 |
Main
| May 2007 »
Events Calendar - The Ohio State University
Tomorrow begins the month of May, and for an involved Buckeye this is the official signal to start running around like a chicken with its head cut off. (To date I've been busy, but mostly limited in terms of frazzled-ness to, say, chicken with a bad hair day.) Here's my week in a nutshell:
4.30.2007 Physics 113 midterm; WOW Volunteer Orientation (Electricity); meeting with English adviser
5.1.2007 Art History 576 exam; Chem 246 quiz
5.2.2007 Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship Hot Dog outreach; XA Discipleship class; Mirrors meeting
5.3.2007 Non-profit Career Fair; Dr. Kathy Sullivan's talk
5.4.2007 Honors Collegium SAC meeting; Late Night Scrapbooking at RPAC
5.5.2007 Get on the Ball Volleyball tournament; Children of Eden performance
5.6.2007 Mirrors volunteering
Somewhere in there I will make time for working out, dates with friends and beau, and...going to class?
Here is my ode to the BuckID, a deceptively innocuous piece of plastic that nevertheless caused me to run around my room like a chicken with its head cut off when I thought I had lost it. Behold, your BuckID is your key to:
1. Knowledge - Use it to check out books and other materials at OSU's many libraries, and make prints or copies.
2. Food - If you buy a meal plan, you will soon learn the beauty of the swipe. You can also use it to buy food from many local vendors.
3. Exercise - When you overuse the aforementioned swipes, fear not! The same card that got you the oversized burrito will get you into excellent workout facilities to help you burn those calories off. Use it also to borrow equipment or access the OSU golf course.
4. Adventure - Wave this card at a COTA bus and it will magically whisk you to your destination, free of charge.
5. Cleanliness - Use any money deposited on your card in the dorm laundry rooms and avoid alienating your roommates with your funky closet.
6. Game Day - You need your BuckID to purchase student athletic tickets.
7. Exploration - Present your BuckID at Explore Columbus for discount tickets. I've been to Franklin Park Conservatory and the Columbus Zoo for half price, I'm sending my parents to Cameron Mitchell's with gift cards purchased at 60% face value, and I'm seeing Bill Nye absolutely free!
8. Debit - Not debt, because your BuckID does not work like a credit card; you can only spend as much as you have deposited. Make purchases at local bookstores, CVS, and other merchants.
9. Your Room - If you live on campus, use your BuckID to access your castle (or disaster zone).
10. Life as a Buckeye - This piece of plastic confirms your membership in THE Ohio State University...take good care of it.
I just got back from a school visit to Weinland Park with Wonders of Our World. We were in a class of twenty-four kindergarteners with boxes of crickets...a recipe for chaos if I ever saw one. Plus they had just eaten lunch and had plenty of energy to burn. I used to think strict teachers were evil but now I understand that is absolutely necessary for anything to ever get accomplished. I see this at my church too, where I'm involved in the children's musical. Two of the music teachers, including myself, are what I, as a third-grader, might have considered "strict." The third teacher is sweet to a fault, but the kids don't listen as well. A little tough love never hurt anyone, so I'm not afraid to tell the kids I'm not happy when they don't listen. They're still at the age when teacher disapproval carries some menace. I went on a middle school visit last week, where the biggest problem wasn't unruliness but inattention, which is another issue entirely. You can't get mad at someone for not caring and hope to have any effect. I guess that's the best we can do with these school visits, is to help the kids care about science and want to learn more, regardless of how much they absorb in the hour we're there.
Possibly the best part about spring quarter is the myriad ways people find to use the public space on campus.
On my way to art history I was looking to cross 17th. The two guys walking ahead of me stepped onto the crosswalk and--whoosh!--a Jeep blazed by, slowing imperceptibly for the driver to lean out the window and yell, "I'm bigger than you!" No matter who has right of way in that situation, the driver was plain rude. But it made me remember to look both ways before crossing the street.
After safely making it to class, I overheard a classmate talking about a group of political wackos she had met on her way to class. I later saw them handing out brochures labeling Al Gore a liar. (I didn't take one.) I also saw the same overly tanned guy handing out free pizza coupons that I rejected last week. (I took one today even though I don't eat pizza. I didn't feel like explaining my dietary choices to him since he'd asked me last week, "What, you don't like free food?!")
Finally I saw a cluster of blue and white tents in the middle of the Oval and went to check out Israelpalooza. For some reason all I could think of was the Facebook group I saw that was called something to the effect of "Israel has no right to exist" and I wondered what those people thought of this celebration of the Jewish state. I don't think I am much of an ideologue and the idea of hating an entire nation or group of people sight unseen is foreign to me. Everything is so polarized now. I put politics aside, though, and treated myself to a free Dead Sea facial (which ended up in my hair and on my hands all through my chem lab lecture).
The Oval was also home to the usual sun worshippers, Frisbee-tossers, tightrope-between-trees-walkers, and medieval cosplayers. What have you done in your public space today?
