Famous Last Words Week 11: Let's Go Beat Those Tortilla Bois! (Red Raiders)

Well, this is it! For my last couple of points in the class I figured a Famous Last Words would be apt- it’s been a fun ride and adding to this blog and my Indian Epics/general life knowledge has been a welcome break from the rest of my academic semester. This past week was fairly test-free, but still pretty crazy- despite my best efforts to keep the immune system aloft, I’ve been swamped with the standard sore throat/cold bug, and staying out in the cold for the duration of the ridiculously long Texas Tech game last night definitely did not help (but it was a great time nonetheless, even with the overnight bus ride back from Lubbock). Another highlight was catching Norman's Sooner Theatre's annual Halloween showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show- it's a tradition with some close friends. We dress up every year and it's always a blast. The culture is so fun, and getting to participate is treat!

 In this class I’ve been going for the 410 point mark and inching closer each week, but realized on Thursday that it would be a shame to leave my Project Portfolio unfinished, so I added two stories and intend to revise them up despite my completion of the class. I’ve really enjoyed the Jatakas, and set up two more weeks of reading posts for the women-centric stories that I still intend to read, just on days with more down time rather than as part of a large lineup of homework. Though I’d like to stay in the class and keep doing assignments, I really need to take the time I’d generally use for it to study up on Physical Chemistry and work on my lab reports, as I’m definitely struggling harder in those areas than in this one.

With the return of the cold weather comes the return of my hat-knitting habits- the seven hour bus ride down to TTech yielded three hats (and I’m so happy I crammed the loom into my bag, because I might have frozen solid without the grey-knit beanie I made on the way). The game was crazy long and had over a hundred penalty yards, but the time was well-spent with some of my closest friends. I’ve included two personal pictures with this post: one of I and my two roommates, epically photobombed by our director, Mr. Britt; and one of the pep-edition mellophone sub-section, where you can see the tortillas we brought (for show- we’re not allowed to toss them down, but lived vicariously through the OU fans in the rest of the stadium doing so often throughout the duration of the game). 

Image Info: Personal Photo of me, my roommates, and our director at Texas Tech.
(from left: Mr. Britt, Kaleigh, me, and Meagan)
11/3/18

Image Info: Personal Photo of the TX Tech mellophones.
(from left: Maddie, Cole, Sterling, Meagan, Kaleigh, and me!)
11/3/18

Famous Last Words: Let's Go Beat Those Wildcats!

The midsemester combo of drudgery and diversions continued in Week 10 with two tests, a roommate’s breakup, and a concert. Test A was a bit of a disaster, but Test B went pretty well, and the concert was a great time! This week we played the Kansas State Wildcats, complete with their taxidermied travel mascot, in a decisive and stress-free victory for our team and homecoming alumni as well. At the end of halftime the Pride unveiled a special surprise we’ve been cooking up this spooky season: we played Michael Jackson’s Thriller and danced it to boot to one of the most enthusiastic crowd reactions of the season.
Classwise, this week included a recap on the subjunctive tense in Spanish, a truly gorgeous book (My Favorite Thing is Monsters) in my Graphic Novel class, Antigone and Greek literature, a documentary on Jodorovsky’s unrealized Dune movie, a lot of Physical chemistry recap, various notes on PCR techniques, and me being grateful for the advance legwork I did for the Readings in this class. I did a Story Lab instead of a Story for a change, and through I missed the creative fun of writing, going through TVTropes.org was so fun! I absolutely loved exploring the website and its wealth of information. Though I didn’t end up getting to as many extra credit assignments as I wanted to, I’m still very much on track to finish early, and am excited to dive back in this week with the extra time afforded by the lack of tests. I'm also hype to read some of the material from the women-emphasis category- I set up the posts a few weeks ago and I've been looking forward to them ever since. Tuesday was my 20th birthday, and it was such a good day- I had classes and rehearsals, but my friends still made time to snag cheese fries at the Mont late into the night and the well wishes from everyone (even my 92-year-old grandparents) made me feel so loved. Great  birthday! I'm hoping to get back on a good sleep and study schedule this week! (Maybe it's wishful thinking...the Grey's Anatomy rewatch I and my roommate Meagan started may beg to differ). All in all, there's a lot going on, and college can be stressful sometimes, but I'm overall just very grateful to get to do what I do and study what I study with the people that I do. 19 was neat and so far 20 has been too!

