Hotelie-On-the-Go

All of my years at Cornell have led up to this moment:  I am officially a Cornell alumnus! Now that I’m past graduation weekend, I cannot really accurately describe the feeling — sort of a mixture of pride, anticipation, sadness, and excitement rolled up into one frazzled little ball of emotion.  Coming out of senior week and graduation, I can honestly say that the end of this semester was one of the craziest yet — and for good reason.

As many of you know, graduation was this past Sunday — May 29th — and we started off on the Arts Quad, gathered by schools, to march as one big moving Class of 2011 mosh pit to Schoellkopf Stadium to start at 11am.  Aside from just killing time with Hotelies (which you can see in pictures below), the heat was unrelenting.  It had to have been around 90 degrees for the majority of the day, and with that black graduation robe and fancy dress-up clothes under it, I was sweating like I was a literally being cooked alive.  Yay Ithaca (again!)!

Heading over to the stadium — in our graduation attire, marching as almost-alums — was a surreal experience unlike any other, which I honestly wasn’t expecting.  Along the entire way, there were professors, staff, students, families, etc., all clapping for us, and that was the first time I think it really sunk in — like, “wow, I’m really ending this thing soon, aren’t I?”  And just realizing all of the people I’d met over the years — the hundreds of close friends, familiar faces, and relived experiences, all passing by in a matter of minutes on that simple stroll to Schoellkopf.  Amazing.

After Skorton gave us the nice “go-ahead” for our diplomas — which, by the way, the Hotelies were by far the loudest at, of course — we headed straight over to Barton for the Hotelie-only ceremony where we walked to get our diplomas.  This was probably my favorite part of the day because let’s face it:  I spent the entirety of my four years here with Hotelies, and I thought it was very fitting to go out that way as well.  Meeting my family after hearing Dean Carvell say “Evan Carr, with distinction!” as I walked across to shake Dean Johnson’s hand was a fulfilling, yet oddly sinking few seconds; you realize that you have finally defeated Cornell, but when you walk past that last handshake, you’re into “adulthood” (whatever that means), and you’re losing that warm-and-fuzzy Big Red security blanket.

So that’s the bulk of it — after that, my brother, mother, and father joined me for an afternoon graduation reception at Llenroc for the seniors, which was a great way to unwind before dinner at Rulloff’s.  And that’s that.  That’s that.

You know, the aura around Cornell is something that is truly unique and unbelievable.   After graduating high school, I never thought that I would meet such a fascinating compilation of individuals, an incessantly brilliant faculty (across many different schools, not just the Hotel School), and a culture that mixes fun and eccentric better than any other college campus in America.  With life on the hill, you can always write about what’s happening — but you will never encapsulate the full experience unless you are here.  Connections — with the people, with the campus, and with the history — are what make Cornell so tremendously rewarding and satisfying.

With this being my final post, I feel it is necessary and appropriate to thank those people that made my Cornell experience one that is so difficult for me to walk away from.  First and foremost, my family:  My brother, Ryan, for adding levity to any situation and being the seed of competition and support that pushed me far past any boundary that I thought contained me.  My mother, JoAnna, for being the unrelenting optimist that saw the positive in anything.  And my father, Jeffery, for giving me stability and practical advice whenever I sought it.  Also, I have to thank all of my brothers in the Delta Phi (Llenroc) fraternity for an incredible past few years:  The Llenroc experiences that I will remember — far past my graduation on Sunday — are some of the fondest that I’m sure I will ever have.  You are all great friends and great people, and I’m already looking forward to returning to the house to have a casual conversation and a cold beer with all of you on the roof of Llenroc.

Moreover, how can I forget Hotelies!  Now that I’m pursuing an Experimental Psych PhD at UC San Diego, I often get questions like, “why were you a Hotelie?” and “didn’t you wish you switched?”  I’d be lying if I said that I was certain that I was in the right place throughout my whole time here.  In fact, at certain points, I was one signature away from leaving my Hotelie status for something else.  But looking back on it, the Hotel School is what exposed me to psychology through business, what motivated me to pursue how my business interests related to other fields, and what allowed me access to so many great friends and faculty.  So in short, I couldn’t be happier with how things worked out, and I wouldn’t change a thing.  Just goes to show that the Cornell doors really can fly open anywhere — you just have to be the one to turn the knob.

And last but certainly not least, thank you to Lisa for letting me have this blog for my years here at Cornell.  Having a voice on campus has been incredibly valuable for me, and I’m so happy that I have a chronicle that I can look back on now that I’m leaving — the ups and the downs.  You were an amazing mentor and an overall fun person to be around.  Please keep in touch.

With that, I leave you with one final piece of advice:  Cherish the friends and the social experiences that you will have at Cornell.  The academic pedigree of Cornell is what you come for at the start, but I guarantee that you will leave here with much more than a diploma.  You will have friends that make you laugh, pictures that make you cry, and thoughts that fill your heart  with joy.  So if you’re depressed about all of the studying or get a bad grade on a prelim, realize it’s not a big deal in the overall picture of your college experience.  Realize, instead, that even though your time on the hill may be limited, the positive memories that you will build and carry with you can (and should) be timeless.

