First Quarter

It's been a busy few weeks! Classes are going great; I love every moment that I'm on campus. I feel so fortunate to be getting my education at Ohio State!

Women's Glee Club is wonderful; we're singing school spirit songs, religious music, and a fantastic modern piece about an ancient Sumerian goddess. 

In Phonetics class I'm learning about the speech system, from the anatomy of the larynx, tongue, and inner ear, to transcribing speech sounds using the International Phonetic Alphabet. For example: [ðə ren ɪn spen fɒlz menli ɑn ðə plen] = "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain." 

My Literature class is reading and discussing short fiction stories from American writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. We just finished William Faulkner's tale "A Rose For Emily," and up next is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Yellow Wallpaper." 

In Musicology class we're discussing the properties of music and listening to songs from around the world. Our tour began in Africa and will ultimately take us home to the Americas where the quarter will culminate in our own individual research projects. 

Yesterday I started volunteering in a 7th grade English class, to help the kids work on writing projects and discussing books they are reading. I will mostly help with grammar and spelling, and make the student:adult ratio that much smaller in our classroom. 

It's wonderful to be busy, and to have a lot going on. I cherish my time a lot more when I am involved in so many activities. I continue to work on my goal to earn a degree, and to enrich my life in various ways. My first quarter at OSU is better than I ever could have imagined!