Tag Archives: weather

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.

Come and Preview TU!

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Hello!

As I hoped, it has been a beautiful few weeks here at TU! The weather has been perfect, and I have been busy as ever winding down my school year–fortunately, this week has been a lot less crazy than the past few months have been! I’m excited for this Friday, though, when we have Preview TU. We’ll have hundreds of future students and parents on our campus walking around and getting to know the University before they attend in the fall, and as President of University Ambassadors I get to spend all day interacting with them and helping them to find a niche that they love at TU just like I have! Having new students on campus is always really fun–it was the UAs at TU that convinced me of how great this University is, and I hope that I can be that person for someone else! It should be a pretty fun day, and then on Friday night the football team is having their Spring Game where they showcase all of their new coachers and players. I’m really excited to see how things go! Also, my parents are coming in town this weekend, so I have yet another reason to be excited! My mom hasn’t been here since Homecoming in October, and my dad hasn’t been here since fall of 2009! It’s definitely been way too long!

I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend, and I hope that you all enjoy your weekends, too! I’ll talk to you again soon!

Springtime?

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Hey everyone! So to follow up on the crazy snow blog from last time, we now have 75 degree weather and it’s beautiful outside! Good old Tulsa weather…after the blizzard we got four days off of school because the streets were horrendous and there was way too much snow for the city to handle, so we got a little mini spring break! It was great! After a day or two, though, I was ready to get out–I had really bad cabin fever, but I couldn’t dig my car out and even if I could the roads were impassible anyway. Finally after about a week we were able to break out and leave the house (even though Tulsa public schools got off for two full weeks!), and life began to return to normal–just with 15 feet high snow piles all over campus from shoveling and plowing! It was fun seeing the campus in such a tight-knit setting–none of us could do anything off campus, so we all hung out with each other and enjoyed each other’s company! It was a whole other side to TU that I’ve never seen before!

Now that the snow is over and it’s back to being 75 degrees again (if you don’t like the weather in Tulsa, just wait an hour), I’ve had spring fever! I know it’s not quite spring yet, but the weather has been so gorgeous that I ate lunch outside today and enjoyed walking to class because I got to see the campus in all of it’s sunny gloriousness! I’ve definitely missed blue skies and green grass over the past few weeks–there really isn’t anything that shines brighter than the Tulsa sun! Most of my midterms were this week, so now that I’m finished with those and finished with the LSAT (I finally took it last Saturday…we’ll see how I do!) I’m excited to get back into the swing of things on campus!

I hope to see most of you on campus this weekend at Tulsa Time! If not, I hope that your college decisions are going well! Come visit us again soon–especially now that the weather is nice again! Tulsa in the springtime is absolutely beautiful! =)

“I think I can, I think I can”

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Right now my mentality towards school is like “The Little Engine that Could”; I have to tell myself I can do it! With a full week off of school due to inclement weather, tests and quizzes seem to be everyday. Although lately I have been swamped in all my classes, the professors have been going above and beyond to meet what it is best for me rather than for them.
Valentine’s Day was a nice start to the week because of a fun dinner with my pledge class at the Full Moon Cafe off Cherry Street. The California Burger topped with guacamole and chipotle mayonnaise is definitely a great choice if you like a tex-mex flare to your burger. The week before Valentine’s, all the sororities came together and made Valentine’s cards for the children at St. Anthony’s Hospital. That event was really rewarding, and a justified study break.
Tri Deltas’ big philanthropy event is next week, “Hoops for Hope”, which is a 3 on 3 basketball tournament where all the proceeds benefit St. Jude Children’s Hospital. I can not wait to be a part of facilitating this event because basketball is my favorite sport. That being said, I hope everyone is ready for MARCH MADNESS! March is pretty much a great month because of NCAA Basketball, I turn 19, and say whattttt?… SPRING BREAK! But for now, getting through February with not a lot of damage done to my grades is all I can focus on.

