Category Archives: Uncategorized

New Chapter

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Hello all,

For those who may not know, I just graduated from Oswego in May, and I must say it still hasn’t hit me that I actually am done there. I guess that’s kind of because I’m in graduate school at Syracuse University now.

As of tomorrow at 4pm, I will have successfully finished my first semester of graduate school with 3 more to go, and I must say I am excited. It’s weird that just three months ago, I was rushing to hand in final papers, and stories. Flash forward to now and I’m rushing to hand in designs, edit feature viedo stories and cover local feature stories.

As much as many recent graduates encourage taking a break between undegrad and grad school, I have truly appreciated going straight though. Since my program is only a year long, I’m basically studying as long as someone my age who may be doing an extra year o undergrad. So in just 5 years, I would had accomplished two degrees. I think that is a great accomplishment and ready to tackle even more.

For now, I’ll be starting fall classes in two weeks, work as the assistant housing director of Bryant and Stratton College, and TA an undergraduate journalism ethics class. This may seem like a lot, but in fall 2011, I had three jobs, three internships, three class, while also working as the president of a club and an RA. So this should be a breeze right?

Although I’m no longer a student at Oswego, I would love to keep writing on this blog and kind of show a glimpse into post-graduate life. The ups and downs. Good, bad. ugly. And whatever other cliché outcome that comes mind.

To commemorate a successful first semester at Syracuse and say goodbye to a hectic last semester at Oswego, I leave you with this video. It is my first multimedia piece from grad school. I’ve done work like this before, but I am especially proud of this video in particular because it marks the beginning of something great for me… my career as a multimedia communications professional.

Look! Up In The Sky! It’s A Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s…Some Guy Introducing Himself!

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Hmm… given that we’ve been out of school for almost a month, you’d think I would’ve posted at least something by now. It seems procrastination, sleep, summer classes, sleep, looking for a job, procrastination, finding a job, sleep, working at said found job, eating, and sleep have gotten the better of me.

But now I’ve finally arrived, and am ready to finally make my first appearance on this fine Student Blog of ours!

My name is Tom Kline, and I’m a junior Cinema and Screen Studies/Creative Writing double major (with a minor in Theatre). I hail from the lovely (and rather quiet) town of Endwell, NY (which is about 20 minutes from Binghamton, for those of you playing along at home). I went to high school at Seton Catholic Central High School in Binghamton, where I graduated as a member of the Class of 2010.

I have what you’d call a “spirited” personality, which is to say that I tend to get excited fairly easily, and my voice often carries as a result. This ability to project is key to being an actor; in the real world, however, it often doesn’t fly. But that’s okay, because I find I’m still able to express my views and opinions (as well as fictitious anecdotes and the like) through writing, which in my experience has been an arguably quieter activity.

And if what people tell me is true (which is not always the case, sadly), I’m pretty good at this whole writing schtick.

Needless to say, much of my extra- (and even inter-) curricular activities involve extensive writing, editing, and other ways to mess around with the English language:

– I’m a member of the College Honors Program.

– I’ve been a regular Staff Writer for The Oswegonian for two years now, and some of my movie reviews have won journalism awards. I even served as a Copy Editor for a semester.

– I am currently a tutor in the Writing Center for the Office of Learning Services. Our office in Penfield Library is a perfect place to find help with papers and other forms of writing.

– My screenplay “The Chase” was featured in the Spring 2012 edition of The Great Lake Review, SUNY Oswego’s semesterly literary journal.

– Last semester, I was inducted into the Alpha Sigma Eta chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English and Creative Writing honors society.

– And of course, I’m writing for this blog!

As I mentioned, I’m also an actor; I most recently made my return to the stage in last semester’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, in which I played Friar Francis and the Sexton. Here’s a photo, courtesy of Lakeshore Images:

That's me in the front, with the Obi-Wan Kenobi-esque robes.

It was my first college theatre production, and I’m really proud of how it turned out. I’m looking forward to working with the Theatre department in the future.

When I’m not chained to a desk, writing, acting, or sleeping (or acting like I’m sleep-writing while chained to a desk), I enjoy playing video games and watching action movies (my favorites are Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 and Die Hard, respectively). I’m also interested in mythology; as part of my Honors thesis, I’m researching the various ties to world mythologies found within anime, manga, and popular culture at large. It’s just one of the ways I’ve been able to fully embrace my “nerdy” interests by integrating them into my academic studies (but more on that some other time).

