Loose Ends and New Beginnings…

Here we are. I can’t even comprehend the fact that this is my final blog post. I am just so so so sad because not only does it mean this blog is over but…my entire Freshman year is now gone.

I guess I should do as my title says and discuss all of the loose ends that need to be tied and discuss some new beginnings. Think of this post as an epilogue. The last one was the season finale with some cliffhangers, and this is tying them all up.

To start I will discuss something sad but great… graduation. I had a surprising number of friends graduate yesterday, and while it is going to be awesome to see all of the great things they are going out into the world to do, whether it be getting a job or going on to graduate school or any number of things, OC will certainly miss them because they have all contributed sooo much.
This year there were TWO graduation ceremonies because we had a very special guest speaker at one of them…the PRESIDENT OF RWANDA, His Excellecy Paul Kagame. I went to the early graduation, not the Rwandan President one because you had to have a special ticket for that one. ANYWAY the speaker at ours, Jack White (not of the White Stripes) was great as well!

I sat by Kayleigh aaaaaaand…

Cayla and Katy!

The chorale sang the school Alma Mater, then did an awesome rendition of the National Anthem with the band!

The graduates of the 10 am ceremony!

Dr. O’Neil speaking some words of wisdom!

Rebekah and me, right before the graduation started!

John didn’t graduate until the 2 pm ceremony, but we went ahead and took a picture since I wouldn’t be there. I am gonna miss him so much.

Carlyyyyyyyyy! I can’t believe we only got to be friends for this one year and I’ll never talk to her again. Kidding, I will CERTAINLY remain friends with Carly, but I will miss being in classes with her so much.

Here’s the story of this picture: I was hunting Abigail down for about 20 minutes before I finally found her! I was so happy to finally see her and get a picture! She is just a ray of sunshine, but luckily will most likely be only in Norman, which isn’t tooooo far away!

This doesn’t even BEGIN to count all of the seniors I will miss who impacted my freshman experience. I CERTAINLY did not get to take pictures with all of them because many people were busy with family or just bustling around from person to person.

After graduation Kayleigh, Cayla, and I went to Pei Wei for lunch and it was FANTASTIC as always! Also, it is right by my haircut place so I decided to go on in there and get a summer-ready haircut before heading back to OC.
When I got back to OC I got wind of some protesters across the street against the Rwandan President, so I hiked over to take some pictures. I certainly did not get very close in case it would make them irate that I was taking pictures and did not want the security people on campus (we had beefed up security for the national figure) to think I was conspiring with them in any way. Luckily, my camera has a pretty good zoom.

Now, not knowing much about world politics, I don’t know WHAT these people were protesting against or why they feel so strongly against the Rwandan president, but they were certainly there.

Security was ready in case anything crazy happened.

I ran into Ashley, another friend-graduate, on my walk to snap photos!

Once everything was done I hung out with Kayleigh and Carly and Ben and two of Kayleigh’s siblings on and off for the rest of the day. Then, Kayleigh, Carly, and I topped off the night at Steak and Shake for a little graduation celebration for Carly!

Yum Yum!

Mah Girlzzzz

Me with my love, my milkshake.

Then it was over. The last night before everyone moved out. Well mostly everyone. Lots moved out today and some of us are still here and we are moving to the apartments Monday.

I just can’t believe this year has come to a close. David and I are still in our room; Shane checked out waaay back on Wednesday. Remember this room:

It now looks like this:

Such a wreck. Me and David still need to organize and pack. Check out is Monday at 8! Lordy!

I feel that much has happened on this blog and in my life this school year…I haaave gone through several looks:

The first day I moved in.

Dyed my hair darker.

Grew out my beard for a whole month!

Let my hair get really long.

Then cut it off!

I was in two GREAT but completely different plays!

Frog and Toad!

Two Rooms!

I made a million LIFE CHANGING friends that God blessed me with and I can’t even begin to put pictures of them up because I would never be able to stop!

Most importanly, I grew closer to God, our Father and Savior and Best Friend in the Universe!

