Author Archives: hcz5

Change

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Today, Ty organized an open-ended Table Talk to discuss recent happenings, including personal, campus-wide, and external ones. I was honestly a bit hesitant to go in the beginning; future-wise, major things have happened to me recently, and a part of me was scared to talk about them.
I’ve only mentioned it a few times up until now.
First, to a part of my family. Their reaction has been, up until now… a bit weird. Supportive, but wary. As if a part of them hopes to convince me otherwise due to fear I’ll regret my decision.
Secondly, to a few friends here and House Fellows. When the subject appeared, I told these friends and spent the next few seconds/minutes observing their reactions. Supportive, though somewhat shocked. The House Fellows were always very supportive, and I appreciate that.
I also kind of wrote about it in a couple of my posts here, but not in a very specific way.

But I haven’t told many people who are close to me yet, or many people who are in Physics with me. Haven’t told my major advisor. Or my Physics colleagues. Or my dear friends from Brazil. Or even one of my brothers.

So, once again, today I was anxious/scared about saying out loud, in this large research university, that I’ve given up on the idea of going to grad school and of becoming a Physics Professor at a university. That I care about teaching way more than I care about research. That I decided to become a high school physics teacher (who also prepares students for physics competitions). And that I want to inspire as many young students as I can, and lead them as best as I can.

But I’m so glad I said it. Lea and Ty were so incredibly supportive, and that just made my day completely. Thanks, both of you ❤

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I should probably talk more about the event (or at least give some context), and stop making a monologue about myself. Sorry (not sorry) O/v/O

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To give some context, we started out by briefly talking to our neighboring colleagues about recent happenings, personal, campus-wide, and global. I honestly didn’t have much to say here, because staying in touch with the “external world” has been super hard for me. Keeping up with everything going on in Brazil right now is already pretty mentally taxing to me, and when joined together with my own personal struggles that I mentioned earlier and with my classes and extracurriculars and work, it becomes really difficult for me to give the attention required for things like the Hong Kong protests, US news (like the impeachment hearing and upcoming elections), and other news. It seems other students shared a similar struggle, so at least I wasn’t alone in this! 🙂

Afterwards, Ty gave us each a sheet of paper to write down positive and negative news about our lives in Cornell and in our personal lives, which we’d then share with a colleague. Most of mine were related, directly or indirectly, to my decision to change my future career path (unsurprisingly). I also loved hearing Lea’s takes about their classes and their work, and how they essentially made a positive thing out of some of the negatives they’d written down. Lea’s comments were super constructive and inspiring!

 

This was a great way to close this semester. I wonder what different events next semester will bring and, similarly to my now-defined career, I look forward to these changes~

Tying fun and ties together!

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I’ve only worn a necktie a few times in my life. I think the last time I wore one was during my high school graduation, 3 years ago (other than that, I actually can’t remember when I last wore one). In those few cases, I sort of learned how to tie the tie it by watching a Youtube video more times than I can count, until I _kind of_ understood… and then proceeded to get confused again 5 minutes later hahah (I’m a pretty slow learner, so this was expected)
This Thursday, I learned how to do it once again. Not one, but two types of knots for a necktie, and one for a bowtie too! Ty made it a super fun event, and even made a whole PowerPoint about tying ties! I had a blast trying out the knots and getting confused alongside other students, and I also ended up getting them right faster than I expected!
Re-doing the movements with my hands right now, I’m happy to say I broke the rule of “forgetting how to do it 5 minutes later”: I still remember all of them, and I don’t think I’ll be forgetting them anytime soon. After all, differently from before (when I learned by myself and got frustrated for having so much difficulty), they’re now tied (ba dum tss) to a fun memory!! ^v^

 

EDIT: I guess I could say the event was… enTIEtaining, amirite?

