I don't want to forget about the assignment Kristen sprung on us so I guess I'll do it now.
Frankly, I'm not too surprised by what we learned during the assignment yesterday. I learned that most fraternities and sororities under the same council have similar values, I also learned that IFC and PHA hasd a lot in common as overarching organizations.
What I really enjoyed learning more about are Greeks from NPHC and MCGC because most people who are in Greek Life under IFC and PHA do not know that much about the other two councils and the greek life that falls under them. For example one of the other Resident Advisors in my building is in Alpha Kappa Alpha Inc. and to listen to her talk about the kinds of things they do - for example their step shows and the connection she has with her sisters. Yes I am very connected to my brothers, but I feel that their connection is different and nothing I could really understand unless I experienced it.
And I think this to an extent applies to any Greek organization, if they talk about ritual or what their organization values the most - it's something I might be able to comprehend, but how they as a person, or as an organization really feel about it isn't something I could really understand without experiencing it for myself. It just adds to the bond that we all have within our own organizations.
But at the end of the day many of the core values are similar so we do all have that in common. So we should learn from each others differences but also understand that we have lots of similarities.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Organizational Values
So originally when writing this blog I had decided on an organization though Ohio State that I'm a member of - Starfish - but after reading some of the other blogs I decided to do something on a much grander scale, and an organization that I think most people don't know - the Dear Jack Foundation.
For those of you who have ever heard of the band Jack's Mannequin or Something Corporate, their lead singer, Andrew McMahon, who in fact happens to be one of my heroes, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphatic Leukemia. He set out and documented (on video) every step - from diagnosis to remission. Then there was a documentary made out of it, called Dear Jack:
After his fight with leukemia Andrew McMahon created an organization to help raise awareness for all sorts of cancers - the Dear Jack Foundation.
"Our [The Dear Jack Foundation] mission is to be a leader in raising awareness and supporting organizations and charities with the greatest need and highest potential for impact on young adult cancer patients. We specifically aim to find treatments as well as expand on quality of life initiatives, such as counseling for young adult patients and their families. This age group of 15 to 35 year old patients is in desperate need of research. Cancer is the number one disease killer of young adults and studies continually show that the survival rate has not improved as steadily as that of other age groups."
Andrew McMahon, with the help of Jack's Mannequin and Something Corporate go around and perform huge charity concerts and tours raising money for the Foundation which all eventually goes to cancer research and cancer patients. The organization is non-profit at its finest with all of the employees being volunteers.
It's an organization that has really inspired me to work harder for causes like his and to watch someone go through what he did and come back even stronger than ever really inspires me.
People are drawn to organizations that hold similar values as them - just like I did. And with an organization to help reinforce what you already believe in - our ability to help is limitless.
After his fight with leukemia Andrew McMahon created an organization to help raise awareness for all sorts of cancers - the Dear Jack Foundation.
"Our [The Dear Jack Foundation] mission is to be a leader in raising awareness and supporting organizations and charities with the greatest need and highest potential for impact on young adult cancer patients. We specifically aim to find treatments as well as expand on quality of life initiatives, such as counseling for young adult patients and their families. This age group of 15 to 35 year old patients is in desperate need of research. Cancer is the number one disease killer of young adults and studies continually show that the survival rate has not improved as steadily as that of other age groups."
Andrew McMahon, with the help of Jack's Mannequin and Something Corporate go around and perform huge charity concerts and tours raising money for the Foundation which all eventually goes to cancer research and cancer patients. The organization is non-profit at its finest with all of the employees being volunteers.
It's an organization that has really inspired me to work harder for causes like his and to watch someone go through what he did and come back even stronger than ever really inspires me.
People are drawn to organizations that hold similar values as them - just like I did. And with an organization to help reinforce what you already believe in - our ability to help is limitless.
Impulse Buy
So apart from the random rant post I had earlier I haven't really anything blog-able lately. Tomorrow is the end of passover which I'm rather excited for but of course with every day the daunting Actuarial Exam P looms ever closer.
