Year In Review

This whole year at Ohio State has really been one crazy ride, I can not believe I am already less than a few days away from some of my finals. It has been really tough for me mentally and sometimes I did not think I could make it. I learned (sometimes the really hard way) that my mental health needs to come first, and not to wait for some magical help to come along. Going to a therapist and working out has really helped me grow and become less stressed so I could become more successful here at school. I feel like I have become able to show who I am and I no longer need to hide a part of me like I did back in high school. Everyone here accepts me for who I am and it has led me to have so many friends and people who can lead me to a better path than the one I am already on. I have so many favorite memories that it is really hard to pick just one, but I would have to say that my favorite memory was when I sold donuts on High Street with my club really late at night. My club, Pets For Vets, decided to sell donuts to all the drunk people late at night to raise lots of money so that we could make more matches for our veterans in need (we match shelter dogs with veterans with PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc). This donut sale is where I also met my current boyfriend Lonny. Lonny has also played a huge role in my success, pushing me to be better and do all that I can so that I do well here. Lonny is a veteran as well and I think he helps me get a better perspective on life. Something I really enjoy learning is Japanese, I get to practice my Japanese every day and I think it has really impacted me in a beneficial way. I feel more confident speaking in Japanese and I love learning all about Japan and its incredible culture. I got to meet a Rakugo guest speaker for my class one day, which is Japanese sit-down comedy. He was very funny and really polite, which made me nervous to talk to him because I did not want to accidentally be rude! He told us to call him Zabu-Chan (which nobody did, we thought that would be incredibly rude, but it was a funny thought nonetheless) and a couple of us asked him questions about his recent vacations and if he had ever been to Columbus before. Even without that my year has been so eventful, filled with tons of fun things that I did here with ENR and my clubs. I am glad that I also get to say that next year I will be the Volunteer Coordinator for my club Pets For Vets!! So I am super excited to help our club grow and be able to make events as much fun as possible. I can’t wait to come back for next year!!!

Spring Break Review

My spring break was a total blast but even with the fun times I still had to deal with the stress of school. When my parents came and picked me up, I immediately noticed a weird sound coming from the back driver side area, and I didn’t want to say anything about it. Five seconds on to getting to the high way the sound got even worse so we pulled over and we had a flat tire!! My dad had just broke his jack fixing my sisters car a week before this and so we had to call a service to come replace the tire. Instead of getting home by around 2:00 we got home at 6:00. My dad had to go out and buy four new tires the next day but we had a good day, my brother came over and we played on our Switch’s, playing Super Smash Brothers and Mario Party. Then my mom and I watched my niece Ava and my nephew Braylen for a couple of days and that went fairly well, except for Braylen having a meltdown and scratching up my sisters TV with a lego piece. Oops!! Before I left my mom, dad, and I all went to the Malted Meeple which is a nice gaming place where you pay an entrance fee to be able to play board games that they provide for you. Of course “Malted” would make you think about milkshakes, and yes, there are delicious milkshakes. Whoop whoop! After that we went to Fleming’s, a very expensive and super fancy restaurant that we have had a $100 gift card to for forever. My dad had a nice steak, my mom had a fish, and I got shrimp and sea scallops on fettuccine! We also had crab cakes as a starter. Then we got THREE desserts, lava cake, crème brûlée, and carrot cake. It was so much fun and it was all really delicious! But from my spring break I learned a lot of things. I learned to not keep quiet about car problems, cause then they lead to even worse car problems. Also not to ever ever go to a super fancy restaurant again because that was expensive!! As fun as the restaurant was, unless I had a wonderful job and it was a special treat sort of thing, just take me to Taco Bell instead!

Columbus To-Do List

I picked the Coffee and Tea list to do my Columbus to-do list and it was a lot of fun! I was very excited to try out Kafe Kerouac, I heard it was a small and cute little coffee shop. I hope to learn more about all the fun places and businesses in Columbus so that I can hang out with my friends more. Lily, Madeline, Elizabeth and I all went to Kafe Kerouac and we had a good time! We all walked down to Kafe Kerouac together and so it made it very enjoyable to take our time and have fun. Madeline left early but I had hot chocolate and Elizabeth had a tea. My hot chocolate was inexpensive, two dollars to be exact, and it was very yummy! Elizabeth took her tea bag out of her mug and ended up putting it in her water bottle so that she could have even more tea than she first received. I thought that was pretty smart. It was also really comfortable and nice inside, I hope to study in there sometime again. I had been to Kafe Kerouac before and studied with my friend Chris. The first time that I went out with my friend Chris, I had no idea that we were going to do this and so I did not take a picture with him in the Kafe. I do hope to go again and I would recommend it to all of my friends!!! I would definitely go again anytime somebody asked me to go next!

G.O.A.L.S.

