Tag Archives: City of Tulsa

It’s Tulsa Time

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Hillary
It’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks since Homecoming, but I’m excited for Thanksgiving break next week! We get a whole week off for break unlike other schools that only get a couple of days, so it will be really nice to go back to St. Louis and have some time to spend with my family.

This past weekend was really fun! On Saturday, I had the opportunity to run my first long-distance race. I was always a sprinter and a hurdler when I ran track in high school, so it was really different for me to be running a long race! McNellie’s, a really popular restaurant in downtown Tulsa, hosted a 4 mile race that wound all through the streets of downtown and passed by all of the amazing landmarks of the city. I was able to run the whole race without walking at all–a huge feat for me–and it was even better because I had a bunch of my friends there with me! There were a ton of TU students down there participating!

My friends and me at the McNellie's Run!

After the race, a whole group of us went to a really great local restaurant downtown called the Blue Dome Diner. We had breakfast for dinner (the best!) and then headed home for a much needed evening of rest and movie watching. Then, Sunday brought Tulsa Time! We had over 150 high school seniors on campus for our admission program, and I loved each and every moment of it! I got to talk with so many great students and parents, and I hope that they loved TU as much as I do! It’d be great to see them all here on campus next fall! In the meantime, I’m excited for the end of the semester, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the spring semester (I’m graduating…that’s so crazy!), and all that the next few months will bring.

Fall

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Attending TU has so many benefits such as a great education, wonderful one-on-one time with professors and numerous internship opportunities. While these things are all great and a wonderful reason to consider attending TU, there is more to TU and the city of Tulsa than just educational benefits. Tulsa is full of so many opportunities both in and out of the classroom.

One of the many benefits of being a TU student is free admission to the Gilcrease Museum, home of the world’s largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West. While there is definitely an educational element in the museum, it is a ton of fun! The Gilcrease has a lot of paintings and such inside and beautiful nature and art outside. I went with a bunch of friends and we had an absolue blast, besides getting to work on our archery. :)

 

A lot of cool opportunities can come out of simply paying attention to all of the free things about which the college sends e-mails. I had actually never seen Pirates of the Caribbean before (I know, crazy), but the TU Student Association purchased some tickets to the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra’s performance of the score with the movie being played on the screen behind them. So my first time to see The Curse of the Black Pearl was with a live orchestra! It was pretty incredible. Here is a photo of the screen at intermission along with the orchestra’s seats.

 

On a completely unrelated note, one of the things I really enjoy at TU are all of the gorgeous flowers that are planted around the campus. Here is a photo of some really pretty flowers with the library in the background!

And with that I will leave you with wishes for a happy and relaxing Thanksgiving!

Khristen

Homecoming 2011

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Khristen
Hello everyone!

I’m sure that many of you have heard that the last weekend in October was the University of Tulsa’s homecoming / parents weekend! So many different festivities going on the last week in October, and keeping up with classes on top of it all is quite a challenge but such a blast!

One of the activities that TU does for the week of homecoming is street painting. On one of the streets by the football field, all the different fraternities, sororities, and other campus b get different sections of the street and paint different TU related pictures. Some very cool looking Captain Canes! Then the winner was announced during my favorite part of the whole week, the bonfire. On Friday evening, there is a GIGANTIC bonfire that lights up the entire sky. My family got to come down for the celebration. Me and my siblings started out in the very front, closest to the bonfire but soon had to scoot way back because of the intense heat!! But it was so awesome. And after they lit the bonfire, fireworks started going off behind it. What a wonderful display for all of the TU students, alumni, and families!

Today I got to do something that I rarely do during the middle of the day on a weekday: I went out into the city of Tulsa and saw a movie! There was a French film playing at one of the theaters in Tulsa and to add to the culture of my life (and possibly for a little bit of extra credit) I got to enjoy a heart wrenching French film. Some fun!

November’s here and we approach the end of this semester. However, there is still a lot to do! Going to visit the Gilcrease Museum this weekend and who knows what else! Until next time,

Khristen

Because We Can Conquer the World!!

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Wow, these past couple weeks have been so busy and so exciting!!

Things I did in the past two weeks:

1. Went to a job fair and talked to a lot of people about internships this summer and different job opportunities. I’ve decided that I would love to have an internship this summer and am going to pursue that.

2. Went to the Tulsa State Fair! I’ve never been to a fair before, so this was a ton of fun. I went with a bunch of friends and we got to do the whole fair thing: rode a Ferris Wheel and ate a funnel cake! We definitely had a blast there.