Well, I guess that’s me in a nutshell. In closing, I’d like to thank Tim Nekritz and the others involved with this blog for allowing me to become a contributor. I’m looking forward to posting some of my more interesting stories about SUNY Oswego sometime in the future.

Until then, thanks for reading!

 

Post-Grad

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As I patiently await my degree in the mail, I often contemplate all the amazing things that I can do with this token for my four years of sleepless nights, extracurricular activites galore and stressful events. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a great time in Oswego, but I think that this book is coming to a close. And although I’ve enjoyed reading, it’s time to move on to a new story.

This is why I chose to move on with my life in grad school. Why not move as far as I can away right? How about Syracuse, right? Well that’s how far I’m going for now, for graduate degree in magazine, newspaper, and online journalism. But what’s next?
After that year, where is my path? Boston? Chicago? California?

One of my best friends and I  joked that we would move to LA, intern at E! News and become the new Kardashians, except we would actually have college degrees.
It’s interesting to have so many possibilities in the dreams that I possess. I could be practical and live at home with my mother in New York City and get a job. This would save money, and NYC has millions of opporunities. But who wants practical? I have a bachelors degree and will have a masters in a year?

I’ve been practical for the past 21 years. Can’t I venture into a spontaneous and irrational goal in the future if I wanted. Now I won’t say I’d fly to LA without a dime in my pocket, but I’ve lived for so long looking at my dream of being an entertainment journalist as a mere dream. But why can’t this dream become reality? I guess reality will let me know in a year.

Who? Anna, That’s who!

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My first entry as an official SUNY Oswego blogger? I feel so cool! What’s a better way to start everything than with an introduction. Bear with me because this entry will be extremely cliche!

Hi. My name is Anna. I will be starting my Senior year come Fall 2012 at SUNY Oswego studying Broadcasting and Mass Communication. I am from Brooklyn, New York and am as city as a person can get! I am a member of WTOP10-TV, the student run station on campus. More specifically, I am the current Underwriting Director and more recently I was elected the Editing Director. I am also a Lab Assistant at the Communication Studies Labs. As you can see, I live, eat, and breathe Broadcasting!

I am a typical college student, as lame as that may sound. I sleep, I go to class, I go do my extracurriculars, and I drink lots of caffeinated beverages. Energy Drink, coffee, Tazo tea are my favorites in that exact order.I currently live in the Village, which are the On-Campus townhouses. Next Fall will be my second semester there!

On a personal level, I have a lot of hobbies outside of my academics. I enjoy video games, especially First-Person shooters, comic books, and Panda bears. I am very fond of the color purple and baked goods. (I’m serious, bake me some cupcakes and you’ll probably be my best friend forever..)

Blogging has always been a nice little hobby of mine, and I’m excited to be starting this new adventure!

The Future

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The future has always been a concept that terrifies me. Even though it’s a reality for all of us, I hate not knowing what’s going to happen. I hate being afraid that the future isn’t going to be what I envision, isn’t going to work out. This creates a great deal of anxiety for me, and that was anxiety that I felt when I graduated from high school. I was terrified of leaving an environment with which I was comfortable and entering one with which I was not, and my freshman year of college was not very enjoyable; I made mistakes, and I made decisions of which, to this day, I am ashamed, and I can only imagine that it was because, emotionally, I was not ready for college. That’s not to say that I wish that I would have waited a year or two – definitely not; the only way that I could be ready was to experience it, which is ultimately why I’m glad that I did make mistakes. Still, though, I can’t help but feel a deep sense of dread that I’m going to make more, that I’m not ready for the “real world” and what dangers that it has to offer, the worst of them probably being uncertainty.

Luckily, I’m armed with something that I didn’t have four years ago; I’m armed with love. Four years ago, something that really beat me down was the thought that I was meant to be alone and that that was how I was destined to spend the rest of my life. I know; it was kind of ridiculous, but at the time, that’s what I believed, and if I hadn’t found my boyfriend Ray, I very likely would still feel that way. As a teenager, I didn’t really experience a real connection with another person like most teenagers do. Every time that I went to a prom or a ball, I went with a friend; I never knew what a real date was, a real romantic experience. Now, I do, and that very strong connection gives me faith that I didn’t have before.

Yesterday, I graduated, and it felt so strange. I knew that I was supposed to be overcome by an immense amount of bittersweet feelings – happiness because I have gotten through the last bloody and sweaty four years and sadness because I was leaving Oswego behind, a very special place to me that will always have a place in my heart, but I just felt embarrassed because I had lost my tassel. I looked around me for others that weren’t wearing one, but I didn’t see anyone, and I felt so embarrassed. Even now that it’s over, the fact that I graduated from college with an undergraduate degree hasn’t sunk in yet.