Goodbye and good luck, Cornell.  I loved every second of it.

~ Evan

Well, here it is:  Hauled up in Olin Library since 7:30pm tonight — and goin’ to be ’til they kick me out at 2am — studying for the last final exam of my Cornell undergrad career (tomorrow).  I’ve had a hellish finals schedule (4 finals and 3 papers), so having the end in sight is still bittersweet, but maybe a little more on the sweet side.

Between Slope Day, my last Llenroc formal, Hotelie Prom, etc., I’ve been reminded over and over again about why I love this place — and how it’s going to be so bizarre when I don’t have to return in the fall and head off to UC San Diego instead.  I started out on the hill like so many other Cornell freshmen — bright-eyed, jittery, dorky to the nth degree, while treating the difference between an “A-” and an “A” as if it was going to determine every other subsequent success or failure in my life.  With all of my senior reflections, it’s difficult to say that my grades mattered that much; aside from getting me into a PhD program (which I’m no doubt extremely thankful for, of course), I’m not going to remember the Cornell academics.  Not going to remember my psychopathology prelim, my GPA from spring of sophomore year, my stress over all of my TA’ing, or my group paper for marketing that wasn’t quite as good as it could’ve been.  No, I’ll remember my senior speech on the stairs of Llenroc — saying my parting words to the best friends I’ve made here.  I’ll remember spring of my sophomore year for pledging and all of the inherently crazy stories that go along with it.  I’ll remember the open parties, the concerts in Barton, the conversations with Hotelies at Mac’s, the drunken stumbles to Ruloff’s on the weekend, my 4 Slope Days (that which I can piece together, I mean), late night trips to Nasties, and sitting on the roof of Llenroc with a beer.  I’ll remember the laughs and the cries — many of which have been this past semester.

Cornell has a wealth of opportunity that is unparalleled — both intellectually and interpersonally.  And I will debate anyone that those that don’t take advantage of the latter are missing out on way more than those that skip over the former.

I will, most certainly, have one more post — post-graduation and Senior Week — but as a seed of advice before I give my parting words, underclassmen should take these words and hang onto them:  The memories you have will not be for academics when you leave here — they will be for the friends and the good times you had.  So have as many as possible.  You will more than a few chances.

One more update to come.  Stay tuned, people.

-Ec

Good Riddance (Time of My Life) by Green Day …

Another turning point;
a fork stuck in the road.

Time grabs you by the wrist;
directs you where to go.

So make the best of this test
and don’t ask why.

It’s not a question
but a lesson learned in time.

It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind.

Hang it on a shelf
In good health and good time.

Tattoos of memories
and dead skin on trial.

For what it’s worth,
it was worth all the while.

It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

(music break)

It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

Just like that:  My junior year has come to a close.  3 years gone by, 1 to go, and I’m sure the feeling is going to be even more surreal in the fall when I am among the oldest (and the wisest?) students on the Cornell campus.  In reality, I only have one semester of actual study left, and then I’ll just be bummin’ around Ithaca I guess in the spring since I will be graduated and will basically just be working and waiting to walk in May with everyone else.

But now that Senior Week and graduation has passed — and we have said a farewell to the lovely people of the Class of 2010 — I have my summer position as a Market Research Intern with PhoCusWright starting on Tuesday, for which I will be catching a 1:15am (!!!!!!!) bus into NYC  for the first day.  Yes, it’s early.  Holy crap is that early.  But I am really banking on the hope that I will be able to get some shut-eye on the bus because my body is definitely not conditioned at this point to go to sleep that early or be productive in the mornings at all.

PhoCusWright seems like a really great company, so if you’re interested, check them out on the internet.  They do lots of cool research on the travel industry with all its nuances, and I really think that my summer will be interesting and enjoyable.  More updates to come.

CONGRATS TO THE CLASS OF 2010!!!

So how can I not do a post on the ever-famous Slope Day?  Yes, yes, this past Friday was actually the last day of classes for the semester (FINALLY), and it proved to be very memorable experience (well, somewhat ;D ) once again.  If you’re not a Cornellian, you really can’t understand how much Slope Day actually takes over this campus on that last day of the semester.  Case in point:  An Engineering friend of mine said that he went to one of his usual intro-level classes on Slope Day because he was behind on the material — apparently there are always about 200 or so kids in the class.  On Slope Day … 14.

While the performances weren’t the greatest this year — we had Drake, and he wasn’t really catering to the crowd’s song preferences like last year’s Pussycat Dolls (but really, who could trump the Pussycat Dolls?  That’s right, no one.) — but I really don’t think music is the main focus anyways, so it’s okay.

I wondered for a while how Slope Day seemed to fall through the bureaucratic loopholes of the Cornell administration, but that notion I think has finally left me.  If you look at it, Cornell is toooooo intense of a place for a vast majority of the time.  People are always so stressed with papers, prelims, projects, yada yada yada … hell, the other day, I was waiting for a TCAT bus by Uris Hall to head back to North Campus, and a kid’s backpack came unzipped letting all of his papers plop out onto the sidewalk.  After seeing this, the kid’s face turned an unnatural shade of red, and a bunch of loud noises — among some other non-G-rated words — came flying out of his mouth.  For kids like this — I think Slope Day exists.  Otherwise, we would all go insane.