3. Had my first internship interview! A speaker came to one of my classes and I went to introduce myself to her after her presentation. She was very interesting and friendly and helped me to schedule and interview with ConocoPhillips. The interview went very well and now I’ve got my first interview out of the way!

4. And I got to see my family and go to the Tulsa Zoo with them! I haven’t seen them all in quite a while (it seems like forever) but I loved getting to spend time with them and catch up on their lives and share some about mine.

Overall, the past couple of weeks have been incredible. Being in college is such a fun experience and I feel like I could go anywhere from here. The world is here waiting for me to decide what I want to do with my life. I change my mind all the time about what I want to do with my life, but I’m learning that’s okay! I still have so much time in front of me to figure out what I like and what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. Right now, I am very much enjoying where I am!

Thanks for reading!

Khristen

Three Things Thursday: How to Find Awesome Stuff to do in Tulsa Edition

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It’s Emily here. Say you want to get a little culture, get to know the city, or just escape the TU bubble for a while. What’s a girl in need of diversion to do? Easy. Just check out these three things.

  1. Sign up for listservs (e-mail lists, for the uninitiated). The University’s own CE Moderator is a great source of information about upcoming opportunities to volunteer, events on campus (including lectures, which can be incredibly great), and discounted tickets to shows at the Performing Arts Center. To sign up, click this link, or wander through the morass that is our University’s web site. Your choice. Under Open Lists, scroll down to current-events. That’s it! Other lists that may prove useful to you are the one sent out by the Circle Cinema, which features $2 Tuesdays for TU students and BookSmart Tulsa, which hosts really great events with authors of all stripes.
  2. Read Tulsa blogs. Tasha Does Tulsa is a great one. The site features an insider’s guide, and every Friday Tasha publishes a new list of “Things to do in Tulsa this Weekend.” I wish we had the equivalent of Free in DC here, but alas. The OK Policy Blog is a solid source of information for the politically minded and gives information about upcoming lectures and forums.
  3. Pick up Urban Tulsa. It’s free. It’s ubiquitous. It lists almost everything that is happening in a given week, and the current music columnist is pretty much spot-on. Ignore the horrendous editorials in the front of the paper and the questionable quality of the writing and copy editing throughout and get thee to the event listings. The feature stories also tend to be decent, and often focus on the biggest upcoming events.

Now go forth and impress your friends with your exhaustive knowledge of cultural events in Tulsa. From gallery openings to film festivals to roller derby, there’s much more to living in Tulsa than going to class. Enjoy it!

Starting Senior Year

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It’s Emily here. There may be no feeling more disconcerting than that of being a stranger in a familiar place. Most of the faces on campus are now foreign to me. I wasn’t here in the fall of 2008, so while I know a handful of this year’s seniors well, it really is only a handful. All of last year’s freshmen, this year’s sophomores, are total strangers, as are this year’s freshmen. I’m still not sure what to make of this. I’ve spent a good deal of my post-high school life being the new kid woman somewhere, and I’ve learned that I’m only a stranger until, suddenly, I’m not.

In this sense, dear freshmen (and anyone who was once a freshman, or will one day be a freshman), I relate to you. I also offer you the knowledge that people have gravity, a tendency to find their corresponding pieces in others. For me, and probably for a wide variety of social justice-types, the Little Blue House is an excellent place to start. I hope you’ll consider joining us tomorrow (and every Wednesday) at noon for free vegetarian lunch. Although sponsored by UCM, religion is not the focus of the lunches. They are a happy place, and all are welcome and invited.

This is it, senior year, and that’s odd, too. I can’t waffle about what I’m going to do next year anymore. I can leave myself several options, sure, but I need to have concrete plans and act on them. Getting used to that idea has taken time, but I’m finally really embracing it and getting excited about what comes next. Still, enjoy not needing to know while you can, because before you know it grad school (or the horrendous job market) will be staring you in the face.

If you’re the concert-going type, Big Gigantic is playing at Cain’s Ballroom on Thursday (the day after tomorrow). I may be willing to assist with transportation for the carless, but only if you tweet or DM me @ejcallen by Thursday afternoon.


Source

Enjoy the rest of your first week of class! I hope your professors and classmates are as ridiculously awesome as mine! Speaking of awesome professors, I’m always happy to take questions about professors and courses via e-mail, facebook, or twitter, so please don’t hesitate to ask.

And now, some Big Gigantic for you!

Local Food Friday: Know Your Watermelon

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It’s Emily here. It’s summer, which means that on any given day I may be found eating watermelon off the rind with a spoon. I’m a classy lady like that. It’s hot, and cold watermelon is basically the most refreshing thing on the planet, and it helps with hydration!

