Author Archives: Lauren Kilcullen

PUPPIES!!!

Posted on by
3

I love puppies. Anyone who knows me knows I love my dog pretty much more than anything else on this planet. Dogs are amazing animals and it really makes me sad how so many people think they are just that – just animals. We treat my dog like another person in my house. When you pay attention, you notice just how expressive dogs are. They get happy, sad, frustrated and tired. They miss their humans when they’re gone but they also need their own alone time. They can communicate very effectively if you know how to listen, and they can tell you things beyond just “I need to go out” or “I’m hungry”. And every dog is different – snuggly dogs will tell you that they love you by plopping in your lap. My dog, who is a German Shepherd, doesn’t like to snuggle, but she tackles me every time I come home and follows me around the house and sits at my feet when I watch tv or eat dinner.

Guiding Eyes is a nonprofit organization which breeds all their own dogs and trains them to be seeing eye dogs. They work with labs and shepherds, and the process is very extensive and is as much about the dogs as it is about the people. People get matched to dogs and the people actually have to go through training as well to learn about the particular aspects about the dog and how to handle them. The dogs also have some sort of say – if they really don’t seem to enjoy the work or if there is a reason they cannot work, they are given to loving homes as pets. Guiding eyes recognizes the amazing abilities of dogs and their intelligence, and I really appreciated hearing about the organization (and playing with the puppies!)

True enemies?

Posted on by
2

Mr. Sloan made some pretty interesting arguments about how in the case of Galileo religion was not the enemy. I think this very much depends on what definition of religion we use. Was Galileo convicted because he was challenging the word of God? I don’t think so. But one definition of religion is “an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group.” (Merriam-Webster) Under this definition, I think his trial very much was a matter of science versus religion. Galileo was challenging the beliefs of essentially the whole world. People don’t like to be wrong, they don’t like to be told they’re wrong, and more than anything people don’t like change. Right or wrong people will cling to their way of life and refuse change until it is forced upon them. Galileo knew he was right and maybe he thought he could spark the change in people’s minds. In that regard, at least, he was wrong. Was Galileo fighting against the Catholic Church? Perhaps, perhaps not. Was Galileo fighting against religion? I believe he was.

I NEED COFFEE

Posted on by
Reply

A feeling that most Cornellians can relate to is the need for caffeine. Whether you need a cup of coffee in the morning to wake you up, a cup during that afternoon slump to cheer you up, several late night cups to keep you up, or all three, almost everyone here drinks coffee at some point, most of us daily. But to a lot of us, coffee is just what we use it for; something to wake/cheer/keep us up. Many of us slog through life, coffee cup in hand, never realizing the work and artisanship that goes into brewing our daily caffeine dose. Americans tend to like Brazilian, Colombian, and Ethiopian coffees because they are dark and strong. This has to do with how the beans, which come from coffee cherries, are harvested, dried/washed, roasted, and ground. We like our coffee strong enough to wake the dead, with deep, smoky, chocolaty notes. In other parts of the world, such as Eastern Asia, they like lighter roasts, with more acidic and tea-like flavours. Gimme! Coffee spoke with us about the differences in how they prepare their coffee from chains like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. They also spoke about how they source from individual farms, and how those types of relationships both get the farms more money and the company more coffee. I was also surprised to learn that both of our visitors had began as baristas. One of them, Ben, spoke on this, on how most people don’t associate being a barista with having a career and having somewhere to grow – but there are plenty of opportunities, especially at Gimme! Coffee, to rise to managerial positions and become new employee trainers and move up within the company. They were both definitely passionate about coffee and their jobs, and the samples they prepared were delicious. It was nice to try coffee not doused in cream and sugar like I usually have it when it’s from preground coffee sitting in a pot. They ground the beans at the table and brewed each type of coffee at different water temperatures. It was surprising the difference in taste that the individual beans could have. My favourite was the Ethiopian coffee – it was chocolaty and faintly fruity, and a little sweet, something I could drink black in the morning.

If I could buy a dripper and a coffee grinder and a kettle with adjustable temperatures and a server and bags of whole beans and filters, you could bet I’d be here in my room brewing gourmet cups of coffee. But the necessary tools are surprisingly expensive. The dripper alone is $40, and their coffee costs 3 or more times the amount per bag I would pay for a bag of my preferred home brew coffee, Starbucks’ Cafe Verona. So despite my plans for the future to be really fancy and have an espresso machine (which forces water through the coffee grounds with 6x atmospheric pressure!), for now I’ll stick to my Keurig.

Free Peanut Butter!!

Posted on by
Reply

As you could probably guess, I was most excited about the free peanut better we received at the end of the Becker-Rose Cafe on Wednesday. But what was talked about during the discussion was also interesting, about how Cornell dining is aiming to improve the way students eat and about how they know what we like and what we don’t – they look at what comes back on the dish return, and they really make an effort to transform what wasn’t eaten or appreciated into something new the next day. While I don’t really care about the meat rationing, because I usually only want one serving or less, some of my male friends complain bitterly about it, especially if they’re trying to eat a lot of food in a short amount of time. It is a point of contention among many people, and in my experience the one time I wanted more than what was given (three chicken nuggets at a time) and asked for more, I was given one additional chicken nugget, which I thought was a little ridiculous. So overall I’m not sure what to think about it.

I noticed, however, that one rose house member suggested that the cookies not be kept right next to the fruit, and the next day the cookies had been moved to the dessert station. It was gratifying to know that the dining staff really do listen to our suggestions.

I appreciated our discussion of how we have to be more rude–a lot of times, especially on popular nights (like taco Tuesday), people wait in line for things they don’t even want because they feel they have to. We all have that instinct – see a line and get on it. But sometimes to increase the efficiency we have to be a little rude and be unafraid to go up to what we want and take it.

