My Spring Semester Project

Currently, my plans for the spring semester project are not dead set. However, something Jessica mentioned during our final class piqued my interest, and that was practicing guitar. In the past, I was very proficient at playing the guitar, but I eventually lost interest in it and as far as I know, my skills have pretty much completely gone away. I’ve been getting in to more classical groups recently, like Pink Floyd and the Beatles, which has inspired me to start playing guitar again. I feel like dedicating time to mastering guitar through this project could be a great idea, both because it’s something I’ve had plans to do for a while now, and it fulfills the requirement of this project. I’ll probably begin to look into practicing guitar over winter break – I plan to take it back home with me, and I’ll have a plethora of time to practice playing, learning chords, thing so the like.

The first step to working on this project would probably be to establish a goal; do I want to master chords, do I want to master musical pieces that I’d really like to be able to play? It’s all kind of dust in the wind at this point, so I’m not sure. After that, my second step would be to establish a deadline for my individual goals. For example, I could establish a goal to master all major chords within a week, or a goal to learn how to play three Beatles songs within one month. I plan to think over these steps at the beginning of winter break, and honestly, can probably complete them over break, assuming that they are goals of completion and not mastery.

Overall, assuming I stick with this project, I’m very excited to get started on it. Winter break will be a phenomenal time to start working on it, because I’ll actually have time to work on it and won’t be constrained with schoolwork and campus life.

Columbus To Do List: Part Two

Continuing on from Part One, where I visited the North Market in the Short North district, I ventured a bit further into downtown Columbus and visited a tea shop known as ZenCha.

ZenCha was a very different restaurant experience than I’ve ever had before. While in most restaurants, things are centralized around the dining experience, especially food. Here, at ZenCha, whether on purpose or not, the wait staff was very “hands-off”, giving us a plethora of time to decide our orders from the vast menu. We were given two menus: one, a tea menu, and the other, a food menu. The tea menu covered about 3 pages, front and back, with dozens of teas from half of a dozen different countries. The food menu, on the other hand, was much shorter but had very interesting food choices, such as lavender flavored tea biscuits and weird sandwiches. I ended up ordering a mango bubble tea (not very authentic to the restaurant, mind you) with milk and extra bubbles, as well as an order of chicken dumpling soup. After ordering, we waited about 10 minutes for our tea to arrive, which was admittedly very delicious. I would totally come back here just for the bubble tea alone. Afterward, we had to wait about 30 more minutes for our meals. I enjoyed mine a lot, but the people I went with thought that it was adequate at best.

All in all, I really enjoyed ZenCha Tea, and I would highly recommend trying it out at some point in their time here at OSU – however, it is kind of expensive, so fair warning.

The 3rd place I visited was Hofbrahaus. We went there for my brother’s 21st birthday, and honestly, I’ve never been a huge fan of German food, so my expectations were very low. When we got in there, it seemed like an “American authentic” decor, as in a very Americanized version of “authentic” German decor. Then when we ordered food, everything seemed to be Americanized in some way, either slathered in some kind of cheese and virtually the only German thing on the menu being sauerkraut. I was relatively pleased with what I got, however; I don’t think it was authentic German cuisine, but it was called the Bauern Schnitzel. I called it the Barn Schnitzel and the waiter got very angry about that; irregardless, it had Black Forest ham, Swiss cheese, and some weird “Bier” cheese on it – it tasted pretty good, but it also kind of tasted like I had just bought a bunch of frozen food from Walmart.

I enjoyed Haufbrahaus for the most part, but if you’re looking for an authentic German food experience, I would not recommend going there.

The last place I visited was Bakersfield which is way south of campus. We also went there for my brother’s 21st; a bunch of his friends who went on a study abroad trip to Australia visited OSU and stayed for the night, and we got Bakersfield for lunch. To be honest, I had no clue what it was coming in to the place; it was very quirky, and I didn’t understand how the decor was trying to convey Mexican. The service was alright, and the food was very overpriced; the price for basically a miniature taco was $4, so it definitely loses out in that category. But it tasted pretty decently overall, so I was happy with it.

I’d probably advise going against it if you’re a college kid for the simple fact that it’s minimal food for maximum price; it does taste good though.

The main lesson I learned from exploring these restaurants in Columbus is that there is way more cultural variety here than I realized; I’ve been surrounded by standard fast food restaurants and chain restaurants my whole life. Now that I’m in Columbus, and I’ve had exposure to all these different cultures, it’s not necessarily enlightening, but it’s great to explore food that I never have before.

