Posts Tagged ‘living and life’

Laura Horn: I’ve Reached Chapter Thirty-Five

Posted: May 4, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Some of you may recall a while back that I wanted to get to a certain stopping point in my work-in-progress Laura Horn before I went off on my study abroad trip. And last night, after a lot of work, some hilarious SNL skits, and just the craziness that is my life, I got to that point. Chapter Thirty-Five, the perfect stopping point at this point, has been reached. And it was over twenty-five hundred words, so when I was finished, I was frankly relieved.

Also, I would’ve written about this last night, but by that time I was thinking about going to bed. Which I did.

At this point, if I manage to get any more chapters written, it’ll be a miracle, as well as icing on the cake. The likelihood of that though is pretty slim at this point, because obviously I have a study abroad trip to prepare for. But if I do, then lucky me. I still have thirty chapters left to write. Anything that makes that remaining material a bit easier to handle is A-OK in my book.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got to get ready for my meditation class, so I’ll be signing off. I’ll write some more if I actually get my final grades back this afternoon (God-willing).

And to all my fellow Star Wars fans, May the 4th be with you on this most auspicious of days. Or as Chewbacca would say, “Graaaaaaaaaargh!”

Rape Is NOT Funny

Posted: May 3, 2014 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Reflections, Social Activism
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I’m going to share something that happened to me this morning with you all. I woke up much later than I’d planned to, made myself breakfast, and turned on my laptop to see my messages. In my inbox, I found that someone had replied to a comment I’d made to a YouTube video. The video in question was a Tibetan bowl singing meditation video that I listened to yesterday in order to relax after a long day. When it was over, I had commented, “Whoa, what did that just do to me?” (I was really relaxed afterwards). Between commenting on that video and checking my messages, some merry prankster had replied to my comment with this: “it raped you…with Tibetan singing bowls :)”.

Of course, you can guess how I replied: “not funny”.

And it’s true, rape is not funny, especially when you look at the realities of the problem. It’s estimated that every two minutes, an American is sexually assaulted. One in five female college students will be sexually assaulted before they graduate, usually by someone they know. Often their rapists are not punished as thoroughly as they should be by the university, receiving academic probation or being banned from campus for a year. Imagine having to be on the same campus as your rapist every day until one or both of you have graduated. It’s enough to drive you insane. And rapists who are let off easy like this are likely to repeat and rape again, averaging six assaults before graduation. It’s even likelier for rapists who include violent acts like strangulation in their assaults. Because of these statistics and several colleges apparently mishandling sexual assaults, 55 universities, my own included, are being investigated for mishandling sexual assault cases by the federal government. For some victims, they wish this investigation would’ve come sooner.

And that’s not the worst part about it. In some countries women are jailed or killed if they are raped, sometimes with the permission of the governments that are supposed to protect them. These “honor killings” or jail sentences are supposed to punish the woman for making herself sexually desirable to her rapist and causing him to commit adultery. Sometimes they are even married off to their rapists in order to preserve family honor! For many women, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other psychological disorders can arise from being sexually assaulted, so imagine having to be punished by law or married to your rapist in order to preserve some silly notion of honor.

Even in countries where women aren’t punished or married off on their rapists, sometimes things are little better. Assault victims are shamed or intimidated into keeping silent for a variety of reasons. They may believe that their assault was their fault, or that they’ll be humiliated or disbelieved if they come forward, or that coming forward will forever change how they’re viewed by people. In cases of pregnancy, some won’t be able to get abortions because laws make it difficult or impossible to do so.

Even in the United States, supposedly a progressive country where all are equal, most are seriously misinformed about sexual assault. They believe it only happens to others, that all rapists are strangers to the victim, that it’s a rare occurrence. In reality, rape is all too common, as well as pregnancies that result from rape, most rapists are someone the victims know, and it could happen to just about anyone. And when we do not blame the rapists but find ways to blame or hurt the victims or create reasons why we shouldn’t believe them, we only make things worse.

And so do the comedians who make fun of rape. Whether they make one single joke or an entire act out of rape and sexual assault, they are doing as much damage as some rapists. They tell people that rape isn’t a serious problem, that you can make fun of it and the victims who are assaulted every two minutes in America (there was a great Law & Order: SVU episode about this recently). And some people, like my commenter above, will take these comedians seriously. One or two may actually rape themselves, believing it’s no big deal.

