and then we joined the others outside and moved lots of dirt in preparation for re-mulching and planting flowers in the spring. We even had help from some little boys that went to the school and saw us working! If volunteering is something you’re interested in TU makes it so easy to log some hours! Plus it is a great feeling knowing you are with 400 of your other classmates all doing some good and giving back to the community!

Spicing It Up a Bit!

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Mercedes

One of the things that I feel is really great during college, but especially TU, is the fact you choose what you want to study. I’m an education major but this semester I have a huge variety of classes which are mostly mandatory to fulfill other requirements but it is spicing up the typical classes I took last semester. For example I’m taking geology which I have not studied since sixth grade so that is interesting! I’m also taking a class that is based on Wagner’s ring. I literally had no idea what that was about when I signed up for it so in case you were wondering it is about four operas which deals with a ring that was forged when a dwarf renounces love and that ring controls everything. Also, one of the goddesses was traded to the giants in return for building a fortress and that goddess happens to be the only one that can tend to the apples that keep the gods youthful and powerful. Anyway it is definitely an interesting semester with a lot of variety which is nice especially because I’ve met a ton of new people! Tulsa Time is coming up so I’m sure all of you reading will hear more about that! Hopefully we’ll see a ton of you on campus soon!

New Year, New Semester

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Mercedes

Welcome 2013! I know this year will bring lots of new adventures, all of which I am excited for! I am sure the seniors in high school are excited as each day in the second semester marks one day closer to graduation! You guys are almost done, hang in there!! Even the juniors, you are closer to senior year! Hooray! My brother is junior this year so my house is once again filled with lots of college talk, making sure SAT’s and ACT’s are taken, and college campus tours are scheduled.

Winter break is coming to an end and I enjoyed every minute of it. It was the first break from school I’ve had that didn’t involve any homework so that in itself was a new experience! I have a feeling it might take a while to go back to school mode considering I have gotten in the habit of sleeping away most of the morning on this break! It is a good thing my earliest classes are either at 9:30 or 10:00 am.

Even if I am not thrilled at the thought of having to do homework, and study, and take tests, I am so excited to get back to my home which is Suite 404! I have a feeling once I get back it will feel like I never left and I am quite excited to see what TU brings in the coming spring semester!

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Mercedes

Our fall break just ended and now it’s time to step back into reality and the life of a TU student. Since I live in Arizona I didn’t fly back home for Thanksgiving instead I drove to Wichita with my lovely room mate and met my best friend there to continue our journey to her grandparents house outside of Topeka, Kansas. We got there Friday and had more of our friends arriving on Sunday and Thursday. We spent a lot of time in the car between driving to and from the airport which was a couple hours away and exploring downtown Topeka, but it left a lot of time to catch up with everyone! A few highlight of my break included visiting the barn cats that live in the barn behind Korynne’s grandparents house!

We renamed all of the cats and this one we called Death by Cuteness. Other names included Bob Marley, 007, and Scrappy which all fit the personalities of the cats quite well.

The scenery was amazing! We spent one morning just walking around the field and even ventured into the line of trees just to see what was on the other side which proved to be an adventure to say the least!

We decided to have a picnic at a park and of course we pick the coldest and most windy day to do so but it was still very fun.

While driving in downtown Topeka after the park we found this flag painted on the back of a building which lead to basically a photo shoot! (They were spelling out USA!)

Lastly that day we found a bunch of trains and decided to explore a little around there!

Between the laughs, nights spent watching movies, and just having a good time with great friends I was not ready to come back to school. And yet as soon as I walked into my suite I realized how much I missed it here! We even had pre-Christmas with gifts from some of the girls moms, and we spent the night watching movies and catching up! I was even excited to sleep in my dorm bed! Sometime you have to go away so you remember why you like it coming here so much and this break did it for me! I will admit I cannot wait to actually go back home for the first time, and I am not thrilled to have to be studying for finals but we’re not in Kansas anymore and for now I am very much happy to be back to my college home with the girls of suite 404!