I’m now pursuing a really great, ideal job and hope that I get it. I could finally be looking at enough money to buy a car, which would really feel like a major step forward. I don’t even have my license because I’ve never had the support system that I would have needed, and I’ve never had the finances to afford a car. That may finally be a reality, but of course, it’s dependent upon whether or not I get the job. From experience, I don’t seem to interview well; I applied to be a DA on campus three times, was interviewed each time, and each time, I was rejected. I try to be positive, though. and I try to look toward the future as promise. My goal is to have a car by the end of the summer, so by August, and to then have an apartment with my boyfriend by January. On June 9th, I take two teacher certification tests, which is going to be really rough. They are in Syracuse, and the first is at 7:45 a.m. while the second is at 1:00 p.m. Then, I have another on July 14th. I am not good at taking tests; I never have been, so I’m nervous, but hopefully, I’ll be fine. I will definitely make an effort to write as often as I can throughout the summer.

A Moment of Gratitude

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I am truly grateful to have met the friends that I have while here in Oswego. They are all new friendships and bonds formed with the exception of one, my good friend Rufaro or Tumbo, best known as “DJ Tumbo” outside of that 6 year friendship the ones I have formed are mostly a year old or so. But that didn’t change the amount of love and companionship we all shared Sunday night as we gathered for dinner.

While many students who live nearby go home to celebrate Easter , there are a small portion of us who can’t simply because the 5 hour trip home just doesn’t work out how you would like it to sometimes. Watching everyone hop on the bus or cramming into cars to go home can make those of us forced to stay a little sad. So imagine my excitement when my best friend Damaris not only announced that she was staying on campus as well but would also be making Sunday dinner!

Since Damaris moved into the Village (the suite styled housing which I adore for it’s beautiful exterior and even more impressive interior detailing , a place I wish I had chosen to live instead of off-campus) Sunday dinners have becomes somewhat of a regular occurrence for us.

Doing what she always does so well she played grand host and master chef , whipping up a home style feast of meatloaf, creamed mashed potatoes, baked macaroni and cheese, green beans and biscuits. The food was good but the company of great friends was even better. And as the night which was filled with moments of laughter,some jokes funny enough that I found myself on the kitchen floor doubled over in laughter and lively serious debates came to a close I felt an extreme sense of gratitude. Gratitude for being blessed to have such invaluable friendship to share my happiest moments…any moments for that matter because they have been there for some of my less enviable ones as well , I am grateful. And while for many people Easter has an entirely different meaning. This year friends,love and happiness is what I’ll remember Easter to be.

Breath, Stretch, Meditate

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Recently I find myself increasingly curious about meditation, yoga and obtaining peace of mind. I am not sure if it has to do with all of the Oprah programs I am watching or more the desire to find a way to keep my mind clear enough  to write when I am up against the deadline (as I always am). Truth be told it is a fair mixture of both, I am a huge fan of Oprah’s LifeClass  any Own program and I still have a 2 page analysis paper due from before spring break(please don’t judge me). Whatever it might be that is bringing on my constant stress and cloudy mind I have found that a few things actually help to clear it.

After years of wanting to do yoga I finally took a friend up on an invitation to join her at a Sunday afternoon session. The experience was a memorable one; me struggling to balance my self on one leg or hold positions with every muscle trembling while the rest of the class seemed to flawlessly glide from position to position. I lost track of how many times I said to myself ” I thought yoga was supposed to be relaxing and calm”. But as the session was concluding , I found myself down on my yoga mat calmly breathing , mind effortlessly drifting off unaware of the macho body building men who had earlier watched me head over to the yoga mats.

When the lights finally turned on and the instructor told us she looked forward to seeing us next week, I was floating over to my friend with the surrealist feeling of serenity I had have ever experienced. I felt somewhere in between sleep and euphoria. The rest of the day and subsequently the next one as well was filled with great clarity. In the time after, I spent nights  practicing breathing exercises to help settle my thoughts enough for me to fall asleep.

Since then I have developed a weekly routine of attending a Sunday evening yoga class courtesy of Oswego’s fitness centers. What has made my yoga classes even better was learning that other SUNY schools don’t all offer classes without paying a separate fee. How lucky are we to get a yoga class that not only winds down as the sun sets over the lake but not  have to pay an additional fee?