I’m here saying that rape is a very big deal, and it is not something that should be made fun of or turned into comedy club stand-up. Rape is a serious problem people all over the world must face, and that unless we seriously try to change our culture, things will not improve. They’ll stay the same, or get worse.

So if you ever find yourself confronted with a rape joke or you think about making a rape joke, imagine that making such a joke makes someone as horrible as a rapist. And then ask yourself if you should really laugh at or make that joke, or if you should try and change things so that those jokes are never made again. You might get thanked down the road for that.

Racism Is Not Dead

Posted: May 1, 2014 in Journalism, Living and Life, Reflections, Social Activism
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Some in the American government and in the media have made the proclamation that “racism is dead”, at least here in the United States. If you ask me, the people saying this are either overly idealistic and naïve or they’re willfully ignoring facts. Because the sad fact of the matter is, racism is far from dead. It’s just not as overt as it used to be, it’s become subtler so it can thrive without being reprimanded or outcasted by the majority of Americans who don’t believe in racism or think it’s immoral.

Need proof? The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are over 200 known hate groups in the United States, with Ohio having 31, New York 42, and California 77. Other large states have many different hate groups, most having racist beliefs, and the states with fewer hate groups are more likely to have groups that can be categorized as Neo-Nazi, White Nationalist, KKK, Racist Skinhead, Black Separatist, and General Hate. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Just imagine how many small or new hate groups out there the SPLC has yet to document! The numbers are scary if you think about it.

And then there are recent episodes where racism has reared its ugly head and broadcast all over the media. Cliven Bundy recently remarked that he believes that blacks (or as he calls them, “negros”) were better off under slavery than they are now, because apparently not learning to pick cotton has lead to them being on government welfare, aborting kids, and sending their young men to jail (I could write an entire post on the meshuggas of this guy if I wanted to, but why bother? He’s obviously nuts and in the end the federal government will force him to pay the money or send him to jail, possibly with his militia friends in tow). And then he acts like the victim when reasonable people are offended by his words and says MLK Jr. didn’t finish his job.

First off, Mr. Bundy seems to forget that slavery was not a walk in the park. It was inhumane, cruel, and caused the deaths of untold millions. He also doesn’t seem to realize that there is much more to why some African Americans are on welfare, mostly because they are not afforded the economic, environmental, and social resources to help them get off welfare. Plus not all blacks are on welfare, aborting babies, or in jail. Our President identifies as black*, and he’s not on welfare (unless you count living in a government building and receiving your paycheck through taxpayer money welfare), has two beautiful daughters, and has never been to jail unless it’s been to talk to prisoners.

*Yes, he identifies as black. It’s not a biological thing, but a social construct. Amazing that we make such a big thing over a construct of our minds, but there you go. (see this post for more)

And is being on welfare necessarily a bad thing? Mr. Bundy’s ancestors were brought from Nevada on a welfare program, if I remember correctly. So don’t preach like you’re better than them, because your life is the result of welfare programs, Mr. Bundy. And by the way, don’t blame a dead man for what’s in your heart. You have only yourself to blame for your racist beliefs, and if people are offended, it’s because there is still reverberations in our own society resulting from the darkness in our past. No covering up will rid our nation of that darkness, and people are right to be offended by your remarks. At the very least, you can be considered callous, if not outright racist.

And then there’s Donald Sterling, who’s been banned from the NBA and forcibly relieved of the LA Clippers because he didn’t want his biracial mistress seen with black people. Some people say he may be senile, others say he’s worried about his performance, and others just say he’s a racist pig. I think that whatever he is, he is a hypocrite because his team is mostly black and he’s seeing a woman who is half-black, and that his hypocrisy, as we have seen, is his downfall.

It is nice to know that the same weekend we all started talking about Sterling, Family Guy had a wonderful episode that dealt with racism, not just from whites but from blacks as well. And it is nice to know that we are having a dialogue about this, that we are not trying to sweep racism under the rug or deny that it exists. That’s like trying to ignore a serious medical condition or disorder in the hopes that it goes away. Just doesn’t work out in the end.