This is a picture from my recent Columbus to-do list fun activity that I got to pick out and try! My friends, Kaitey, Madeline, Lily, and I all went to eat Jeni’s ice cream together! We all left Morrill Tower together and walked to the Union, and then we rode the COTA all the way down High Street towards Jeni’s. We actually ended up passing Jeni’s because the COTA could not stop where it was supposed to because Columbus is always under construction. Once we got off the COTA we finally started trekking through the construction during the chilly weather, and finally reached the front door of Jeni’s Ice Cream. We browsed all the new wonderful holiday flavors and Kaitey, Lily, and Madeline all taste tested new ice cream to try and pick something they wanted. I knew what I wanted right away though, because I love ice cream. I got their new peppermint ice cream and the salty caramel ice cream! I got these two delicious flavors on top of a huge and fresh waffle cone that they make themselves. Then when all of us had finally made our decisions we payed for our ice cream and sat down to eat together and have a fun time. We watched the people pass by the store and we saw people come in and out. We all talked and talked for a really long time and then we finally left after we all had finished our ice cream. We all walked down the street and entered into a bunch of different shops and just bought all sorts of random things. Kaitey bought socks for her family for Christmas and we just had a great time. If we had not gone to Jeni’s I would have had another boring day stuck in Morrill tower with boring gray skies. So I really enjoyed eating ice cream with my best friends here at Jeni’s right outside of the university. I also learned that the COTA is not very easy to ride. It is a little confusing and intimidating and so you definitely should go with friends to make sure you get off at the right spot. I can not wait to see and go to a lot of new ice cream places or more fun stores that are hidden in the nooks and crannies of High Street in Columbus. I would recommend Jeni’s ice cream to everyone (even though Handels is the best ice cream) and anyone who is trying to explore more of Columbus just needs to get a couple of buddies and go exploring. It was easy to walk around the city for a long time because we were all together and we had so much fun together. So I think Columbus is a great place and I can’t wait to explore more of it!

Career

I am currently enrolled here at The Ohio State University to learn about zoology! I have always loved animals ever since I was a kid. My eyes were always glued to the T.V. screen, I was usually watching Animal Planet. Animal Planet taught me so much about our world and what’s in it, and I just have always wanted to conserve and protect all of the species on the planet. I would like to work at a animal sanctuary place, a zoo, or maybe even as a park ranger at a big national park. I haven’t really narrowed down my thoughts yet, but I hope to focus in soon! Many zookeeper job titles require that you have a degree in zoology, and have about a year or so of experience studying or taking care of animals. To work in a sanctuary you have to have a degree in some natural science related area, and also a year of experience in some form of animal care. Being a park ranger requires training from the Ohio Peace Officer Basic Training course on top of a bachelors degree in some form of wildlife related topic.

If I wanted to have any of these jobs, I believe that it would be best that I get a internship with someone such as the Columbus Zoo. If I show more interest in taking care of animals and studying them earlier on, it will make finding a real job much quicker. I did some research and it seems like the Columbus Zoo has a few internships going on this year and I believe that if I jumped on the band wagon quickly I might be able to prove that I am a reliable, hard worker. If I possibly look into doing research with animals as well, it might improve my chances of success later on. If I continue to stay here in ENR scholars and show my interest in conserving and protecting the Earth then I will be able to talk about my experiences in our group and how it has prepared me for my real job.

After looking up all of the job requirements I believe that I really have narrowed my mind down to being a zookeeper, possibly even here at Columbus Zoo! I do not particularly like the sound of all the requirements to become a park ranger, and the more I read up on what it really entails I decided that it wasn’t something I really wanted to do for the rest of my life. I could always be like Steve Irwin because Steve Irwin was awesome. I just can’t wait to work with reptiles and other animals every day! Its just been a huge dream of mine to be able to learn everything I can about snakes, lizards, and amphibians. That would specifically mean I want to be a Herpetologist. So I would like to meet with my advisor soon to ask her about more pathways into getting into more specific classes that would really focus in on my interests. Then I would love to get an internship and see how it goes! As my favorite role model, Tim Gunn, would say “Make it work!” And that is exactly what I plan to do.

Artifacts

I met up with my peer mentors —Alex and Catherine— and we had a nice talk about all sorts of ways to study and improve ourselves so that we can have a great first year. Alex talked with us about how she believes that the first semester is the hardest is a few different ways. Grades are hard to keep up and since we have never been in college before, all that workload from the courses are hard to accomplish. She told us to not worry and just work hard, and that it’s ok to get a couple of B’s and C’s along the way. She recommended studying up to two weeks before your exam so that we have plenty of time to learn the material and be ready for the exam. She also said to make flash cards and take online quizzes so that we can prepare even more. Alex also recommended that we look into getting internships because they are a useful way for learning more about the field of work you will be going into some day. I looked into it and my major does not require me to have an internship, but I am still looking forward to getting one so that I may improve myself and grow as a person. Alex said that internships also help you get into careers because it shows that you have experience working in the field before you’ve even fully joined the workforce. Both Alex and Catherine highly encouraged us to become mentors for ENR scholars, they both said its very fun and that it is very rewarding. Alex is planning an event right now to go to the Ohio Indian Caverns and she sounded very excited about that. I hope that I can also become a mentor so that I can plan events and have everybody enjoy them. To get involved they recommended going to the involvement fair, which I did do. I am in Pets For Vets and we help raise money to train dogs so that we can give them to Veterans in need. Catherine really talked about how much fun it is to be in the Scholars program and I really hope that I can coordinate an event some day next year and make sure people have fun. So overall I learned that I need to study hard, and get a good internship so that I can succeed and earn my degree. Also having fun is part of college and that it helps reduce stress so that you can perform at a higher level. I just need to learn the balance myself.