The University of Oklahoma Week 1

Arrival Weekend


Hi everyone! My name is Grace Bagshaw!  I'm from Indiana, and I attend Purdue University where I am double majoring in Dietetics and Nutrition, Fitness, and Health.  I love food and cooking so stop reading if you don't want to see numerous food pictures. ;)  Friday morning I started the long journey from Indiana to Oklahoma with my Mom!  We arrived in Norman on Saturday around noon.  We got my key to the apartment and moved all of my stuff into my room.  There was a bag of goodies and our fridge was stocked with beverages for our arrival, which was so sweet and welcoming! 



    

My apartment complex

  

Right as we were leaving to go to lunch, Lindsey and her Mom arrived to our apartment.  My Mom and I headed out to "The Diner", which was featured on the Food Network, we got their "championship chili" that was recommended.  Being the foodie that I am, this was an awesome start! 

Featured on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.

Mom and I's meals                       The "Championship Chili"

After we ate lunch, we came back to the apartment and finished unpacking, made a Walmart run, and then took a long walk around the campus to get acquainted.  The campus is absolutely beautiful and reminds me so much of Purdue, which made me fell much more at home.  We hunted down the Kappa Kappa Gamma house and where I would be reporting on the first day. 

After our campus tour, we decided to go out to the restaurant Blu, where we had an awesome time sharing food and drinks!  The next day my Mom and I took another walk around campus and ventured into the Einstein's for breakfast.  Unfortunately, we then started to pack her up and after grabbing a quick lunch at WhichWich I had to take her to the airport.  As soon as I got back to my apartment, Lindsey and her family arrived and offered for me to spend the evening with them.  We took her Mom to the airport and then went to her sister and brother-in-law's house where they made us an amazing dinner and were so welcoming!  I felt so much better knowing that they would only be 40 minutes away the whole time we were here! 

Day 1

Today we arrived to the Walker Center at 8 AM.  We met our supervisor for our internship, Dot Flowers, and we also met some other staff members.  They all were extremely nice, and I am looking forward to working with them.  We received our projects for the internship, and also got our staff ID's, set up our meal plan, filled out paperwork, got our hats, shirts, and nametags, and also moved into our office right next to Dot's with our own computers! Woo!  Today has kind of been overwhelming trying to take in all the information.  We have been asking a lot of questions, and just trying to get the hang of everything.  We ate lunch at the cafeteria, and barely made it through before the Cheerleading Camp girls all came herding in. Here are some pictures of where our office is located for the summer:

These pictures do not even do justice for how huge this building is! We got off work early and then went to the gym and enjoyed the air conditioned.  Man it is hot here!  We made our first meal together in our apartment and enjoyed that while watching the Bachelorette!  Perfect chill night.



Our awesome tag team meal. :)

Day 2
Today began by going to get our Oklahoma Food Handlers Cards.  On our way we stopped at Einstein's Bagels for breakfast because our meal plan works there (I'm a happy girl to get my vanilla hazelnut coffee for free every morning :) ) After this, we worked in Xcetera, a convenience stored within Walker Center, where we helped them restock all of their shelves.  We worked at this for about 3 hours total!  We both actually really enjoyed it because we like to organize things, so it was a fun job!  We took our lunch break at the Laughing Tomato, which is OU Foodservice's own restaurant with tons of healthy options in their Union Food Court.  I got a chicken salad pita with celery and peanut butter, sorry no pic!  Lindsey and I plan on attempting to try everything on their menu by the time we are done, so we will see how that goes... Haha! After lunch, we stocked shelves for a little while longer and then began to work on our manager's scavenger hunt!  That evening we were treated to dinner by her sister and brother-in-law at Tarahumara.  It was an amazing Mexican restaurant where they keep bringing you fresh queso and chips every 5 minutes, free of charge, so I was obviously in love.  We went to the gym after and just hung out!