You know, the Supreme Court is right: a lot has changed since the Civil Rights Acts were passed. We are now a more technological, global, connected society. We recycle in the hopes of not accelerating the destruction of the Earth, and the idea of a black man or a woman running for President is no longer ludicrous, but the former has become a successful reality (twice!) and the latter is welcomed by a huge majority of the country.

However racism is still a problem in this country, and it is something we will have to deal with if this country is to continue to grow and prosper. So denying racism and saying it’s dead isn’t the answer. Rather, open dialogue and a lot of love and understanding is. And we need to have more of it.

Oh, and to the KKK guy in that one news clip who says he has black friends but doesn’t believe in “racial mixing”, where are your black friends exactly? Do they know you wear a KKK robe? And could you bring me an article from an accredited medical journal published in the past ten years that says “racial mixing” is a bad thing? I would love to see it!

Self-Pub Authors: What Makes A Strong Character?

Posted: May 1, 2014 in Journalism, Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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I thought this was coming out tomorrow, but it looks like it came out today. This is my final article on Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors before I leave for my study abroad trip, What Makes A Strong Character? I wrote it because there seems to be an emphasis on creating a diverse array of strong protagonists in fiction, so I decided to write about what makes a strong character in the first place.

Honestly, it wasn’t an easy article to write. What makes or doesn’t make to be a strong character is a difficult thing to pin down. Several times writing this article I had to go back to the first paragraph and delete everything else because the definition I had just didn’t feel right to me. I’m still not sure if the definition I came up with in the end is the right one. Maybe that’s why I asked readers to give me their definitions of what constitutes a strong character.

And while you’re reading the article, make sure to check out my other articles from the past couple of weeks. I’m sure you’ll find them helpful in some way or another. In fact, check out all that Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors has to offer. It’s a wonderful site with plenty of helpful articles on everything involving writing, editing, publishing, and marketing on a budget. So if you’re a self-published author or considering self-publishing, you should definitely check out this website.

That’s all for now. I’ve got some work to do, so I’m going to get on that. Once again, have a lovely day, my Followers of Fear.

Reborn City: Six Months Since Publication

Posted: May 1, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Review, Writing
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Reborn City

It’s been exactly six months since Reborn City was released. I can’t believe how long it’s been since RC first came out. I’ve sold some copies, gotten five reviews, and I managed to get to the second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Not bad for a first book.

For those of you who don’t know much about RC, the novel is the first in a trilogy. It tells the story of Zahara Bakur, a Muslim teenager living in a world that has emerged from the ashes of a third world war. The society she lives in is made up mostly of small nations and independent city-states, some of which are plagued with Islamaphobia due to the role certain terrorist groups played in the war. This includes Reborn City, where Zahara lives, and this hatred gets her parents killed. Soon afterwards, she is forced to join an interracial street gang, the Hydras, in order to repay one of the leaders, Rip, for saving her life. However things get worse after that: the leaders in the Hydras all have very strange powers, and there is a rumor it’s connected to the corporation that rules over Reborn City, the Parthenon Company. The decisions she and her new friends make will impact not only her life, but the lives of so many others.

And apparently people have enjoyed reading it. Check out some of these reviews:

This is not a genre I typically delve into, but I took this book on vacation and couldn’t put it down. The plot had me turning pages at quite the clip. The characters were unique and interesting and the imagery had me creating my own visual of what Rami’s interpretation of the future looked like. For first time novelist, Rami Ungar, this was an outstanding showing of talent and commitment to his passion of writing. Looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next!

Michele Kurland

Gangland violence, superhero-like enhancements, a futuristic setting, and social commentary that stems from a semi-post-apocalyptic theme. And then there’s a story where people come together as a family to deal with mutual loss and tragedy. What’s not to like?

Matthew Williams, author of Whiskey Delta and Papa Zulu

As a reader who does not read books in this genre, I must admit that I could not put down the book. I attribute this to the talent of the author. I am looking forward to reading the next books published by Ungar. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy action with features of supernatural powers and sci-fi.

