Posts Tagged ‘college life’

Cover The Night: Raising Awarenes

Posted: April 22, 2012 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Social Activism
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Volunteers for Cover the Night. I'm the guy at the very end of the top left.

On Friday night at 8:oo, about twenty people, most of them students, gathered together behind the Ohio Union to Cover the Night, an awareness raising event to bring attention to Joseph Kony. Among them was me. And I had an excellent time, if I do say so myself. We basically covered the edge of south campus and went all the way into the very heart of the Short North, Columbus’s artsy shopping district. All told, we must’ve handed out at least 200 fliers and talked to nearly as many people, trying to get them interested.

Because that’s the whole point of raising awareness, right? So that people get interested and do something about it. And this was going on across the nation, if not the world, so I’m really happy that I was able to be apart of it.

I hope to turn this into an article for the Pulse, even though I told my editor my next article will be about something else (hey, nothing says I can’t do two articles, right?).

A very good way to spend a Friday night.

Review: Vanessa Bayer & John Mulaney

Posted: April 20, 2012 in Living and Life, Review
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Alright, so last night I went to Ohio State’s Union (yes, I’m naming my university now; since the article came up and my stats went through the roof, people have obviously seen the article and know the Pulse is an OSU publication, so what’s the point in hiding it now?) to see Vanessa Bayer and John Mulaney perform. Now Vanessa Bayer is a cast member of SNL, and you know how I love SNL, right? So I was super excited to see her live. John Mulaney I was less familiar with, but I found myself liking him very much, as you’ll soon see.

So, the show started out with a surprise opening act by (and I hope he’ll forgive me if I spell his name wrong) Shen Wang: a Chinese-American comedian from New York with a deep voice and the funniest drunk idiot stories about himself. He was pretty good, and he really connected to the audience, pointing out that our mascot was a poisonous tree nut. Smooth, man.

Then Vanessa Bayer came on, and boy was she awesome! She made fun of herself, of what she was like in college, she even showed us a video she’d made when she’d tried one of those dating video services. It was just great to see her live and hear her do her Miley impersonation. Huh-lare-eee-ose!

Vanessa Bayer, John Mulaney, and a very blurry Shen Wang. So sorry about the quality of the photo.

And finally, John Mulaney with his stories of black-outs, and his making-fun of whatever was on people’s T-shirts. This uy was great; he even told us about how he was confused for an Asian American woman as a child (strangely) and made fun of Law & Order: SVU, or more specifically, Ice-T’s character. Great job.

All in all, I gave the show–which I assume is playing in some other city right about now–a 5 out of 5. (And for those of you who think I don’t do any bad reviews, I just haven’t seen any bad shows or movies lately. But seriously, do you want me to recommend bad stuff or good stuff to you?)

 

New & Old Work: Getting It All Done

Posted: April 15, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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Well, this is my fiftieth post. A milestone by anyone’s considerations. And like all milestones, this is a time to look both back and forth. Which is what I’ve been doing lately:

These past two weeks or so, I took a look at some old short stories back in high school, one of which happened to be inspired by a very creepy dream I had. Neither one got accepted for publication, and after so long I could see some of the reasons why they were rejected. So in the meantime, I thought I’d edit them and maybe see if they were any better after a good editorial bath and polish. So far, I’m thinking they may be more appealing to publications, but I’ll have to wait and see if they actually get published, because I may just be taking too much pride in my own work. Anyway, fingers crossed.

Also, after I’ve finished editing these old stories and have found time in my busy collegiate schedule to sit down in front of the computer, I plan to pen (or type, actually) some new stories. One will be based on that Law & Order: SVU dream I had a week and  a half ago, though it’ll probably end up being more of a thriller story involving events after the key evidence has been collected than your typical police procedural (I’m not sure I could write that sort of story in under 20 pages anyway without making the story too complex or full of technical details).

The other story will be based on the concept of kotodama, which is a Japanese belief that words have power and can affect the lives of people around us. This belief is found in many other cultures besides Japan, and we can see throughout history and up to today how accurate a belief it is (I tend to think that what happened to Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke after Limbaugh said some very nasty things about Fluke is an example of kotodama on a large scale). I will be blending this concept with a very dark event that happened in my life recently, though I haven’t figured out how this will blend yet or how it will end up coming out. But I’ll figure that out when I get to it.

Thanks for sticking with me up till the fiftieth post. I’m so glad that people are reading Rami Ungar The Writer and I hope to bring only good news to you in the future. (wouldn’t it be nice if kotodama could take effect with that last part, huh?)

Dropping and Rue: Two Things That Have Been On My Mind

Posted: March 30, 2012 in Reflections
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It’s been a while since I’ve really done a post to reflect on anything, but some stuff has been on my mind lately, so I’d like to talk about that.

First, Tuesday was the second day of the new term at school. I get an email concerning one of the classes I took the day before, a literature class I found interesting and intellectually stimulating. The email is from another student in the class, and it basically says, “Dropped out of this class. Anyone still haven’t bought books yet?” I don’t know why, but somehow I felt disappointed in this person. I mean, it was only a single day in the class, and you’re already giving up? I tend to stick with a class, even if I think I won’t do well in it. Granted, that may have been why my Linguistics grade last quarter wasn’t so good, but at least I can say I tried, right? I’d feel weak or like a loser if I dropped a class without giving it a real go.