No more snow!…for now :/

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from student blogger Quinn…

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve probably noticed that it’s a little out of whack…completely my fault. I haven’t had the time to update it as much either, but here I am with a big update. So if you’ve been watching National News you’ve probably heard that Tulsa got hit with a huge blizzard! Tons of snow, freezing temps, and best of all NO SCHOOL! At first the idea of no school for a couple days was pretty cool, but then it turned into a Snow Week! I didn’t even know those existed! The snow week definitely set me back a lot. I had a senior design project due and 2 tests planned during that week. Unfortunately everything was pushed back to the following week where I already had tests scheduled. So this week I’ll be more busy than usual with 3 tests scheduled and I plan on taking the GRE on Saturday (which I haven’t started studying for)!

A lot is happening this last semester of school for me, and a lot definitely happened last semester! I plan to take a trip down memory lane just so that you can be updated on my senior year. Check out the pics below of the fun in the snow!

Winter Wonderland

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Crazy 24 hours! Yesterday there was a ton of hype going on around campus because there was a blizzard warning in effect…as is typical for Tulsa, everyone was running around like the world was coming to an end. Tulsans don’t handle winter weather quite as well as St. Louisans do, so I didn’t take it seriously. At around 4 pm yesterday, though, after watching a news update, I realized that this could be the real deal. As a result, my roommate and I buzzed to Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market to get some food just in case we were snowed in for a while. Bad idea…there were no parking spaces, no carts, the food was literally almost gone, and we stood in line for 40 minutes to check out. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen! At around 11 pm last night it began thunder sleeting (literally a full thunderstorm but instead of rain it was sleet), and then I woke up this morning to 11 inches of snow on the ground. Then it kept snowing, and snowing, and snowing, and snowing, and snowing, and…you get the point. We finished up with between 14-15 inches of snow on the ground with drifts that were several feet high, and my car is completely buried. They had to shut down every highway going in and out of Tulsa, the Tulsa World didn’t publish for the first time in its history this morning, and the Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino’s roof collapsed! On top of that, the roads are completely impassible and the wind was blowing like crazy! The best part of all, though? Snow day today and already a snow day announced for tomorrow. SO excited! I already went out with my roommate and took pictures of the snow earlier today–it went all the way up to my thighs, and I’m 5′9″! It was really cool, and we had fun running around campus finding the tallest snow drifts to take pictures in. The campus looks beautiful covered in snow, and it was really neat to be able to experience something this big! We broke the records for 24 hour snowfall, snowfall for a single meteorological event, snowfall for a two day period, AND snowfall for the entire month of February. Woah!

Overall, I’m really excited that I got to see history made in Tulsa! I’m sure St. Louis is going to get it even worse–my brother and sister already have school called off until Friday. So jealous. We’ll see if they get more snow than us…otherwise, I’m definitely going to be bragging big time! =) I’m excited for tomorrow, though, because all of the Greeks are going to have a HUGE snowball fight on campus. It should be fun!

I’ll update you on what happens with the rest of my week next time I write. Until then, I’ll be running around in the snow!

Talk to you soon!

Semester 8, week one!

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Every time I start to write a blog entry, I am shocked at how fast time flies by! I’m in my last semester of undergrad? For real?

The beginning of Christmas break was amazing. Finishing finals and getting ready for a month without due dates (well, kind of) was a present in and of itself! The only sad part was that we had to bid both our friends and our Christmas tree goodbye :(


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One of our farewell dinners!
At the beginning of break, I went home to see my family and old friends for a couple of weeks. All of my sisters plus my niece were able to come for Christmas and we had a delicious turkey dinner before opening our PRESENTS! I got a lot of great surprises this year! Grey’s Anatomy Season 3 soundtrack, pretty jewelry from Macy’s, and a new winter coat were some of my favorites.

And the fun didn’t stop there… the day after Christmas I took off to Germany to visit Stefan and his family for three weeks! We spent many long nights playing rummy with his parents, and I ate a million baked goods throughout the trip. For New Year’s Eve, we were in Berlin with Stefan’s brother Oli. People were shooting off fireworks everywhere! I didn’t think that was allowed in cities, but I guess it is there! There was a huge celebration at Brandenburger Tor, right down the street (the biggest New Year’s Eve celebration in the world, I believe – more than a million people!). We walked through the area earlier in the evening but had already decided to forego the crowds and have our own party. That turned out to be a good decision since I got to meet a lot of really nice people at the party!