What’s next? LOTS. Luckily, I have started a NEW blog that you can keep up with if you so desire. I would love for you dedicated blog readers to check it out, and if you like it, start following it. The link is:

http://adventuresofjosh.wordpress.com/

The title is self-explanatory! It will be detailing the new adventures of my life! Here’s a little preview:

In May (this month), some friends and I are beginning the recording and filming process to a movie-musical we are making! We have done a few pre-production things so far, and you can keep up with updates on that film by visiting:

http://www.indiegogo.com/IfAnythingShouldHappen

If Anything Should Happen is the name of the film. Here’s a teaser trailer to get you interested!

Starting in June and going through July I will be a recruiter for OC! I’ll be going to various camps to get you prospective students interested! If you are at Burnt Cabin, Happy Hollow, San Antonio Work Camp, or Camp Pettijohn this summer I could very well get to know you!

FURTHERMORE, I will be one of the male freshmen links next semester! For anyone who will be a freshman, you will learn more about links at Earn Your Wings in August! Get excited, because I’ll also be a HUB LEADER at Earn Your Wings. My Hub Partner Katy and I are assigned to Hub 9, so you very well could be with us!

Also, snippets of my life are out there on Twitter, if you so desire to follow me there. If you don’t have Twitter, you should get it, especially if you are coming to OC. It makes life MUCH more fun and even easier in some cases! My twitter name is @joshuamac22 if you care to follow me.

Well, this is the end. I HOPE you have all enjoyed the blog as much as I did! It is a completely real view of what I went through at OC this year. I have loved every day of being at this school thus far, and I look forward to loving many more days to come! Remember, follow me to my new blog and enjoy happy times there as well!

God bless each and every one of you!

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The BIG Finale!

Here’s the deal:

FINALS ARE OVER.
IT IS SUMMER!

However, I am not quite ready to let go of this blog.
There will be ONE more post after this.
What I’m here to talk about now is the AMAZING finals week I had!

I was extremely lucky this semester and truly did not have any finals that I simply had to SLAVE over. Plus, I had my bible final the week before finals, then I did not have a final in Comm 3 or Stage Directing, leaving only Turning Points in US History, Spanish, and Piano finals for me to study for, which was no big deal at all! I definitely had to study most for Turning Points but I had some great friends to study with!

The good news…yesterday I checked my grades and there is a possibility I made all As. Maybe 1 B. I’d really LOVE all As though. However, it is not the tests I am here to discuss, it is the fun week!

My Sunday of finals week began quite excitingly. I went to church and then went to eat in the caf with some friends before planning to go to Norman with Carly for Norman Music Festival because she was going to be playing in the orchestra that The Non (love them, find them, check their music out) was using for their set. However, Kayleigh reminded me that it was TEXAS FINALS FEAST DAY (in which all OC students from Texas are invited to a meal provided by the Texas Alumni Association, complete with delicious food and gift cards to win). Well, I was absolutely DISTRESSED over these conflicting events. Once it was all discussed, we hashed out a new plan: not only would Carly and I go to Norman, but Kayleigh would go with us (making her also miss TFF). Then, we added Steven and Cayla to the mix and we were SET for a mini road trip to see The Non! As it was finals week, and we had some papers to finish and tests to study for, we went to find the venue at the festival then headed to Hastings to work on homework. After a few hours of work, a delicious frozen hot chocolate, and a LOUD lady having the most hilarious conversations on the phone we headed back over to the festival.

Once we got back we headed back to a HUGE crowd waiting in line for The Non concert. Somehow we got to the front. However, the security started saying the venue was “overcapacity” and no one else would be allowed in until people cleared out. This was no real concern to us because there were still about 30 minutes until The Non were set to play. Then 20. Then 15. Then 10. Then 5 and we STILL WERE NOT IN. In fact, we NEVER got in to see The Non, featuring two OC students PLUS Carly! Instead we got (literally) PUSHED around by security. Once we were OVER getting yelled at we decided to simply walk around for a long time and see other things. This turned out fun but strange. Finally Carly was done and we got to go back to OC.

Street dancers!

A rapper on the mainstage.

The backseat trio! Poor Steven barely got his head in!

