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| June 2007 »
I've been talking about summer a lot lately, and the best part is the reason I'll be working 65 hours a week. I'll be buying a new car at the beginning of summer and working like a madman to pay off the money I'll have to borrow from my Dad (thanks Dad) to purchase an pre-owned automobile. (When did "used" items become "pre-owned," and does this seem ridiculous to anyone other than me?)
Anyway, I'm looking forward to having a car, especially a new one. I love driving and not being able to have a car as a first year student is killing me. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to buy, but I plan to start looking when I go home for Memorial Day weekend. The basic wants are what you would expect: low miles, newer, and hopefully an imported car. (I've had major problems with my Pontiac Grand Am and I'm swearing off GM cars for a long time.)
But the major requirement, and the one that is significantly curtailing my selection, is that the car cannot be an automatic. It's not about the car being faster (although that's nice), it's not about getting better gas mileage (although that's really nice), it's not about laughing at other people's lack of coordination and inability to use both feet and both hands to do different things to operate the car (although that's really funny), it's simply about having control over the car. As I said, I love to drive.
I've been looking at the online inventory of dealers near home, and I can't wait to test drive some cars and eventually buy one. I'll have my first chance in less than a week; hopefully I'll find something good. And after that, I have the insurance payments to look forward to.
Lately, the portion of time I spend not studying (which is larger than it should be) has been largely devoted to looking forward to summer. Recently I decided that to work for a painting company over the summer. I'll be able to work 40-45 hours a week, be outside, be paid well; it seems pretty close to the perfect summer job.
Throughout high school I worked for Malley's Chocolates, a company with multiple locations around Cleveland that sells chocolates and ice cream. So in addition to painting, I'll be spending a few nights a week as a eminent ice cream concoctioneer. Although I'll be spending 65 hours a week working, it should be a nice change from lectures, studying, and tests.
More than working and making money, I’m looking forward to home cooked food. Don't get me wrong, the food at OSU is phenomenal compared to any other college, but I like to cook and I love to be able to go to my kitchen and have food. This dorm room is significantly cramping an up and coming Emeril's cooking style (as in nonexistent, it's a dorm room).
I'll get my first taste this weekend for Memorial Day, and although I've got a couple cookouts to go to, I'm already planning my other meals. So here's to good (home cooked) food, barbequed, baked, boiled, or just prepared in my own kitchen. Six days and counting!
As I have mentioned before, I have the privilege of working at Ohio State’s development office and talking to a large number of alumni. One of the issues I’ve been hearing a lot about lately is OSU’s choice of Bill Clinton as the Spring commencement speaker. Alumni either ask where they can get tickets to hear the Second Coming of Christ..err Bill Clinton speak, or ask why OSU picked Satan himself to deliver an evil commencement address.
Personally, I think that Slick Willy is about as innocent as O.J. and was a pretty bad president, but who cares. Actually a lot of people care, but they shouldn’t be up in arms over a speech to be given by a Democratic president impeached by a Republican Congress.
First of all, Clinton’s views on world issues are still well respected and he is very much an influential person in the U.S. and abroad. Not to mention that we have this nice little part of the constitution that says something about free speech. So yes, I think that Clinton should not only be speaking, but he might have something relevant to say to graduating seniors.
Perhaps I’m being ridiculous, but I just wish that people would take the blinders off and be reasonable. So I will leave you with the (ideal) words often attributed to Voltaire (but actually written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall) “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.�
It hit me today that most colleges are out of school by now, and we still have another month. Never mind that OSU goes back to school at the end of September, a month later than everyone else; I'm ready to be done with school now. And to make matters worse, the next four weeks are filled with papers, midterms, and finals.
But today, it isn't the next four weeks, and I just didn't feel like being in school. As a humble first-year student without a car, I got as far away from class as I could. I went to the Ohio State Oval beach. Now, geography majors will quickly point out that Columbus is in the middle of Ohio, and the middle of Ohio is no less than 150 miles from the nearest beach, but that never stopped a desperate college kid.
As Ohio State does not own secret waterfront property or import vast quantities of sand every summer, The Oval is home to sun worshipers, Frisbee tossers, and students pretending to study outside. So I spent the better portion of my Saturday on the oval, alternating between sleeping in the sun, studying (barely), and throwing some disc.
Of course it can't last forever (well it could, but some of us try to do better than just barely passing), and I have massive amounts of reading to do for my Russian class. At least I get to read good books — Dostoevsky right now. But, I have 150 pages to finish before I do anything else tonight, so until next time...
One of the classes I'm taking is a Comparative Studies class, which essentially focuses on the perception of America around the world. Instead of a traditional text book, we have a collection of books and various essays to read, which is great for me, because I enjoy reading. We're reading everything from Neil Gordon's The Company You Keep to Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation to essays written by foreign author Orhan Pamuk. (I would highly recommend both books and Pamuk's Snow.)
In one of the recent essays I read, I was struck by the phrase "American Scripture." American scripture simply refers to the plethora of writings that espouse the ideals of America. Everything from the Declaration of Independence to authors like Hemingway to speeches from MLK and JFK is included in "American Scripture."
Every time I hear about Paris Hilton doing something stupid, or turn on the TV and have to sit through celebrity "news" before I can here what is actually going on the in world, I am a little bit embarrassed to be an American. After all, this is the image, the Hollywood, MTV, surgically altered and photoshopped image (speaking of the photoshopped fake image - don't you feel a little cheated?) the world sees.
But the more I think about American Scripture, the more I realize and appreciate its significance. I believe that there is hope, to resurrect America's image from the depths of celebrity gossip, to disassociate the ideals of America from American citizens behaving like idiots at home and abroad. Even though the practice of book reading is everything but extinct, I just hope that if this American scripture and literature is printed, at least the world reads the cliff notes.
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