The joy of break is slowly fading, due to the stress of finals approaching. Going home to Houston for a week was much needed, and seeing my family and dogs were great. I always have a good time cooking the turkey for my family, and I owe my brother fudge this Christmas since I didn’t have time to make him any during this trip. Seeing old friends and teachers from high school was also a nice pick-me-up to help stay motivated as I returned to the reality of college. The couple of weeks ahead to finish out the semester are jammed packed with both fun and academic events.
Tri Delta is having our philanthropy event, all-you-can-eat pancakes basically throughout the night. The proceeds are for St. Jude, and the pancakes will be LEGIT. Preparing for the event has been memorable, including chalking the campus with my sisters in the what I think is freezing cold. Native of Houston, this weather has been outrageous. For proof to that previous statement, I went to class in 27 degrees this morning so getting out of bed was a struggle. Not yet sure how I will handle these ice storms people speak of!
Organizations are hosting their Christmas parties, and one I am especially looking forward to is bowling with TEMSA. Also, Tri Delt formal is quickly approaching, yet I am no way near ready for it to happen. Campus is buzzing with holiday cheer, especially on the “U,” considering Christmas lights are wrapped around every tree branch, and on buildings in TU Blue. Every night I walk back I put something else on my holiday to-do list during break, including gingerbread house making, sleep, sleep, and more sleep.
Tag Archives: holidays
The week after Thanksgiving.
Don’t be fooled! Thanksgiving Break isn’t really a break at all. True, it’s a week with no classes, but it’s also a week that’s almost always followed by a week where every major project in every class is due! I learned that my freshman year, and have successfully lowered my expectations of relaxation and binge eating every year since 
In addition to working on projects throughout my whole break, though, I managed to squeeze in some leisure time!
I have been working on creating a book from my blog entries I wrote while abroad… After 6 months, I finally finished it! My parents ordered it for me as a Christmas present It’s surprisingly affordable to create your own book and have it printed, even with a legitimate cover!
I spent some time with my family who came into town, and with high school friends. My dad and I discovered that lamb isn’t our meat of choice after we tried to make a recipe we found in Men’s Health!
And with Harry Potter still on my mind, I am pretty sure I saw Bathilda Bagshot at the local grocery store… ahhh!!! I hope you all went out to see the movie. My friends and I arrived at the Sand Springs theater at 8:30 PM to wait in line for the midnight premiere to discover that .. well, people in Sand Springs aren’t as hardcore as we are. We were some of the few in costume, and only one family was already waiting. What!! We couldn’t believe it! But we were more than happy with our perfect seats. The movie was great… I can’t wait for the last one! I don’t know what I’ll do with my life when it’s over though!!
Well, here comes the busiest week of the semester! I’m off to study for finals and finish up projects like this one…
The leaves are getting crunchy!!!
BLOG TIME! Long periods with no blogging are a good sign. Senior year is still incredibly busy, but I am doing a pretty good job of still-having-a-life while keeping up with school!
The last month has a lot of highlights.
Stefan is in town! He finished his master’s thesis and is taking a vacation here in Tulsa before starting his doctorate. Last week we went to San Francisco to visit Adriana, my roommate from Spain. I had never been outside of a California airport before (eew, LAX) so the state was all new to me. We had a great time speed-touring San Francisco in 1.5 days and tromping around Yosemite National Park for the weekend. I think half of the country of Germany was in San Francisco while we were there… all I heard around me was German talk. An old couple approached us in the street with a map (we must have looked like natives) and asked, “Do you know… the crooked… strasse… ” BAM. They gave away their nationality. They were very excited to discover we could give them directions in German, haha. Missing school for a week was awesome!! …until I came back! Oops, now I am pretty behind in several classes, but it was still great timing since I didn’t miss any tests!
The weather has been awesome lately! I can now ditch the A/C and sleep with my window open, and leaves are starting to turn I am a proud member of the facebook group called “Yes, I will walk out of my way just to step on that crunchy-looking leaf”, and this is prime time for leaf-crunching. It’s also perfect for running (to class, since that’s the only running I’m doing these days) and reading outside!
A couple of students and I have gotten together to create the TU German Club. Every two weeks we have a dinner, Der Stammtisch, where students can come to practice their German. The dinners are really fun and a few German students show up each time, which really helps with the conversation!
I have been spending tons of time on my grad school scholarship application that’s due in mid-November. The scholarship I am applying for is funded by a German exchange organization, the DAAD, that would pay for me to do a master’s degree in Germany. Here at TU, we have a coordinator of nationally competitive scholarships who dedicates her time to helping students win these things! Every time I meet her to work on my personal statement, I leave with even more great ideas for how to strengthen my essay. My friend Craig just finished his application for the Gates scholarship to do his doctorate in Cambridge! Now I suppose we’ll hang tight and wait for him to hear back!! Mine is due in mid-November, but I won’t have news until March or April… :/ We’ll see!!