Enji

And for the six-month anniversary, I’ve done some really awesome things. For one thing, I’ve uploaded a second edition, free of any editing or technical problems with the book (I hope). Secondly, I’ve put RC‘s ebook on sale. From today, May 1st, to May 31st, RC’s ebook will be available for $0.99. That’s two dollars lower than usual. Afterwards from June 1st to June 14th, RC will be available for $1.99.  So right now is the best time to get the e-book and see for yourself whether or not you like Zahara and the Hydras.

I wish I could say that the print paperback is also on sale. Regrettably though, Amazon controls that, not me. But you can still get the physical book for $8.80, which is a very good price for a book.

So if you decide to check out Reborn City, you can find it on Amazon and on Smashwords. If you’d like to read a bit of it before you do, you can read some of it by checking out this excerpt. And if you do decide to read RC, please let me know what you think. Write a review or leave a comment. Positive or negative, I really don’t care. I just want your feedback.

That’s all for now. I hope you all enjoy reading RC and I hope to do some editing on the sequel, Video Rage, this summer when I get back from Europe. Have a wonderful day, my Followers of Fear!

One Week Till My Study Abroad Trip

Posted: April 29, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report
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I can’t believe how soon it will be before I’m flying overseas to study WWII. But everywhere around me, I find the things that remind me how little time is left before I go. The constant email reminders, the calls between my medical insurance company to make sure that I have all my medication before I go, the planned shopping trip with my dad to get me some last minute clothes, the research into plugs so I know if I have to stop by RadioShack for adapters. Any day now I’m going to wake up, get dressed, and then head off to the airport.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m going on a study abroad trip to England, France, and Germany to study WWII, particularly the European theater. There’s about fourteen students, including me, and two teachers accompanying us overseas. Everyone on the trip has been studying together since the beginning of the semester, so we’ve all gotten to know each other as well. I’m so looking forward to this trip. We’ll be seeing Churchill’s bunker, the place where Turing cracked Germany’s codes, Omaha Beach and the Pegasus Bridge, the Paris Shoah Museum and the place where the Versailles treaty was signed, Wannsee and Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and so many other places. In addition, there are many places I and my classmates want to visit while we’re abroad. There’s been talk of seeing an actual Shakespeare at the Globe (we’re thinking of seeing Titus Andronicus; I wonder if my classmates realize that’s one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest and most violent plays?), and we’re in Paris I plan on going down into the catacombs (God help anyone who gets in my way). Oh, and there’s apparently an actual British police box somewhere in London. I’m so visiting that with my sonic screwdriver.

The TARDIS! Allons-y!

Sadly though, I won’t be doing a lot of blogging or blog-reading while I’m gone. I plan mostly to disconnect from the Internet while I’m abroad, so I can get as much of Europe as I can while I’m there. I’ll also be writing a lot less than I normally would (that’ll be agony in itself, but I’ll survive). However, the university is requiring us to keep blogs while we’re abroad, so I’m posting the link for mine here. And if for some reason there’s a problem with the link, my blog address for when I’m abroad is u [dot] osu [dot] edu [slash] ungar [dot] 19. So if you want to know what I’m up to while I’m abroad, just go to that site and you can read all about it.

So wish me luck while I’m abroad. I promise to come back with plenty of stories and a couple of blog posts about my time there (and whether or not I met any ghosts in the catacombs or if I managed to successfully prank anyone on my trip). And trust me, there will be plenty of photos. I even have plans to make a video slideshow of my trip once I get back. It’ll have the most amazing music too.

Oh, one more thing: I’d just like to remind everyone from May 1st-31st, Reborn City‘s e-book will be on sale for 99 cents. You read that right, 99 cents. So if you’re interested in reading the book and you have an e-reader, now would be a good time to get a copy. Once June 1st comes around, the price will go up to $1.99, and on June 14th the price will go back to the normal $2.99. So check it out while it’s on sale! And if you like or hate RC, please write me a review. I love feedback, whether it be positive or negative.

That’s all for now. I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll do some more blogging later. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear.

Laura Horn: Making Some Wonderful Progress

Posted: April 27, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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You may be familiar with my WIP Laura Horn, which I started last year and which I’ve had a heck of a time just trying to get halfway through. Between school, work, and other projects, it’s been a struggle to work on this novel, which is sad because I think it has a lot of potential. If I can only get through the first draft, I’d be able to test that theory about its potential!

