Around the Horn

As I briefly mentioned earlier, I trekked to Massachusetts over Fall Break to visit a few high school friends.  It was good to get away from Ithaca for a weekend, but I couldn’t help by notice how all of our college lifestyles are immensely different, and this is undoubtedly influenced by the location, size, culture of our respective schools.  And for many of you contemplating early decision/action, these are crucial elements to consider.  If you have the opportunity to visit a campus, especially if you are applying early, take it.  My own thoughts after this enlightening social experience:

The small liberal arts school:  While visiting my friend Sarah, there is no beating the scenery of rural Massachusetts.  The leaves were in their full fall glory, and the campus is idyllic.  I also admire the school spirit within this small school; students were out in force, cheering at football, soccer, and other sporting matches.  While I think having such a small student community (2,000 students) really bonds the students together, by the end of the weekend, I was unwillingly immersed in all of the school’s drama.  Yes, any school will have their fair share of talk and gossip, but this gave me memories of high school, where everyone knew everyone, and you couldn’t really walk around campus without bumping into the one guy/girl you are currently in a tiff with.  Sarah also seemed to have a saga/epic for every person who passed us (and–of course–said hi, too).

The urban campus: During my senior year, I was sure I wanted urban; I’m an LA girl, and city folk don’t enjoy anything rural or inaccessible.  I applied early, and was devastated when I received a rejection letter (ouch?).  I will say that everything worked out for the best.  While I maintain that I prefer a city environment, I’ve shifted my necessity for city down a few years.  Looking back, I would have been terrified of the city; I probably would never fully experience a community or bond among my class.  And, pinching pennies would be difficult with my impulse shopping and buying.

Too big, too small, just right: Cornell is a perfect match for me, and I can only wish you all the best in your quest to find your perfect-fit school.

Music 2241: Opera!  Do I sing in the class?  I wish, but no, and consider yourself lucky; I haven’t sung since high school, where I was belting out high notes, simultaneously sashaying across the stage in 80’s attire (we performed Fame my senior year).  I’ve always wanted to get involved with music here, and had signed up to audition for the orchestra the August before stepping onto campus.  The one problem was that while I made it to campus, my cello didn’t (I do recall Daddy Lin and I getting into a big tiff over this).  So, four years later, trying to take advantage of the breadth of courses offered here, I finally enrolled in a music class.

The class is smaller; around 15 students or so.  Every opera takes up two weeks of semester, and we began with Puccini’s La Boheme.  Following the libretto, we examine how the music serves as the main storytelling device in an opera.  Contrary to popular depiction, operas aren’t all just rotund men and women in viking caps screeching at the top of their lungs; there are a lot of younger up-and-coming (and fit) singers that are taking on more challenging operatic roles.  Not only is this a sight for sore eyes, but breaks down the stuffy and archaic stereotype of opera.

I’m taking an opera class this semester, which I’ll have to write more about when I have a moment to breathe, and whenever Time Warner decides to show up and hook up the internet in my house.  I’ve been reading librettos, and seeing how the Italian text–the actual lyrics–synchronizes with the composer’s orchestration has given my somewhat-nerdy classical music interest a good shake up.  But that’s neither here nor there.

Maybe it’s because I LOVED the documentary Spellbound, down to the kid whose dad hired people in India to pray for his son for a potential victory in the National Spelling Bee.  Gosh, how we hold our breaths with those kids, hoping the bell won’t ding after they finish their spelling execution (A very “hhhhnnngggg” moment).  That, along with my sudden immersion into Italian text, got me thinking:  Do spelling bees exist in other countries?

English has got to be one of the most inconsistent languages because there are so many exceptions to rules, so many foreign influences.  In that regard, it’s easy to stump kids trying to spell ‘alopecia’ or ‘derailleur’ (two words I picked out of the “frequently used” word list, posted on the National Spelling Bee’s official website. Credibility is key.). But looking at Italian, or any other romance language, it seems phonetically consistent: what you see is what you’ll get, and maybe you’ll run into a special rule here or there.  After picking up the rules, spelling out a word doesn’t seem too complicated.  Come to think of it, Japanese would probably be a piece of cake, since they follow even stricter phonetic rules, with the hiragana and katakana writing systems differentiating a word’s origin.  On the other hand, I have no idea how a Chinese spelling bee would work…

Anyway, just a thought.  I went to my Development of Economic Thought class today, and the professor described himself as “nuts, but harmless.”  How apropos to my own stream of consciousness.

