A Very Lucky Girl

To be frank, this is weird. I haven't taken this long of a hiatus from A Very Lucky Girl since..well, ever. And I don't really remember how to write like A Very Lucky Girl. I turned in my final paper to dropbox less than an hour ago and here I am, still with phrases of Paradise Lost  swirling in my head. The last time I wrote here it was almost three or four full months ago. A lot can change in three months. They've been good changes and hard changes and just plain changes. Where do I start? How do I begin? Well, there's this boy...whom I love and adore and admire with all of my being. I did not plan for this and Tanner's presence was most unexpected, but strangely welcome. I smile to think of how far we have come in only three months and what a precious blessing he is in my life. It all started with our two friends, Megan and Marshall. I know I've mentioned Megan plenty of times in A Very Lucky Girl, but Marshall is her boyfriend, who also happens to be o...

A twelve year old said these ominous words to me yesterday. We were playing a game that involved guessing movie titles based on clues and I was sucking at it. Why? Because they were all "the latest" Disney movies. I think the last Disney movie I saw before Frozen was rewatching Mulan. I'm not up to date on Brave or How to Train Your Dragon or any of the other hot commodities in the elementary school world. And so this twelve year old mocked my knowledge with laughter and a declaration of "you don't know these because they didn't exist back in your day !" Excuse me?  Repetez s'il vous plait? When did I become old enough to have "back in your day"'s thrown at me!?  The same twelve year old went on to talk about how one of his teachers at school is 24 (aka 2 years my senior) and married. And then asked when I was getting married. I told him boys are icky, present company excluded. And then I spent my Saturday night in a hot tub with ...

Have you ever had a day where your entire life just made sense and you knew you were right where you were supposed to be? That was Tuesday for me. I thought I would take the time to share a bit about my terribly thrilling 8 AM class every morning this summer. Thankfully, it's a short class and the final exam is on July 3rd, just in time for me to celebrate my freedom with the rest of America on July 4th. But until then I'm stuck in Dale Hall Room 107 every weekday from 8-10:10 AM. Those last ten minutes are especially excruciating. The class is overwhelmingly male, most likely due to the subject matter: The Ancient Art of War. Our textbook is actually called "With Arrow, Sword, and Spear." Riveting, right? The majority of the points are received for attendance and group participation and I find myself asking the other 4 members of the my group (again, all male) to explain the battles over and over to me. I'm hoping they continue to find it endearing/not ann...

Usually, as the semester draws to a close, I am giddy in anticipation of completing my courses.  This is mostly true for my Fall 2013 schedule, but there is one class in particular I am going to miss. It's become my favorite class, perhaps that I've ever taken.  Women and Film, taught at the University of Oklahoma by Professor Joanna Rapf, was the first film class for me. I didn't know what to expect. At first I was put off by the 90 minute long Tuesday/Thursday class times with an extra 2 hours on Tuesday nights for mandatory film viewing.  But under the direction of Joanna, I fell in love with the times I had in that third floor Gittinger classroom.  We watched movies dealing with the male gaze, female bonding, violence, lesbianism, and silence, to name just a few of our discussion topics. The patriarchy was the enemy and Joanna voiced her strong opinions, just as everyone else in the class did. Respectfully, of course. She sent her final thoughts on the course...

I might be jumping the gun considering it's still high 90s in Oklahoma (and Houston) and September has barely begun, but the season of autumn is near and dear to my heart. As are the other three seasons. They all have wonderful things to offer; moments I forget about until I remember why I hate the current season (summer is too hot and I'm sick of sweating in my cute clothes). But FALL. Fall is full of promise. At least for now. Candy corn. I snuck some into my cart at Walmart the other day. It was actually still August when this occurred. But it's never too soon to sink your teeth into a waxy corn substitute, amiright? October 3rd, National Mean Girls Day, is only weeks away. If you ask me what day it is you can't sit with us.  The trees rain crunchy leaves that snap satisfyingly underneath my Uggs. I seriously will never stop wearing Uggs no matter how much of a fashion faux pas it makes me. IT'S LIKE WEARING SOCKS WITH SOLES. Halloween approaches rapidly. St...

