Finals Week?

Like Kyle said, the 4th week of school sucks. But you know what’s worse than the 4th week? The 5th week.

This week, I have tests in three of my classes and a speech presentation in another one. Also, I had to write a four page paper about this girl in my speech class I just met. Weird.

So basically, this week is pretty much finals week. I have either a test or project due in all but one of my classes by Monday, and the only exception is my Intro to Music class. For those of you that happen to be just creepy enough to know my schedule, yes, this does mean that I have a Japanese Art History test this week. I t was actually supposed to be yesterday, but due to the amount of people that complained about the weather, my professor postponed it and moved it to tomorrow. So that’s good, right? More time to study, right? INCORRECT.

Instead, I have three entire more powerpoints worth of artwork to memorize (she added more material) while I still am supposed to find time to study for my marketing test tomorrow and prepare for my speech that I have to give tomorrow as well. Icing on the cake: I have to work a seven hour shift at work today, so I have NO time to do ANY of these things. F.M.L.

Of course, Monday is the day that my language notebook is due for the absolute WORST class in existence. Seriously, dumb class+dumb assignment= NOT HAPPY VALERIE. For real, you can’t understand the depths to which I HATE style and structure. SUCH a waste of my life.

So yeah, long story short, the fact that I’m taking 18 hours and have a job has decided to bombard me all at once. Awesome.

Sometimes, it sucks to be B.A.

-Valerie

Superbowl Sunday!

This is probably something we cannot find anywhere on earth but America. It’s the final NFL football game; and by football game, I mean rugby. The confused Americans call something they don’t play with their feet- football. Anyway, like the saying, “Gotta do what the Romans do!” So, there’s a Superbowl Party down at Bennett Basement and I decided to join. We started off with 20+ people cause there were FREE pizzas and soda. Just when the food finished, the crowd drops to 15, then 10 and finally 8.

The game was intensed- with 3 of us supported Saints and another 4 supported Colts, which left another confused fellow- Alex, who only decided on which team to support when the final score is up. I was supporting the Saints just because the name sounded holy/religious. They weren’t doing great at first but caught up soon after! I’m impressed! And of course, THEY WON!

I stayed until the game was over. It took about 4 hours with all the commercials and all. It was crazy long! Nevertheless, it was a good game and I finally understood what the hype is all about! A good American experience!

Word Of The Day: Bola Sepak (Malay) = Football

Week Four

If you haven’t been keeping up with your syllabus, then I will provide a PSA for all my readers: It is the end of week four and thusly the end of my coasting session for Spring 2010.

Every year, for about the first three to five weeks, I don’t have to do much in class. The teachers are trying to learn names and introducing all of the fun fun-time we are going to have in class all year. Week Five, for me, is the end of innocence.

My first test (actually she called it an exam derka-derk) is on Monday and it is going to be a blasty blast. I need to go and grab one of those super school spirity orange scantrons and bust me out a #2 pencil. I am excited to the max.

Then on Wednesday, we start speeches in my Human Communication class (its speech class despite the ridiculous name). The speech, by the way, is pointless and then we have to turn in a report the class after the speech as well. Fantabulous.

Friday is when my British Literature class requires me to write an Old English poem based on Beowulf. Woopie. I get a brief reprieve so I can take out Danielle on Valentine’s Day and then I go back to the grindstone with a test in my special ed class.

The Special Ed class is also a joke and the teacher, I beleive I have mentioned before, has the title of Dr. Precious. The things I do for secondary education…

“Lord, ‘beer me’ strength.” -Jim Halpert (The Office)

-Kyle

Cowboy Cousin & Hot Wings!

Been rather busy with a lot of things lately and it’s starting to kill me- well, hopefully not literally. College life has never been busier! Boy, Americans sure party hard!! Anyway, after a loooooong day of classes today, I went to an Ice-cream Social to meet up with my Cowboy Cousin. A Cowboy Cousin is someone who is paired up with an International student for cultural exchange or simply just to have fun together! I was assigned to Jordan Simpson, who is also my ex-suitemate- Breanna’s good friend! What a small world! And I’ve actually met her before. I was so glad! We had a good talk with some other Cowboy Cousins and it was rather a pleasant evening.

Me, Jordan and Breanna

Shortly after that, my coursemate- Fernanda, picked me up from the Student Union for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings Restaurant, along with Jorge (I call him Joyce) and his friends. Had a good time catching up and indulging with good food until it gave me a headache because of fried food overdosed. Gosh.. I think it’s the oil they use here because this is not the first time I got it. And I remember I can handle fried food very well back in Malaysia. This is weird. Anyway, that aside.. We had a good time.

Word of the day: Xie Xie (Chinese) = Thank you.