The health benefits of yoga are substantial I am sure but I’ll leave that up to a professional or someone with more knowledge on yoga practices to tell you. I’m just here to say yoga has definitely been a great stabilizer in my life.

Spring Break experience

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I know that I sort of “complained” about having to move to Hart for the break prior to having to do it, but I just want to take the time, now that that’s behind me, to talk about what that experience was like for me; it would be nice if this editorial reached someone who has the ability to reform college policy in regards to this matter because I would really hate someone else in the future having to go through what I did, and I know that based on how many students that I observed on campus (which was very few), there aren’t generally very many.

Because I don’t own a car, I had to stay on campus for the length of the break; I love SUNY Oswego, so normally, that wouldn’t bother me; in fact, normally, I would take staying here over going back to Rome every time, but I wasn’t looking forward to having move the materials that I was going to need for the duration of the break over to Hart, since I’d be having to walk it over, and I wasn’t looking forward to having to stay cooped up here alone, since essentially nothing here was open, and no one that I know was staying here, too; my boyfriend Ray says that he asked the Residence Life & Housing office if he could stay here with me and that he was told no because staying here is reserved only for students that absolutely need to. However, first of all, there was another bed in my room (which could have instead been a desk, which I didn’t have), and second of all, I met another student that was staying here because his car had broken down, which doesn’t sound like an “absolutely have to” to me, as he probably could have caught a ride with someone or taken a bus or a train, and I know that that’s inconvenient, but really, “absolutely have to” is what it is.

I did “absolutely have to” stay here. I was doing my student-teaching in Fulton, and my parents live in Rome, so I couldn’t commute from Rome to Fulton without a car, yet I was placed in a very small, stuffy room that didn’t even have a desk (it normally functions as a study lounge), whereas he had an actual room, and I know that he doesn’t normally live in Hart (that would obviously be another story). Penfield was only open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., but since I was having to take a bus to Fulton, I was getting up before 5 a.m. and not getting back until 5 p.m., which means that I was gone during the entire time that Penfield was open. There was, additionally, no gym open, not even a dining hall, so I had to prepare my own food, which meant having to prepare my own food, which meant even more material that needed to be walked over to Hart (it took me three trips to move everything, and it was extremely cold and windy).

What’s the botttom line of all of my complaining? Well, when I was telling a professor here on campus about this, he agreed that students having to move out of the residence halls in which they already live is relatively ridiculous. He said, humorously enough, that the college should be trying to make students happy so that they will be happy alumni and eventually happy donors, and I agree with him; it’s no fun having to needlessly acquaint yourself with a new setting for a mere nine days when there’s no reason that I couldn’t have stayed in Sheldon; I still would have been alone, but (a) I would have been closer to stores such as Fastrack and Kinney’s, (b) I would have been closer to the bus stop at which I caught my bus to Fulton, and (c) most importantly, I would have had the familiarity of where I usually live. Having to take three trips walking belongings over to Hart was a waste of time, especially since Sheldon is also an academic building, which means that for most of the break, it was open, anyway. Prior to break, one potential reason that I offered for having to move was that Sheldon wouldn’t have any DAs or RAs working, but there weren’t any at Hart, either, so that’s no excuse. My hope is that this policy will be reformed; students need to be kept comfortable, and their time certainly doesn’t need to be needlessly wasted.

Student-Teaching Q4

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Today, I began my second student-teaching placement. Last quarter, I was placed at G. Ray Bodley High School in Fulton, and that was a bit shaky, I hate to admit. I made some mistakes and didn’t do my best, but there were a few reasons for that, none of which do I want to spend time discussing. Now, I am placed at Oswego High School, and so far, it seems like a much better fit. It’s practically right down the road from Sheldon (where I live), so I’m free from the stress of worrying how I’m going to get home and how I’m going to get to required events, and so far, the students seem to be responding better to me than they did in Fulton, so we’ll see how it plays out, since I haven’t started teaching yet (the plan, I believe, is to start teaching next week, when I will be teaching Judith Guest’s ORDINARY PEOPLE to eleventh grade American Literature students). I’ll definitely be attempting to write as often as I can about my experiences while, of course, respecting confidentiality, but I’m definitely going to be busy; this is the quarter that student-teachers have to complete a teacher work sample, so that’s definitely going to be time-consuming, but I’ve already begun organizing it. I’m really looking forward to this placement, as, like I said, I think that it will be a much better fit. I get a pretty good feeling from the school’s environment alone.