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| January 2009 »
You know it's nothing new
Bad news never had good timing
Then the circle of your friends
Will defend the silver lining
From my sudden lack of blogging, you can probably tell that life has gotten a little bit hectic since the last time I posted my thoughts. This one's going to be short and sweet too and for your reading pleasure, it will be entirely in the form of Top n Lists.
Top 5 Things That Made Me Not Blog The Last Few Weeks
1. Lab Reports for Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors
2. Newfound friends on South Campus
3. Sleep! I did what no engineering should do: averaging about 8 hours of sleep/night.
4. Midterms. DOOM!
5. Busy practicing the shim sham. Woohoo OSU Swing Dance Club!
Top 3 OSU Happenings in the Past Few Weeks
1. OSU - Michigan. And OSU was awesome!
2. Mirror Lake Jump
3. Snow!!!!!
And finally...
Top 10 Things I'm Thankful For this Thanksgiving
1. My family. Thanksgiving Break brought together all my immediate family, plus grandparents on my mom's side. This was a special one because all my extended family lives on the West Coast, which usually means only the immediate family is around for the holidays.
2. My old friends. The Break also allowed for some solid time spent with familiar faces. It sure was good to see everyone again.
3. My new friends. It's true, I did in fact miss some of the cool kids I met at OSU this year. I'm kind of surprised that it happened so fast, but OSU is like home to me, complete with a second family of sorts made up of really good friends.
4. My instructors. I hear it's rare to have all good instructors. Afterall, just like in high school there's always that ONE that makes you crazy. But OSU must have a lot of good ones, because this Fall I liked all of my lecturers and TAs.
5. London Honors. London Honors is a program for first-year Honors and Scholars students. We take a class once a week during the Fall and then for 9 days of Winter Break we go to London, England! It's going to be positively awesome, and I definitely love my Londond Honors group.
6. Honduras. Granted, I won't be going until Spring Break, but the planning meetings have already started. Obviously, I'm quite excited, and I'll keep the blog updated next Quarter as the planning progresses.
7. Campus Food. Campus Dining Services. I'm a fan.
8. Home Food. Mom's cooking. I'm a HUGE fan.
9. OSU Extra-curriculars. Swing dancing? Heck yes. Theme Park Engineering? I'm all about it. Campus Crusade for Christ? Every Thursday. :-)
10. Study Break. I'm gonna be honest, the Break is going to be a time of R and R. Of course, the second I get back to campus it's a study-fest all the way to Finals!
Take care,
Rob
Reach out and touch,
Somebody's hand.
Make this world a better place,
If you can.
This entry is about what I will be doing over Spring Break in 2009. That sounds like a long time from right now, but the planning is going to be starting immediately!
I have been accepted to ECOS' (Engineers for Community Service) Service Learning at Montana de Luz program. I could try to explain what that means all by myself, but the program has its own wonderfully written description:
Program
The Honduras Service Learning project is an academic program
out of the College of Engineering. ECOS (Engineers for
Community Service) began working with Montaña de Luz in 2005
to assist the orphanage with technology advances and electrical
improvements. Students take a course during winter quarter to
prepare them for and enhance their time abroad. The course will
focus on cultural awareness, problem solving, and international
service learning. These three main ideas will be integrated into
the course in a variety of ways including guest lecturers,
independent student research, team activities and the
participation in the study abroad experience in Honduras.
Location
Honduras is situated between Guatemala, El Salvador, and
Nicaragua in Central America. Montaña de Luz is located in
southern Honduras approximately one hour from the capitol
Tegucigalpa. Montaña de Luz is situated on a hill close to the
communities of Nuevo Paraiso and Nuevo Esperanzo. Nuevo
Esperanzo was constructed after Hurricane Mitch ravaged much
of Honduras.
Service Learning Project
The Honduran Service Learning program is designed to be an
intensive, hands-on study abroad opportunity. Students will have
the opportunity to live and learn from children living with HIV/AIDS
in Honduras while simultaneously applying their coursework to
help the orphanage. During winter term students will identify and
analyze the impact of sustainable technology on a developing
country and devise practical and sustainable solutions that they
will apply during their time in Honduras. Participants will be
challenged to think, live, and work in a new way and explore how
the Hondurans’ lives differ from their own.