How to Escape Certain Death: Killer Bees Edition

After rave reviews from my Shark Attack Survival Guide , I’ve decided to continue on with my scary animal escape tactics. Today’s threat: Killer Bees.

For those of you who laughed, killer bees are just about the biggest d-bags in the insect family. They’re resilient, tenacious, territorial, and easily angered. So basically, Killer Bees= HOSTILE. AGILE. MEAN EFFING BEES, BATMAN! Oh, and you know what else? If you piss one off, you piss them all off, and it’s anarchy. So basically, whatever you do, do NOT incur the wrath of these bees. Stay away. Far, far away.

If you’re still laughing, according to the highly acclaimed and notable Wikipedia, “stings from African (killer) bees kill 1–2 people per year in the United States, a rate that makes them more dangerous than venomous snakes, particularly since, unlike snakes, they are found only in a small portion of the country.”

Not so funny now, are they? You read correctly: these fools will eff you up. Now that you recognize the threat, I’m sure you’re wondering, “how will I know when I’m near them?”

Well, there are some tell-tale signs. Here they are:

SIGNS OF POSSIBLE KILLER BEES IN THE VICINITY

1. Loud buzzing. A LOT of loud buzzing. Does is necessarily come from Killer Bees? No, of course not. It could also be regular bees, wasps, yellow jackets, hornets, or other flying, stinging, a-hole insects. By all means proceed.

2. A big freaking bee hive. What, you never watched Winnie the Pooh? Allow me to show you:

A beehive

Now doesn’t that just look warm and inviting? Go poke it. I dare you.

3. Actual bees in the vicinity. (Um, duh.)

OK, step two. Say you accidentally offend the bees in some manner. How do you make a quick and sting-free getaway? Partnering with wikiHow, I’m going to give you the steps (and provide commentary) to get away.

THE STEPS:

1. If the bees begin flying around and/or stinging you, run away; swatting at the bees only makes them angrier.

-If that’s not a no-brainer I don’t know what is. Seriously, who’s going to sit there and go, “hmm, I think I’ll just stand here and get stung to death,”? So basically, if you see/hear bees AND they see you AND they look cranky, RUN.

2. Get indoors as fast as you can.

-Helpful hint: don’t let in the bees.

3. If no shelter is available, run for bushes or high weeds. This will help you get cover.

-And therefore, allude more bees.

This last tip is my favorite by far, check it out:

4. Do not jump into a swimming pool or other body of water. The bees will likely be waiting for you when you get out.

- OK, what the hell, bees? You really need to sting people that bad that you’re going to wait for them to resurface?? What the hell? Oh, and a little reminder: bees lose their stingers when they sting, which kills them. This means that the bees want to sting you so bad that they’re going to go all Kamikaze on your ass. What jerks, right?

Anyway, if you follow those tips, you should be able to avoid a bee attack. If you HAVE to go near bees, I suggest you wear a protective bee suit and bring a flame thrower.

You know, like the Pyro from Team Fortress 2

-Valerie

(I do not own the images in this blog).

Hi, my name is Davod, and I am a iPhone addict.

So today started like every day……

I woke up to KJ103 blasting out of my speakers, TJ, Janet and J-rod jarring me out of my peaceful sleep. I crawled out of my king-sized bed to turn down Lady GaGa and groped my way to the bathroom to start my day.

Human Heredity was fun with an exam that I attempted to study for but thanks to the Janet’s “5 things you need to know”, I received half credit for my answer to “How is this day significant in the music world?”

The day was going pretty jam, I put some SGA recycling boxes in the O’Colly newsroom and then went to get some Wok at the Union. On my way there I stopped to sign up for Society of Professional Journalists (secretly it was just for the cookies) and typically in my fashion, I dropped my iPhone.

No, it didn’t burst into a million pieces like some may want, my head phones took the brunt of the force and my iPhone happily landed on the floor with a bump.I continued on my quest for Chinese food.

Thats when EVERYTHING went down hill.

As I was standing in line at the Wok, I notice my home button stopped working. Meaning, to exit out of anything I had to restart my phone…..this isn’t good. Especially when my warrant is now expired. I just chalked it up to something Apple could fix and proceeded to find a spot in the Union to call them.

The problem with that is at that time, the thing that was effecting my home button also effected my mic as well so I was left with a iPhone that didn’t two things

1) make calls

2) exit out of things.

Basically, an iTouch.

As the day progressed, the screen was unresponsive when it was booted up, the speaker started cutting out when I played music, and the stupid thing would say “connect to iTunes” when I plugged it in to charge.

I WAS NOT HAPPY!

When I finally got a hold of Apple care from a borrowed cell phone, I was told my phone was having “internal issues” and needed restored. With my computer crapped out, I was left with two choices.

1) wait till my computer is fixed and pray that my iTunes would magically be the same as it was before my computer crapped.