Too excited for the Holidays

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Mercedes

In my suite we get really into the Holidays. We decorated for Halloween last month but now that it’s over we needed new decorations before we hosted people for Tulsa Time! We put those gel letters on the mirror in the bathroom and so we do have a “Happy Thanksgiving” and a turkey, but since we didn’t think decorating for Thanksgiving was all that exciting we jumped right ahead to Christmas. We pretty much all concluded that we really love Christmas so off we went to Target to see what we could find! $20 later we had an assortment of wrapping paper and bows. Between that and recycling our Halloween decorations, the paper rolls from the wrapping paper, and old paper bags we pretty much had Christmas explosion in here! We not only decorated our door, but every door inside our room, the door across the hall, a door down the hall, and the tables. Just to give you a little taste:

^Our front door!

^We gave ourselves a winter view to look at and curtains out of the wrapping paper! Also we have the little branch on the table which is our Christmas tree! It even has an ornament made out of a life saver.

^This is our bathroom door, also known as my project for the night.

I think the main reason we are all so excited for the Holidays is that we get to go home! I am not flying back to Arizona for Thanksgiving but I will be spending it in Kansas with friends. That just makes me more excited for it to be winter break since that means I have a whole month home. College is great and you get to do some many things don’t get me wrong but there is no place like home!

I had to pick up the last remainders of our decorating madness before we got 5 lovely ladies to host for Tulsa time!

Good bye until next time!

Celebrations Galore

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Mercedes

So the past couple of weeks have had a lot of festivities mainly homecoming! (I apologize in advance for so many pictures!) It was definitely fun to go to all the activities but my favorites were the Ben Rector concert and the bonfire! I mean how can you not love a face like that?

But I was quite happy especially when he played my favorite song and all and all it was a good night!

The bonfire was pretty impressive and I’m pretty sure we were being baked during the fireworks show but I got lots of great pictures so I think it was worth it!

The next celebration we had was Kerry’s birthday and we planned a surprise party for her where we all wore lovely mustaches just because that theme sounded fun!

Today I got three care packages (our room was pretty much a disaster when I first opened them with so many things all over the place so I did have to clean up a bit):

You would think it was my birthday! Which I mean it actually was so more celebrations! I never knew how much care packages would mean until I got here! I am so thankful for my friends and family! Celebrations continue with Halloween and then a count down until Thanksgiving so I am quite excited! Until next time!

Weekend Adventures

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Mercedes

With hectic weeks my favorite part of the is the days we get to just relax! Especially when I get to do that with my suite mates! This past week we had midterms, papers, and half of the girls had commitments to take care of for their sororities, so we planned a Sunday to recover from all of life. Sunday morning brought a great church service and then we went to Olive Garden for lunch! Seriously who can resist those bread sticks? One of the worst decisions we made was to go to Petsmart because they had puppies and kittens and we had to truly remind ourselves that trying to take one of the rescue dogs to our suite was not the best idea.

I mean I really don’t think my RA will notice if we just have one of these cute things in the room! If they had a problem they would come over, fall in love with them like we did, and problem solved! Can you tell we miss our dogs at home? After we had to part with these guys, we went shopping and got stuck at the dollar bins at target which led to decorations for our room!

This door makes me so happy and it just makes me excited until it’s Christmas! Also on Sunday we saw Pitch Perfect, so between good food, amazing friends, darling puppies, fun decorations, and so many laughs from that movie it was a wonderful day!

On a side note it makes me so happy to walk around such a gorgeous campus! I really can’t get over how pretty it is around here! It’s good to be a TU student!

We’re off with a bang!

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Mercedes

Another school year, another wave of new students comes pouring into TU and I am among them. I packed everything up and drove 16 hours to get to the place I knew I belonged. I knew TU was the place to be after I visited for Tulsa Time in the spring and I came here to study elementary education, I’m also in the Honors program so I live in Fisher West with some of these lovely people:

The girls are my roommates, the guys are across the hall, and this is what we do on our Friday nights. Among finding our inner child we also have a weekly movie night in our suite, adventures exploring the city, finding cupcake shops, going to hurricane Thursdays, and so many other events like football games! Who can miss a football game? The first football game I got to go on the field actually which was really cool! I decided to give rowing a shot even though I’ve never rowed in my life. So far it’s been totally worth it! Yay novice rowing!

After time with my rowing family I was ready to cheer on our boys with my suite family. You really have no excuse not to come to these games, it’s really so fun and you get a lovely set of uneven tan lines!

Kick off!

I was slightly worried I wouldn’t get along with all of the girls in my suite especially because I came to Oklahoma not knowing anyone else, but everyone I’ve met here is so great and I seriously don’t know what I would do without my girls!