When I went to hear Mr. Lemnios, the CEO of Sun Coffee, give a talk at Rose House, I thought that most of the talk would be about coffee and its production. Well, a significant portion was, but I appreciated that Mr. Lemnios also discussed being an entrepreneur in general. One of the aspects of the talk that stood out to me the most was how he stressed the importance of having ideals as the key motivating factors for what you do. He showed us part of a TedX presentation video titled “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” done by Simon Sinek. In the video, one of the examples used was Apple. Mr. Sinek pointed out that Apple puts the question of “why?” at the heart of their design implementation. Indeed, for Sun Coffee, Mr. Lemnios put the answers to this question at the heart of his company by making it part of Sun Coffee’s mission to give back to the community and leave a small footprint. I believe this can be applied to all aspects of life, not just entrepreneurship. If we really ask ourselves “why?” we pursue certain goals, I believe the answers to this question can motivate us to achieve them. If we have strong ideals behind us, the path ahead is clearer.
Author Archives: MelodiousConquest
Suggestions
Last week, we had an open discussion about the Rose Scholars program. Therefore, I would like to propose solutions to a couple of issues that came up in the discussion. Firstly, Dr. Hill mentioned that it would be ideal if more Rose House residents who were not necessarily in the Rose Scholars program came to events. One suggestion I have for achieving this is to not use asterisks to denote Rose Scholar events. I feel like they are liable to make some students feel like they are more exclusively focused on Rose Scholars and not Rose House residents in general. Because most of the weekly events are eligible Rose Scholar events already, I believe it would be better to simply denote which are not Rose Scholar events.
Another issue that came up was the social aspect of the program. Besides the initial ice breaker at the beginning of the year, I feel the scholars generally don’t really get to know each other too well. Not to mention, I do not believe ice breakers are that great to begin with. As most students are not enthusiastic about them, they simply go through the motions and forget most if not all of the dozen or so names they randomly pick up. Instead, I believe it would be better to perhaps have more game nights. I know there were at least a couple board game events this semester, which I was not able to make. But in general, I believe students are likely to get to know each other better when sitting at the same table playing a game for thirty minutes or so. Another option would be to have sports events. For instance, there could be casual basketball games at the Noyes Community Recreation Center. Then students who go would get some exercise as well!
Universities Coming Together
Last Wednesday, I got to learn about track and field and the Transatlantic Series. What stood out to me from the talk was the aspect of bringing different schools together to enjoy a common interest. The different perspectives gained from this are very interesting. From my own experience with the Esports at Cornell club, having Overwatch teams from Cornell play against teams from other schools, even just over the internet, is really enjoyable. Not only does everyone improve from the experience, but even the little discussions between the players over the internet can be rather entertaining and interesting. In fact, considering the mutual benefits of bringing universities together for Esports and sports in general, we hope to have tournaments in person with other universities in the future!
Great Black and White Comedic Film
Last week, I got to see Duck Soup at the Cornell Cinema. This was probably the oldest film I have ever seen. The only possibly adverse effect I felt this had on the film was the lack of color. However, the black and white presented its own subtle charm and novelty for those such as myself who rarely watch older films. The movie was very enjoyable and amusing. The pranks pulled by Chicolini and Pinky were very well choreographed, especially the mirror scene. The plot surrounding the clueless Rufus T. Firefly’s leadership of the fictional country Freedonia as he hurled clever insults at seemingly everyone was well written. The length of this film for its genre was also perfect as it was not too short nor did it drag on. I won’t give away any spoilers so you can watch it for yourself!
Scientific Facts
Last week, I went to the talk given by Dr. Jonathan Robins about fats. Firstly, I want to say that I really appreciate him making the drive all the way to Ithaca in spite of the snow. However, I wish there could have bit more of a plan for the presentation. After his introduction about fats and why he was here speaking about them, he opened up the discussion to Q&A, which made for a short session. I think it would have been better to have slides and an overarching theme for the 1 hour talk.