Resident Director
John Merrill, in the College of Engineering, will serve as the
Resident Director for the program. John is the director of the First
Year Engineering Program and an advisor for ECOS. He has
participated in the previous four programs to Montaña de Luz.
John will also serve as the primary instructor of the prerequisite
course.
You can read even more about this program here!
The Office of International Affairs is the campus HQ for all trips abroad, including the ECOS Honduras trip. There are countless opportunities for OSU students to go abroad, and I highly recommend students to check them out. Everything from engineering to foreign language studies to service-learning, and more!
Decisions we make,
Life's an election.
Precision we take,
Seeking direction.
I voted! Woohoo!
Though this was not first election I voted in (I was eighteen last November), this year was decidedly more intense than last year. For one obvious reason, the next President of the United States (hereafter POTUS) was decided, and Barack Obama came out the clear winner. There are plenty of blogs about that around the internet, and you can read/see/hear everything you ever possibly wanted to know about that aspect of this election from a million different news sources.
What you may not find elsewhere is the OTHER reason this election was special for me: It was my first election spent on a college campus.
The Ohio State University is over 50,000 graduate and undergraduate students strong. That means a huge variety of ideas and ideals colliding, collaborating, and clashing all the way to November. There was a flood of Obama supporters. There were staunch McCain supporters. Heck, I'm pretty sure I spotted a Libertarian meeting once, and a group of pro-Socialists. With so many young people so focused on the future, it was nearly impossible to go anywhere on campus without being reminded of the looming election.
Volunteers overran campus to make sure every single student had been asked at least twenty times if they had registered to vote. It was irritating at times, but I know this was for the greater good. Likewise, though I didn't necessarily enjoy being ambushed by the mob of Obama supporters all over campus or either of the two McCain supporters (just kidding guys, there were lots of Republicans on campus too), I do appreciate the fact that people are making the effort to inform and get informed.
I voted absentee, which I liked a lot. I know a lot of places don't count 'em unless they have to, but that's fine by me. My vote makes a difference if it needs to. The greatest benefit was being able to sit down at my computer with the ballot and research candidates as I voted. I ended up voting a mix of Republicans and Democrats, candidate-by-candidate. I also had a mix of yes/no on various issues.
I feel like I made great informed decisions, and that if anything is close, my vote is the best vote I could have made. The absentee ballot that allowed me to vote more informed, the young people on campus encouraging the vote, and even the flocks of supporters ready to dish out arguments and information all make college an exciting place to be during election time.
Take care,
Rob
Here's the kick-off!
Hope you're not sick of-
Relient K, and all the songs we play.
'Cause then you'd want to throw our CD away!
On High Street, just beyond the construction site for the new Student Union, there be a land of music and mayhem known as the Newport Music Hall. It's your typical smallish club setting with a stage. Many cool musical acts blow through there, from Motion City Soundtrack to Relient K. And so it was that I found myself at the Newport with my good friend Kara to see my FAVORITE band, Relient K.
The concert was actually a four-part-er, featuring the musical talents of House of Heroes, This Providence, Ludo, and Relient K.
House of Heroes and This Providence both put in great shows. They performed well, and sounded fantastic. I definitely recommend them.
Ludo turned out to be my surprise almost-favorite (Relient K still holds the honor of being THE favorite). These guys had ridiculous energy and a ton of fun performing. Their music was great, and usually tongue-in-cheek awesome. I particularly enjoyed Part 1 of their rock opera about a man traveling back in time to 1989 to rescue his love who tragically died in car crash- only to end up surrounded by pterodactyls in a cave because his time machine malfunctioned. It's a love story.
And then there's Relient K. This is a band I've watched for awhile, and it turns out they're still awesome. They did some new stuff, a lot of old stuff (which is awesome), and even some random stuff (a GREAT cover of Tears for Fears' Head Over Heels). The lyrics of Relient K adorn my blog more than any other band, and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you scope 'em out. There's some spectacular music to be had.
-------------------------------
The point to all this ranting on awesome bands is to highlight that at OSU, there's a ton of awesome nightlife going on. Concerts galore, High Street has a million businesses, various clubs and such, and all that jazz. It's a good time (provided you've got all your homework done!) and another one of many reasons OSU-Columbus is an awesome place to be.
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