Coursenroll for Juniors was last Monday. This was the first time that I finally had dibs on classes before anyone else. No more waiting lists, no more runs to the departments to get into specific classes. While the University had its own glitches with PeopleSoft, the new software that replaced our Just the Facts enrollment program, I did end up with the classes that I wanted.

My Fall semesters have always been fully loaded with important courses. While the same applies for Fall 2008, my distribution and major requirements are dwindling, and I find myself with a much “lighter” schedule that I anticipated.

Up to bat:

1. Introduction to Wines: This is every Senior’s must-take class. Apparently this class is harder than most, since not everything is about wining and dining.

2. Green Cities: In the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. This is to fulfill my International Relations Concentration coursework.

3. Development of Economic Thought: A lot of econ majors and non-majors have good reviews on the professor, George Boyer. I also need two more 300-level econ courses to complete my major.

4. Foodways: Social History of Food and Eating.  I like food.  I like socializing.  This will be one of my fun courses.

5.  Asian American Urban Experience.  This is a seminar that I’ll be taking pass/fail.  Just something that I’m interested in listening in on, no pressure to make the grade.

So, all the previously heavy schedules have made way for classes that I just want to take.  with no pressure to complete distribution requirements, senioritis is imminent.

While Mann Library on the Ag Quad is amazing for evening study sessions, I’m a regular at Olin Library’s Libe Cafe between classes. Just like my daily hit of green tea, Libe Cafe offers me my hit of social interaction for the day. There is no need to hike to the Ag Quad when I have a free hour. I also don’t have the focus to open my monetary policy textbook anytime before 8 pm. The chatting volume serves as my white noise catharsis, and if it ever exceeds my decibel tolerance, my ipod always does the trick.

Libe Cafe has an assortment of seating options. There are plenty of cushiony arms chairs, a couple of high table stools, and my go to option, the 2-seater arrangement. There’s a table with enough room to fit a laptop or spread your work out, and you have two marvelous views in the library: the Arts Quad and the Libe Cafe social scene. And with an extra seat, there’s always room for another regular to stop by and chat.

Econ362: International Monetary Policy

It’s a crazy time to be in this class right now.  We focus on exchange rates and macroeconomic factors that affect a country’s monetary strength against other currencies.  The biggest factor that affects exchange rates is market expectation, as Viktor has consistently drilled into our heads.  This past week, our professor has been having a hey-day because the US dollar is quickly depreciating against the Euro, the Pound, and the Yen.  When we started the class in early February, the Dollar-to-Euro exchange rate was around 1.48.  Today, we’re looking at 1.56 Dollars/Euro.

It’s the Friday before Spring Break right now, about half of the Cornell population has cleared out for Spring Break ‘08 in Cancun, St. John, Cabo, or whichever other sun-filled island preparing for a mass college student invasion.  There were probably around 15 people in class today (out of 60), and this “exceeded my expectation!”  I guess Viktor has a sense of humor as well.

AEM324:  Finance

This is a hard class.  I still don’t understand why AEM students have such a bad rep.  Business Week just ranked the Applied Economics and Management program as the #4 Undergraduate Business Program in the nation.  A little more background to the business-hungry, the AEM program is one of two accredited undergraduate business programs in the Ivy League–the other being the Wharton program at Penn.

Rich Curtis is the professor, and he is unlike anyone I’ve met.  He is intense in class, so much so that I am on edge every second in lecture, in fear that if I even think to shut one eye, he’ll call me out on it.  Rule 1: don’t fall asleep in class.  Because there is so much material in the class, lectures move quickly.  Rule 2: keep up on reading.  As serious as Curtis may sound, he still manages to loosen up the class with his interesting pop-taste in music.  We heard a golden oldie–Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs”–in section yesterday.

Aside from all the work involved in the class, the material is helpful, especially for those interested in entering finance.  Slowly but surely, I’m picking up the finance lingo, all thanks to this class.