You may be seeing a group of people, but look closer at the tall metal creature. We wouldn’t even get close to it.

Monday was a WONDERFUL day filled with classic events!
The first one was the SOUNDINGS UNVEILING!
Soundings is a literary/art book released by the English department every day. Students submit prose or poetry they have written for the literature category, and paintings or pictures for the visual art section. The best part about Soundings is that the book is COMPLETELY FREE! Also, there were many great friends, delicious snacks, and the most unique pink punch at the release party!

Me with my snackiessss!

Bailey (one of my friends/ one of the editors of Soundings!) with a brand new copy of this years Soundings!

The crowd that gathered!

I am legitimately perplexed at how pink this punch is. It was so wonderful!

Chelsey and Bailey (co-editors/friends) announcing the Soundings award winners!

After I snagged my copy of the book and chatted with people I headed back to my dorm to chill and get some stuff done before one of my favorite events of the semester…LATE. NIGHT. BREAKFAST.
It is held every semester during finals week to give students a break from studying and come together and just let loose of some of the crazy. Last semester I was CRAZED at it because I had just downed a very large Starbucks drink, and this semester it was as if that energy had affected everyone in the caf. The room was just full of ENERGY. It was crazy and fun and insane!

My food: better tasting than looking. I promise! I loved it!

Momo and I posing!!! She is just wonderful.

Some of the faculty serving us! They are great and always so nice (and often very funny).

Connor legitimately started a dance battle with some people!

Keenan and Moriah! A dangerous duo of friends for sure!

Tuesday held a final trip to Chick-Fil-A for the semester with friends! It started at just Natalie and me, and ended with Natalie, Hannah Faye, Spencer, Connor, and me all going! It was such a blast BUT CFA was sooo crowded and we had to wait for a group to leave their table before we absolutely descended on the table!

Nat and Spence!

Connorrrr!

Hannah Faye and me!!!

Wednesday was the first of the good-byes :( . Nate, Spencer, and I all drove Connor to the airport to take him back to Chicago for the summer.

The boys saying good-bye. It was sad :(

On the plus side, a group of us got together for a trip to POPS! Pops is honestly one of my favorite places that I rarely go to, which I suppose makes it even more special. I got SIX drinks because I could not choose and I figured it’d be good to have them here and space them out!

The bottle!

Table 1!

Table 2!

My drinks!

Again!

Hannah Faye got 6 drinks also, so we posed!

In front of the big bottle!

We stopped to take a picture at a Route 66 sign (because POPS is on Route 66)!

Thursday was the LAST day of finals, and all I had was my piano final, so after that I just began hanging with friends. Plus, I got to meet this puppy that Taryn’s boyfriend John got:

His name is Morgan. Morgan Freeman. I love him.

After seeing some people, I went to my dorm and watched Newsies, one of my favorite movies, to kick off summer. After that, I went to dinner with Ben and Kayleigh in the caf before we were to start our Cartoon movie marathon! We went to UHouse 3rd floor but the DVD player was broken, but we watched Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium on ABC Family with Carly (she met us up there) and I LOVED IT. Once that movie ended, we moved to Carly’s apartment for the other movies, in which we watched The Land Before Time (a million times sadder when you realize how heartbreaking everything is when you are older and understand) and The Princess and the Frog (I’m obsessed with it). This brings the total number of movies I watched yesterday to FOUR. While this is so lazy, I feel like all of us deserved it for surviving yet another semester of college!

And that’s it. Finals are over. This SEMESTER is over. One more blog post and I AM OVER. Kidding, I am actually going to set up a new blog tomorrow and post the link in my final blog post so that you may all follow it over the summer and beyond if you desire to know the further adventures of my life in relation to my OC adventures!

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Dead Week (Read: Busiest Week at OC)

Well, this begins my final three freshman blog entries! I just absolutely cannot wrap my head around the fact that TOMORROW is my last FINAL of freshman year! This has honestly gone by so fast BUT…that will all be saved for the farewell blog.

Today I am here to discuss a week many people dread…dead week. Dead Week. DEAD WEEK! The name instills many with fear.

