Author Archives: Gianna Buccellato

The Smell of Great Coffee

Posted on by
1

So I don’t really enjoy black coffee.  I’m the girl you make fun of at Starbucks because I’m getting pumps of chocolate, vanilla, or whatever they have to add sugar to it.   The bitterness of black coffee is just too much for my tastebuds to handle and if I want to enjoy it I have to add sugar to mask it.

Though I can’t say I enjoyed the taste of gimme! coffee black on its own, I can say that I immediately could smell the difference between their coffee and just regular watered down coffee.  I had no idea that I could smell a cup of coffee and actually remind me of blueberries (I’m not joking one of their blends smelled just like a blueberry).  Each one’s smell was different and so much deeper and stronger than your average cup of coffee.  I bet I would’ve even tasted the difference even if I loaded it with cream and sugar.  I definitely want to go there in the future and give them a fair chance.  I’ll try not to pump some artificial flavoring syrup in there so that I can enjoy the natural flavors of their coffee, but I definitely need some sugar to enjoy it more.

Don’t Forget to Water Your Flowers

Posted on by
4

The biggest takeaway from the “How Do We Love” session was that even though we all came from different backgrounds and situations, we all generally agreed about the ideas of love.  I’ve always felt that the definition of love was something that can’t be defined or set by certain parameters. There’s no age limit, or limits to race or gender.  Love is something for everyone and everything and there’s no way to define who it doesn’t belong to because it belongs to everyone.  There are so many forms of love like the relationship between a mother and her child, or two people romantically involved, or even two best friends.

The definition in our session I most agreed with was the idea that love is not just a feeling but also an action.  When we think about love as an action, and not just a simple feeling, we can now gain control over love.  Some people can justify a bad relationship by just saying “Oh I can’t do anything about the way I feel”, but if you believe love is also an action you can choose to take control.  Some people may disagree, but I’ve always believed that there is some action to love.  I’m not denying that emotions and feelings are a part of it; I’m just saying that people can be held accountable for love through their actions.  The best metaphor I can imagine is that love is like a flower.  It can sprout through a connection or feeling, but it grows by watering and nurturing it.  In the same way, the flower will die if it not given the nutrients it needs.  You can say you love someone all you want, but unless your actions prove it, the flower will wilt and die.

What I learned through this process was that I’ve been neglecting some of the relationships in my life, particularly the relationships with my parents, grandparents and my siblings.  I spend a lot of time on my relationship with boyfriend that sometimes I forget about my family.  I just have to remember to water all the flowers in my life and not put one above the others.

Public Art: Another Reason Why I Love Ithaca

Posted on by
3

I can’t draw or really do anything of the visual arts nature, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it.  What I love about public art is the fact that it is well public.  It doesn’t necessarily belong to anyone person, and it can reach and affect all those who get to see it, whether its someone that lives in Ithaca and walks past it every day to work or some random passerby.  The fact that Ithaca promotes and encourages the public art is amazing, because it helps to make what could be a drab concrete nightmare into a place of beauty and expression.

The one thing I loved most was that it was all so colorful.  I can imagine when the snow falls and everything seems coated on white that Ithaca can still have the same vibrancy of color year round.  One of my favorite color walls was this one of a little tiki figure guy. we didn’t get much of the back story on this one but I thought the colors really stood out.

IMG_2936

The other really cool aspect of the tour was to see that some of the pieces artwork clearly were a message or a call to action and that it wasn’t just meant to be pretty but also though provocative.  One example I can think of was the mural to Fredrick Douglas and Harriet Tubman.  While the colors and the portraits were beautiful, the art also had an underlying meaning and to serve as a reminder of the horrors of slavery and the workings of the underground railroad. I included a picture of this mural below.

IMG_2945

 

Lastly, I just want to comment that I liked that all of the pieces were so different.  It would be boring if we had art in downtown but all the art was the same.  The public art in Ithaca is reflective of the many diverse groups that live here.  Let me just add public art to the list of things I love about Ithaca.  I’ll include some more pictures below (btw the black and white one at the end was my favorite from the whole tour):

IMG_2937 IMG_2948 IMG_2942 IMG_2938IMG_2934

 

 

I really needed that

Posted on by
Reply

So this past week and the week before have been kinda stressful.  The prelim I was most dreading was this past Tuesday and I was going crazy last weekend.  I’m so glad that we had the opportunity for the self-care workshop, because I know I hadn’t been taking care of myself the way I should have been.

Carving pumpkins is a mindless task, and that is exactly what I needed to do for an hour. Something that didn’t require a lot of brain power, something to help me relax and give my brain a break from working through thermo problems.  Something that I could do to just laugh and have fun.  I really really needed that.

And even though I love going to all the educational and eye-opening events the Rose Scholars provides us with, I have to say that this one was pretty awesome.  And it wasn’t just that I needed a break; it was also the fact that it gave me an opportunity to meet new people in Rose House that I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise.  We talked about favorite past Halloween costumes and which scary movies are the most scary and our own personal holiday traditions back at home.  I hope we have more events like that in the future, where we can just laugh and talk and meet new people. It was definitely the break I needed last weekend.

