Author Archives: yy354

Massaging out stress

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This was my first time being massaged and it was the most amazing experience I ever had. I sat on the chair not knowing what to expect for before I thought it might be a little wiered to have another one’s hands on my back. But the massagist was so good that as soon as her hands pressed my back i felt the relax that I never felt consciously, it felt as if I was asleep. All my muscle was totally relaxed as floating water, and all my stress went away. I felt really stressed out recently due to both academic pressure and the huge amount of work, and this massage really led me to relax and just be at present. After the massage on my way back, I felt the happiness and easiness that I’d carry on in the next week on my study to make me more focusing. This a noval try-out for me and it was surprisingly good, thank you so much for organizing this activity and I enjoyed tremendously from it.

I think through out the participations of the activities led by Rose Scholars programs, especially through this activities, I learnt about trying new things. If it was not that my time this week only allow me to participate this activity I may never thinking about this way to release stress. I felt being massaged was a little strange before, and I never thought about trying it. This activity let me took a little risk to try something that I may or may not like and even anticipated before, and it turns out to be one of the most enjoyable moments for me this semester.

Massage let me realize how much tension that I held every day, such as the intercostal muscle and neck muscle even muscle on the top of my head. Through the relaxation of these mescle, I felt more clear and focusing in my brain. I also talked with the massagist during the massage about what I could do in my everyday life to relax my muscle and keep a good energy. She gave me a few useful advises.

I love this experience so much that I sincerely hope that we could have more of massage next semester as well.

A Suspenseful Movie

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Today, we saw a suspensefulm on Friday movie night. I think a little scary movie, like this, is very Holloween-ish. The film is about a man being kidnaped for being seen as captan which he is not.

This is a film about modern technology. In the early nintennth century, when cars, plane and telephone were new invention, they palyed huge roles in the movies, such as the part when the captan was being kidnaped, and people tried to faked that he was self-killed, they put him in a car. They also tried to killed him by airplane. We can see how much the social development in technology influence the art of movie making and setting, eventhough many times when we watch the temporary movies we don’t feel the frequent use of smart phone, or airplane, or social networks, but after seeing this film, I started to realize how prevalent they are in the movie that we see nowadays.

And of cource, no story could be without a love story, including this movie that we watched. In the movie, the main character falled in love with the FBI agency who was undercovered in the killer group. He saved her at last, which made this film a happy ending. Also, I find it very funny that the character in the film who was mistaken as the captain was pereived so handsome and charming that almost every ladies in the movie was attracted to him. For example, one very interesting scene was at the hospital, when he escaped and jumped in to the room next to the one he was locked, the lady in that room was first terrified and then seeing his face, her word “stop” turned into a very shy and tempting sound, and that’s a little fun sprinkle in the suspense movie, this little laughing point.

The setting of the film was very luxury, and included a lot of famous buildings, such as the united nation building, the luxury hotel at New York and Chicago.

This film has been nominated by three acadamy awards. The name of the film was very confusing and drew people’s attentions to it. As said by the main character of the film, Hitchcock “It’s a fantasy. The whole film is epitomized in the title—there is no such thing as north-by-northwest on the compass.” Even though as seeing from now there are may places in the film that don’t explain well, and seemingly too coincident and not realistic, but I can see that in the standard in 1959 when the film was first came out, the large crowd of audience amazed by its fatasy settings as well as superior acting skills of the actors would be a great support to the film. As described by the hollywood review, at the premier of the film  ‘A packed audience at the preview loved every cliff-hanging moment of this Alfred Hitchcock thriller.’

Learn to present self in the professional world

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The coffee chat this week, we have an amazing stylist Nicholas Carbonaro as the guest, who now is a stylist at Ithaca, to talk with us about learn to present ourselves in the professional world. He has been working in New York city, and his pieces are even in Madame Tussaud’s.

This was a very rewarding and interesting expereince to have hi talk with us because he is so knowledgable about the hair style in the professional settings, and we really need to know this common standard that when we step into the interview or doing an intern, our apearance is the first impression we have on others, no matter we like it or not. It’s so important subconsciously, yet normally when we enter into a career info or advise session, people normally wouldn’t talk about it, and we are expected to know. However, despite we might know what a good looking professional appearance is, we don’t think about the cost and time commitment that comes with it. Stylist Carbonaro told us about to keep a well-done hair style, it takes up to once or twice every two months, to go to the salon, and do the style. This is a very high and expensive commitment that normally, as a college student, we are unable to obtain. Therefore, he introduced to us several hair style that is easy to maintain by ourselves, and gave several individual advises which are super helpful.

He also introduced how to take care of the hair, and the importance of using conditioner. I especially like the advise he gave to us about the simple way to take care of hair, good shampoo and conditioner, and we don’t need all the extra hair product to do the hair. They are too extra, and wouldn’t necessary do the job.

All in all, it was a very nice time, though I think it would be even better if he could give more specific advises for each of us, and I enjoyed it a lot.

A drooling and tasty talk with chef Hans

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I’m so glad I signed up for this Rose Cafe to have a talk with chef Hans, because it was such an interesting time to learn about not just amazing food he created at Rose Dining, but also the managing strategies, and stories behind the scene. I have never thought about the science of preperation, crew morale in the diner team before, and this talk was beyond my expectation, and really worthy of time.