But I did do something rather impulsive yesterday. Buy an iPod touch. In my defense though my classic is barely operational and it was a 32GB Gen1 iPod touch for $150 in relatively good condition and one of my Fraternity brothers was selling it so since I trust him I went for it - and basically, I love it and it makes me want to get the iPhone 5(?) or whatever it's going to be called that much more.
And of course since I wasn't being unproductive enough before, here let me get a new toy to add to my unrpoductive-ness? Yeah that's going to be a word now.
It's okay though because one of my other fraternity brothers bought an iphone 4 as an impulse buy, so I think he wins (or loses) in this whole impulse buy game.
But I did do something rather impulsive yesterday. Buy an iPod touch. In my defense though my classic is barely operational and it was a 32GB Gen1 iPod touch for $150 in relatively good condition and one of my Fraternity brothers was selling it so since I trust him I went for it - and basically, I love it and it makes me want to get the iPhone 5(?) or whatever it's going to be called that much more.And of course since I wasn't being unproductive enough before, here let me get a new toy to add to my unrpoductive-ness? Yeah that's going to be a word now.
It's okay though because one of my other fraternity brothers bought an iphone 4 as an impulse buy, so I think he wins (or loses) in this whole impulse buy game.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Annoyance of the Day
For those of you who don't know, Monday began the start of (surprisingly) one of my favorite holidays, passover.
Passover is the story of Moses and the Jews and their struggle to get out of Egypt. Basically, Moses wanted the Jews freed, Pharaoh didn't, so G-d hit him with some plagues, parted a sea and bing bang boom we were out of there. Simple enough, right? Right.
So during passover Jews are not allowed to eat wheat, yeast, legumes, soy, rice (for some of us) and corn. Unfortunately those foods are contained in everything. For example I had a salad for lunch today and tried to get Italian dressing but it had soybean oil. Then i tried to get fat free Italian but that had high fructose corn syrup. So what did I do? Eat my salad dry. Gross.
So by now you're probably wondering what that has to do with the title of this entry, annoyance of the day, well I guess it's incorrectly labeled since it's more along the lines of annoyance of the passover. There's only about 8% of this University's population that's Jewish. It might seem like a small number but that's approximately 3000 people! Which is also approximately the size of the Greek community we have all come to love (hopefully). Well during passover there are these great food restrictions and what does the university do to accommodate those 3000 students? NOTHING. Even the new north commons gluten-free section is a step in the right direction (im sure the individuals with celiacs disease really appreciate it) but how difficult would it be to make a kosher for passover section in at least one dining area on such a large campus? I understand that obviously not all 3000 jews keep passover or even eat from the dining halls but does that mean there shouldn't be some foods that we're allowed to eat during passover offered to us from the meal plan we're paying thousands of dollars for a year? I think so. It forces the ones of us who do keep passover to spend extra money elsewhere and let's be frank, no one wants that.
Yes I understand dining services is making HUGE changes in the years to come, most likely to be implemented when we switch over to semesters and hopefully that's something they're considering. Who knows? I sure don't.
Passover is the story of Moses and the Jews and their struggle to get out of Egypt. Basically, Moses wanted the Jews freed, Pharaoh didn't, so G-d hit him with some plagues, parted a sea and bing bang boom we were out of there. Simple enough, right? Right.
So during passover Jews are not allowed to eat wheat, yeast, legumes, soy, rice (for some of us) and corn. Unfortunately those foods are contained in everything. For example I had a salad for lunch today and tried to get Italian dressing but it had soybean oil. Then i tried to get fat free Italian but that had high fructose corn syrup. So what did I do? Eat my salad dry. Gross.So by now you're probably wondering what that has to do with the title of this entry, annoyance of the day, well I guess it's incorrectly labeled since it's more along the lines of annoyance of the passover. There's only about 8% of this University's population that's Jewish. It might seem like a small number but that's approximately 3000 people! Which is also approximately the size of the Greek community we have all come to love (hopefully). Well during passover there are these great food restrictions and what does the university do to accommodate those 3000 students? NOTHING. Even the new north commons gluten-free section is a step in the right direction (im sure the individuals with celiacs disease really appreciate it) but how difficult would it be to make a kosher for passover section in at least one dining area on such a large campus? I understand that obviously not all 3000 jews keep passover or even eat from the dining halls but does that mean there shouldn't be some foods that we're allowed to eat during passover offered to us from the meal plan we're paying thousands of dollars for a year? I think so. It forces the ones of us who do keep passover to spend extra money elsewhere and let's be frank, no one wants that.