Last semester dead week almost took my life. This semester, it was basically a week of fun for me! Haha I had less classes to write papers in and study for because so many just involved turning in projects and such, so my life has been pretty chill (thank goodness).

One awesome way to start out Dead Week was KAPPA SMOKER! As many of the clubs do, Kappa (the largest guys social club on campus) hosts a sort of pre-Rush event for the freshmen guys who are going to be sophomores next semester. The Kappa guys invite freshmen who are looking to rush Kappa, or who are simply interested in rushing at all and want to get a look at several different clubs (as it is in my case). They cook out and smoke lots of DELICIOUS food (hence the name, Kappa Smoker), and then we all head out to Lake Arcadia for some guys hang out time and a time of devotion and singing to God.

My plate of food (get sad people, only three more entries to look at all of the yummmmm food I get to eat!)

I sat with Jacob, Steven, and Nate! We had a blast!

Keith and Cameron, great great guys (and Kappa’s rush directors for the coming year)!

Kappa’s officers for next year!

I didn’t get any pictures from the lake because it was dark and I didn’t wanna have to carry my camera around for a really long time.

Wednesday night was another AWESOME Dead Week event…a final area-wide devo with the different college groups from the various Churches of Christ and OC students. We had a cookout before and while I didn’t get any food (I had already eaten) it looked delicious indeed! The devo itself was awesome also, as we were led in singing ad delivered some really encouraging messages from some of the best leaders on campus! It was overall just a really positive and uplifting time and God was fully worshipped and definitely in our presence!

Some pictures from the area-wide:



Here’s a slightly embarrassing but funny story from the devo:
It is becoming spring right? We were outside right?
The combination of those two typically leads to bugs appearing and buzzing all over and just being quite annoying in general.
I decided to take it into my own hands to kill one of these own bugs; unfortunately, it was in the middle of a verse in a very slow song, so when I went to slam my hands together to kill the bug, the noise was quite loud, making it seem like I was the awkward person who tried to start claps in the middle of a very un-clappable song. Soooo many people shot glances of confusion in my direction, and though I tried to make it obvious that I was trying to kill a bug…it was just embarrassing ok?! haha.

Thursday and Friday were really fun nights! One of my classes, Stage Directing, did not have a written final. Instead, we were to put our new directing skills to the test and direct a play for our final. While this seems daunting, it was actually very fun! I got to work with my friends Connor, Kimber, and Charlie for my cast! While I had already been very close to Connor and Kimber, I only knew Charlie from a few meetings at various meals and such with other friends, but I am so glad I put him in my cast! All of them worked together so well, and were hilarious! This is a good thing considering I picked a funny play to direct! The play I directed went on Thursday, along with many of my classmates, while the other half of the class went Friday. Here’s some pictures of the plays!

Connor and Charlie in my play, The Pink Fancy! I meant to take more pictures during it, but I was so wrapped up that I forgot to! Oh well!

Yes, this is Ben. In a dress. The same outfit, in fact, as Lisa (above him). In the play he had some identity issues and wanted to be exactly like his wife. Crazy, but hilarious.

Again, a man in women’s clothing. That would be Michael Raftery, who is honestly HILARIOUS as a woman. So much in fact, that he did it in two plays:

This one was on Friday, but I accidentally forgot to take pictures during those plays (except this one, which was the final one).
Some of us decided that a musical version of “Mrs. Doubtfire” needs to be made, and Michael needs to play the title role. Honestly, you can’t even imagine how hard I was laughing.

After the plays wrapped I got to go to All About Cha, a new “stylish tea and drinks” place here in Edmond, with some friends I rarely get to hang out with anymore because of some veryyyy different schedules. It was SUCH a blast and All About Cha is soo delicious!

The place!

Me and Hallie (who is randomly throwing up some gang signs…she’s not a gangster I promise!)

Lance and Jenna!

Connor and Charlie. Connor looks crazed in this, and I love it.

Ali and Corey!