 

We’re Not Like the Other Ivies

Posted on by
Reply

I guess I should be a little ashamed that I knew so little about the history of Cornell University’s founder Ezra Cornell, but the entire story was not anything I expected.  I had always just assumed that Cornell was like all the other schools in the Ivy League, originally intended to be a place where rich white protestant men could learn about theocracy.  Discovering that Cornell was actually a land grant university for the state of New York with the message “Any person, any study” founded during the end of the Civil War helped me to realize how unique of a place Cornell really was.  Ezra Cornell knew what it was like to come from nothing, to be a poor farm boy with nothing more than a 3rd grade education.  In his circumstances he never got the chance to pursue higher education and when founding his university he made it clear that he wanted Cornell to be a place where anyone could come and learn regardless of their background.

We didn’t just talk about the history of Cornell and its founder, but also the history of West Campus.  I absolutely love living on West and I’m proud to say I live in a historic and beautiful gothic building.  Interestingly enough West Campus was originally intended to be all gothics, but when the university ran out of money for the project they decided to just build some ugly square residence halls with no decoration.  It wasn’t until recently when those ugly buildings came down for the new House System we know today.  I especially loved to hear that West Campus was originally intended to be a car free area and I love the fact that they’re putting a gate up to stop cars from driving up gothic way.  I’ve walked up that road at night to get back to my dorm and have had to get out of the way of speeding cars, and there really isn’t a sidewalk.

All in all, I really enjoyed learning about Cornell and West Campus’s history and I would like to thank Professor Blalock for taking us on the tour and sharing the history of this amazing school with us.  And also for inviting us into his apartment for desserts, sushi and apple cider (it was delicious).

A Gorges View

Posted on by
1

I can’t believe that in my entire freshmen year I had not once visited the single handedly most beautiful place on campus.  The Cascadilla Gorge was not only beautiful in the early morning light, but immensely fascinating and full of knowledge.

I had a similar belief to our guide that right angles and straight lines just do not exist in nature, and it was amazing to hear that the gorge is in fact not man made in any way. The photo below is an awesome example of these almost perfect lines and right angles, although if I remember correctly this erosion was actually caused by a storm drain and not natural rainfall or water.

IMG_2860

 

I’m really glad that I got the opportunity to see such an amazing feat of nature and I’m sure I’ll go back there plenty of times in the future.  The one thing I really took away from this was that I’m very grateful to go to school at a university that cares this much about the surrounding environment and nature itself.  Thanks Cornell for spending all that time to repair the path on the gorge.  I definitely think it was worth it and hopefully more students and locals go check it out, because it truly is inspiring.

 

And for anyone’s enjoyment, I’ll just add some more photos that I took on the gorge hike below:

IMG_2862 IMG_2856 IMG_2861 IMG_2859

How many different foods can be made with peppers?

Posted on by
2

I’ll give you a hint the answer is a lot.

Yesterday at the pepper party I tried a lot of new things (something that for me is a little strange considering how much of a picky eater I am), all made with peppers and all surprisingly really delicious.  I tried some pepper ice cream which no wasn’t spicy at all; it was surprisingly sweet and delicious.  I tried some amazing mustard made with Datil peppers (I think I spelled that right) that was so delicious that I wished I could’ve just taken the entire jar.  It was like one of those perfect almost spicy mustards but still sweet like a honey mustard and made my mouth water when combined with pretzel sticks.  I tried some very spicy Chinese inspired stir-fry that made me wish I had some milk on hand.  I had some delicious Southwestern inspired chili which I went back for three times (oops).  I had chile pepper dark chocolate which surprisingly went very very well together.  This along with countless other food options was one of my favorite parts of the pepper party.

But it wasn’t the only thing I loved. What I enjoyed the most was all the knowledge about peppers that I didn’t even realized existed.  The most valuable thing I learned at the pepper party revolved around one chemical compound: capsaicin.  Depending on the length of the capsaicin chain and its make up, the spiciness of the pepper can change.  Capsaicin binds to the pain receptors of the mouth, making them believe that not only are you experiencing pain but also heat.  The chemical actually does absolutely nothing to harm your mouth and instead makes you believe you’re in pain even when nothing is hurting you.  The easiest remedy to dull out the spiciness of peppers is to actually drink milk because of a compound in milk called casein.  Casein bonds to the capsaicin chains to prevent the capsaicin from bonding with the pain receptors in the mouth, thus making the pain of spicy food die down a whole lot faster.  Next time you eat some spicy peppers be sure to reach for a glass of milk; water only spreads the capsaicin out making the pain actually worse.

So I hope anyone that reads this gains some useful knowledge for eating some spicy foods made with peppers.  And maybe another lesson which I learned at this party: don’t knock something until you try it, because you may just discover that you like it.