I attended the dinner talk regarding stress where the GRF and other students discussed how they handle stress at Cornell. Because stress is an inevitable aspect of college life, I think that this talk was much needed and especially around the time when the 2nd round of prelims were starting! In my opinion, this was a very effective conversation because its informal nature allowed us to speak up and express how stress affects us on campus and how we individually deal with it. After hearing about how well certain study tips have worked for GRF Seema and other Rose Scholars (ex. chunking the study material into reasonable portions and rotating topics so you don’t get tired), I became more inspired to switch up my study techniques because they provided convincing opinions about how they have helped. In the future, I hope that I will remember to chunk my study material and use my stress to my advantage to help me complete my assignments instead of being scared of it.
Author Archives: scg223
The Modern Primitive
As someone who is not exactly interested in English as a subject, Sam’s talk on the modern primitive was riveting. I really liked how his scope focused on race and gender. He started out by first explaining what each term meant separately. He used images like a train crossing the sea to represent modernity while showing a picture of white colonizers measuring black children for the primitive. It was a very stark juxtaposition.
He then explained how his area of study looked at the intersection of the two, and how different areas of like and art reflected both the primitive and the modern. Some of the things he showed us was the Tiller Girls and Josephine Baker. They were revolutionary because they broke what was then social norms. It was very interesting to see how people perceived these women after the performances.
Sam also talked about how museums affect our perception of the primitive. Sam described how everything we get to put in a museum is taken from someone else for our gain. I think it is also very interesting how museums creates this divide between the viewers and the viewed. It could also be dangerous by thinking that the viewed are no longer a part of society and rather are part of the past.
As a racial minority at Cornell, I kind of know what it feels like to be talked about as if you aren’t there, especially in classes that have to do with race and American history. The way we learn about it makes it seem like a thing o the past, but sometimes people forget to bing up current events that are still a large part of society today,
I also thought the LGBT+ museum he showed us a video of near the end was really cool. It may be somewhere I would like to visit.
Professor Schmidt’s Talk
I attended the Rose Cafe with Professor Schmidt in which he talked about civil development and planning. He began to talk about his field of study by describing what it was. He also explained how even though time has passed, we still are looking for answers to the big questions such as poverty.
The talk was really fun because we got to learn about Professor Schmidt as well as our fellow Rose Scholars. He went around in a circle asking us what kind of area we grew up in and what type of resources we had there. A lot of kids were from suburban areas, and only a couple were from urban and rural. We talked about our access to things such as recreation centers and schools. We also talked about how we got around town: lots of us used cars daily regardless of there being public transportation.
One of the things we also focused on was climate change and how civil engineers are trying to find ways to save the environment while maintaining the ways we live. One of the big ways to do this is to move towards communal communities because spaces are shared rather than individualistic. For example, living at Cornell makes a lot of things communal. We share laundry spaces and dinning halls. This saves our carbon footprint while also allowing us to connect with other people around us, something we do not always do now.
I was kind of sad when the talk ended. Professor Schmidt was probably my favorite person to come to Rose Cafe this semester. He was really chill and was interested in who we were as students. Although he seemed a bit shy, he took the time to learn our names and where we were from. And it was interesting to know how he connected our origins with his study field. I hope he comes back soon because he was really cool to learn from.
Dinner with Ruth
After the Rose CafeI attended in which Ruth talked about her life in Malawi and her work on the environment, I went to have dinner with her. I was hoping to learn more about her personally and her experiences in education at Cornell. It was also the first dinner talk I attended; we all met up at Rose dinning hall and got our food. Then we went up to the Rose Seminar room to talk to Ruth in a quieter environment than the dinning room.
We started the talk off by introducing ourselves again to Ruth, and Ruth reintroduced herself and her friend who also does work at Cornell. We talked about her life in Malawi and how she has been doing in Ithaca. She has not been able to go many places, but she said that she enjoyed everywhere she had gone. She mentioned how different it is from her home.
Soem other students brought up how different it is to experience global climate change in the US than in Malawi. For example, people in Malawi do not have to ability to deny climate change because they see it and experience it first hand. When crops do not grow, people go hungry. And when there are floods, people are injured.
However, in the US, we are so industrialized we are often sheltered from nature. Our surplus in food allows us to eat food regardless of rainfall. And when temperatures go up or down, we have air conditioning and heaters. It is much easier to deny climate change when you’re sheltered from it.
Also, it was really funny and cute to see the kids playing with each other. When Ruth panicked because the little boy was locked in the cabinet was actually precious. I think because she is a mother, she is more inclined to make sure kids are safe. Even though the kid was not in danger, her concern was heartwarming, and the way she made sure he had enough air was cute.
Jack and Jill
GRF Seema talked about urban development and transportation in India. Her focus is on how gender and transportation interact, affecting the lives of citizens in India and how they get around. In India, there is not enough public transportation provided to get everyone where they need to go, so informal modes began to pop up. This includes personal cars driving people around. When this happens, the modes of transportation get very crowded and dangerous to ride at times.
We also talked about sexual harassment women experience on public transport. The dilemma of the group was whether or not quick bandaid files would help ward off sexual abuse. For example, how effective would it be to offer women their own transport cars on things like busses and subways? Once they leave the car, the women would be subject to the sexual harassment all the same. Would these precautions have an adverse affect, making it unsafe for women to go on cars that aren’t gender exclusive?
I think that we need both these quick fixes as well as long term policy to stave off sexual harassment. One student also brought up education: teaching men why it is wrong and how their action affect women would be a great step.
Though it was hard to follow Seema’s talk at the beginning, the connection between gender and transport was established quickly. Seema’s talk was very interesting becauseI found a lot of parallels between her talk about India and the United States. I both places women have to be wary of sexual harassment even though it is usually men who perpetrate it. However, I think the public transportation system in the US is a little bit more efficient than in India.
Conditions in Malawi
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with Ruth Magreta, a student, researcher and parent from Malawi. The talk centered around her upbringing in Malawi and the research that she is pursuing. The most interesting part of the conversation, in my opinion, was her upbringing. I found it fascinating that even though she grew up in poverty, she was so content with the little that she had. This led me to think about how, given the privileges that we are afforded by simply living in the USA, we automatically underestimate the quality of life of people from third world countries because they don’t have everything that we have. The fondness with which Ruth spoke of Malawi was eye-opening and allowed me to reaffirm that even though we, from “developed” nations, can’t fathom life without the technology and resources that we have, this is not the reality for many nations.
Another eye-opening aspect of Ruth’s presentation was how affected her community is by deforestation and climate change. I think that it is hard for us, in urban settings, to understand the effects of climate change because it isn’t directly in front of us; we tend to see its major effects in news stories. Ruth grew up seeing the direct effect of climate change on her environment which, in turn, led to economic strife. I thought that this was an important point because it highlights the fact that just because there is no immediate, visible effect on us Americans we still need to take an interest in issues like this because they tend to negatively affect the quality of life of others.
Rose Cafe with Judge Miller
Last week, I went to the Rose Cafe evening chat with the Honorable Judge Miller. He told us about his most interesting case (a couple’s botched attempt at vampirism), and the conversation steered towards what kind of jury, if we were defending the accused, we would prefer. After some individual deliberation, Judge Miller told us that often times, the opposite sex from the plaintiff tend to be the people that are the most defensive and sympathetic towards the plaintiff; this is the result of the competitive environment that women are often placed in which pits them against each other. I thought this was interesting because it would be expected that in dire situations, people would stick up for each other regardless of the environment that they’re accustomed to but this is not the case.