Israel-Palooza brings camels and culture to OSU - Campus (2006)
The title of this post comes from a poem I first read last quarter in English 547 and revisited this quarter in English 596. I had a lovely Sunday morning indeed: I walked over to Hughes Hall and wrestled Schubert's Erlkonig, another piece I met under Professor Knowles' tutelage a few weeks ago. It's been almost two years since I systematically attempted to play any new classical piano pieces, but I simply had to try after hearing it played in class. English meets music, painting meets poetry; what I love about the class is that it allows me to explore the different arts simultaneously. That explains my rather strong disappointment when I received word that class was to be canceled this week. Not that I won't enjoy the free time (and I will probably spend at least some of it in Hughes with the supernatural fiend of Erlkonig) but it is my favorite class and I would have liked a full ten weeks of it. And I do hope Seb is all right.
Gunman kills 32 in Virginia Tech rampage - Yahoo! News
I was twelve years old and in the sixth grade when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacked their classmates April 20, 1999. That ushered in a new era of lock-down drills and zero tolerance policies in my school life, a period I thought I'd left behind upon reaching college. This week I'm reminded that I am vulnerable every time I leave my dorm and sometimes even when I'm "safe" in my room. After all, how many of us have held the door open for someone without knowing whether they are really a resident? The BuckID readers are useless if students are helping outsiders circumvent them. On the other hand, I don't want to live a life of paranoia, knowing I could be killed crossing the street or driving down the freeway. I suppose awareness is our best weapon against danger: know the residents of your dorm; listen to your instincts; even look both ways before crossing the street. The more you know about what's going on around you, the better prepared you will be to deal with it. Of course, sometimes, like Monday, the unimaginable happens, but you just have to pick up the pieces and let life move on.
Thoughts and prayers with the Virginia Tech community.
Yesterday I volunteered at the James Cancer Hospital as part of the service component of Mirrors Sophomore Class Honorary. This was our first visit this quarter and neither of the two service chairs could make it, so things started out a little bit frazzled, but we smoothed it over. On Sundays Mirrors members will load up a beverage cart with snacks and drinks and take it around floors 7 and 10 of the hospital asking patients and any visitors if they'd like anything. The snacks are nothing special: Otis Spunkmeyers, granola bars, chips, Coke products (of course), etc. but what these patients really want is contact with the outside world, and it feels really good to give them that.
We also do fundraising events throughout the year to benefit the James, including Schott cleanups and our annual charity ball. These year's theme was Mirrors Masquerade and we raised over $4000. Our costs were completely covered so all that money goes straight to the hospital.
Here I am on the left with two of my friends and fellow Mirrors members.
I heard a comment on Friday knocking the social aspect of honoraries that I would like to refute. Mirrors' creed says our group is dedicated to ideals of friendship, leadership, scholarship, and service. Friendship is what keeps the group together so that they can achieve leadership roles, academic success, and
community service. I have other sources for my deep personal friendships, but I would definitely consider my fellow members my friends because of our common experiences. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to say you want to be part of a group because your friends are, if you and your friends happen to share the group's values.
I applied for Chimes Junior Class Honorary and so did one of my best friends from the picture above. I made it through the first interview Saturday and there's a second interview this Wednesday. Hopefully we'll both make it through; at least then we'll see each other fairly regularly. I think the best part of honoraries is that they make a large university a little smaller and more accessible.
Today wraps up the USG elections, which means at least two things: 1) I can walk around campus with less chalk rubbing off on my shoes; 2) We will have new student body leadership. I confess that I had not read up extensively on the candidates or the issues, and I may not have time to do so before polls close. Thus I may have to base my decision on an observation I made last week in chem lab. The room next to my lab is occupied by students/slaves of Chem 255, an 9-hour/week monstrosity recommended for hopeful pre-meds and other folks gung-ho about chemistry. As I weighed out my vanillin in the balance room I could see into the other class and saw three students in a row clad in T-shirts supporting Jim and Katie. My first thought was, Why are all the pre-meds voting for Jim and Katie? Of course it's much more plausible that they are all friends with each other and the candidates, but I think it's a valid observation that someone who is driven enough to grind through Chem 255 on the way to med school can be trusted enough to make a good decision about USG based on more than their personal connections. (Or at least I hope so, especially if one of them will be responsible for my health in the future!)
Other creative ways to choose a candidate:
1) Monetary assets
Kate and Pete take this one with $374.99 left in their war chest...or should Luke and Dan win by virtue of eking out a campaign on $50.00, of which $2.46 remain?
2) Website Design
Jim and Katie take this one, beating out Kate and Pete's pastel color scheme, which clashed with their admittedly cohesive "R.A.V.E." theme.
3) Longest Candidate Name Beginning with "Kat"
Three out of four female candidates are named some variant or derivation from Katherine/Catherine/Kathryn. Jim and Katie win again, by an "i".
4) Facebook Group Membership
Because if it's on Facebook, it must be real, right? Winner: Uncertain; between Jim and Katie, with 1,455 members, and Kate and Pete, with 1,382 in the largest supporting group and at least one other, smaller auxiliary. Too much math for this early in the morning.
At the end of the day, it always pays to read up, or at least skim, the candidates' positions and biographies. Am I naive to believe that experience and vision still count in politics? I hope not, which is why I went ahead and voted, which is the most important thing.
|
|
About nice_genes
Recent Posts
Archives
RSS Feed
Ohio State Bloggers
|
|
|