Yes I understand dining services is making HUGE changes in the years to come, most likely to be implemented when we switch over to semesters and hopefully that's something they're considering. Who knows? I sure don't.
Monday, April 18, 2011
What's Important To Me
So as I sit here, procrastinating from other homework as always, I pause and think about a couple things:
1) Passover - and how much I'm going to miss bread
2) The two midterms this week I'm currently not studying for
3) And how difficult this "easy" assignment can be
Most people will say they know their values, they will say they know what's important to them and what makes them a good person. But then you ask them, myself included, to describe those values, to put their opinions into words, and only a few people will be able to do it. Most of the time I can find words for everything - some people will say for lots of things I have too many words. Ha! But in this case, the words come up short. But here it goes.
1) Passover - and how much I'm going to miss bread
2) The two midterms this week I'm currently not studying for
3) And how difficult this "easy" assignment can be
Most people will say they know their values, they will say they know what's important to them and what makes them a good person. But then you ask them, myself included, to describe those values, to put their opinions into words, and only a few people will be able to do it. Most of the time I can find words for everything - some people will say for lots of things I have too many words. Ha! But in this case, the words come up short. But here it goes.
- Friendship: At some point in the past couple of years I realized how important it is to have a few people who you are especially close with. As cliche as it sounds, it's the quality not the quantity. I'd rather have a few friends who I have faith in completely than lots of friends who I'm just eh with. The thing is though, all relationships help define a person - Good ones and bad ones help define an individual, the interactions you have.
- Faith: If you didn't catch on from the passover reference, the fact that I'm in AEPi, or by other random instances of me mentioning it (which happens rather often), I'm Jewish - and it's something that has defined me since probably Sophomore year of high school. Before that things were kind of different. I knew I was jewish but I considered myself agnostic. But sophomore year of high school I met a couple people who I'm now proud to call some of my best friends who introduced me to a Jewish Youth Group that slowly enveloped my life in the greatest way possible. My Judaism continued to grow, helping define my values and shape my beliefs. It's something that has helped me become the kind of person I am now.
- Service: Everyone talks about the importance of community service and I agree it is important, something that everyone should work on in my opinion. But how people do their service is more of a defining factor. I believe that the service starts here. How can we, as one of the most powerful countries in the world, try and better the world if we can't even better ourselves? I believe that we should all go out there and help repair this country and then that'll lead to us bettering the world. So that's why I went on Alternative Spring Break last year and why i want to keep doing service, and hopefully doing service will inspire others and it will be a way to pay it forward.
- Brotherhood: Brotherhood (or sisterhood) is something that every Fraternity (or sorority) strives to teach and advocate to each other. It is that connection amongst each other that keeps us strong and gives us the ability to change the world. If we lose that we go from being a Fraternity to a frat. And that is something that none of us want. The relationships I hold with my Brothers and the values we as a fraternity hold are what make us unique and strong. If we lose that we are just a bunch of guys living in a house together (well they would be, I'm an R.A. and live in a residence hall).
I guess that would sum of my values - or at least the ones I can think of right now - but there's much more than that, for everyone. There's everything that you believe in, everything that encompasses your personality. And at the end of the day, very few people can truly list or describe all their values. But hey what do I know? I'm just a math kid in a Fraternal Leadership class.
P.S. Everyone should check out the RockMelt browser at www.RockMelt.com it's basically Google Chrome on crack. It's sweet.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The Big Picture
So as I'm sitting here, procrastinating as usual my mind began to wander...
Originally, just about nothing, abstract little things, with the occasional feeling of disappointment in myself since I have multiple midterms next week, but nevertheless it continued to wander...wander to my future and what it might possibly contain.
