Author Archives: D.tsai

Shared Art

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At the Sip ‘n’ Paint (which unfortunately included no sipping), I painted for the first time in probably 5 years. I never learned painting techniques, so I was really confused when my painting blended into big blotches of ugly blue-green whereas my roommate’s painting eloquently portrayed a sunrise in the mountains. After taking some pointers from my roommate, I was able to salvage my painting and transform it into a stingray swimming in a green ocean.

After my roommate and I finished our first paintings, we worked on a painting of a skyline together. After outlining the skyline, we filled in the buildings with yellow and orange and covered the sky and ground with pink, blue, and lavender. I really enjoyed painting with someone who could help cover up my mistakes, as there was a little less pressure and it was really cool seeing someone transform my art.

I’m proud of the two paintings I created, and it was an amazingly therapeutic experience, especially for this time in the academic school year.

Indoor Birdwatching

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This past weekend, I attended the Raptors at Rose presentation, where I got to see live birds and learn more about them.

I remember attending several similar presentations when I was in middle and high school, and I almost always fell asleep during them. I’m glad that that was not the case this time — hearing about raptors’ lifestyles and watching the birds flap their wings majestically and bob their heads sillily kept me completely awake and engaged. I don’t normally think about how birds live their lives, so I was astonished by how fast raptors can dive and how much of owls’ skulls their eyes take up.

I am a little shaken by the fact that owls have tiny brains and are often vicious predators — I always thought they were wise, calm animals, but now that image is shattered.

Overall, I’m really glad I attended this event. I got to see cool and cute birds, and in the process, I learned a lot more about something that my normal classes would never cover.

Broken Cat

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This past weekend, I carved a pumpkin for the first time. Cutting into the pumpkin itself was much easier than I expected. Making smooth lines, however, was much harder than I had anticipated. The pumpkin I made had a cat on one side and a Charmander on the other side. I focused on the cat and let my partner do the Charmander, because the cat was easier and I had less experience with pumpkin carving.

I was sad when I cut some parts too much and ended up making the cat’s tail fall off, but the feeling of carving into the pumpkin was still extremely satisfying. Also, my partner made an amazing Charmander and I helped a little with it, so I can take pride in having helped carve a work of art.

We put out pumpkin under a tree in front of Founder’s Hall. The pumpkin itself has since been removed (presumably because it was in danger of growing moldy) and all that is left is the carved out Charmander.

Therapeutic Clay Sculpting

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I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Clay Sculpting event that the Johnson Museum helped sponsor. I had worked with clay a little as a child, but that was in a classroom setting, where we were focused on learning different techniques. The environment this time was very different — in a cozy downstairs room in the Johnson Museum, I felt very far away from the stressful, academic side of Cornell.

The clay container that I made was much less attractive than I had hoped, since I didn’t take much time smoothing out the sides. Nonetheless, whenever I see my malformed mug in my room, I remember how relaxing I felt while making it and remember that I should take breaks and take time to just enjoy being myself.

Trying Hockey Skates

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Last Sunday I skated at Lyna Rink. It was fun meeting fellow Rose House members, but once I got on the ice, I was shocked by how bad I had gotten at ice skating — I had never been good at skating, but this time, each step only pushed me around 2 feet and I felt off balance every time I switched shoes. It wasn’t until GRF Sam told me that I was wearing hockey skates — not the figure skates I normally wear — that I realized why my skating felt so awkward. My first thought was to go back to the skate rental counter and ask them to switch my skates to figure skates, but at GRF Sam’s encouragement, I tried to learn how to use hockey skates. At GRF Sam’s instruction, I tried pushing off with my back foot and staying closer to the ground. Soon, I felt much more comfortable. In fact, I felt like I had more control in those hockey skates than I normally do in figure skates. However, it still didn’t feel right to me — although I was moving comfortable, I still felt a little bit clunky, as if I was just walking heavily on the ice. So, for the last 15 minutes, I switched back to figure skates and felt that I was able to move much more freely. Hopefully, I’ll be returning to the Sunday night free skate pretty soon to learn how to better use hockey skates.

Short Dialogue, Raw Scenes

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Last Friday, I watched God’s Own Country as part of the Friday Film series. I was immediately shocked by how raw everything was, from the scenes of newborn animals suffering to the violent sex scenes. Not only was this quality impactful (at times I felt disgust, and at others I was left in awe), it meant that the movie eliminated much of the sugar-coating that most movies use. In addition, throughout the entire film, everything was said with as little words as possible; the characters often hid their thoughts (much like real people do) and characters only stated their feelings in the most important or complex scenes. I felt that this enabled the movie to avoid placing labels on anything. The scenes and actions were simply what they were — not a “romantic gesture” or a “coming out scene” and a character’s feelings belonged to the character, not to the viewer. Though each character was definitely a caricature, the situations they are put in and the actions they take are able to more or less shed the labels that society has given them and thereby become simply a blank slate to form thoughts on common modern-day issues.

Fruitless Fight

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Judge Scott Miller talked about his career as an attorney, and how many of the people he successfully defended were very likely guilty. Simply the idea that someone working in a court of law is supposed to fight as hard as they can to defend someone guilty makes the court seem questionable. Furthermore, the fact that Miller often acquitted his clients by appealing to the court’s sympathy and sense of “justice” seems to undermine the American court; this supposedly objective system of law is in fact strewn with subjectivity, uncertainty, and psychological tricks.

Yet, after hearing Miller passionately describe how he fought for his clients, I was reminded of how important it is that lawyers and the entire country not have doubt in the fight between lawyers in a court. Recently, I watched a segment on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight that noted that many attorneys tell clients to plead guilty, and many innocent clients do indeed follow that advice and plead guilty. These attorneys clearly do not have the passion that Miller has — the passion and commitment to fight for their clients no matter what the scenario. While American courts are indubitably and massively flawed, shouting out these doubts can discourage lawyers and deteriorate the fight between lawyers that the court system relies upon, thereby completely ruining the court system. So, unless a new system for courts is found, I think we should all fervently support the current system — not because it should stay the way it is, but rather because we can’t afford to let it degrade any further.