Posts Tagged ‘Ohio State University’

Doing A Little Work With John Milton

Posted: November 28, 2012 in Living and Life, Poetry, Reflections
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This picture look familiar?

I’m a huge fan of Paradise Lost, ever since we read some of it for class last spring. I enjoyed it so much, I asked my mom to buy me my own personal copy for my birthday, and she did, one with essays and critiques on Paradise Lost and its author John Milton. And this semseter, my documentary teacher gave us two assignments: the first assignment being we had to do a Powerpoint slideshow based on research we did concerning a particular work of literary fiction, and then afterwards create our own book based on pages taken from the book we used for our Powerpoint project (yeah, wierd for a doucmentary course, I know). Since the book we used had to be something that’s a great piece of literature, something that has been looked over by many scholars over the years, I ended up doing PL just because I wanted to break it out again (though thankfully the second assignment hasn’t involved me ripping out pages from my personal copy of PL).

And now I have some free time on my hands, so I’m going to do some editing, and then if there’s time after that before my next class, I’ll work a little bit on Snake just to relax. And guess what? I got Paradise Lost on audiobook, so I’ll be able to test whether audiobooks make great background noise for writing like political debates, hypnosis tracks, and spirituality lectures do. Here’s hoping it works, and that I don’t absorb some of the poetry subconsciously when I thought I hadn’t been paying attention and start to act too proud and pompous.

Football Season 2012: Ohio State Is Undefeated!!!

Posted: November 24, 2012 in Living and Life
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Aha, this is my school! All the Bucks are awesome and cool! Few times we run the ball, and we didn’t lose at all, ’cause we ain’t no 3rd string team! We ain’t no 3rd string team.

Oh come let’s sing Ohio’s praise
And songs to Alma Mater raise
While our hearts rebounding thrill
With joy which death alone can still
Summer’s heat or winter’s cold
The seasons pass the years will roll
Time and change will surely show
How firm thy friendship … OHIO!

Oh, I just love Carmen Ohio, don’t you! Today Ohio State beat University of Michigan 26-21 in the fourth quarter, officially ending football season for Ohio State and securing us a 12-0 season. Honestly, when the game was over I wanted to rush over to Ohio Stadium and just give Urban Meyer, our head coach just coming off his first season, a big old hug! Thanks Coach Meyer!

Now I will admit, there were several plays, both this game and other games, that Ohio State made some really stupid mistakes that almost cost us the game. However, Coach Meyer really trained us hard, and we came back from a previous season that no one wants to remember to becoming an awesome team. If this year we were undefeated with a bunch of mistakes, how will we do next year?

And even if we don’t get to play in a Bowl Game because we’re still on probation, it’s still quite the season to remember don’t you think? So O-H, go Bucks, and I can’t wait for next year!

Oh, and if you’re wondering why I’m talking like I’m on the football team even though I’m not, let’s just say it’s an Ohio State thing where everyone acts like they’re a part of the game, a part of the team, a part of Ohio State. It’s strange I know, but it’s a thing we do, and I’m guessing it arose out of that famous Midwestern America hospitality.

Or it could be I’m completely wrong. I have no idea.

Graduate School? I’m Not Sure

Posted: November 19, 2012 in Living and Life
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This evening at my dorm we had a discussion from some grad students–one of whom I’m actually friends with–about going to grad school and what it could potentially mean for us. We had there a student from the engineering department, a higher education and ecology studies major (my friend Renata) and an artist who also teaches art classes in the undergraduate school. All were current grad students, and all gave us a candid and honest look at grad school without trying to gloss over the bad parts or say we had to go to grad school.

All in all, it was very informative.

However, it left me a question: should I go to grad school? I’m still a sophomore, and I’ll stay that way for a little while longer, so I don’t exactly have to worry about it any time soon, let alone paying for it or what I’ll do once I get there. But what if I did? I’d probably pursue a Masters in Fine Arts because, for the same reasons I’m majoring in English and in History, I want to improve my writing and storytelling skills. I might already have a novel or two out at that point, so that might help me a little bit.

But is it right for me? Can it make me a better writer or at least give me more job security? I have no idea. At the very least, when graduation is a little closer, I’d definitely have to look a little closer at the possibility of going to grad school. And luckily, my school has a course on publishing that’s taken by both graduate and undergraduate students, so that’d be a good preview of what I might be doing in grad school if I were to go (I’ll have to talk to my advisor about that one when I meet with her in spring to arrange my fall semester classes).

So now I turn it over to you. Have you ever been to or are you in grad school?

What school?

What was your experience?

Did you find it beneficial in the end?

Please let me know. I’m curious, and as much weight as the opinion of three grad students carries, I’d like to hear from more people with experience in this.

NaNoWriMo Is For Those Who Can Devote Time To It

Posted: November 18, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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And unfortunately, I can’t devote my time to it. I’d like to though; I’d like to be able to spend hours each and every day just typing away on my computer, pushing out word after word to create an awesome story that people will want to read. The only time I would stop writing is if I was hungry and wanted to make something to eat; or if I had to run an errand; or if I wanted to work out; or if it was just too late in the day, so let’s forget work and just play.

