ENGLISH 110. Blogging!! XD

courtsey:"www.collegesportsnation.com"

 

 

Dear Readers,

As a part of my English 110 course I will have to temporarily surrender the use of my blog to write articles of my choice. Instead I will have to post on a topic given to me. I do this entirely of my free will; I cannot let the 100 articles that I am supposed to post , go to waste. Moreover I am an avid Isaac Asimov fan and the course has a science fiction focus. I hope the fates continue this display of benevolence. As of now, for the next 2 months adieu.

Lots of Love

Grasping the notion of being American.

Affirmation-Savage Garden

I am a student of the Ohio State University in Columbus OH, Midwest region of the United States of America. I am a student in one of the largest university in this country. I am an international student in a foreign land. In this blog I will write about how I try to make, this New World my home.

There are no true ways to measure people. No arbitrary generalization or stereotype can serve as an absolute definition of a society, not the least in diverse America. So to get a feeling of this place I needed to understand my own feeling and analyze my experiences. So through my story at OSU, I try to bring out what my new home, truly means.

I am an engineering major and this makes most of my classes Science or Math based. Additionally as an honors student I end up meeting most of the smarter people in the college. The classes are liberal and the students self dependent. So, one stereotype of Americans as being fiercely individualistic is proved to an extent to be true. It is almost as if no one wants to know much about anyone else s business. This might be in a way good, but I fail to see how ever competition might arise if no one seeks out rivals. The best answer I can offer myself is that they compete with themselves and use averages or numbers as targets. Sounds weird but this is the norm of a new world.   

Then again the society is as dynamic as the American stock market and this justifies the saying, “only in America”. From college students pioneering research to underage binge drinkers who completely lose control, the college society is plagued and yet gifted by some of the most vicious and virtuous traits. This mess can only be characterized as sardonic or regretfully amusing by an outsider. The conflict is caused by less of an issue of lose morale and more of the need to keep an external prudish image. For all the fun they strive to have, college kids strive equally hard to maintain a crisp image that might be diametrically opposite to their character.  

Cultural differences to what I am used to is abundant. Relationships for starters are treated much more carefully and if I care to add ‘properly’. Unlike the laissez faire I was used to for most of my life, America where everything seems to go, also has some unsaid rules of its own. Learning the ropes have been hard, painful even and managing the complexities of relationships challenging. For what can be considered proper or even apt somewhere else in the world, can and is probably considered weird on this side of the planet. So as I feel my way through this intricate but gossamer web of society I hope to come out at worst with a bruised eye and a broken heart. Nothing too permanent I hope. At worst I could always do what the French do; Parley! 

Are we human?


Linken Park Shadow of the day
Little Drummer London Orchestra
Lullaby, Dear Juliet

Ekla Chalo Re- Bengali
London Symphony on rock


Top Gun anthem
Sawariya Hindi
Amazing Grace: Scot bagpipes 

Of Ohio State, Columbus and Chennai

I’m living a countdown. With every night I come one day closer to leaving for college. The college isn’t a hundred or even thousand miles away, but ten thousand; a different country. Right now the full enormity hasn’t sunk in. It’s exciting, fun even with the shopping and all, but its also a bit confusing. I don’t have many qualms about traveling or moving on. I have changed more schools than most people change cell phones during their entire lives. I’m a Hindu but I love chili (ground beef) just as any Texan or bacon as any English. I guess my problem comes more from the fear or uncertainty after leaving the country than anything else.

This time next month I’ll be in my dorm at Ohio State. I would have met more than a hundred new people. The prospects exciting but there are so many nuances that keep on bothering me. I’ll be taking an AT&T connection with a hi-fi LG Smart-phone, which apparently won’t have wireless. To get a wireless in the US I need to take a separate data plan, despite the fact that I can use the free wireless network on campus. Another thing is the way prices keep changing from one day to another; they just won’t keep still!
The good things are well obvious. Cheap food at good ol’ MacDonald’s and excellent infrastructure (high speed internet, transport the works). The people are obviously the biggest cause of worry. What are mid western Americans like? The internet tells me that they have the best of both east and west coasters but seeing is believing, right?

Finally there is the fear of a patriot that my feelings towards this country might change. I am a modernist and I favor Globalism over nationalism and yet as a person there can be but one home. India has lots to grow, a long way to go and lot of work to get there. I want to be a part of this journey, granted as I am a privileged position by birth. Maybe the beginning of a strong overture to globalism will be amongst co operation between nations like the United States and India. The research, innovation in the states can help the poor of India. India with its technical skill, large market and innovation to serve the masses might be a valuable target for the US industries. To close at the last point, about innovation to serve the masses, it always has been India’s challenge to produce at high quantity and low cost. America can derive tremendous benefit should it chose to work with India on this.
As for me (includes other people who bother reading more than text books), I wonder if I can be the middle man. An Indian, I will be educated in the west to become a global human being. I become global not through the degree at Ohio state but by remembering all that I have seen and heard here (India) and all that I will learn there. I know the problems of the world, I have the know how to fix them. Let’s work!