Author Archives: epr38

What About Healthcare?

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I had the opportunity to participate in a table talk last week that discussed healthcare in the United States.  We first talked about how healthcare should be a right of all US citizens, but we couldn’t agree on an effective application of it to benefit the most people.  We soon moved on to talk specifically about the Affordable Care Act.  The thing that was interesting about this part of our conversation was that the various people at the table had different opinions of it.  I realized that, like any other debate, there are going to be people who appreciate the Affordable Care Act and others who dislike it and want it to be gotten rid of: what we have to realize is that there will always be people who object to a healthcare plan, but we need to still create (or revise) something that will benefit the most people.

As I heard the thoughts of some of the other students at the table, I was impressed by how much they knew about the situation and what perspectives they provided us about healthcare in this country.  Since most of this information was new to me, I realized that I in fact know little about this subject: I decided that I must become a more informed citizen so that I can have rational conversations with people that have similar and differing opinions on the subject.  It would be nice to have more dinner conservations with my friends like this one.

CPR: An Essential Skill

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This past weekend, I had the opportunity to learn CPR.  Besides the fact that CPR is a good skill to know anyways, I thought it would be a great idea to do it because I am interested in going into the medical field.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Cornell EMS did a great job explaining the various situations and the steps we should take to perform CPR when necessary; it was also very cool being able to work with other students while learning the steps.  Even though I was nervous about taking the test at the end, it was very low-stress and I was able to receive CPR certification.  I would definitely recommend that anyone learn CPR if he/she has the chance, because it’s pretty simple but it’s something that everyone should know.

O Captain! My Captain!

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Although Dead Poets Society had some flaws, I thought it was a very good movie.  The best part of it to me was the acting of Robin Williams.  Even though he was probably best known for his comedy, Robin Williams was cast in a few serious roles: he played an inspiring English teacher in this movie and a psychologist to Matt Damon in the movie Good Will Hunting.  His acting was so believable that he moves the viewers to feel the emotion of the characters that he corresponds with in the movie.  As a result, we ourselves are inspired to defy convention and to follow our dreams just as Keating tells his students.

I was not expecting the events that happened at the end, which made it more emotionally moving.  Since the one student could not follow his dreams of becoming an actor (because his parents were forcing him to go down the path to become a doctor), he committed suicide.  As a result, Keating was blamed for the suicide and was fired from the school.  The movie ends with the students standing on their desks, yelling “O Captain!  My Captain!” to Keating: the students already knew that Keating was wrongly blamed for the suicide, but now they have fully realized the meaning of why he taught the way he did.

How Do You Like Them Apples?

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This past weekend, I finally had the chance to go to downtown Ithaca and experience Apple Fest.  Since a lot of people told me how good it was last year, I’m glad I decided to go.  Large numbers of Cornell students, Ithaca College students, and Ithaca residents crowded around the many vendors to experience Apple Fest for themselves: it was great to see everyone in this town come together and participate in this event.  The actual products that the vendors were selling at Apple Fest definitely made it worth going to as well: even though I had to wait in a thirty-minute line, I bought several apple cider doughnuts and hot apple cider that were amazing and made the wait worth it; on my way out I also bought a caramel apple that was great too.  Although I only limited myself to foods involving apples, there were many other things that Apple Fest had to offer: other food options, non-food products from local vendors, and a small petting zoo that featured goats in sweaters.  I really enjoyed myself at Apple Fest, and I would definitely recommend that others go, even if they’re only slightly interested: it not only provides a break from working but is an opportunity to take part in a great community-wide event.

The King and His Speech Impediment

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I wasn’t very excited at first to watch The King’s Speech, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the movie.  The plot follows King George VI’s rise to power and his struggle to overcome his stutter.  I thought Colin Firth did a great job of giving the viewer an idea of how a person’s speech impediment—even a world leader’s—can make public speaking even more difficult and intimidating.  He had many people, including his own father, attempt to impose their ideas on him on how to fix his stutter, but all of them were not helpful.  He finally meets a man named Lionel who uses unconventional methods to help him speak without a stutter.  I especially liked how Lionel utilizes music—making him speak while listening to classical music and sing out his sentences—to help him achieve his goal.  By the end of the movie, King George does still have a slight stutter, but now he is able to speak much more succinctly and keep his composure in front of other people.  What I liked most about this movie, besides the historical significance behind it, was the idea that King George was willing to do whatever it took and exert a lot of time, effort, and mental fortitude into achieving his personal goal of beating his stutter.  His determination with regards to his personal life inspires the viewers of the movie to face the challenges in their lives with the hope that they too can overcome them.

Human Perseverance in The Martian

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Ridley Scott’s The Martian features Matt Damon playing the role of US astronaut Mark Watney.  The movie starts with Watney and the rest of his crew exploring Mars; when a storm hits, Watney’s crew assumes he’s dead when they witness him getting hit by flying debris.  However, once the crew is already on their way back to Earth, we find out that Watney is obviously still alive.  When he finds out that everyone is gone, he remains surprisingly calm in this overwhelming situation.  He immediately goes and rations out his crew’s food so that he doesn’t go hungry, and he goes through their supplies to see if there is anything of which he can make use.  He doesn’t stop there, though.  Because he is a botanist, Watney devises a plan to plant potatoes to last him for a long period of time; he also takes steps to contact NASA from Mars, which he does successfully.  NASA devises a plan to bring him supplies, but his crew decides to save him by “catching” the supplies as they slingshot around Earth and head back to Mars.  At the end of the movie, the crew miraculously rescues Watney as he “flies” out of his ship.

The theme of this movie is simple and appears in many other movies—such as Gravity—as well: even though someone is faced with almost impossible odds to survive, human perseverance will always prevail in the end.  This movie takes this idea to the extreme: a man is left on another planet on his own and only has the available supplies and his intellect to allow for continued survival.  The entire situation is against him, but he stays determined: “I am not going to die.”  Everything seems to go his way as he is able to stay alive when he’s hit by debris (despite his suit being punctured), successfully plant his own crops, flawlessly communicate with Earth without any technological problems, and propel himself to the exact location so he can be caught.  Although the theme is unoriginal and his rescue seems highly unlikely given everything that had to go right, I still enjoyed The Martian.  The idea of human perseverance is still inspiring, and the great acting on Matt Damon’s part seems to make the movie’s plot seem plausible.

When Does Technology Become Too Much?

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The third episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror, entitled “The Entire History of You”, poses a futuristic setting in which technology has progressed greatly: a small chip can be injected into a person’s neck and can record every moment in his/her life as it happens.

 

Personally, I think this technology could prove to be beneficial in certain situations, such as identifying or catching criminals, finding contradictions in a person’s testimony in court, etc.  However, I also believe that technology like this can be used by a lot of people for their own gain and to find fault in others.  In this episode, the main character becomes obsessed over trying to find out whether or not his wife had an affair in the past.  He watches past events over and over and zooms in on various people/details just to try to catch the lies in what his wife is telling him.  After finding out that his wife actually had an affair, he removes the chip from his neck so that he won’t have to remember what she did.  This raises one question…because his brain isn’t removed from his head, wouldn’t he still remember that his wife had an affair due to long term memory?

 

This episode definitely criticizes the future of technology.  It essentially claims that if people have the chance to use enhanced memory, they will use it to search out the mistakes and question the motives of others–even those that they love most–instead of trying to make society better.  This will lead to a general mistrust among all members of society, and as a result, technology will create a cynical society.