Author Archives: Kaela Noble

Coffee is life

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I used to hate coffee, until I became a barista and had to work around it all the time. I was pretty ironic at first, a barista who hated coffee.

Anyways, I found gimme! coffee’s presentation to be extremely thorough and informative. Coffee is a luxury that we are lucky to have, and we tend to not think about that on our morning Starbucks runs. As a barista, I’m always really sad when we have to pour coffee down the drain when we remake it every two hours.

It was cool to learn some history and background about the stuff that I make for customers on a daily basis. I had never really thought about the history of coffee before, and I was really into the presentation. We even got to try coffee straight from Ethiopia (if I recall correctly), which tasted waaaaay different from your typical cup of Starbucks. Unfortunately, Starbucks is a huge multinational corporation, so they have to sacrifice quality for low costs.

I think it’s important to learn the history behind foods and drinks that we consume all the time, which we tend not to even think about. I’ll definitely be thinking about the history of coffee every time I brew it now.

We live here too, ya know.

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“Save the nematodes!” just doesn’t have as good a ring to it as “Save the dolphins!”

However, marine invertebrates deserve just as much attention as we give to other sea creatures such as dolphins and sea turtles. Society at large tends to pay attention to “cute” sea creatures: the more evolutionarily advanced ones, and the ones we can relate to. There have been huge movements to stop overfishing and trash pollution, and the images associated with these movements tend to show sharks with their fins cut off or sea turtles with their heads stuck in those plastic soda can holders.

We tend to ignore the fact that the changes humans have made to the ocean over the years, from raising its temperature to polluting it with mountains of trash, not only affect marine vertebrates that have a prominent place in the media. The ocean is home to more than just pretty fish, adorable dolphins, and scary sharks. Although nematodes are not as cute as dolphins, they are in just as much danger if humans continue on our destructive path.

Professor Harvell’s talk and the documentary that she starred in helped open my eyes to this. If there had been a disease like the one discussed in the film that was killing sea lions up and down the West Coast (instead of sea stars), the media would be all over it and everyone would know about it. This is a problem, and I’m sure Professor Harvell’s documentary will help to spread awareness about protecting the smaller creatures living in our oceans.

In the meantime, someone come up with a slogan that sounds better than “Save the marine invertebrates!”

Getting pumped for self-care!

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There was something strangely satisfying about pulling out fistfuls of pumpkin goop during the self-care workshop last Saturday. I honestly went into it with a pretty bad attitude; I was planning on leaving early because it seemed like a waste of my time when I had prelims to study for. However, once the carving started, I gladly stayed the full hour and a half. It felt nice to focus all of my energy on cutting open a pumpkin rather than on trying to remember what happens when an alkene reacts with a molecule of mercury acetate. It was also an awesome opportunity to meet other Rose scholars and get excited for Halloween with them.

At a school as stressful as Cornell it’s pretty surprising that events like this aren’t more common. Cornell should hold a biweekly arts and crafts session or something, because every season here is prelim season.

Have a fun and safe Halloween everyone!

We’re All Human After All

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What is the difference between killing somebody and murdering them? According to the Oxford Dictionary, murder is “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another”. In order for a killing to be considered a murder, it must be unlawful and premeditated. The killing of one soldier by another during war is thus not murder… But only because it lawful.

 

Professor Ohlins’s discussion about international criminal law was very thought-provoking for me about the whole concept of war. While he was discussing the punishments that governments face if they unlawfully kill during war, it made me think about the futility of it all. War is literally people killing other people in order to defend their arbitrary boundaries (e.g. countries). Deeper than a soldier’s nationality is the fact that he is human; every soldier on either side of the battlefield is human, with feelings and loved ones and lives of their own. War blinds us to this fact, and leads us to view the other side not as individuals, but as a collection of “communists” or “Germans” or “people from the next tribe over”.

 

A soldier “kills” another but does not “murder” him simply because our government has said it is okay to kill people fighting for the “bad” side. Through the lens of war, killing one civilian is worse than killing a thousand soldiers. War makes us forget that we are all human.

Behind Closed Doors

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When Professor Garrick said that the next stop on our behind-the-scenes tour of Rose house was a memorial room in the lobby of Lyon hall, I was confused. I’ve walked through that lobby many times and had never noticed a memorial room of any sort. When we got there I remember thinking, “Oh, it’s THOSE doors.” I had looked at those doors every time I had walked through the lobby, but I had never given any thought as to what was behind them.
This got me thinking about how sometimes you can see something every day but never really pay attention to it, besides knowing it’s there. I feel like life (and especially Cornell) is often so stressful and busy that people have no time anymore to pay attention to small things like this. It’s pretty sad that nowadays life is so fast-paced that people don’t even have time to think about what’s behind a door in the dorm where they live. There are sooooo many cool places to explore not only on West, but all around campus in the buildings that we walk through every day. Make time to open doors!

Um… Interviews?

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Professor Dan Schwarz is a very eloquent and engaging speaker. I think everyone in the room was able to see that.

Instead of telling us what we have all already heard about finding internships and asking professors for recommendations, maybe he could have shared some of the secrets behind how he can present to a roomful of people without a shred of visible anxiety.

Schwarz mentioned multiple times how important interviews will be in a college student’s future, and his advice on the matter was to speak confidently without “um”s and “like”s.

Which is much easier said than done.

Most people are not blessed with the natural eloquence that Schwarz clearly displayed to us last Wednesday night. I believe his spiel about interviews would have been much more effective if he had included even a few tips about how to overcome your “um”s while speaking in nerve-wracking situations.

Furthermore, I sensed a slight aura of superiority from him while he was talking about his colleagues whom he has seen stumble with “um”s while giving speeches. As someone with social anxiety, I find it difficult to talk in normal social situations, let alone during an interview or while giving a speech or presentation. Instead of putting down those of us who are not naturally blessed with articulacy like he is, perhaps Schwarz should have shared some insight into improving this in order to kick butt in our future interviews. I think this is the best advice he could have given us that night.