He introduced us some of the food material with interesting flavors and taste, such as Zumas, which is a red flower with fruit on it and if you put that in water, it will make the water taste like lemonade.

My favorite part is he talked about the creative dishes at the house dinner,  like the special chicken, and lamp dish that we have today. They all taste really good, but hearing him explaining how he makes the meet juicy with the equipment in Rose dining hall, how he merinate the sauce, I recaled the good food that I had before, and I was so appreciate them. He also talked about the experiment that they tried and some might fail, and they will make changes based on the feedback, some collected in the dish washing procedure.

It’s really a management strategy, how to make the employees excited for their work, instead of repeating the work. For example, Rose had Qusadilla before, but since they are best to eat before they get cold, which is really hard in the dining hall, and the person who make them involves a lot of work. Chef Hans recognized the problem and change it to different flavor of salsa.

I also like the comments by prof.Blalock, when we talked about the team morale in the dinning hall, he mentioned the trade off of team creativity and consistence quality. It brings me a perspective of thinking of management, team dynamics.

I think this is really a nice talk with a lot of learning as well as appreciation for the amazing food that I have at Cornell everyday. I really like this cafe time and enjoyed a lot!

Capturing the moment

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This Sunday, I went to see Sundance film with my Rose Scholar fellow friends together. It was an interesting experience, because it’s my first time seeing short film in a cinema. Each films are featured in different special ideas and ways that they send their message across in a short 20~30 mins time. Some of them capture the momentum feelings; one described the short moment in daily life; some capture a short decision making time.

Due to the nature of short films, they have to be short, so there’s not much room for them to develop a convoluted plot or story that lead you through the developing of each characters life to their destiny. Instead, in short film, they captured a moment in life, normally not exceding a day or even half a day. I think it’s a very different genre of arts comparing to the 2 hours film that we normally see.

At first, I was really confused and feel uncomfortable when seeing these films, because like a microscope, short films magnified small moment in life that we not feeling well, or making a decision. For example, the 17 mins film Come Swim, described a person feeling drawn and thirsty back an forth. The vague technique in the description and the intense sound effect of water drinking sound, his breathing sound made my heart pound yet not clear what the film try to express, besides a depressing feeling and a relieve at last after the actor jump into the river and swim for a while. This film made me feel dizzy for a while due to the keep changing scene and uncomfort sound effect. Another film ‘night shift’ described a men working at a night club, and having a shift one day while he just got the devorcing note from his wife again. This film is very touching, because it showed us the emotion transition of the character, and know a different life.

It was a wonderful experience this week, and I really enjoyed the time appreciating a new genre of art.

Discussing about dating

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Today’s table talk, led by our SA Andrew, is a very interesting talk. Dating is a topic that plays a big role in college life, yet we normally wouldn’t discuss in a big group conversation. Andrew did a great job in leading us towards a fun conversation, knowing other people’s thoughts, and discussing the questions that we have.

We also had a faculty member, who was experienced in the field of love relationships, dating, and college students’ life. What surprised me most is how similar of thoughts other people in the Cornell community to mine. We are all seeking for a romantic relationship, yet not able to commit in time or energy, since we are in a very competitive and full-filled environment at Cornell, where everyone has their goals and plans, that makes the opportunity cost of spending time on a relationship too high for many of us to step into. However, on the other hand, dating, love, romance are indispensable part in our lives, and they are worthy for us to explore and learn through our lives. We always want to be unique and we are going to spend most of our lives to prove that we are. And the magic part of love and relationship, is that in another person’s eyes he/she sees you, and at that moment you are special. This is a basic psychological need in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and irresistible for human beings. Also, I really like the metaphor that one of the people at this talk pointed out, that everyone is as a boat in the ocean, where it would be nice to have someone to paddle with you, sharing the view alone the journey with you.

It’s an interesting conversation overall, and I really enjoyed it.

An intersting conversation with Dr.Kutela

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We had a very interesting dinner talk with Dr. Dambala Gelo Kutela, a visiting scholar at Cornell, on Thursday of September 7th. He is an economist focusing on the income inequality and the child education opportunity in Ethiopia. We started the talk with he introducing his academic background. I was really impressed to know that despite he started his school at 12 years-old, but he finished primary school in 3 years and middle and high school in 4 years. I can feel his strong learning ability and motivation in his educational background. Then, he talked about his family, his children and his wife, to let us know him better, and we as students also talked about what each of us learns at school, our majors, and our interest.

The most interesting part of this dinner talk is when Dr. Kutela, talked about his research and his insight on the Inequal education opportunity and how it related to the politics and economic systems. He analysed the root cause of this issue and pointed out that the reason of many children unable to receive education, is not that they don’t want to go to school, but the incomplete social educational system that put the burden on each family. Since the predominant producing drive in Ethiopia is agriculture, which is highly versatile to the natural climate changes and seasonal situation. Once the climate is not preferable for agriculture, there will be a huge pressure on the families in the country, due to the lack of social security system. The way he connected the education issues with the economic system really is novel to me, and help me to understand the econ knowledge better as well as knowing what is the problems that are facing in another country, let me reflect upon what I can do, using my knowledge, in the future to change it and make a difference.