Image Info: My 20th birthday celebratory post. Personal Image, Oct. 2018.

Famous Last Words: Beat Those Corn Dogs

It was another busy week, topped off by a 4 am calltime for Saturday’s Fort Worth showdown against Texas Christian’s Horned Frogs (I still don’t get their mascot, but I was digging the purple and the hacienda/arches vibe the other side of their stadium had going). My presentation in Spanish went really well- I think the class is now sufficiently educated on the wonders and history of the general Mariachi genre. The real gauntlet however, has yet to be run- the first PChem midterm is tomorrow at 12:30 and I’m admittedly terrified. I’ve been doing assignments for this class in between test review all day long, and I’m ready to get this stress off of my shoulders. (Gotta gear up for the next text on Friday!) This week will be an interesting one- test Monday, birthday Tuesday, test Friday, and, to top it off, an accapella concert Friday evening (I’m a member of OU’s student-led accapella group, The Crimson Chords- it’s a blast, and if you want to come see us we’ll be at Second Wind Coffeehouse on campus corner this Friday at 7). The only thing getting me through the marathon of studying I’ve been doing today has been my Spotify Study Scores playlist I recently put together with snippets of my favorite movie music. It’s pretty eclectic, and though it features a lot of superhero soundtrack bits, marvel is far from the only genre included. My goals for this week are to pass both of my tests, and my goals for this class are to do more of the assignments earlier, especially the extra credit ones- I’m getting close to that 411 point A cutoff, and could really use the extra study time for my chem classes. I’ll be sad to see Indian Epics go, though- I love reading through the creative content of classmates and watching the fun and informational videos on the Announcements. It’s been fun and most definitely helped me to grow as a writer. I won’t be going with the pep band to Texas Tech this weekend, but I know it’ll be so nice to have a bit of a break. I'm super excited to watch our defense continue to improve from afar though! (The stands went nuts when we got a true, actual, for real STOP in the first few minutes of gameplay). A highlight of the week has definitely been learning the Thriller dance in Pride…coming soon to a halftime show near you!: )

Image Info: A picture from the inside of TCU's Amon G. Carter Stadium, from about as high in the stands as the band was to the left. Source: SeeFortWorth.com. Link.

Famous Last Words: Football Free for the First Time All Fall

                After the insanity of last week, having Monday rehearsal off and significantly fewer midterms was blissful. I took the time to complete the assignments for the week in advance, and then to go ahead in the semester and do some jataka readings, and to set up the reading posts for the next three weeks with a picture, link, and brief bibliography. I’ve been eyeing my point total, and only need 102 more to finish the class with an A. Though I know that being able to reallocate the time dedicated to this course to my other, more sciencey classes, I’ve realized that I’ll miss these bi-weekly adventures into the world of the Indian Epics, and decided to not finish the class before I finish my final Project website, which is coming along nicely.  As much as I love reading the Jatakas, I have yet to find some that would fit in the Epic Women theme for the Portfolio- I think I'll stick to the Mahabharata for my next installment! I'm really happy with how my Portfolio is coming along, and look forward to reading more as the class continues into Week 9.

                Though I had no true tests this week, my other classes were still busy, and I had to make time to see my advisor before my enrollment window opens on Monday. (Unfortunately, he wasn’t having the best time health-wise, so advising over e-mail is the way it’ll be for now). My non-academic goals for the week were to catch up on sleep and to not get sick. Though only the latter happened, I thankfully had time this weekend to get in some rest- OU didn’t have a football game, so there were no early-morning rehearsals to make it to, just an evening volleyball pep gig. Side note: I love watching volleyball- it's so much faster than football! Also our team put up a heck of a game against Texas, and though we tragically lost in the 5th, it was a game well played on both sides.