I honestly think rose house has the best dining hall, and I eat dinner there more than I do at any other dining hall. I haven’t been going to house dinner lately, but after hearing about the special desserts I might make more of an effort to go. Props to Chef Daniel for making awesome food.

Cemetery clean up

Posted on by
Reply

image

On Saturday I teamed up with some of my best friends from west campus to volunteer for Into the Streets. Our job was to help clean the cemetery and clear a path for the run that takes place there every year to raise awareness for the cemetery and its historical value, and to raise money for its upkeeping and restoration. While it was hard work, and my back and arms hurt for days, we definitely managed to have fun working together to better our community. And through the rain and the blisters it really put into perspective that things happen outside of the bubble we call Cornell University, and that our community could greatly benefit from our banding together more frequently to improve the community in which we live. Volunteering is always time well spent, even though it’s easy to say that we don’t volunteer because we’re too busy. I always feel really good after giving my time to a good cause. I hope more Cornell students, myself included, will be more involved in Ithaca in general–it’s so easy to forget that the outside world exists, and so easy to overlook the difference we could all make.

Two faced

Posted on by
1

image

Painting masks at the Johnson was exactly what I needed–an hour set aside to de-stress and do something creative. After looking through the museum for inspiration, one of the collections of masks stood out to me: there was a set of black and white masks, where the black masks represented evil and the white purity and goodness. Drawing from this I made my mask half white and half black, but with some details to counteract the strict good/evil separation. The black half has gold swirling across its cheeks in a tree like, flowing pattern, to show that even darkness has filaments of light drifting through it. The white side’s face has tears falling from its eye and a deep blue, crack-like pattern across it to represent how there are always faults even in the purest people. The golden mask around its eyes is for the masquerade we all play, both light and dark.

Adventures on West Campus

Posted on by
Reply

It was really good to get out of Founders and look around West Campus, because I spend so much time either just in my room studying (or watching netflix) or up on central. I had never taken the time to explore the space around me — I had never even wondered how the food got into Rose since there is no loading dock, but it was really cool to see how food is transported between the houses on West and the thought and planning that went into making West a truck free area.

I had always wondered about the war memorial, about whether the names on the walls in the arch were all there was too it – I had no idea the memorial room existed, but I was glad to see that it does exist and that it is well kept.

I was also very excited to learn about the free massages and manicures and food at Noyes every other Tuesday – I am looking forward to making this my next study break! It was also very gratifying learning about Ezra Cornell’s life because the next day someone asked me about the history of Cornell and I was able to spout all these new facts about how he put up telegraph lines, made a fortune and founded our university. This tour was a great study break and I learned a lot about both Cornell’s history and Cornell today.

Oh the Tranquility of Nature

Posted on by
1

I love being outside and taking a step away from main campus to take a deep breath and relax. I also love hiking, but I had never been in Cascadilla Gorge. It was really interesting to learn the history behind the gorge and to see the changes that have been made by both nature and man since the original plan was made – it was designed to be a path from students to walk to campus back when Cornell was young. Even before a trail was blazed in the gorge, it was an integral part of the University, until finally the gorge was gifted to Cornell as a natural area.

The most interesting part was learning about and experiencing the juxtaposition of having a natural area in a populated and developed city – while taking a quiet hike we could clearly hear the music drifting down from the Lambda Chi house. We also saw storm pathways that had to be added to the gorge for when city water is drained down into the gorge during storms. We also learned about how when work is done on the gorge the work is implemented to look as though the changes have always been there – even though they haven’t.

Many changes have been made to the gorge since its creation, though just walking along the trail you would think it has always been like that. The gorge has seen trail changes, dam installments and removals, patch jobs, course adjustment, and many other changes – the path used to travel from where Collegetown is now up to Stewart Ave, and another path continued up past the waterfall. While at Cornell it is easy to see what’s new – for example, PSB and, obviously, Klarman Hall, have not always been here. Less obvious is all the work that has gone into campus and its natural areas to keep it looking old and established.

Honeycrisps are Heaven

Posted on by
Reply

Though I’ve lived on the east coast my whole life and gone apple picking nearly every year with my family, I had never tried a Honeycrisp apple. And after trying a Snapdragon, a Cornell-bred new apple who has Honeycrisp as a parent, I realize I’ve been missing out. I had also never thought about all the work and science that goes into growing and maintaining an orchard. I always assumed that you planted an apple seed and hoped it grew into a tree, but as I learned at the orchards yesterday, that’s not the case. In fact, if you try to grow an apple from an apple seed from a store-bought apple, the tree would most likely produce inedible crabapples. The only way to replicate an apple tree is to graft some of the plant onto roots, and most orchards graft onto dwarf roots to maximize apple production and to keep the trees small enough that sunlight can touch every apple. In addition, no two apples are exactly alike, because every apple has to be cross pollinated and therefore have two parent apples.

Apples can be stored for up to 10 months, which was shocking to me. An apple picked off a tree in October can, if stored correctly, be eaten in August the next year and still be crisp and juicy. The apples, once picked, are stored in either an oxygenless sealed refrigeration room, or in a room that is essentially an enormous refrigerator. The apple breeding research facility places a lot of focus on not only the taste of the apple, but also its storability and its resistance to disease. For example, McIntosh apples are rarely used for breeding in New York because of its susceptibility to apple scab.

My favourite part about the trip, however, was that when I arrived at the orchards I didn’t know anyone in the group, and when I left I had plans to get dinner and go to the homecoming fireworks with other rose scholars.