Visual storytelling, sexuality, and Queer Time

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The story of the movie ‘The Boys’ revolves around the processes of growing up and of self-discovery of Sieger, and on his relationship with his friend and fellow runner Marc.
After watching the movie, one thing we discussed was that it relies very heavily on visual storytelling, and that it’s very effective at doing so. I noticed this while watching, and mostly through two recurrent (and, in my opinion, powerful) things.
Firstly, for a large portion of the story, Sieger is questioning his sexuality and/or has made Marc upset due to his questioning. These barriers to their relationship is also physically represented in the scenes, as objects (either on foreground or background) literally form a barrier between them. Examples of this include the trunk of a tree in the background, a log in the water, the walls of the changing room where they go after practice, and, slightly differently, a grid from a trampoline (the camera was put underneath the trampoline, so that Seiger and Marc’s faces were depicted behind this barrier)
Secondly, all of Seiger’s extended interactions with Jessica occur due to social coercion. Most of them are initiated by his friend Stef, who the scenes use as ‘comparison’ to show Sieger “what he should be doing” and influence him to date Jessica (for instance, in several times, Stef is kissing Kim non-stop while Seiger and Jessica are right next to them, thus creating awkwardness and social coercion). By comparison, his interactions with Marc usually occur without others nearby (which thus removes the social coercion factor), and thus evolve naturally.

During the discussion, we’ve also talked about the movie talking not only about queerness, but also about a coming-of-age, and about the relation between these two (and, thus, about the idea of “Queer Time”). This discussion reminded me a lot of the arguments in “Philosophy Tube”‘s video “Queer✨” (which is a video I absolutely recommend, and which talks a lot about Queer Time), and so connecting those two was very useful and interesting for me!

Overall, super happy to have watched the movie. It was a great experience!! ^v^

“We are the adults now.”

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[NOTE: Partial spoilers for Spirited Away. If you haven’t watched it, close this tab and go watch it. It’s an incredible movie. The animations are beautiful. The characters are great and feel like real people. The story is really good. The world feels alive and thoroughly thought-out, and as such the messages and critics that the story represents are very well developed. The music, omg the music. Just… just go and watch it already. Don’t waste another second reading this if you haven’t watched it yet XD]

I remember hearing this sentence a couple of months ago, and it kinda got stuck in my head.
This past year, for a lot of reasons, I’ve been going through this long and ongoing process of redefining myself and relearning my identity, my goals/dreams, and my worldview. It was a process I saw coming for a long time (I’ve been telling myself for quite a while that “I feel like I’ll just end up doing a sharp 90° turn at some point”), but didn’t know when, or why, or in which direction it’d lead me.

“We are the adults now.”

After hearing about Spirited Away for several years but never actually getting to see it, I’ve finally watched it.
This movie tells the coming-of-age story of Chihiro, a 10-year-old girl who accidentally ventures into the spirit world and has to rescue her parents, who were turned into pigs and would eventually be slaughtered. In doing so, she needs to learn how to navigate the authoritarian capitalist world constructed by Yubaba, who sees individuals as expendable labor/resources, and runs a bathhouse business by stripping workers of their identities, and thus trapping them until they’re no longer useful and can be disposed of.

At the bathhouse, Chihiro acts differently from almost all workers: she constantly displays kindness and empathy towards others. And this, on its own, ends up as a huge disruption to the environment surrounding her, both metaphorically and physically. To me, the most striking moment of disruption is when Chihiro allows No Face to enter the bathroom. No Face is a voiceless and lonely spirit who mimics the psyche of those surrounding it. After being treated with generosity by Chihiro, No Face becomes itself a generous spirit, indirectly helps her cleanse a river guardian, and starts producing gold. Said gold attracts most individuals in the bathhouse, who are led to No Face by greed. No Face then reflects the bathhouse people’s psyche, and becomes a greedy spirit who indulges in exaggerated consumerism and eats everything around it. To me, this interaction symbolizes very well how kindness is not welcome in the bathroom: No Face’s initial kindness and generosity (due to Chihiro) is immediately exploited and corrupted by those surrounding it (particularly Yubaba). In this sense, Chihiro’s generosity is disruptive, and even revolutionary in her environment. And in a world where the norm is to be fully subordinate and lose your identity, a revolutionary act is also an act of self-identification and self-discovery.