                Academically, things immediately start to heat back up this week, as I have a Spanish presentation worth 20% of my grade and big study-time for a major PChem midterm next Monday. I’ll be doing my best to complete assignments earlier, as that seems to be the best way to alleviate stress in advance. A happy note is that I finally got a studying playlist put together on Spotify, and the miraculously inexpensive student account is commercial free, which I’m enjoying almost as much as this delightfully chilly fall weather.

Image Info: McCasland Field House, where the OU Volleyball games occur. The band sits under the scoreboard on the upper-right. Source: SoonerSports.com. Link.

Famous Last Words: OU/Texas

From academics to athletics this was a hard week. I had four midterms in 24 hours and a myriad of additional assignments to boot, and it was a struggle to keep up with Pride rehearsals and everything on top. The Texas trip was so much fun! It was a great opportunity to spend time with old friends and grow closer to new ones in the mellophone section- win or lose the game I know I’ve won by having these people in my life. This class-wise I’m continuing with my goal of doing more extra credit, and am glad to have a week off of Reading assignments because it will hopefully help me to get ahead on them, instead of behind like these past two weeks. It’s also our football bye week and a much-needed Monday rehearsal reprieve. I still play at a volleyball pep gig on Saturday, but the time commitment is much more conducive to healthy sleep habits and studying for the next barrage of midterms. I just added another Story to my Project Portfolio, and though I don’t like it as much as my first story I believe it has a lot of potential, especially in the next two weeks of revising. I’m considering rewriting it with a space-y theme, because the scene it’s about (Draupadi getting gambled into slavery) reminded me of the plight of Leia, C-3PO, and R2 in the beginning of Return of the Jedi. The only “first midterm” I have left in a class is for Physical Chemistry two weeks from tomorrow, and I am absolutely terrified. Fear is a powerful motivator, however, and I anticipate starting to study far earlier because of it. My mid-semester resolution is to be a bastion of positivity, and to only complain in constructive ways, as it’s far too easy to get down in the dumps under an unending barrage of schoolwork. We’re all in this together and if I can brighten someone else’s dark day by focusing more out than in, I’d call that as much of an extracurricular success as doing well on a test.

Image Info: If only this were true this weekend :'(. An OU/TX Pinterest meme.
Source: Link.

Famous Last Words, Week 6: Let's Go Beat Those Baylor Bears!

I made it through my first midterm- hooray! It was a busy week as we prepared another halftime show to round out our five-game September. This game's show featured the famous Boston Brass on our Earth Wind, & Fire medley. Though I love September, I can definitely go a while without listening to it again! I tried to utilize the Time Management skills I went over at the beginning of the semester in this class, especially the keeping up with things bit-by-bit every day ones and the prioritization tips as well. Saturday was Parent's Day, and though mine were unable to attend, I had a great time selling t-shirts and meeting the parental units of my peers- it's super interesting to see the resemblances, especially after taking Genetics last semester. Course-wise, I just checked my progress against the MLLL grade calculator table, and saw that I need to break 400 points to get an A in the class. This inspired me to do more extra credit as I go along, because any time I save at the end of the semester in this class can go towards studying for PChem, my current academic kryptonite. I'm feeling a little stuck story-wise in this class, especially after my past Sita story. This is because I felt so great about that one that I'm having trouble topping it. Hopefully reading more of the Mahabharata this week can help clear up my writer's block! This week'll be another crazy one, with four midterms in the first two days and then many saxeT week preparations and orientations within the band. It's going to be ridiculously fun (in spite of the ridiculously hot forecast for our uniformed Dallas excursion), but no matter how the game goes (and regardless of whether or not UT is really "back" (spoiler alert: they aren't :)) we'll have a chance to hang at the Texas State Fair with a group of really great friends, and hopefully the freshmen feel extra glad about the section and their decision to do band this year. Though there are many assignments, I hope I can tap into that revitalizing part of this week as we get into the drudgery of the fall.