I am a total nerd. I love school supplies. I love organizing for a new year. I make color-coded file folders on my computer. I get excited when I enroll for the next semester. And this year is no exception. Fall 2013 is going to be legen...waitforit...DARY. I'm going to be in class 19 hours every week...but I think I'll love every second. Women&Film, Native American Literature, Sociology of Deviance, Religion&Society, my LAST semester of French, and teacher assisting for Gateway will rule my weeks. Reading and writing and thinking about people are some of my favorite activities. I wonder if I'll even feel like I'm in school.  But you know what I love even more than school? Getting mail. So, y'all get to writin' cuz I know A Very Lucky Girl is worth 46 cents for postage.  316 Cate Center Drive Box 5012 Norman, OK 73072

This is Conner on the night that I met him. See that grin? That's the joy of a guy who just found his future BFF (me). It was the first Tuesday night of the 2011 Fall semester at OU. My neighbor, Rachel, and I ventured to a party we heard about. We found fun guys and punch. It was basically a winning combination. Conner and I compared class schedules as we watched an intense game of King's Cup. Discovering we had Communications together on Mondays and Wednesdays, he suggested we exchange numbers. Smooth, right? Points for Cons. I was ecstatic to discover he was from Dallas, Texas and fumbled to enter his digits in my phone under "Conner Texas." He later became Conner Texas/Golden. Why change a good thing? Despite the time that I threw a stack of post-it notes at his face (leaving a substantial mark), we have been friends ever since. He lived 2 minutes away from me during my Freshman year and we would study at the library until all hours, me listening to him dro...

I met Natasha Adler my freshman year at OU. She lived down the hall from me and we were only acquaintances during the first semester. January brought my roommate's birthday and I decided to blow up hundreds of balloons to spice up our room for her day. I enlisted Natasha's help and together we inflated almost 200 balloons, driving her to comment, "All I can taste is latex and it smells like condoms in here!"  From there our friendship blossomed and she was unquestionably there with wine and John Tucker Must Die  when ED crushed me in February 2012.  I went sprinting down the hall to her room when I received the first email from Tyler. Being my least embarrassed friend, she had no qualms about shouting across the French class room asking him for a pencil the very next week. Luckily, he didn't scare easy or I would have had to kill her.  Our schedules sophomore year were always at odds which made spending lots of time together nearly impossible. She also had cats...

It's so weird to me that these girls are college graduates and are going to start real adult life this summer. Savannah was my RA during my first year at OU. But, that was just the surface relationship. In reality, we were (are? she rarely returns my texts...) friends. I remember when I first realized we would get along. She friend-requested her residents on Facebook a few weeks before the semester started. I was laying on the floor watching The Bachelorette when I got the notification. I sat straight up and had a minor panic attack and inner battle of "should I accept it? Yes/no?" I decided to go for it, since I could always delete her if she turned out to be supes strange (she is supes strange, but we remain FB friends). I creepily scrolled down her profile page (this was before timelines!) and came across a recent status: "Just sitting here making name tags for resident doors and watching Ashley Hebert on the Bachelorette." Instant soul connection, even if s...

Successfully completed the first week of the 2013 spring semester--HOLLA ATCHUR GURL. 15 weeks to go. It's like I'm counting down a pregnancy, except you know, not at all. 2013 is turning out to be a bit more challenging than I originally bargained for. My life seems to be spinning out of control; but I recently realized that I completely control my academic success. So, long story short, my classes aren't going to know what hit them when I'm done in May. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday I kick off the morning with a nice dose of Introduction to Logic at 9:30 AM. This is the class that I had to take the math placement exam in order to get permission to solve word problems at the University of Oklahoma. Professor Dan Cheon seems nice enough. He doesn't bother with an attendance policy and all of his quizzes are announced and clearly assigned on the syllabus. The downside is that logic is still in the math family, just heavier on the words side. I saw "proofs...

It's that time of year again when I need to study instead of writing blog posts. So I will be momentarily abdicating the throne as queen of averyluckygirl-taylor.blogspot.com until next Sunday, when I will resume the customary 3-posts-a-week routine. My sincerest apologies for not providing you with fodder for your procrastination attempts.  One final word of advice before posting the obligatory #finalsprobs tweets and status updates: your finals are not worse than anybody else's. Everyone's final projects and tests are the worst thing to ever happen to them in their opinion. So don't bother tooting your negative horn.  Happy finals from A Very Lucky Girl and may the odds be ever in your favor!