But as I’ve spoken about before here, my study abroad trip will be in a little over a week (my, how time flies!), and I’ll be taking a break from blogging, writing, and most computer-related activities to go explore England, France, and Germany. This includes working on Laura Horn. Most likely I’ll kill some time in the airport on it while waiting for my flight to Heathrow, but after that it won’t be till late May that I’ll be able to work on it.

The good news is that since I took my finals, submitted my final papers, and now only have the distractions of work, trip preparation, and whatever’s on TV/in theaters/on my bookshelf to keep me from writing, I’ve been able to make a lot of progress on Laura Horn. In the past couple of days, I finished one chapter that I’d started on about two weeks ago and wrote about three more chapters. This has me elated, and I’m planning on getting more done before I go off on my trip. I hope to at least get three more done before I leave, because I’ll be a little over halfway through the novel then and when you know you’re well beyond the halfway point, the process of writing a novel becomes a bit easier and you find yourself being less intimidated by the amount of writing you have to do.

In any case, I plan on making some wonderful progress with this novel, and hopefully when I get back from Europe, I’ll be able to finish it by midway through July at the very latest. If I can do that, then I will probably feel less regret that I took so many breaks with writing the novel and look forward more to the editing and publishing process. That’s the hope, in any case.

In the meantime, I’m going to head to bed with the hopes that, after having watched a couple of scary movies these past couple of days and with the possibility of watching one more tomorrow (Oculus, to be exact), my twisted imagination cam come up with something really fun and creepy to write. In fact, I’ve been playing with this idea in my head for a story. I know how it’d start, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get the story to go beyond the first scene. Here’s hoping I can come up with something in my sleep!

And with that, I wish you a good night, my Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares, one and all!

“Travelers of the Loneliest Roads” Is Now On WattPad

Posted: April 24, 2014 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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A while back I wrote a short story called “Travelers of the Loneliest Roads,” a story of a young woman hitchhiking on the back roads of America who gets picked up by a very strange ride. I wasn’t having much success in finding a magazine to publish it in, so I thought I’d share it on WattPad, where short stories rejected by publishers have found some success.

I really like this story. It was my first experimentation with trying to make the story progressively more terrifying using techniques I’ve picked up from various novels and movies, and I thought I did a damn good job. I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone here who checks it out has to say though. After all, you know what they say: authors are often some of the worst judges of their own work.

Anyway, if you’d like to read “Travelers”, please click here. I hope you enjoy reading it and whatever your thoughts about it, please let me know what you think. As I’m fond of saying, I love feedback, whether it be positive or negative.

That’s all for now. I’m going to try to get some more writing done before my shows come on later tonight. So until next time, happy reading my Followers of Fear.

Ten Haunted Locations That I Want To Visit Before I Become A Ghost Myself

Posted: April 23, 2014 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff
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For those of you who read the title and are thinking to yourselves, “He plans to become ghost?”, yes, I do. I plan to become a ghost and haunt people as I like. Nobody’s safe, too. I plan to haunt everyone and anyone! Mwha ha ha!

Anyway, most people who know me know that besides being a fan of horror stories, I’m also a believer in ghosts and have had a few experiences as well that terrified and excited me (though mostly terrified). I thought it’d be interesting if I did a list of ten places purported to be haunted that I want to visit and see if I can capture ghostly evidence. And it’s possible that I might be able to go to a few of those soon, so I’m super-excited for them!

The list isn’t in any real order, except my number one is last and I REALLY want to go there when I have the chance. The rest of the list is pretty random in order. I didn’t intend for that to happen, it just did. Or did it?…

So without further ado, let’s get this list started!

10. Longfellow’s Wayside Inn
Location: Sudbury, Massachusetts, USA

The oldest working inn in America, the Wayside Inn gained its name as it was the place that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his collection of poems, Tales of the Wayside Inn, back when it was the Howe Inn. There is another tale though of this historic inn: the inn is reportedly home to Jerusha Howe, the daughter of the inn’s original owner who fell in love with a sailor who disappeared at sea. She died pining away for her missing lover. Today, male guests at the inn report being visited by Jerusha in two adjoining rooms she is said to frequent, leading to some amorous ghost stories that have been collected in a trunk full of love letters in one of the rooms. You can see why I’d want to go there. It’s the making of a great supernatural romance story, among other things.