In a way, Chihiro’s coming of age isn’t that of having a better understanding of the world, or of honing her skills, or of losing her fears; rather, it’s a coming of age by learning how to, in each context, harvest her kindness and use it to create a positive impact around her. (It’s also interesting that, with this definition, Chihiro is almost the only individual in the movie who is an adult, even though she is surrounded by individuals much older than herself)

“We are the adults now.” I love how this sentence is similar and different to everything else I’ve said so far. The sentence is a call for mutual understanding, humility, and kindness. In its context (a video regarding social movements), its meaning is very similar to that famous quote ‘be the change you want to see in the world’, but with an important difference: it is not individualistic, but rather communitarian; it is an identity moreso related to a call to action than to just an identity. In this sense, it entangles itself beautifully with Chihiro’s coming-of-age, which is defined by the actions and results related to Chihiro’s kindness.

I honestly wonder if I’m an adult yet. Maybe after I finish this process of redefining myself. Or maybe not even then. Only time can probably tell, so I guess I’ll just have to keep taking it one random act of kindness at a time.

PS: After watching this movie, I also now finally understand that “Feels Spirited Away” meme/GIF (https://giphy.com/gifs/feels-spirited-away-ghibli-vaPZEuVEEPHxK), so that’s also nice! xD

Imbuing new meaning to old images

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To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when I first went to see Kelly Sears’s animations.

Her work revolves around taking images from different sources, stripping them of their original context and meaning, and then using art and animation to give them new meaning, new context, and new nuances.

Kelly used images not as two-dimensional objects, but as something much more than that. The conditions of the sources she used were sometimes clear and enhanced. For example, in one of the animations, she used some old photos which had spots, and proceeded to use those spots within the context of the animation, and even enhance them. As another example, the animations also gave the images a ‘mind’, so to say. By changing light, focusing on a portion of the image, or making transitions in and out, Kelly often tried to give insight as to people’s thoughts and mental states. In that sense, the images cease to be 2D by gaining an intellectual component, and also by gaining an additional interpretation, since facial expressions and the body itself start representing said mental state.

By providing new or modified meaning to images, Kelly was able to ask questions regarding meaning, intentionality, and interpretation of all types of media. Accordingly (and also according to herself), she often attempted to not be fully clear in her videos, so as to encourage the audience to also indulge in the questions she is trying to ask.

I really enjoyed watching Kelly’s work. It was a very thought-provoking experience, and a great one at that!

Joy and Soy (and other ingredients that don’t rhyme)

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Volunteering in the Feed My Starving Children project was extremely wholesome and fulfilling, and I don’t think any description I can give here would live up to what it felt like. But, hey, let’s give it a shot…
Out of the groups we were divided in, I was one of the people in ‘warehouse’, meaning my job was essentially to move around replacing food containers (mostly rice and soy) and moving boxes.
As I happily moved around, I quickly realized that my enthusiasm was resonating with that of other volunteers, which only made me go faster. In the end, I’m very glad my task was the one task that included walking, because I couldn’t (and didn’t want to) stay put for a second!
The two hours went by much faster than I expected, and although I was tired/sore by the end of it all, I’m happy to have done my best for this incredible cause! As a group, we ended up doing very well, and packed a total of 168 boxes – which helps, for a full year, 99 children that suffer from starvation! This is incredible, and I’m super glad we all got together to make it work and hopefully make a difference for people in need!

Feeling a bit more at home

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When I first heard about the Meet and Greet, I imagined a room full of people and our House Fellows introducing themselves to a general audience. A one-to-one interaction wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. As soon as I learned that was the case (and, even more, it’d be on the format where you meet a lot of people really, really fast), I thought it’d be really difficult for me, and that I wouldn’t enjoy it.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

All House Fellows I met were really kind and approachable, even for someone as shy as I am, and this honestly felt really comfortable. They all had completely different interests, so our conversations went from the 3D printing of concrete to Ithaca to Physics in a matter of minutes. And I loved it. I also really appreciate how supportive they all were: I’ve recently decided I want to be a Physics teacher for my future, and whenever that showed up in our conversations, they all very much encouraged me to follow it!

I’m really happy that I attended the Meet and Greet: I met some really interesting people, I now know several more Fellows than I did before – which makes me feel a bit more integrated into our community -, and I very much look forward to seeing them around Rose! =]