An actuary has to take 9 exams to become a Fellow (the highest level of actuary) and most can get a job after passing 1 or 2 (which are the ones you take during college). So ideally, if i pass 2 before I graduate, I'll be done passing exams by the time I'm 29...29! How ridiculous is that? 9 more years of this, for lack of a better word, bullshit. And I'm not even off to a great start. I took my first exam in February and did not pass...Well I'm taking a different one in May. May 27th in fact, and talk about a morale killer if I don't pass this one.
Don't get me wrong I'm a huge nerd whom loves math - I like the logistics and consistency behind it, plus it's not open for interpretation. Also, the promise of a nice paycheck not really a big downturn either. But I have loftier career goals. Of course I want to pass all my exams, become a full actuary, and really know this stuff, but eventually I want to teach math. Just high school algebra, the basics. Think about it: Everything we learn now that's math related starts with x+1=3. And it'd be an amazing experience to teach that material - it also helps that the material is easy.
My issue is not that i'm not passionate about my major, the work I have to do to get ahead, I'm just more passionate about really throwing myself into extra-curriculars. I love the community service work I do, working on Nick and Emily's USG Campaign and my fraternity. Unfortunately, extra-curriculars are just that: EXTRA.
We talked about Paying It Forward. And with extra-curriculars we all can do that. Sometimes its just hard to put all your chips in one cup especially since all those extra-curriculars don't have huge financial benefits.
At the end of the day I'm terrified. Terrified I won't be able to get a job, reach my goals, and be able to give back. But also I'm reassured. Reassured that I know what I want to do, that if I put enough work and time into it I can do it. I just need to get the will power.
Kind of a long and random post - but hey, it's better than studying right? Right.
Originally, just about nothing, abstract little things, with the occasional feeling of disappointment in myself since I have multiple midterms next week, but nevertheless it continued to wander...wander to my future and what it might possibly contain.
An actuary has to take 9 exams to become a Fellow (the highest level of actuary) and most can get a job after passing 1 or 2 (which are the ones you take during college). So ideally, if i pass 2 before I graduate, I'll be done passing exams by the time I'm 29...29! How ridiculous is that? 9 more years of this, for lack of a better word, bullshit. And I'm not even off to a great start. I took my first exam in February and did not pass...Well I'm taking a different one in May. May 27th in fact, and talk about a morale killer if I don't pass this one.
Don't get me wrong I'm a huge nerd whom loves math - I like the logistics and consistency behind it, plus it's not open for interpretation. Also, the promise of a nice paycheck not really a big downturn either. But I have loftier career goals. Of course I want to pass all my exams, become a full actuary, and really know this stuff, but eventually I want to teach math. Just high school algebra, the basics. Think about it: Everything we learn now that's math related starts with x+1=3. And it'd be an amazing experience to teach that material - it also helps that the material is easy.
My issue is not that i'm not passionate about my major, the work I have to do to get ahead, I'm just more passionate about really throwing myself into extra-curriculars. I love the community service work I do, working on Nick and Emily's USG Campaign and my fraternity. Unfortunately, extra-curriculars are just that: EXTRA.
We talked about Paying It Forward. And with extra-curriculars we all can do that. Sometimes its just hard to put all your chips in one cup especially since all those extra-curriculars don't have huge financial benefits.
At the end of the day I'm terrified. Terrified I won't be able to get a job, reach my goals, and be able to give back. But also I'm reassured. Reassured that I know what I want to do, that if I put enough work and time into it I can do it. I just need to get the will power.
Kind of a long and random post - but hey, it's better than studying right? Right.
Monday, April 4, 2011
A Little About Me
Let's start with the basics.
My name is Leo Katsman - no I don't have a middle name, yes Leo is short for something, no I will not post it right now - my full name is something original and if you guess it, then I'll tell you - don't want to guess it? No skin off my back.