In spite of this, I found it interesting how Dr. Robins pointed out that there wasn’t concrete evidence for one fat being better than the other. It was also interesting how the different companies would run campaigns against other companies, claiming that one fat was bad for you while theirs was not. It makes one realize it’s important to consider the scientific facts behind food in making good judgements about what is actually beneficial to your health.
Great Depression Diet
Last Wednesday, I got to see Jane Ziegelman give a talk about food during the great depression. One aspect I really enjoyed was seeing how involved Cornell University, and Flora Rose, were with solving the hunger problem! I also thought it was really interesting to consider how the hunger problem was dealt with. Using the government rations, recipes had to be formulated which made use of very little. The idea of the ideal diet during the great depression was that which had the most nutrition for the least amount of money.
This made me consider our food consumption today. Today, many of us take food for granted. As a result, we tend to also eat for pleasure, not just sustenance. This can lead to unhealthy eating, which is compounded by industrial innovations which have led to the rise of what is essentially “fake food”. We consume a lot of food which does not serve an important nutritional purpose and in many cases is actually harmful. The diet during the great depression focused strictly on what our bodies needed to survive. In light of this, perhaps we can learn something from the minimalist diet of those during the great depression!
Memories
Yesterday, I went to Nicholas Carbonaro’s art exhibit event. Firstly, I want to say that I really enjoyed the setup. His art was beautifully arranged along the wall, there were chips and salsa (hard to go wrong there), and a great student jazz band playing. I went a little before 5:15, so I walked up close to the paintings and artwork to check them out in detail. It was interesting to see the different styles that Mr. Carbonaro had in his work. While some exhibited pointillism, some of the other paintings looked Picasso inspired. There were even photographs arranged in an artistic fashion. They were all very aesthetically pleasing.
Looking at the paintings, upon first inspection I didn’t really understand them. I could make out shapes of animals and people in some of them, but I didn’t grasp what their significance was. One of the biggest aspects of the night that stood out to me was when Mr. Carbonaro was discussing his artwork and pointed out that the whole exhibit was a showcase of “memories”. All of the artwork on the wall was his memories and the ways he had perceived them at the time. I really appreciated this point, and I was able to enjoy the exhibit in a new way after that revelation.
Anyone Can Help the Environment
Last Saturday, we took a tour to the nonprofit organization SewGreen in downtown Ithaca. I have not been to many nonprofit organizations, so that aspect was very interesting. Firstly, the store itself was very nicely laid out, and all of the fabrics and materials looked as if they were brand new even though they were recycled. One of the motivations for the store was the realization that so many tend to just discard their sewing materials, because they don’t know what else to do with them. Creating SewGreen allowed those materials to be put to good use while in turn helping the environment.
The director of SewGreen, Ms. Wendy Skinner, was very enthusiastic and gave a great discussion of what motivated her to help start SewGreen. She was interested in helping the environment, but she wanted to do it in a way that was original. That’s how she got the idea to combine her interest in sewing with the helping the environment. I really liked how she pointed out that anyone with any major can play a role in supporting our planet. This was significant to me in particular since I am very interested in getting involved with renewable energy research, as I am majoring in engineering physics.
Women’s March or Anti-Trump Protest?
I went to the table talk: Women Unite! It provided for a very interesting discussion to hear from the GRFs about their experiences in the women’s march. I thought it was particularly intriguing to hear about how there were so many people there for reasons other than just women’s rights. When it came up that there were even people in the march who voted for Trump, it seemed hypocritical to at least a few of the students in the discussion. This did seem strange, considering the march essentially acted as an anti-Trump protest. However, it could have been that the Trump supporters either regretted their votes or thought Trump was the lesser of two evils at the time, so to speak.
One thing seemed clear to me by the end of the discussion. The women’s march in Washington was not just a women’s march, but instead more broad in nature. It was basically a protest against the divisive campaign that Trump ran. It was a protest against the various things Trump had said about women, minorities, the LGBT community, etc. I believe peaceful protests are really good and serve a purpose. However, the talk made me also want to consider the alternate ways in which one can actively make a difference in politics. One piece of useful info I picked up in relation to this was that you can call your representative!