Cornell makes people so competitive, but it’s great to see every once in a while those same people going absolutely bat-crap crazy on Slope Day — in a good way.  College seems somewhat of an anomaly in the wide range of memories we can create in such a short period of time, so Slope Day sure speeds up that process ten-fold.  And I think we need it for sure.

This will be a “to-the-point” type of post, but I feel like I would be doing Cornell a disservice if I did not mention the horrible situation that is plaguing the campus right now: In the past month, 3 Cornell students have committed suicide — an astonishing and shocking number of students to lose in such a tragic way over such a short period of time.

This year has not been easy. I think the number of Cornell students that have passed away this year — due to accidents, disease, suicide, etc. — is now up to 11. Unprecedented, considering the average is much, much lower than that each year.

Now that Cornell officially has hired security guards to stand on the bridges, it seems like our student body has hit a rough patch that I’ve certainly never seen the likes of before. I don’t really know what to say, but here goes: If you see someone in need, help them. If you see someone who’s struggling, ask how you can help them. If you see someone who you think might need help, ask them. Now with the current situation, it’s not worth it to give up the chance to help (or try to help) if you have the opportunity.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and families of those that Cornell has lost recently. Hopefully, this will pass with time, and we will return to the easy-going and cheerful college campus that we once were.

Feel free to watch this video from VP of Student and Academic Services, Susan Murphy, to get a better idea of campus resources and this overall situation.

Looking over my previous posts, I can’t believe that I haven’t talked more about being a Resident Advisor on North Campus; it takes up so much time and is such a big part of my Cornell life here in the Ithaca tundra, that I think it would be somewhat of a travesty if I didn’t talk about my floor a little.

With classes winding down, nostalgia is already starting to creep up on me as I see the freshmen packing up their things with their last finals of the year lurking around the corner.  I’ve been privileged to lord over the kingdom of 4th floor in Court Hall — lovingly called Balls Hall since the floor is the only all-dude floor on campus (Balch Hall is all girls … so Balls Hall — get it?).  Definitely been some crazy times on my floor, and I actually pledged Delta Phi with one of my own residents on 4-Court, along with 4 others that live in other parts of Court-Kay-Bauer.  Talk about reliving the freshmen experience (probably a little more than I wanted =D).

Anyways, my floor is ….. um ….. unique in every sense of the word.  Not overly involved or adventurous or suave in any shape or form, but most certainly one of the most loyal and united group of kids I’ve ever seen.  The culture of Balls Hall (aside from the smell of nasty feet and chicken wings — I guess that’s a bonus =/ ) is something all it’s own, and I will miss it next year.

So here’s to the guys on Balls Hall.  Thanks for the great times — you always could make me laugh.

(And thank you again Rishi for that horrible attempt at a finger mustache in the picture =P)

Well, Evan got initiated a couple weeks ago:  that’s right, I am now officially a member of The Delta Phi fraternity (Llenroc as all the current Cornellians call it), and life has never been better.  The air seems fresher, food tastes yummier, and my stress-level has finally returned to managable state.

I wrote another post about pledging a while ago, and I’m looking forward to going back to these posts to see how my views change between then and now.  Even though pledging is a little difficult … or somewhat difficult … meh we’ll say extremely difficult … I would recommend it to anyone.  You don’t even know the type of resourcefulness you will achieve when you have absolutely no time.  After pledging ended, I actually do stuff in my free time — the other day, I had a couple hours in between classes where I got all of my financial aid crap done! Wtf … Before that would time would’ve been spent snoozing or FaceBook stalking, but I’m still in the survival–never enough time for anything–need to take a shower–somewhat sleep-deprived mindset.

Anyway, none of my other achievements are quite the same as this.  Feels different, comforting, and glorious all at the same time.  Oh yes, I’ve been a pledge, and now I’m a NIB (Newly Initiated Brother) — I’m gonna stick with NIB.

BTW, Check out this hilarious video that chronicles the truth behind being a “Bro.”  (Thanks to Steve Matthews for e-mailing this) –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaS6mlUS5Kw

I’ve gotten nummmmmmerous requests from some of my dear friends at the Hotel School to get their names in my blog (they want to get in now to hit the wave when my blog goes international).  So first up, Diana Delli Santi and Amanda Diaz:

Diana– You are fabulous, admirable, gregarious, magnanimous, and distinguished (that’s right – Roget’s Thesaurus baby).  Your Italian nature gives you a special talent and refinement in the art of pasta-making, and regardless of what Gindy says about your intelligence (or lack thereof), I bet you could beat Einstein in a game of Parcheesi for shizzle.

Amanda– You have flowing, golden locks of splendor comparable to that of a mythical creature.  Your looks of pure excitement and fascination when talking about Dinosaurs is not only inspirational, but downright invigorating.  I declare now that your eloquence will become legendary in the near future.

***Btw, you guys owe me for this =D