DJ's Sooner Stories

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane from Oklahoma! to Sweet Home Alabama

In a few hours I'll be at the airport taking off for Atlanta before getting back to Birmingham late tonight. I can't wait to get back home and see my family again. It's been awhile. Last week was pretty stressful. Seeing the fast approaching break, the professors made everything due. So I had two papers, a test, and a lab practical due. I managed to get everything done quite well. Friday was quite relaxed however. We fooled around a little during my OWL shift, then during English we toured around different parts of the school and analyzed their layout for clues about them for our portfolio entry and upcoming paper. I sat impatiently through physics in anticipation for the main event of the day. My mentoring group with Dr. Carr went down to News 9 to see Gary England, the legendary Oklahoma TV meteorologist. He issued the first tornado warning with a commercial doppler radar, invented the weather warning crawl, appeared in Twister, and he's also made many appearances in tornado documentaries, especially the ones about the May 3, 1999, tornado. You may also remember that he spoke at the Weather Center dedication along with Jim Cantore. We got there, had a tour of their huge new studio, and talked with Gary for a bit. Then we got to watch the newscast in the studio and during the forecast we stood behind Gary as he gave it. The highlight of that was when we got to boo Oklahoma State on live TV. I recorded a clip of it so as soon as I find a way to cut the clip down I will post it. Following that the group went down to Bricktown (OKC's touristy downtown shopping and entertainment district), and we ate at Zio's, a nice Italian place. Amazingly, they had great sweet tea along with good calamari, salad, and chicken parmigiana. My friend Alex was celebrating his birthday that night so we got the server to surprise him with a brownie a la mode and sang "Happy Birthday" to him. We later returned to the dorms and watched Space Jam and Elf together.

Saturday was Boren Cup for me, Sooner Saturday for most of the campus, and Judgement Day for my Michigan and Ohio friends. I spent the day reading quiz bowl questions for the high school teams that came. The tournament went pretty smoothly other than having to move some of the rooms because Math lectures were being held in the rooms we were in and we didn't have the right permits. I did get to see part of the OU-Baylor game where we seriously owned up on them and the end of the Michigan-OSU game. In the current setup, we can get to a BCS bowl through four avenues: 1. if Texas A&M beats Texas on Friday and we beat Oklahoma State, then we go to the Big XII Championship, and if we beat Nebraska there we go to a BCS bowl; 2. failing that we get an At-Large bid from Boise State losing to Nevada; 3. FSU beating Florida, Arkansas beating LSU, and Arkansas beating Florida in the SEC Championship; or 4. the longshot possibility of USC seriously owning up on Notre Dame so much that Notre Dame falls out of the top 8 in the polls. The likelihood of each scenario ranges from 2,1,3,4 with 1 being the one we have the most control over. All of these scenarios require us to beat Oklahoma State on Saturday. So this weekend cheer on Texas A&M, Nevada, FSU, Arkansas, and USC. (Thanks to soonerfans.com for their analysis) If none of this works out, we'll probably end up at the Cotton Bowl, which isn't too bad at all either.

Sunday I got to be a lector at church for the first time. I dressed up in a suit and tie and got to process into the church with the priest and altarservers. My reading from the book of Daniel went very well. Afterward the priest complimented me on my delivery and my dressing up. Later that evening we watched Forrest Gump because a girl in my group had never seen it, and then I played ping pong (the events were mutually exclusive). I played 2 Kevins and lost close to one but beat the other. We also watched the weather comedy classic Groundhog Day.

To end, here's a few more pictures from my adventures. Happy Thanksgiving!

posted by DJ @ 8:28 AM