OSU closed on Wednesday due to snow for the first time since March 8, 2008 (and that was a Saturday anyway). I spent the day working out and catching up on some academic and personal reading and writing...it was rather nice. Now things are still a slippery, slush mess outside and I've discovered that none of my winter boots are very waterproof, which is definitely unpleasant in such conditions. Can't wait for spring...

Posted by nice_genes at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We haven't gotten to mass extinctions in my geology class yet, but I am either experiencing or anticipating a few right now in the months running up to graduation.

Classes: My very last scheduling window as an undergraduate at Ohio State opens in less than a week. I am planning to take EEOB 405 (my final teacher content course); English 568, the creative nonfiction workshop, which requires submission of a writing sample by which the professor judges which 15 students get in (or English 570 - History of English if I don't get into the writing course); and Art 342, the wheel-building ceramics class I have been dying to take since coming to OSU. AND THAT'S ALL. (Of course I will probably end up finding some other random interesting class in the course catalog and wind up graduating with an obscene number of credit hours...I'm going to be over 300 regardless.)

Extracurriculars: I've already written about feeling like an old curmudgeon at student organization meetings, but now it's gotten to the point where I don't even bother reading things like Honors&Scholars Net or Buckeye News Net all the way through. I still care about what's happening on campus, but chances are rather slim that I will actually go and participate in most events. Most of it is just due to the fact that I already have other commitments, but a part of me is reluctant to get involved in anything new because of my impending doom graduation. I feel like five months is probably not enough time to get established and make a difference for a new activity, and I don't like giving less than 100% to things I do.

Friends: This happened after high school and I expect college to be no different. As we scatter to the ends of the earth, I expect to lose touch with maybe 50% of the people I know. These are most likely to be classmates, as I find it hard to sustain relationships with people I know only from the classroom. I have some friends I don't hang out with much outside of an academic setting, but even studying together outside of class is enough to move someone from the "acquaintance" list to the "friend" list. Of course, with the ever-evolving marvel of Facebook and social networking, it's hard to say.

Time and change will surely show...how firm thy friendship...O-HI-O.

Posted by nice_genes at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ohio Union Activities Board (OUAB) sponsored a free concert tonight at Newport Music Hall featuring country singer Craig Morgan and opened by the Dirt Drifters. The place wasn't packed but it was pretty full, and there were lots of cowboy hats, boots, and plaid shirts to be seen. The great thing about Newport is that it is right on campus. I'm not really into the live music scene (this was, in fact, my first concert!) but I'm sure more avid music fans will agree with me on that point. Click here for more on Columbus' music news.

Posted by nice_genes at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings from a severely frozen Columbus. It's been a week of below-freezing temperatures and subzero wind chills. Alas, we must still go to class, thus transforming the student population into strange, shuffling, mummy-like creatures slipping and sliding across campus.

But amidst all this, I have found a tropical oasis: the Biological Sciences Greenhouse Facility.

I went in there this morning to collect some information for an EEOB 400 assignment. The greenhouse is on top of the K Garage next to Aronoff Labs and provides a nice little breath of green in the dead of winter.

Posted by nice_genes at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My friend graduated this past December and last week she passed on her cap and gown to me for use in exactly five months. Right now it sits in my closet awaiting, as I do, the culmination of four years' toil...or sixteen, depending on when you start counting!

This quarter I am taking Agricultural and Economic Development 597.01, the so-called capstone GEC (Issues of the Contemporary World) required of B.A. candidates. [Apparently B.S. students do not need to be aware of the contemporary world?] Here is the official university line on the capstone experience:

The course AEDE/IS 597.01 satisfies the tenth GEC requirement, which is a capstone experience. Such courses are upper-division and thematic. In addition, they draw on multiple disciplines and enrich the students’ experiences of the contemporary world. There are two learning objectives of capstone courses. One is that students “synthesize and apply knowledge from diverse disciplines to contemporary issues.� The main discipline drawn on in this course (which focuses on contemporary issues in the global food economy, including implications from population growth and effects on environmental degradation), is economics, while contributions from demography, environmental geography and political science are incorporated as well. The second objective is that students “write about or conduct research on the contemporary world.� Hence, a final paper is required.

Now, I've never taken an economics course in my life, but when I told my professor so, he said, "Good, good." And I am inclined to agree with him: I am looking forward to the challenge of investigating a new field that I happen to find interesting. University education was not originally intended to be job training; it was a continuation of the love of learning and thus included the study of grammar, logic, and rhetoric (trivium); and arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy (quadrivium); all in preparation to study philosophy or theology. I've found that my most intellectually satisfying and stimulating courses at OSU were taken for my English major, a degree I do not intend to use in my career (for the time being, at least). As much as I sometimes grumble against the GEC, my Art History and Linguistics courses introduced me to whole new areas that I would have happily pursued given infinite time and resources. People always comment on the broad difference between my two majors, but I feel like by taking both I have truly learned how to think, not just what I know. Knowledge will always be superseded by new discoveries and conceptualizations, but the ability to think about and process that knowledge is enduring and thus, in my view, much more important.

Note: Ask me again how I feel about this course three weeks in when I'm up to my ears in reading!

Posted by nice_genes at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't know if all the OSU professors went to some sort of teaching skills seminar over winter break or what, but all four of my classes this quarter have a rather significant amount of interactivity built in, and these are all lectures I'm talking about.

Mol Gen 608 - In-class quizzes (which is good for keeping me on my toes with the reading) and small group discussions
Earth Sciences H122 - Extensive use of clicker technology for in-class polls and review questions
EEOB 400 - In-class simulations, quizzes, and assignments
AED 597.01 - This capstone course is technically a discussion section, except it's cross-listed in International Studies, bringing the total enrollment up over 70 students. But we still manage to have a little question-response sometimes.

While this is certainly good for keeping me awake in classes (especially Tuesdays and Thursdays when I have class for 5 hours straight), it's kind of frustrating because I really wish more of my professors had done this sooner. Oh well...

Posted by nice_genes at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a poignant turn of events, legendary central Ohio sportscaster Jimmy Crum passed away yesterday as his beloved Buckeyes took a bitter loss to the Texas Longhorns. My own memories of Mr. Crum are limited to a few faint glimmers from my childhood, but he was as famous in Columbus for his charity work as his sportscasting. He was a champion for "handicapable" people and worked with Special Olympics and Easter Seals, among many other charitable organizations.

Read the full news story here.

Posted by nice_genes at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First, passing on President Gee's New Year's greetings to students. I love this man and I'm so pumped to be graduating under his tenure.

I got back to campus Thursday evening and things were still pretty quiet on Friday when I went around to pick up my textbooks, which I now have down to an art. I stopped at the campus bookstore in the Gateway, wrote down the titles and prices. (I couldn't have bought them there anyway since they didn't have any of them in stock!) Then I hustled up to SBX where they actually had my books in stock for [marginally] cheaper, so I bought three books for $220. (My geology lab manual cannot be found anywhere for the moment.) Then I went to Sullivant library, looked up the prices on Half.com and discovered I can save about $60 on the whole caboodle, so I ordered those and will be returning my SBX purchases before the winter return deadline next Tuesday. Take that, textbook industry!

By Saturday campus was showing signs of coming back to life. I went to the RPAC in the afternoon to lift and it was pretty packed...I couldn't even get a racquetball court to play on. Coming back after church today, 11th was chockful of cars returning students to the south dorms, so it's officially time for back-to-school.

Posted by nice_genes at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)