After we had to leave Berlin, we traveled to Karlsruhe, where we stayed for two weeks. I was going to take two weeks of language classes that I enrolled myself in over two months ago… but when I arrived at the school, the secretary casually said “Oh, we cancelled that class… there weren’t enough participants!” Unable to express my anger in German, I had to act like the passive person that I am not. I ended up switching to a different class that started during my second week, and was a level higher than appropriate for me. Boo! But I have to admit, in the end it turned out better because the course hours were nice, the class was challenging, and I saved money by only doing one week of language school.

Regarding my graduate school plans, I have a new list of things to do now that I’ve submitted my first scholarship application! I have another scholarship application that is due on April 1 (right after I hear back from this first one!). Meanwhile, I have to start preparing my application for the German university I want to attend. The hardest part will be a language proficiency exam that I have to take in June. The exam is supposed to ensure that my German is good enough to understand what is going on in the University! :/

Being back at school is great so far. Although I missed the first week of the semester, catching up wasn’t as hard as I envisioned! And yesterday morning I had a great surprise as I woke up (at 6 AM… jet lag!). We have SNOW! I anxiously fired up my computer and basically stared at my e-mail for an hour and a half, hoping for a SNOW DAY e-mail… with no luck! It wasn’t so bad, since I only had two classes, and Jordan, Stef and I celebrated the snow day in my apartment with a hot cinnamon roll party! Mmmm!

Have a great weekend!

TUrkey!

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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.

The leaves are getting crunchy!!!

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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 :D 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.

tiffgryffindor
And Happy Halloween, everybody!!!

Football!

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Finally, it’s football season. It’s been far too long, and I’m pretty excited. The weather, the atmosphere, the excitement, the game – I love it. What I don’t love is getting beat by OSU. What I ESPECIALLY don’t like is paying $50 for a ticket, driving to Stillwater, and spending all day tailgating in the blazing heat only to see my team play badly and get heckled by a bunch of people wearing bright orange…

That’s all over, though. This weekend we host the U. of Central Arkansas, and I expect the Golden Hurricane to bounce back. If we don’t beat them, I may just quit coming to the games. No offense to you if you’re secretly a UCA fan, but it would be pitiful if we lose to them. Unfortunately, I won’t be here to see it (or fortunately if we manage to lose). I’ll be in Fayetteville, Arkansas watching my other team, the #10 Razorbacks play #1 Alabama. Win or lose, it’ll be a lot of fun and I’ll get to see all my old friends, but then I’ll be heading back after the game for our first fraternity function – “White Trash Bash.” Essentially, we all dress up like Dawg the Bounty Hunter and Larry the Cable Guy and invite all the sorority girls over to dance, play games, etc. We haven’t mowed the yard for a while (I’m sure there will be a couple of cars parked in it come Saturday), and I saw the Nascar flag that will be hung from the pole in front. Should be a classy event…

Speaking of classy, I got to go up to the OneOK Club Level of the football stadium yesterday for a Presidential Scholars dinner, complete with President Steadman Upham – the tallest university president in the nation (reason enough to come to TU, no?) Very fancy up there, and a great view, too. Not to mention TU’s awesome catering. If you get the chance to visit here during any program where they have a dinner, come! The food alone is worth the trip.

My accounting homework is calling my name, so I should go. Actually, nevermind. I left my book at someone’s apartment, so I’ll procrastinate a bit longer.

Tomorrow I find out how I did on my Microeconomics exam from last Thursday. I’m a little nervous, but pretty confidant, too. It was tough, but think I knew most of the material. Since I know you’re just on pins and needles waiting to hear how I did, I’ll include it in my next post.

Really though, I need to do my Accounting, so I’m gonna get off. Make sure and read my next post here soon. In the meantime, don’t fret too much about my Micro grade. I understand that it’s stressful not knowing, but you’re better off learning to cope with it before college starts, anyway. Until next time,

¡Adios, amigos!