Day 3
Today we arrived at Crossroads restaurant for the day located in the Oklahoma Memorial Union.  We met with Gary Baker, who is the general manager for the restaurant.  Crossroads is a 24/7 restaurant, and the only one on campus.  They serve crazy combinations of foods from chicken and waffles, hotdogs, paninis, parfaits, and they also have a creamery.  We learned a lot about what Gary does as a general manager.  He taught us a lot of logistic items such as how to track all of their inventory, where their inventory is located, how to schedule all of their employees, how to track food and labor costs, how to train employees, how their rotation of employees works during the day, and also how to pick new menu items.  However, he also taught us a lot about his personal beliefs of what makes a good manager: making it a team feel, keeping morale high, and leading from the front.  It was very obvious how passionate Gary was about his job, and he kept Lindsey and I interested for the entire day that we were with him.  We asked a lot of questions, and talked a lot about the decisions he makes and how he chooses to make these decisions.  We had lunch again at the Laughing Tomato and today I got the Thai Chicken Supreme Flatbread, and man was it good :).  After work, Lindsey and I made some dinner and sat around and enjoyed the air conditioning.  It is so hot here!!!  Finally we worked up the energy to go workout and then went in the pool for the first time at night! Just a side note for humor purposes: On our way to the gym we threw our trash into the dumpster.  However, when we got to the gym I couldn't find my phone. Turns out that I threw it into the dumpster with all of our trash, and then had to jump into the dumpster and get it before climbing myself out.... Haha. Anyways, back to the good stuff.  Last night was so absolutely beautiful.  We both just floated in the water and looked up at the deep blue sky with the perfect crescent moon and stars!

Day 4
Today we worked on sorting through all of the projects we are in charge of completing and trying to come up with ideas for them.  The main project that we were working on was a recipe development and evaluation project.  After meeting with Gary yesterday, we decided that we wanted to develop a menu item for him for breakfast.  The University of Oklahoma food service department has a Fitter Menu program that they have developed.  Currently there are 3 restaurants within the food service department that have incorporated this program: The Flying Cow, The Laughing Tomato, and Crossroads.  In order for an item to belong to this menu, it must be under 500 calories, below 15 g of fat, and be low in sodium.  His breakfast menu has a lot of egg items that fall into this category, but no pancakes or French toast, so Lindsey and I spent the day searching for healthy French toast and pancake recipes, which alternately made us really hungry. Haha.  We ate lunch again at the Laughing Tomato and I tried their Jalapeno Chicken Wrap and Red Pepper and Gouda soup. Yum! After lunch we kept working on the recipe development and then went to the Housing and Food Service Carnival at the Union. We went with Nancy, who is awesome! Her office is right across from ours and we love her!  While we were there the wind picked up and literally uprooted an umbrella from a table and threw it so hard it broke... that was terrifying.  Lindsey and I pigged out on free soft pretzels and ice cream. Hah. Then we went upstairs to see the Ballroom where they hold all of their important events in the Union.  After work we spontaneously decided to go get pedicures together, haha.  This whole 8-5 workday is killing our feet ;).  The pedicure took forever so when we got back home we were starved and ended up making one of the recipes we liked while we were searching for a recipe development: Nutella Banana French Toast.  I know what you are thinking... But it actually is not that bad for you!! We used whole wheat French toast and didn't add any sugar or anything to our eggs.  It was really good. Then we went to the gym and swam a lot to try to burn off some of the calories we consumed today. Haha. Once we got home, it started to come up all over the news that there was going to be a huge storm so Lindsey and I proceded to freak out and download like every news station app so that we would be alerted if anything happened. We both enjoy storms where we are from, but here, the slightest wind or rain makes us think a tornado is coming. 

Day 5
Today we worked with the catering staff at the University of Oklahoma.  This staff included Ali, Charlotte, Nancy, and Dana.  Charlotte is in charge of events specifically for the President of the University and his wife, Mrs. Boren.  We headed out to their personal residence, which is about a 15 minute drive away from campus.  Mrs. Boren was hosting a lunch there for a group of 13 people.  We helped get all of the house set up for the event, and then we started by carrying around appetizers for the guests as they filed in.  They ended up having appetizers for around 2 hours, so when we finally got to the main course it was a shock at how quickly the pace picked up!  We were running around trying to refill glasses, and continue to set the plates up, take them out, bring them back, and finally get dessert and coffee out.  We did a lot of cleaning afterwards to make sure that we left everything better than we found out (we even took the trash with us).  Lindsey and I had a really great time working with this group of people!  It was a long day though... We didn't get back till 5 and had still not had lunch!  So after we got back we went to Couch, the dining court, to grab some dinner.  After work we were exhausted, so we sat around for awhile at our apartment and finally got up the energy to go to the gym!  We of course went to the pool and hottub after and made a new friend, Jack, who we invited to hang out with us the next day.