9. Lizzie Borden House
Location: Fall River, Massachusetts, USA

Lizzie Borden was a woman living in Fall River, MA with her family in 1892 when her family was brutally murdered with an axe. The violence of the massacre and Lizzie’s subsequent strange behavior afterwards made her seem like a prime suspect, but bungling on the part of the local investigators led to her acquittal at trial. The case gained quite a lot of attention in its day, making it one of the most infamous murders in American history. Today the house is a working bed and breakfast, and guests have reported being dragged from beds and other unpleasant happenings. Doesn’t that sound like it’s right up my alley?

*This location was visited July 6th-7th, 2017. Full report of that experience here.

8. Alcatraz
Location: Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, California, USA

America’s most famous federal prison, it held numerous famous criminals, including Al Capone, from 1934 to 1963. Today the prison is a landmark and a museum (and it was also a short-lived TV show), but it’s also reportedly haunted by former inmates who died here, sometimes under mysterious circumstances. Not only that, but the island was called by Native Americans “the Evil Island” and rumors of demonic activity continue to this day. I can imagine wanting to spend a night in the big house if it was this one!

7. Ohio State Reformatory
Location: Mansfield, Ohio, USA

I’m proud to say that this one is in my state, and haunted tours are regularly given there around Halloween, so I’m definitely going to visit it one of these days. During its heyday, this prison housed over 155,000 prisoners, and there were several mysterious deaths, murders, and suicides. Since it closed, it has been used by film crews for a variety of films, including the Shawshank Redemption, but it has also been the home of some very nasty spirits who are said to touch prisoners and even become violent. Maybe I should visit there this Halloween. Anyone care to come with?

*This location was visited August 5th, 2018. For full details, check out my post here. I visited a year later for an overnight ghost hunt. Click here for more details.

6. The Stanley Hotel
Location: Estes Park, Colorado, USA

The inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining, the Stanley Hotel has been the site of many paranormal experiences, with people becoming so frightened they’ve had panic attacks and have been sent to the hospital. Some of the most famous haunted rooms are the ballroom, where music is said to be heard, and Room 217 (any King lover knows why). There’s also a reported ghost thief that steals luggage, jewelry, and othe valuables from right under the guests’ noses, and there’s been no proof it might be a maid. They had me at Stephen King.

5. Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Location: Weston, West Virginia, USA

One of the most haunted sites in America, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was one of the busiest insane asylums in the nation, housing 2400 patients at its peak. It was forcibly closed in 1994 due to treatment of its patients, but popular belief states that some guests haven’t left. There have been screams, doors opening and closing, and a bunch of other weird happenings there, and it has been investigated by numerous paranormal investigators, including the Ghost Adventures Crew, who did a live seven-hour long lockdown during which viewers on the Travel Channel website could view and examine evidence in real time. And I think it’s about time I got committed there, don’t you think?

4. Pennhurst State School
Location: Spring City, Pennsylvania, USA

An asylum for the physically and mentally handicapped, Pennhurst was plagued by overcrowding and not enough staff members for all its years. There are reports of children five or six years old not being taught to walk because there weren’t enough staff members to teach them, and of patients lying in their own feces or delusions for hours on end. The facility was finally closed when an investigative news team exposed the overcrowding and abuse there, leading to a public outcry. Today the facility is reportedly haunted by patients who never left its walls, and tours and investigations there have yielded some interesting findings. As one of those investigations inspired a novel I plan to write someday, I hope to get a tour someday. Road trip!

3. Aokigahara
Location: Honshu Island, Japan

An ancient forest at the base of Mt. Fuji, the forest is nicknamed “Suicide Forest” due to its popularity as a place for suicides, despite official’s efforts to stop visitors from killing themselves. It is said that in addition to the suicides, the forest is haunted by demons and yurei, spirits who have been unable to move onto the afterlife. If I ever tour Japan, I’m making this place a sure location to visit. Only Godzilla could keep me away!