It’s also job interview season here on campus… students all over the place are decked out in suits as they have interviews in between (or sometimes instead of) classes. I recently interviewed with Koch Industries for an IT position in Wichita, Kansas. Next week I’m headed up to the big city (I guess?) for an on-site interview to see if I can snag an internship for the summer!
Thanksgiving break plans are also underway… My friends and I would like to take a small trip from Sunday-Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We are thinking about going to St. Louis, to my roommate Kay’s house. Her house is a lot like the Weasley house when everybody is home. There is always tons of good food, her parents are super friendly and people are always talking and recruiting armies to fight the dark lord. Well, normally we don’t do the last thing, but this year we’ll be in the HP spirit since Deathly Hallows part 1 comes out NOVEMBER 19!!! Woo hoo!! We can end this blog update with a picture of me in my Gryffindor robes.
Fall is Here
Fall has arrived! I think… Today it got up to like 85 degrees, but I wore sweats all day as a matter of principle. Things are going well here at TU. I just finished an intense two weeks of quizzes, tests, and projects, so hopefully the next couple won’t be too bad.
Over the weekend I took a little trip to the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas to go backpacking with some friends. It was great, we left right after class on Friday, drove a couple hours, hiked over 15 miles in two days, camped, enjoyed the best weather we could’ve asked for, and got back Sunday night for the best part of the weekend – cramming for Statistics. Oh yeah…
Good news is I think I did really well on the Stat exam. Speaking of exams, I believe I promised in my last post that I’d tell you how I did on my recent Microeconomics test. I know it’s been hard to wait all this time with such an important matter up in the air, but without further adieu…I got a 93%. Considering how confused I get in that class, I was ecstatic to get a 93. As for Accounting, let’s just say I got the same grade, give or take 6 percentage points.
This is the first weekend I’m not going anywhere in awhile, and I can’t wait. Friday night I’m going to go see The Social Network with some of my buddies and some friends from the Tulsa Ballet. I know – random, but it’s a long story. Saturday is Theta World Cup, a soccer tournament put on by one of the sororities. I have no doubt my team will dominate. After that I think I’m going to go to the Philbrook Museum with a few friends to see the mummies and stuff they have on a special exhibit there right now. Sunday I will be spending the entire day doing the Spanish homework I have failed to do for the past two weeks before she picks up portfolios on Monday. Really now, don’t be jealous.
As for now, I’m going to the gym to shoot some hoops. Intramural 3-on-3 starts tomorrow, and saying that I’m rusty is a MAJOR understatement, so I’m gonna go try and sharpen up my skills before our first game. With that said, have a good one.
Until next time!
VEGAS!!
from student blogger Quinn…
Okay…so I told you that I would be back with details of my Vegas experience, which was awesome! My friend Isaac, originally from Tulsa, drove to Tulsa for the holidays and had to head back to California (where he works). So we decided to take a road trip. We knew this wouldn’t be an easy trip. Considering the fact that four guys were in a car for about a day straight and the fact that I’m 6′4 spending the most of the car ride in the back seat of a 3 series didn’t make it the most enjoyable experience. However, all of that well was worth it.
I flew into Oklahoma City the night before we headed to Vegas. Isaac drove to OKC and we headed out. The trip went well and we probably listened to almost every song in my iPod, but luckily Isaac had an 80 GB almost at capacity that we played for the remainder of the trip. When we hit Arizona it started snowing pretty bad. We never thought that it would slow us down, but it got to point where had to actually pull over. So we pulled over at about 4 am at some gas station past Flagstaff and decided to take a nap. Not my idea, but hey it happened. At some point Isaac must have woken up and taken this picture.
We awoke about an hour later and got back on the road. It still was snowing, but not as bad. We had finally started seeing Vegas exits and made a detour to check out the Hoover Dam. This was my first time there and it was actually pretty cool. I can now scratch that off my bucket list.
Within an hour we had finally made it to Vegas! We got to the hotel and met up with our friend who had flown in. We didn’t waste time sleeping, but quickly hit the strip. We didn’t stay out too long because we had to rest up before our night began. Later that night was New Year’s Eve and we had John Mayer Trio tickets. I had never seen the Trio live, but I love their music and their performance was also. As midnight came around we got an added bonus as Bob Saget came out along Jeffrey Ross to do a little stand up. It was a great way to bring in the New Year.
For the rest of the trip we got to experience the Vegas nightlife and went to the Beatles LOVE Cirque de Soleil show. This was amazing! I had listened to the Beatles music before, but after watching this show I am now definitely fan. The last couple of days we hung out with some UT friends who had stopped in Vegas before heading to Pasadena for the National Championship. Overall, the trip was great and I didn’t lose any money gambling!
