Rami Ungar The Writer

Well, I got my final grades in for spring semester. Can I just say, about time! I was worried I wouldn’t be able to post about this until I got back from Europe. But in they are, my grades, so I can now tell you my impressions of this past semester and what I’m hoping to get from the next one.

Well, to say the least, this past semester was dominated by preparing for my study abroad trip. Besides the obvious meetings with the people in my group, orientations on health and safety, and applying for numerous scholarships (of which I got three and I have a couple of people I have to thank for that, including teachers and wonderful donors), almost all of my classes were devoted to preparing for the trip. Part of taking the WWII Study Abroad Trip is that I have to pass certain classes in order to go with everyone. I’d taken one of the required classes and one of the optional classes in previous semesters, so I had four more classes to get through before I went abroad. These classes were American History from 1921-1963, in which I got a B, French American Relations Through the Years (B+), a special French study course to learn basic French (these sort of classes you get either a “Satisfactory” or “Unsatisfactory” grade; I got the former), and a History Research Seminar focusing on WWII (I got a B+).

I have to say that while all of my classes were interesting and fun (usually), my favorite was the American History one. The teacher was so passionate about the subject matter, and he was fun to watch as he told us about everything from the Roaring Twenties to Truman’s abilities (or lack of them) as President to the rise of the nuclear family and the beginnings of the civil rights movement. That class also had the most interesting books, including one I used for research into a short story, and another two I decided to keep (you never know when they might come in handy). But each of the classes had something that made them special. I learned French customs and speech in my French courses, and I was able to look into the actual connection between Nazism and the occult for my research seminar. It was a wonderful time.

The only class I took that wasn’t related to my trip was Contemporary Disabilities Studies: Deaf Literature and Deaf Culture, in which I got an A. I took the class as a requirement for my English major (yeah, I’m not sure how a Disabilities Course overlaps with English, except that it was about Deaf and deaf literature, and yes there’s a difference). The teacher of that class was a deaf woman getting her post-doctorate who’d also been a GTA in one of my classes from a previous semester. I got to know her much better this past semester though, and I ended up really enjoying her class. I also ended up learning a lot about Deaf literature and culture that I hadn’t known previously, and it expanded my worldview and helped my writing. In fact, one of the short stories I wrote this past semester, Darkness at Noon, was for a project in that class. Not only did it receive an A, but my teacher cried at the end and said I should get it published. Believe me, I’m working on it.

So next up for me is the Study Abroad Trip, which I’ll be posting about a lot, both here on Rami Ungar the Writer and on my OSU blog site. After that, I’ll be heading into my final year at Ohio State University, as hard as that is to believe. In the fall, I’ll be taking five courses: a creative fiction writing workshop, a course focusing on Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, a course on the history of war, a course focusing on the history of East Asia before the modern era, and a biology course focusing on portrayals of biology and anatomy in cinema. I’ll also be working on a new novel as a thesis, which I’ll go into more detail about as the next semester gets closer.

For now though I’m going to take care of some other stuff for my trip, as well as write a blog post on the OSU blog site. So until next time, my Followers of Fear.