I'm well into the second step of preparing to study abroad, which in my case is saving, saving, saving. I met with a study abroad advisor a few weeks ago to discuss destination options and we came up with three different ideas. Reading, England. Dundee, Scotland. Hertfordshire, England. I'm already in love with the idea and opportunities that Dundee has to offer. I still need to wade through the process of selecting which courses I could take that would match what OU offers for my major. The worst case scenario would be to come back from a life-changing journey, only to discover that my credits won't transfer. I am determined to graduate in 4 years, after all.  That is one daunting sheet of financial math. And unfortunately, I did all of my math right for once. So I have a question for all of those that have traveled and studied abroad. Is this an accurate assessment of cost? What would cut back on expenditures? Obviously, keeping outside travel to a minimum would s...

Last Thursday morning I was accosted by a startling headline in the Oklahoma Daily: "Armed man apprehended by OUPD." Talk about disturbing! I rescrolled through my OU email account and checked my phone for any missed OUAlerts. Nada.  According to the Oklahoma Daily , "University police failed to inform students of a man, who said he was armed, on campus last week." From what I understood from the paper, an expelled student, Naasik Ferdous, threatened to murder OU women's soccer goalie, Kelsey Devonshire, for reasons unexplained. Devonshire requested and received extra protection when the threat was realized, but although the almost assailant was spotted "in the Oklahoma Memorial Union on the morning of October 17th", no other students were notified of the potential danger.  OUPD explained their apparent negligence in not using any alert protocol because "the emergeny system to notify students via test there was a potentially armed man on campu...

As if I already wasn't 1000% positive that I never want to work in the medical field...Health and Exercise Science is only confirming my negative position towards the intricate workings of the human body. It is going to be my cross to bear this semester.  Test One is coming up on Monday and I'm in over my head with the cardiovascular system, pulmonary system, asthma, cancer, sleep apnea, ischemia, myocardial infarctions (fancy word for heart attacks), and hypertension.  When my Venezuelan professor (reason number zillion why it's hard to understand this class...it's taught in an interesting variation of my first language) tells us to remember the difference between the right and left sides of the heart, this is what I think: left side right side Unfortunately, I don't think that's the diagram she will be checking for on the exam.  Based on the amount of time she has spent espousing the dangers of smoking, you'd think cigarettes are the pitfall of...

On May 8th I started officially dating one of the greatest guys I've ever known. But I want to share some background story. Because we are pretty freakin' cute.  I sat in the "cool corner" of our Beginning French class with my friend Natasha. The boy in question perched diagonally across from me, conveniently located beneath the clock for easy glance-stealing access. During one of Natasha and I's many discussions about the male species, I piped up, "Hey you know who's pretty cute? That guy across from us in French!" She stared at me, mouth agape, "He's gay." "No! Not him. NEXT to him."  During our next class she nudged me, "yeah, you're right. You should ask him out!" HAHAHAHA since when has that ever been Taylor Arceneaux's style? If you guessed never then go get yourself a cookie. You deserve one. I responded with an "are you dumb?" eye roll. She picked up on it and whisper-yelled (did I menti...

"I'm a freshmen-lover...in an extremely appropriate way" said I as I lounged across the couch in Savannah's triangular office on Monday. I couldn't contain my excitement about the relationships I get to build with new students. Hi guyz, my name is Taylor and I'm obsessed with this year's freshmen class at OU. I love being able to be a mentor of sorts: to my Gateway class, my freshmen friends, and strangers that I meet at the Caf or the Union. I remember my dad telling me, "the best way to have a conversation is to ask someone about themselves. People love to talk about themselves, it's human nature." Paul never ceases to be right. Except for, of course, when he's wrong. I applied to be a TA for the next two semesters and I am absolutely adoring every second of it so far. My class is so great, especially considering that it's at 8:30 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Thankfully, it's full of morning people (or people that are rea...

bathroom pics Jew party, what? College is the single best thing to have ever happened to me. I am SO blessed with parents that work hard to make an excellent education accessible for me. I wish college was a full-time job, I love everything about it. I love my classes, I love meeting new people everyday, and I especially love this environment of striving for success.  Febreeze wars gingerbread house party Hey, mom and dad, this is my official thank-you. It means a lot that you would invest so much in my dreams.  Horned Frog dance parties roommates boomer sooner football birthdays Remember wanting high school to fly by? My opinion of college is vastly different. I want these next 3 years to slow down and take their time.  general silliness sisters <> I used to hate being a part of the class of 2015 instead of my original status in the graduating class of 2014, but I wouldn't be ready to leave here in 2 years. I need t...