2. Hellfire Caves
Location: West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

A series of man-made caverns that extend very deep underground, the Hellfire Caves were once the stomping grounds of the Hellfire Club, a group of politically and socially affluent figures led by Sir Francis Dashwood, who reportedly held a number of pagan rituals in the caverns. Some accusations against the group say that these rituals were satanic in nature. To this day there are reports of dark spirits in the caves, as well as reports of Sukie, the ghost of a woman who was accidentally killed by three village boys who lured her to the cave and a rock fight broke out, as well as the ghost of Paul Whitehead, a friend of Dashwood’s who asked that his heart be put in an urn in the caverns upon his death. When the heart containing his urn was stolen in 1829, reports of a man in 18th century garb sighted in and around the caverns started to crop up. I wonder whose heart he’s looking for? Because these caves have certainly stolen mine.

1. The Paris catacombs
Location: Paris, Il-de-France, France

A series of underground ossuaries in the heart of Paris, the catacombs were once a series of ancient mines before becoming the homes of nearly six million corpses and skeletons when Paris officials needed to do something about the health problems caused by poor burial practices. Today certain sections of the catacombs are open to the public, and the legends about them never seem to cease, including that of the ghost of the man who oversaw the transfer of the bones below, of a man who got lost while going down to drink liquor and became a wandering ghost forevermore, and a bizarre tale of a woman who was kidnapped and tortured by a werewolf below, among others. I’ll be visiting France for my study abroad trip, so you can bet I’ll be making a visit to the catacombs before I leave the City of Light. And I’ll be taking plenty of photos.*

*This location was visited on May 21, 2014. For a full account of that experience, click here.

Have you ever been to these or other haunted locations? Has anything happened to you? If it did, could you give us some detail?

Two Weeks Till My Study Abroad Trip

Posted: April 22, 2014 in Living and Life, Progress Report
Tags: , , , , , ,
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Today is April 22. And as the title of this post makes very clear, there is only two weeks until my study abroad trip. Can I just say one thing? I’M SO EXCITED!!!!

My study abroad trip is about three weeks long, and I’ll be visiting England, France, and Germany in an intensive study of the European theater of WWII. I first heard about it a year ago, though I think a part of me wanted to go on such a trip since I got to Ohio State and heard about the study abroad programs available. I met with one of the leaders of it not too long after I heard of it, Dr. Steigerwald, and we kept in touch. Then this past autumn I went through the application process to get onto the trip. I got in, and I met the other people who’d be going on the trip with me.

And this whole past semester has been basically defined by the trip. Almost all of my classes I took with most or all of the members of my study abroad trip (which allowed us to become good friends), and each class we took together had something to do with the trip. We also had to write papers and read a lot of books about WWII. I even had to write a 25-page research paper of a topic of my choosing for the trip! And as much fun as it was to learn about the actual relationship between National Socialism and the occult, it was still a lot of work, especially hwen you add in all the applications for scholarships and grants and getting the medical stuff taken care of and then some!

It feels really weird that it’s only two weeks away. I can’t believe how much time has passed since I got onto the trip, or how much time has passed since the semester started. Despite everything we were doing as prep for the troop, it felt like it was a million years off in the distance. To find that it’s already late April and I’ll soon be packing up, paying my fees, and heading onto the plane, is kind of heady.

But I’m super-excited that it’s so close. I’m so looking forward to seeing the actual sites where famous battles and events happened and getting a better understanding of them. I plan on taking a lot of photos while I’m over there too, so I’ll be able to preserve the memories of my trip as best as possible. And I’m looking forward to doing a bunch of other things while abroad, along with seeing these famous European cities. The members of my trip have been talking about seeing a play at the Globe Theatre while in London, maybe Titus Andronicus (do they know what it’s about? It’s very bloody). And while we’re in Paris, I’m going to see if I can get in on a tour of the Paris catacombs. That will be fun! And a friend of mine on the trip expressed an interest with me of visiting the Reichstag. If we can, we’ll go.

Oh, before I forget, I want to let everyone know that even while I won’t be blogging on this blog that much while abroad (can you blame me), OSU is having us keep blogs while we’re abroad (on a WordPress format, no less). I’ll post a link to the blog before I go, but that means that if you want to, you can read about what I’m doing on my travels while I’m gone. I hope you’ll enjoy reading that.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to get to work on dinner in a few minutes, so I hope you have a lovely rest of your day. Have a good evening, my Followers of Fear.

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