Hello, crazy eyes!

If you find yourself at TU (or in Tulsa) over the summer and happen to be an ardent consumer of watermelon, you’re in luck! Oklahoma ranks 6th in the nation for watermelon production and watermelon is the state vegetable. Yes, this is actually true, and no, watermelon is most definitely not a vegetable. In politics, reality tends to be secondary. So find yourself a farmers market (more on those later) or look for local at Whole Foods or Reasor’s, get yourself a spoon, and go to town.

Click here for a fun watermelon trick for those 21+

Yes, I did in fact steal the title of this song for today’s post.

Crazy Summertime

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I love summer…no school, good friends, sunny days. So far my summer has been pretty busy–I got home from Tulsa after marshaling graduation, spent about a week or so home, and then jetted off to Florida for my cousin’s wedding. I got home on Wednesday, have taken three full length LSATs over the past three days (prepping for the June 6 test…trying to get a better score!), and then tomorrow I turn around to go to the Lake of the Ozarks with my family. Then I head to Kansas City on Sunday for a wedding, and then it’s back to Tulsa for the rest of the summer so that I can conduct research through the TURC program. This will be my first summer in Tulsa–in past summers I’ve come home to St. Louis to work, and last summer I was studying abroad in Spain. It will be interesting being in Tulsa for virtually an entire calendar year, but I’m excited! It will be nice to be in Tulsa with no school and time to enjoy the sites and sounds of the city. I’ve still never been to a Drillers game…that’s disgraceful considering 1) I’ve lived in Tulsa for three years now and 2) I’m a huge baseball fan. I mean really…I need to get on that! It’s definitely on my to do list this summer.

On a more dire note, I’ve been sitting in my home here in St. Louis this week thinking about how fortunate I am to have a home in the first place. As many of you have I’m sure already heard, a huge F5 tornado hit Joplin, Missouri on Sunday night. I’ve been thinking about all of the people that I know that go to TU who have lost all of their possessions, and I feel horrible that I am so fortunate while they have nothing. I’ve been going through my closet for clothes that I can donate to those in need down there, and I encourage anyone who is reading my blog to donate anything that you can to those down in Joplin–your time, your money, your belongings–whatever you can spare. They need everything, so don’t hesitate to send anything you can, no matter how small!

Thanks so much, and hopefully I’ll see some of you at TU in the fall! =)

Gotta Represent!

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from student blogger Quinn…
So as I quickly approach the end of my undergraduate career, I’ve started realizing that I haven’t done much in the city of Tulsa. My realization first came a couple weeks ago when my friends and I took a bike ride from TU over to Riverside (yeah it was a long ride)…but well worth it. As we rode our bikes across town, I noticed so many things that I had never noticed before. Mainly, restaurants because I was starving throughout the duration of the bike ride.

Anyway, realizing that there were some many things/places that I haven’t done/been, I’ve decided to make a Tulsa Bucket List. I’m not sure that I will be able to complete every task, but I’ll definitely try. I’ve got two things crossed off my list so far, and I hope to get another next week during the Drillers opener. I’ve never been to a Drillers game, and I’ve been dying to check out their new stadium. I’m sure it won’t compare to Cardinals baseball, but it’s sure to be a good time. I’ll update you as I think of more things to add to my Tulsa Bucket List! Almost forgot… suggestions are welcome!

Mazzios!

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from student blogger Quinn…

I told you that I would take a walk down memory lane, but I bet you didn’t think that it would be just a few minutes later…

So last semester a good friend of mine asked me to join her for a photoshoot for a Mazzios ad! If you’re not from the Tulsa or surrounding areas then you’re probably unfamiliar with it. Anyway, it’s a big deal around here. TU has a great partnership and you can always get it for free at an SA sponsored tailgate!

Shooting the ad was a great time! I guess the intense lighting was a little much for because we had to pause shooting a couple times so that I could get powdered…definitely a first for me lol. We were pretty much asked to sit in front of a couple pizzas and sodas and conversate. It was great! They told us that they could potentially use the ad for instore purposes, bill boards, etc. At the shoot I got to chat with one of my professors from freshmen year. He serves as an adjunct, but is also the VP of Marketing for Mazzios. The overall experience was one that I’ll definitely remember forever.

So after a month, I get a call from my friend who says “GO CHECK YOUR MAIL!” So immediately I do so, and there we are!…front and center on a MAZZIOS coupon distributed through out Tulsa! Later, we found out that they have the picture on the tables in the restaurant as well. Check out the ad below and go enjoy some Mazzios (I promised I wasn’ t paid to promote them)!