Sadly, I cannot live that sort of lifestyle right now. Instead, I spend more than ten hours a week in classes, and close to that amount at a part-time job. In addition to that, I spend several hours over the week working on homework, reading books and writing papers and doing projects, and that’s especially so in the last 3-4 weeks of class before finals. Add into that meals, sleep (essential, even in college), errands, and just finding time to relax, there’s only so much time to write.

So I’m going to have to drop out of the National Novel Writing Month challenge. It’s just too much at the moment to try and get out fifty-thousand words in thirty days with the workload I have. I’ll still work on writing Snake and editing Reborn City, but I won’t do it with the focus of just getting 50K words written.  Instead, I’ll work on them with the hope that eventually I’ll get them done and share them with everyone.

Am I sad that I can’t finish the challenge? Yes I am; I was getting so much done at the beginning of the month, I thought that if I couldn’t get 50K words, I’d get very close to 30K. Not so at this point. But hey, look on the bright side: I managed to write twelve chapters of Snake and type out 12,329 words. Not bad for my first time, right? That’s more than your average short story.

Maybe next year, if I don’t have that much of a workload, I’ll try again at NaNoWriMo. In the meantime, I’m off to work on chapter forty-seven of Snake. Wish me luck.

Write And Don’t Be Ashamed

Posted: November 17, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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A classmate of mine in my creative writing class sent me (and the rest of the class) an email today. In the email, she said her mother and her aunt had wanted to see the short story she’d written, but the problem was her story dealt with subjects like drinking and random hook-ups. Guess what? Her mom and aunt don’t approve of those sorts of activities.

So my classmate–whom I’ll refer to as “Freya”, because that’s as far from her real name as you can get–whipped up a little short story that doesn’t involve any of that, and asks all her classmates to take a look and edit it if we can spare the time.

Naturally, my instinct as a writer is not to encourage this, so I write back to Freya and tell her that her mom and aunt should be proud that she’s grown into a strong, independent woman with her own thoughts and feelings, and they should be proud that she wrote a story with her own original ideas in them. If she has to be ashamed of her own work–which for romantic fiction set against the background of a wild college party, is actually a quality story–what’s the point of even writing the story in the first place? If Freya’s family doesn’t like the topics voiced in the story, then she should just tell them so, and leave it at that. If they still want to see it, then show it to them. These women might actually like it, and might also be fans of Fifty Shades of Grey, but are too proud to admit it.

I hope Freya get’s my message and doesn’t feel she needs to hide, because honestly, if a writer can’t be proud of their work, or at least admit they wrote such subjects, what’s there for the future of writing and fiction? Be proud of your work writers; it’s your brainchild, after all. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it, no matter what objectionable material within. Instead, shout it to the world, “I wrote a story and it has stuff people don’t like in it but I don’t care.”

If I didn’t do that, why would I bother writing a novel with a serial killer in it?

Workshopping “Doll’s Game”

Posted: November 9, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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Some of you know that I wrote a short story for my creative-writing course, Doll’s Game, and that I turned it in last week. You may also remember that I thought it was the worst piece of fiction I’d ever written in my college career, and I made a point of telling my classmates that it would be the worst story they read this semester.

Well, I stood corrected on that last point: mine’s the second-worst. The grand prize goes to the guy who’s story, although interesting in terms of plot, had so many point-of-view switches that it left me dizzy. Not too mention the guy couldn’t properly signify dialogue to save his life. It just took down the quality of the story so much.

But today I’m getting my story reviewed. And I am not looking forward to it one bit. I mean come on, my strength is in scary stories, not literary ones, and my plot goes all over the place. I sent everyone the link to my recently-published alien invasion short story Ripple just to make up for the quality of Doll’s Game.

Well, maybe they’ll give me an idea to improve the story. Who knows? I’ll let you guys know how it goes after class and we’ll see. Wish me luck.

Submitting “Doll’s Game”

Posted: November 2, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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Today I had to turn into my class the short story I wrote, “Doll’s Game”, and can I just say it’s the worst piece of fiction I’ve written since I entered college? I’m not kidding, it’s just baaaad. I even made a point of telling my classmates that. Why do I think it’s bad? Because it’s literary, which I’m terrible at. I seriously prefer a scary story with demons or serial killers, but I can’t submit that sort of story in this class. Otherwise I’d turn in my succubus story for consideration.

But hey, who knows? I may think it’s a horrible story, but my classmates may disagree with me. They may actually like it, and give me helpful suggestions that will improve the story enough that I might want to submit it somewhere for publication. Who knows?

Well, in a week we’ll know what I should do with it, and whether or not I can make a diamond out of a lump of coal. I’ll let you know then.

And speaking of short stories, I’ve got one coming out Monday. Look out for it, it’s a science fiction story called Ripple. I’m looking forward to it.

“The Rape Thing”? Are You High?!