2) Restore my phone on somebody elses computer.

Needless to say, I am the owner of a phone that is having  a mid-life crisis and a computer with self-esteem  problems.

LYMI

Davod

Mornin Jams

I do not like my MWF classes. I have to wake up at 7:50, take a shower and then trudge off to a class that is 15 minutes away and I find the class tedious, pointless and much too difficult for a freshmen level class. So needless to say, I am not a happy camper when I wake up.

What helps me get out of my depressing mood is some music. My first class is all the way across campus in the Bartlett Center and it is a lecture class. So I like to plug into my Ipod and it helps me get up and get going. I like to pick a relatively fast song so I can get walking a little faster and then not be late to class.

I think that it helps me notice the smaller things as well. Like, I feel less likely to smack someone in the face for walking with their three friends, shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk. I don’t want to smack through the rude people that take up the whole freaking pathway as much.

I also notice the stupid kid that for some reason decides to wear a button-up shirt and shorts when it is in the lower 30′ s. Hey bud, I know that you have some sort of complex where you have to prove you’re a big man by defying the elements, but you make me want to throw a snowball at your skinny, chicken legs. Even if you don’t know what the weather is like, if there is snow on the ground, Then throw on some jeans. Its not a big deal and then you won’t incur my bloggerly wrath.

Lets go skinny-dipping in the Antartic, shall we?

-Kyle

Valerie Pritchard: Librarian Extraordinaire

Because of the rather untimely demise of my Blog Editor position, I decided to actually get my butt off of my computer chair and get a real job. OK, more like I had to get a job to pay my bursar bill and feed myself because I’m dang poor, but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, my new job is *drum roll* a position at the library. I will be learning the Dewy decimal system and shelving books like a champ. It’ll be super legit (I hope). The good parts are: 1) I get to be around one of my favorite things (books) 2) When there’s nothing to do, I can do homework 3) It’s a close walk and 4) I get to be a librarian, which is so fitting.

Seriously, ask anyone. I love to read, I’m a nerd, and I pretty much look like a librarian. Case in point:

Yes, that is a dictionary

See? Total nerd. I even have the super nerdy Superman glasses, though they aren’t in this picture. Sad day.

Well that’s my big news: I now work at Willard Library. If you ever drop in to see me, say this:

“Because of you, I am now a shark defense master. Thank you.”

And I will know exactly what’s up.

-Valerie

Hello And ‘Ni Hao’!

Hello all! I’m Cindy and I’m so excited to join Valerie, Kyle and Davod in this blog. To know who I am, just click on the ‘About Cindy’ on top of this page. Anyway, just some heads up before I blog any further, English is my second language after Chinese, so you may see some grammatical errors or any misused words. My spelling may sometimes be different too cause I’ve been taught in British English all my life. Also, I may use some weird slangs you may not understand, so just let me know and I’ll explain to ya!

Since I’m new to OSU and America in general, I may find things that are different and exciting, in which you may think its lame or -_-”. So don’t mind me. Afterall, this blog is also for students who are planning to study in OSU in the future; and I promise to blog on things that future students are burning to know. If I/we have not covered things that you want to know, email me at cindymchia@yahoo.com and we’ll arrange from there!

In relation to cultural exchange, I will define the Chinese or Malay word/phrase of the day in every post I blog from now on. I hope you will find them useful just in case you visit any Chinese/Malay country in the future! Phrase of the day is: Ni hao (Chinese), which means ‘How are you?’ in English.

- Cindy

No That’s Cool. Open Campus

I fell on my butt again today. That would be twice in one year, when I haven’t at all last year. The first time, I didn’t care that much, but today I was already mad because they opened campus and I have an 8:30 class on monday. Just the class starts off my day badly enough, but add busting A and my day kinda sucks.

Woopdie-doo we cleared the roads (well most of them and we cleared the sidewalks (most of them) and the parking lots (not at all). Now we can have school!!! No. That’s stupid.

They started ploughing roads on saturday and by ploughing they pushed all of the snow into the parking lots. So no one can go anywhere but class. But Oh wait, no one can get out of their dorm because they didn’t clear the sidewalks. Random Guy: “Well Kyle, the sidewalk in front of the library was cleared and so was the sidewalk in front of the union.” Kyle: “Well random guy, I can’t get to those places without breaking my butt on the ice surrounding Kerr.”

Random Guy: “Now come on Kyle, the path in front of 20 something was clear.” Kyle: “Yea, but go 10 step in any direction from the path (like going to class) and you run into the arctic tundra.”

Instead, wait the extra day (because its supposed to be in the upper 40’s tomorrow) so everything can thaw, and then have class. You inconvenience the teachers with your bad parking lots and the students with class in general.

Very inconsiderate.

-Kyle