History 314: American Foreign Policy WWI-Present

Up until now, I’ve always been scared to take history classes, just because the first thing that comes to mind is the amount of reading.  Because we are looking at events in retrospect, there is a lot of micro-analyzing and counterfactuals.  And everyone has an opinion on why certain events panned out, so it builds up to lots and lots of books.  As an econ major, I do graphs better than chapters.  Unless the history textbook has pictures, that offers a good visual/mental break while reading.  Speaking of pictures, gone are the old history/social studies textbooks with 5 pictures to a page, general “review” questions at the end of each section.  Readers are now the norm, with essays galore.  It’s something no one in high school ever told me to expect.

Professor Logevall is our storyteller, and he has made this History Class awesome.  Note storyteller.  Every Monday and Wednesday, I walk into HEC Auditorium, sit down and get ready for pages of note taking and total engagement in the story that is American Modern-Age History.  Logevall always phrases his lectures in a “we” perspective.  On Monday just before the 11:15 mark, Logevall walks in and without skipping a beat, tells the class that “we are going to war today…no, not with Iran, but Germany and Japan.”  He lectures in the present tense, so the class follows the story in real time.  Right now, we are in the midst of World War II, and I cannot wait to see what happens next.

It looks like Econ367: Game Theory is taking the award for Most Amusing Class of Spring 2008. To start off, Professor Basu opened the class with a few “parlor games” and explained the significance of sequence and theory in order to determine the winner of these “parlor games.”

Let’s say that you and a friend are playing an intense game of Cover a Round Table with Coins. Your goal is to win the coin-count so that when it’s your friend’s turn to move, there is nowhere to place their coin. All the coins are the same size and cannot be stacked or overlapped, but the spacing between coins can vary. How/why does the first mover always win?

Professor Basu also introduced a game called “Hex,” a John Nash favorite while at Princeton. Legend has it that Nash and his colleagues enjoyed playing a few rounds of Hex while hanging out in the bathroom and staring at the hexagon-tiled floor. So you have a rhombus board with congruent hexagon tiles. Two opposite sides (say, left and right) represent one color, and the remaining opposite sites (up and down) represent another. Each color’s goal is to connect a bridge from one side to another: think Connect Four. Basu said that if both players are rational, then the first mover will always win.

Why does the first mover always win? That’s something Basu will cover this semester. Connect Four in class? I’m hooked.

New Year’s at home is never complete without a morning trip to Colorado Boulevard to watch the Rose Parade, an afternoon of watching the Rose Bowl Game (USC killed Illinois), and a few New Year’s resolutions. Of course, there is always the disclaimer that many of these resolutions will fizzle out by mid-February.

1. Burn off some blubber. While Operation Tighten is ongoing throughout the school year, there are just too many temptations/craving at home. I guess this would rule out See’s candies, gobs of peanut butter, donuts, In-N-Out, among others. So, Operation Tighten shall resume January 4, when I leave SoCal for Low-Cal training. The biggest enemy for Operation Tighten is my lazy-college-student diet, also known as Taste of Thai, Sindbad’s, and Maxie’s.

2. Try to stay in touch with friends who are abroad. Some of my closest friends are going across the pond for a semester, and both parties will definitely be wrapped up in their own everyday doings. The best tool for staying in touch will be Skype, or any other online chatting program (gchat is AMAZING).

3. Boycott boys. Though playing the “game” is fun, missing ANTM marathons for guys just ain’t worth it. And, my wandering eye has earned me a boy-crazy reputation among my roommates: good or bad? Either way, less boys=less talk about boys=not boy crazy. It’ll be interesting to see how this resolution pans out because I tend to meet these boys in class. And, who rejects an offer to work on a problem set together?

4. Get a job.
5. Stay as zen as possible. Lots of things lined up for the semester: rowing lineups, sorority duties, classes, job interviews, Ithacation. Essentially, a recipe for personal implosion. Hopefully some of the yoga moves I picked up this break can promote an easy-going lifestyle among the madness.

6. Finish Monday crosswords in under 10 minutes (it’s been done before) and complete more than one Friday New York Times Crossword. Wil Shortz, you’re on.