Image Info: Baylor University Logo.
Source: Wikipedia. Link.

Famous Last Words: Week 4 and the Iowa State Game

This past week was a whirlwind (I’m getting a sense of déjà vu- I think I started last week’s famous last words with that same statement). It was all building up to the Iowa State game- I signed up and was fortunate enough to make it on to the pep band for Saturday. This game is one I’ve been looking forward to all semester, as Iowa is my summer home. I’ve lived two hours from Jack Trice Stadium since the fourth grade, and going meant there would be a possibility to see friends and family. Fortunately, there weren’t any high school competitions or anything going on on Saturday, and my two high-school aged siblings were able to make it to Ames with my mom, who I was so happy to see at least once before I make it back for Christmas (it’s an 11 hour drive, so home trips aren’t frequent). School-wise, I was scrambling to get ahead as the week progressed, and though I had my assignments done by Wednesday, I had to rush to get them printed for class on the days they were due. My first test is this Friday and I am anxious, but not as anxious as I am for the PChem quizzes/test coming up a week after. I had the harrowing thought that Texas week, which typically marks the middle of the semester, is three Saturdays from now. *mind blown*. It’s Week 5 already and the fall is flying by. Hopefully the weather follows and drops a few degrees, as the games have been rather taxing in the heavy uniforms (I love it though! Hydrate or diedrate!). I’m excited to put more work in on the Indian Epics Project, having decided to do a Portfolio, and I’m loving the way I’m going with it- focusing on the women of the stories we read. Hopefully this week goes well! 

Image Info: A personal photo of my younger sister Erin, who I got to see at the Iowa State game this weekend.
December, 2015.

Famous Last Words: The End of the Beginning of the Semester

This past week was pretty hectic, despite being perpetually rainy and academically only four days long. I managed to (seemingly) get ahead on homework by Tuesday, but Thursday came rolling around and I was scrambling to get through the Reading, which I anticipated taking less time (and it probably could have, if I had been willing to take fewer notes on the short Ramayana chapters). One great thing came of it though: I had an absolute blast writing my Story for the week (though the Project research was fun too). I chose to re-write a chapter of the Ramayana and supply backstory rendering the otherwise supporting character Sita as a confident butt-kicking warrior woman. Due to Labor Day, we didn’t have a chem lab last week, and the open Thursday morning provided an excellent opportunity to finish some assignments and grab some gas on the way to class, as an eighth of a tank wasn’t going to go much further. Because of the rain, every single marching band rehearsal this week was relocated inside for the first time in history, following up last week’s first of taking our jackets off in the stand to avoid heatstroke (which even with the precaution still caused multiple hospitalizations). Contrastingly, yesterday's game was grey and overcast, perfect stadium goldilocks weather which left our sunglasses and our sweat solidly in the memories of the week before. 

I knew going in to this semester that my classes were going to be a lot- two English, two Spanish, two Chem, this one, and three ensembles, but I thought I could keep up with it pretty well. Unfortunately, I’m quickly learning that I need to be spending every free minute getting ahead to avoid getting schooled by school early this semester. Lab reports are the worst and most time-consuming, but hopefully I can sort out some calculations with my TA. It’s the lack of foresight into assignment due-dates that could eventually do me in, as I just had a twenty minute presentation dropped on me with less than a week’s notice, as well as multiple quizzes and the ever-growing cloud of apprehension that is Physical Chemistry. Our online Spanish assignments threw me for a loop when the submission time was changed, but I’m trying to be chill about it and utilize my Growth Mindset as a reminder that the experience is an opportunity to stay more on top of it all next week, as I hastily crank through assignments in an effort to be all caught-up before the Friday departure of the marching band pep trip home to the Iowa State game, where I'll hopefully get to see my mom, friends, and littlest brother (hype!).

Image Info: I'm cheating a little bit and using a graphic I found while researching more about Growth Mindset- it's from
the Atrium website and simply (and adorably) reminds the viewer of the power of positive thinking.
Source: Link