Local Food Favorites

I chose local food favorites as my choice of theme based list, mainly because I’d like to experience some nearby culture via food. I’ve had Thurman’s and Hofbrauhaus in the past, but I’d like to see more.
What I’m most looking forward to from this list is hopefully getting a new “favorite” restaurant to eat at with friends and/or family. It’d be nice to have somewhere that hosts good memories and good food at the same time.
Like I said, what I most hope to get out of this assignment is a place that establishes some form of comradery with my friends and family. Even if that doesn’t happen, it’s definitely nice to enjoy some kind of food other than food straight off of campus. The best food around here in my opinion is from D.P. Dough, but even that gets old after a while. Hopefully, some local cuisine will give me a better taste for the variety that Columbus has to offer.
All in all, like I said, so far I’ve experienced a decent amount of Columbus food. I’ve gone to a local Italian restaurant which I like a lot, Thurmans long a time ago, and Hofbrauhaus a few months back. While I don’t really remember Thurmans, I do know I really disliked Hofbrauhaus, so I’m probably going to avoid German food for the remainder of my time here (at least for the most part).
The place I went to for my first “experience” of the assignment was the North Market. I’ve been there when I visited my brother in the past, but I was actually able to take my time and explore what they had to offer there when I went there. My scholars group and I went there as a kind of joint operation, taking pictures for our project and seeing what the market had to offer. Sadly, I can’t seem to find any of the pictures of the stands I took for the North Market, so I’ll put in a few pictures from nearby.
I only bought donuts from the North Market, but it was really interesting to see what they had. I love bread and doughy stuff, but the bread station didn’t really appeal to me all that much. I looked at the spice area for a while, sniffing all the different spices and seeing which ones were unique compared to others. I also would like to get pierogis from there in the future (mainly because of my Polish heritage, and I love pierogis). Either way, North Market seems like a really great place just because there’s many different types of food, all in one area. And while it may be kind of overpriced, it’s really convenient and close by, so I’ll definitely check it out more in the future.

Nearby park area

Unused space near North Market

My Mentor Interview

I interviewed Julia Workum for my mentor interview. She is a second-year architecture major minoring in computer science and had a lot to say about her opinions on OSU, her life before OSU, and general tips.

Before coming to OSU, she lived in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, near Cleveland. She was a triplet with a brother and sister, being the middle sibling. Her favorite things to study in high school were math, science, and creating sculptures/ceramics. She figured that these subjects all linked to architecture equally, so she decided to try that out in college.

Her main hobbies include running cross country in high school, competitive sail racing, and being in studio 24/7.

Pertaining to the OSU curriculum, she says that while she originally chose to be an architect, if she could restart her career here at OSU, she might not be an architect major because she thinks about switching to computer science or history every day.  She thinks that the digital studio elective course was unnecessary, and recommended Theater 2367 as a GE.

Some tips she gave was that Marketplace on Neil is a good place to eat, as is the Union, and Condados. She said that if she could give tips to her younger self, she would say:

it’s ok to be spend time by yourself; you don’t have to be surrounded by people all  the time

make time to do fun things

hand write your notes

it’s never too late to make new friends

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

G.O.A.L.S.

[ “G.O.A.L.S.” is a place where students write about how their planned, current, and future activities may fit into the Honors & Scholars G.O.A.L.S.: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement. For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.

  • Global Awareness: Students cultivate and develop their appreciation for diversity and each individual’s unique differences. For example, consider course work, study abroad, involvement in cultural organizations or activities, etc.
  • Original Inquiry: Honors & Scholars students understand the research process by engaging in experiences ranging from in-class scholarly endeavors to creative inquiry projects to independent experiences with top researchers across campus and in the global community. For example, consider research, creative productions or performances, advanced course work, etc.
  • Academic Enrichment: Honors & Scholars students pursue academic excellence through rigorous curricular experiences beyond the university norm both in and out of the classroom.
  • Leadership Development: Honors & Scholars students develop leadership skills that can be demonstrated in the classroom, in the community, in their co-curricular activities, and in their future roles in society.
  • Service Engagement: Honors & Scholars students commit to service to the community.]

Career

[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career.  Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Artifacts

[Artifacts are the items you consider to be representative of your academic interests and achievements. For each entry, include both an artifact and a detailed annotation.  An annotation includes both a description of the artifact and a reflection on why it is important to you, what you learned, and what it means for your next steps.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]