Posted: November 2, 2012 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Reflections
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I decide to see what’s new in the world before I go to bed and what am I greeted with? Another politician has said something about abortion that’s not only ignorant, but sounds like he’s trivializing the victim’s needs. John Koster, a GOP candidate for the Washington State House of Representatives, said that he only supports abortion when a woman’s life is in danger, and then said “Incest is so rare…but the whole rape thing?…how does putting more violence on a woman’s body and taking an innocent life make it all better?”

What is he smoking?

And his spokespeople may be saying that this guy takes rape seriously, but calling rape a “thing”? That’s not taking it seriously. And violence on a woman’s body? How would you know? Did you ask women if they think abortion is violent? Or did you never consider that maybe carrying the product of a rape to term is a form of violence in itself, it’s so traumatizing to women?

Honestly, I’m getting really tired of male politicians saying these things about women’s bodies and rape and abortion. “Legitimate rape”; “God intended it”; “the rape thing”. When are these men going to realize that saying this sort of stuff is asking for trouble? Really, learn your lessons already.

This brings up another topic I’d like to mention: colleges and rape. I’ve also recently read some articles about how colleges try to cover up rapes and blame the victims…told from the perspectives of the victims themselves. In every case, victims were told by the college administrators and people who worked for them things that confused me.

For example, one doctor asked why a victim didn’t report her rape for months. Apparently to the doctor it didn’t seem logical. Hello? Since when does anyone do anything that makes sense when they’ve just been traumatized and put into deep shock? And asking why a girl is saying she was raped when before the incident she liked the guy and wanted to sleep with him? Well, let’s see…um…he was charming at the coffee shop, but when I told him I wasn’t comfortable doing that after the third date and he just pressed on…are you kidding me?!

I love higher education. I wish everyone had a shot at it. But it’s also, unfortunately, big business. And no business wants the nickname “Rape University”. Now, some colleges do rape prevention, treatment and prosecution better than others. I couldn’t find any statistics for OSU, but I’ve seen posters in several buildings and my dorm about what constitutes healthy relationships and what doesn’t. I’ve also seen classes hosted inside dorms instructing girls on how to prevent being attacked and how to defend one’s self when being attacked. And the Wexner Medical Center has a Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Unit, so that’s definitely a good sign. And I don’t know how often the disciplinary board takes on sexual misconduct cases, but our student code of conduct defines sexual misconduct as tightly as most police officers do. Got to give them credit for that.

Some colleges however, don’t excell in this capacity. On the contrary, they’ll do anything to make their problems go away, even if it means making the victims suffer. Amherst College is a pretty bad offender. There’s even an article about it, which links to another girl’s experience prior to the article (http://acvoice.com/2012/10/23/surviving-at-amherst-college/). I must say, it’s disheartening to see schools put their reputations before their students. If they’d just prosecute these cases for what they are–rape, and not by any other name–then there reputations wouldn’t suffer, they’d grow with the knowledge that the school does not tolerate rape or any other form of sexual assault or misconduct.

So to the politicians and schools, do us all a favor. Stop belittling what women go through. Help them get the services and closure they need. Get educated on the facts. Don’t try to make the problem go away or insist it’s not as big as people think. And certainly don’t say women should live with what happened to them because of a fetus that’s nervous system is underdeveloped is in their uterus or that because of alcohol or they came forward after a certain amount of time they can’t be helped.

Rape is rape. It’s that simple. Preventing it and bringing justice for the victims should not be.

This I Compose by Rami Ungar

Posted: October 29, 2012 in Living and Life
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In my documentary class, we had to make a video on how we write, compose, or create literary projects. After we received our grades, we were allowed to upload the videos onto YouTube if we so desired. And so, I uploaded a video onto YouTube for the first time ever. And it was easier than I thought it would be.

The video below is called “This I Compose by Rami Ungar”, and it follows me as I write “Doll’s Game”, the short story I’ve been working on for my creative writing class. My teacher certainly liked it, because she commented on how I was able to keep it from just being a happy nding and how I was able to make a coherent narrative. For all my efforts, sweat, blood, tears, and anything else you can throw in, I got an A, which I’m pretty happy about.

The video isn’t anything fancy compared to what others have made, and it doesn’t have any background music, mostly because it’s hard to find music with the appropriate copyrights that you want to put into your videos. It also has my voice in it, which isn’t exactly musical to listen too. But I like it, and with any luck, you might too.

So here’s “This I Compose by Rami Ungar”. I hope you enjoy it, and I think this is the point I tell you to subscribe to my channel, though I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get more than one video a year up, if at all. I guess it depends on if I can get a video camera, a recording device, a Mac, and time to edit. Anyway, watch the film.

Ohio State Goes Gangnam Style

Posted: October 20, 2012 in Living and Life
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My grandmother, who’s an alumna of Ohio State University, sent me this video (thanks so much, Nancy!). It shows everybody’s favorite mascot, the poisonous tree nut Brutus Buckeye, dancing to Psy’s “Gangnam Style” with the awesome OSU Cheerleading Squad. I hope you enjoy it, it’s just so much fun. O-H I-O Buckeye Style!

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