What are your thoughts on this? Is it okay to drop a class after the first or second day?

Another thing that took me by surprise and has been on my mind lately:

I read an article about one of the actresses from The Hunger Games film. The little girl who played Rue? Apparently some extremely devoted “fans” are pissed off that the actress playing her is black instead of quote-on-quote “some cute little blond girl”. Really? I’ve never even read the books, but apparently Rue was supposed to have light-brown skin, so the actress is actually a pretty good portrayal. And people, it’s 2012! Don’t say that kind of stuff on the Internet, those tweets will come back to haunt you! And what does race matter anyway? I mean come on, they have a black guy playing Felix Leiter in the last two Bond films.

Race should be a thing of the past.

What do you have to say to these comments on race?

Winter Quarter Wrap-Up

Posted: March 20, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, short story
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I know, that title sounds like something after a NCAA basketball game, but I’ve already used “update” twice in relation to winter quarter, and I don’t want to be redundant.

Now on to the news. Well, I had a slightly lower GPA this quarter, a 3.1, but I’ve got less classes next quarter and despite the reviews of some of them, they don’t seem too difficult or terrifying to me, so hopefully I’ll have a higher GPA than this quarter. I’ll even be taking a class on the search for extraterrestrial life and ways of going about it (yes, my school offers a class on that, you can take it to fulfill a science requirement). Although I don’t believe in alien visitations, I still think the class will be interesting to take. Though if we’re going by what our book teaches, it’ll mostly be what allows life on Earth and how we go about looking for that on other planets.

And as for writing, I’m still working on the final edit for Reborn City, but I hope to get some more of that done. I also wrote a new short story based on the Kony 2012 video I mentioned in my last post. I hope, after that story’s been edited, that a certain magazine I know might want to take it. Fingers crossed, right?

I’m looking forward to spring quarter. More flexible schedule, more time at work, what could go wrong? Wait, don’t answer that.

See ya next post, when it strikes my fancy to write one. Have a good spring break.

The Pulse: A New Oppurtunity

Posted: March 6, 2012 in Journalism, Politics and Leadership, Progress Report
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Good news, ladies and gents: today, just barely two hours ago, I met with the Pulse, a social action magazine for students here on campus. According to their website, the Pulse “gives a voice to Ohio State Progressives, enhancing the intellectual and political consciousness of Ohio State students, and changing the culture from one of apathy to one of activism. With accurate coverage of current events in news and politics, as well as campus life, The Pulse will provide thoughtful analysis of important contemporary issues. We, the youth, speak for ourselves.” Yes, that is a long statement, but it gets me pumped just reading about it!

I learned about the Pulse through an email from the English department, where the Pulse was asking if anyone was interested in doing some writing for them. I thought to myself, “Why not? It sounds like the kind of stuff I’d be into, and besides, it’d be something I could add to my resume of publications.” I sent a reply listing what little I’ve already written, and got an email back. Today we met at the Union and discussed the section I’d be working in, The_______Generation, which is meant to talk about the many facets of the generation of today.

I’m super-excited to be working with the Pulse, and I hope to have an article out soon. I’m hoping to do something involving social media, it is pretty pervasive in our society today. I’ll write a new post soon when I get my first article out.

To visit the Pulse’s website, follow the link below.

http://thepulse-mag.org/

All for now. See ya next time!

Review: Tangled

Posted: February 14, 2012 in Review
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Well, for all you Valentine’s Day lovers, here’s a post about a heartwarming story: Disney’s 50th animated feature film (no seriously, it is their 50th. I know, I thought it’d be higher than that!),  Tangled. Now I know I’m more of a traditional animated-by-hand kind of guy, I don’t know any anime nut who isn’t, but I still thought it was a nice story, even though the scene where the ruffians in the oddly-named tavern sing a honky-tonk song seemed a little strange. Maybe I’m just too used to the way ruffians in a bar usually act, with fists and whatever.

Anyway, I was watching the film because it’s Valentine’s Day this week and all week my residence hall is doing Valentine’s-related activitiies. Tonight was movie night, and because no normal guy would want to watch your regular collection of chick flicks like The Notebook or Dear John, the activity board chose the movie being reviewed. I was a little skeptical about the film, for my own reasons, but my sisters loved it, so I thought I’d give it a try. Turns out, I was actually touched, and even was held in suspense near the end. Disney, you did yourself a fine job with this film.

Now I’d like to introduce the rating system that I’ll be using from now on when I do reviews. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Tangled a 4.5.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.

Winter Quarter Half-Time Report

Posted: February 7, 2012 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Uncategorized
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No, the title of this post is not a reference to the Super Bowl. You’ll probably be disappointed to know that I am not a fan of sports and only watched a small part of the Super Bowl just so I could be social with the other tenants of my building.

Anyway, to the point of the post: I just got out of the last of my midterms, so the quarter is officially halfway done. Another four weeks and I’ll be worrying about finals! Yippee! My tests were okay, I think I did especially well on my History exam. The English exam was difficult though because it involved a lot of poetry and as you probably realized, I’m mostly a fiction kind of guy. Anyway, I’ll keep working hard.

Oh, and speaking of fiction, I’m still giving Reborn City another edit, but what I’ve done so far is pretty good. I think that maybe after this edit I’ll be ready to find an agent. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best, okay?

In the meantime, I’ll try and get some editing done after this post. Bye!

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