I'm in Alpha Epsilon Pi. Yeah the Jewish kid is in the Jewish Fraternity - no surprise there, but there is reasoning behind it. My religion has become something that is very important to me - something that has shaped a lot of the kind of person that I have become. So when I started college I told myself 1) I wouldn't join a fraternity and 2) If I did it'd be the Jewish one. Well since 1 didn't work out for me that well I turned to 2 - and as I met more of the brothers I realized there was much more in common there than just the religion thing - so here I am. Brother of Alpha Epsilon Pi and everything.
Coming into THE Ohio State University I had the same stereotypes engraved in my brain about the stereotypical "frat" guy. Well after joining a Fraternity I realized it's not that stereotypical B.S. that I thought it was in High School and I don't regret a day of it.
This Class: Well after going to that Fraternal Futures thing which, although it did involve getting up obscenely early on a Sunday, I didn't totally loathe - and actually learned some interesting things - I decided to check out this class. Partly because I'm interested in other aspects in Greek Life (not that the social aspect isn't great) and partly because I feel like this class will have debates and debates are fun.
The Blogabus: An interesting concept - and an interesting word - For me it's really nothing that ridiculous seeing as I've always read blogs/tried to keep blogs but now this blog just has information on it. So the blogabus has reached an approved rating by me.
Blogging in general: I think it'll be good to be able to just rant out assignments in blog form. Assuming there aren't huge deductions for blog-digressions (kind of like the one i did before this) because I'm kind of A.D.D. when it comes to blogging. Aside from the obvious benefits of the blogabus which include seeing each others work/opinions and letting the outside world see our work/opinions, I had recently started a blog but kind of had an issue keeping it up - at least in the way I hoped (3-4 posts a week). I hope this assignment will serve as a diving board into more intense blogging experiences. But that's just the optimist in me speaking - don't worry a couple weeks of my schedule and he will be gone soon enough.
Even now I procrastinate by not studying for Exam P and my Math 532 quiz and doing this blog instead. But this is an assignment and has to get done too right? Right.
My name is Leo Katsman - no I don't have a middle name, yes Leo is short for something, no I will not post it right now - my full name is something original and if you guess it, then I'll tell you - don't want to guess it? No skin off my back.
I'm in Alpha Epsilon Pi. Yeah the Jewish kid is in the Jewish Fraternity - no surprise there, but there is reasoning behind it. My religion has become something that is very important to me - something that has shaped a lot of the kind of person that I have become. So when I started college I told myself 1) I wouldn't join a fraternity and 2) If I did it'd be the Jewish one. Well since 1 didn't work out for me that well I turned to 2 - and as I met more of the brothers I realized there was much more in common there than just the religion thing - so here I am. Brother of Alpha Epsilon Pi and everything.
Coming into THE Ohio State University I had the same stereotypes engraved in my brain about the stereotypical "frat" guy. Well after joining a Fraternity I realized it's not that stereotypical B.S. that I thought it was in High School and I don't regret a day of it.
This Class: Well after going to that Fraternal Futures thing which, although it did involve getting up obscenely early on a Sunday, I didn't totally loathe - and actually learned some interesting things - I decided to check out this class. Partly because I'm interested in other aspects in Greek Life (not that the social aspect isn't great) and partly because I feel like this class will have debates and debates are fun.
The Blogabus: An interesting concept - and an interesting word - For me it's really nothing that ridiculous seeing as I've always read blogs/tried to keep blogs but now this blog just has information on it. So the blogabus has reached an approved rating by me.
Blogging in general: I think it'll be good to be able to just rant out assignments in blog form. Assuming there aren't huge deductions for blog-digressions (kind of like the one i did before this) because I'm kind of A.D.D. when it comes to blogging. Aside from the obvious benefits of the blogabus which include seeing each others work/opinions and letting the outside world see our work/opinions, I had recently started a blog but kind of had an issue keeping it up - at least in the way I hoped (3-4 posts a week). I hope this assignment will serve as a diving board into more intense blogging experiences. But that's just the optimist in me speaking - don't worry a couple weeks of my schedule and he will be gone soon enough.
Even now I procrastinate by not studying for Exam P and my Math 532 quiz and doing this blog instead. But this is an assignment and has to get done too right? Right.
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