Our drinks at All About Cha were DELICIOUSSSS (I’m fairly certain everyone tried everyone else’s drink haha), and mine was very healthy (according to the SUPER nice waiter who brought me the drink. They had the BEST service there, really).
As we were finishing up at All About Cha, I got a text from my friend Bailey for an invite to Buffalo Wild Wings to hang out and watch The OKC Thunder play against the LA Lakers! OF COURSE I wanted to go, so they picked me up from All About Cha and we headed over with our friends Laura and Kaylee. It was half-price wing night so we got food SUPER cheap!
I was going CRAZY during the game because it kept really close between the Lakers and the Thunder. In the end, our team won! YESSSSSS!

Also, me and Bailey took some pics, and for some reason I just look crazy in most of them, and Bailey is never looking at my camera, only hers (selfish hahaaaaa).

Now, one may think my night ended there but NO! I honestly had an adventure night! After B-Dubs I headed over to Eagle Crest, the art studio we have right across from campus, to hang out with Taryn and Ben to write a song (for a purpose that I will CERTAINLY be posting about soon). It was so fun and we certainly got a good start on a very good song!

FINALLY my dead week was over. It was anything but dead, but for all of the right reasons! It was more like social week for me, and I am perfectly content with that!

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RA-FLA-FLA-FLA-FLA-FLA-FLA!

Last Sunday at OC was a special event that happens only once a year…

THE OC OPERA!

I have never been to an opera before, so this was a brand new experience for me.
Also, OC changed the way it did the opera this year so that more people would be interested in coming. Rather than doing one long opera in a foreign language, the music department chose to do two different short operas in english to bring in bigger crowds.

The first opera was a small cast with only 5 members, and was I was QUITE impressed with how all of them worked together. PLUS, I knew all of the girls except one in the cast so it was fun to watch my friends up onstage!

The cast!

The second opera featured the entire chorale and it was HILARIOUS. The ensemble sound they made on the group songs was FANTASTIC and once again featured many friends so it was exciting to watch!

The cast! They were wonderful.

CONGRATULATIONS OC OPERA! You made the night a wonderful experience filled with amazing songs and much laughter!

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Send in the Scotsmen!

A couple of weeks ago I came into my dorm at curfew to find an invitation to Chi Lambda Phi’s (one of our men’s social clubs on campus) annual “Robbie Burns Supper”, the banquet they have at the end of every year. Each year they invite some freshmen who are interested in rushing Chi, and I was fortunate enough to be invited!

The banquet was to be held on Saturday the 17th, which was this past Saturday. This was the same day that An UnCommon Afternoon was held. I left the Commons a few minutes before the concert was over so I could take a short nap and get a lot of things done before we were all supposed to meet and carpool to the banquet. We were all meeting at 6:30 to leave at 6:45, so I was going to wake up at 5:30 and shower and get ready.

I did not wake up until 6:35!!!!!!!!!!! I have NEVER put on dress clothes and tied a tie so fast in my life! Luckily I made it before everyone left and all was fine.

We had to drive about 20 minutes to get to the banquet and it was well worth it! I had SUCH a blast! The food at the place we ate was amazing (the pictures do not convey that but honestly I loved it) and everyone was just having a great time.

Chi’s…mascot?...I don’t really know what to classify it as…is the Scotsmen, so everything they do is related to that. For example, at banquet all of the guys wear kilts and their signature move in Spring Sing is a jig. I have a weird love for scottish things anyway because in a play once I had to do a Scottish accent and it was really fun. I digress. The point is I had such a blast participating in all of the Chi things, but the funniest part was “Ode to Men” and “Ode to Women”, which is a classic roast of each gender done by a member of the opposite gender. Brody and Katy did them this year and they were not holding back at all! After all of the festivities were over we all got some AWESOME shirts and headed back to campus, but of course not before snapping some pictures!

Delicious!!!! Honestly it was, don’t let the picture fool you!

MMMMM Cheesecake!

Abigail and I got to get pictures at TWO different banquets this year!

Well well it’s a mini Two Rooms reunion!

Nate and Sean! Also notice Jonathan in the background.

I honestly have no clue why this picture exists. What are we even doing? I have no clue. Whatever.

I had a WONDERFUL time at Chi banquet! Everyone in Chi was so welcoming and cool, and I can’t wait to get to know some of the guys better.

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