For me, free will means that we have the ability to make our own decisions, choose our own action, and carve our own path. The discussion in this Rose Café revolved around where this free will comes from and how we can see it develop in early childhood. I tried to pinpoint at how early in my life I realized we all have free will and that we don’t just have to do what’s expected of us. I went as far back as fifth grade when a classmate of mine was making the point that if God exists then why do bad things happen in the world and I replied that each person exercises their own free will and some people choose to exercise theirs that way. Of course, the argument in more convoluted than that, but what did I know as a fifth grader?
Author Archives: nef27
A story about life
After the movie, GRF Sam asked “what did you notice about the plot?”, to which I replied “that there wasn’t any” because there is no plot in the Dutch movie “Boys”. The movie is a reflection of life, and our lives don’t have plots. They’re just a series of events affected by what surrounds us and our decisions.
The movie tells the story of Sieger, who over the summer, is awakened sexually and partakes in a secret romance with fellow teammate Marc, meanwhile he’s dating a girl because that’s what 15 year old boys do. I really liked that they showed how comfortable and naturally his relationship with Marc developed, whereas you could see that his and Jessica’s relationship was forced and only moved along because of social norms. It helped with understanding where Sieger’s true feelings really lied.
Who Knew I’d Find Advice from a 2,000 Year Old Philosopher Relevant?
I learned that when faced with a tough call, I can make good decisions, or at least they’re good decisions based on Cicero, a roman philosopher who wrote a book about making morally right decisions. Cicero postulated that good decisions are those that not necessarily benefit you, but benefit society. I am a textbook over-thinker, especially because I always think about how my actions or words can affect others around me or how they’ll be interpreted. In fact, I often come across as a very serious and anti-social person because I tend to be quiet in social situations. In actuality, I am really nice and friendly and love talking to other people. When someone sits next to me in class, a whole debate breaks out in my mind. “You should say hi to that person and ask them their name an make friends in the class!” “If you just say hi to this random stranger, they’ll think you’re weird.” “What are you going to say afterwards? If you don’t continue the conversation, the other person will think you’re awkward.” “If you say that joke, that can come across as mean.”
After having a huge internal monologue, the opportunity to say hi to the person next to me has passed, all because I over-think about saying hi to someone. Over-thinking does lead me to make good decisions though. Because of that, I always think about every possible situation that could come from a decision I need to make, and ultimately choose the one with less repercussions or the one that will help me get closer to my goal. But overall, I stray away from any decision that would harm others. Cicero also wrote about long-term gratification over short-term gratification, and I realized that I am always looking at the big picture when faced with a tough decision and base myself off of that. Who knew I was a real life Cicero?
What did I learn at a night of stargazing? That representation matters
My visit to the Fuertes’ Observatory was underwhelming. We weren’t given any information about the observatory, its history, or what we were seeing. I did, however, love that I got to see Saturn through the telescope.
Walking to the observatory and learning that the name was Fuertes Observatory, I figured that it was a Hispanic name. It’s the first time that I see a building on campus with a Hispanic name, so naturally, I had to look up the history of the observatory, and what I found blew my mind.
The observatory was designed by L.P. Burnham, professor of Architecture at Cornell, and it was named after Estevan Fuertes, a Puerto Rican astronomer and civil engineer. Seeing “Puerto Rican” on his Wikipedia bio got me made me jump out of shock and excitement. Estevan Fuertes was born and raised in Puerto Rico and moved to upstate NY to study at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and later came to Cornell, became a beloved professor and founding dean of the Department of Civil Engineering here. He also designed the aqueduct system at Cornell, as he was regarded very highly in this field.
Transferring from Puerto Rico to Cornell has proven to be tough in many ways for me. I’ve been here for a year and a half and I haven’t had any Hispanic professors, so finding out that a Puerto Rican has made a big impact on this campus has inspired me and fills me with renewed hope and energy for the rest of my undergraduate career. Although I didn’t take away any astronomy related information from this trip, I got something that was much more important and relevant to me.
Morpheus Was The One… not Neo
I grew up watching the entire The Matrix trilogy, literally. My dad is a huge sci-fi fan and this trilogy is his favorite, so every time any of the movies would be playing on a random channel, sure enough, my dad would put it on. So that means I have watched all of The Matrix movies just never in order and never completely. Before watching the first one during this Friday film night, I wasn’t very sure which plot points were from this movie and which ones weren’t. Now, I actually know. Moreover, I finally understand why these are my dad’s favorites movies.
In short, the movie was really good. The movie has some amazing features, especially considering that no special features like the ones used on The Matrix were never used before. The stand out? Morpheus’ glasses. His glasses did not have any temples or hinges but they never fell off his face when he was fighting Agent Smith. That was FX at its finest. I also loved the scene when Neo and Trinity destroy the guards when they enter the building to save Morpheus. It’s the best scene I can recall from the trilogy.
The movie is also really good at highlighting Keanu Reeves’ extremely bland and unemphatic face. It worked really well for his character of a very confused and troubled Neo. Overall, I really liked this movie and I can’t wait to go back home and watch the other 2 movies with my dad.
Could this science be evil?
Technology is so far advanced that a scientist by the name of He Jiankui has already made the first ever genetically engineered babies. This was amazing to me. Society is pretty familiar already with the use of genetic engineering for manipulating crops to create GMO, and that is a controversial topic in itself, you can only imagine how controversial genetically engineered babies are. The study itself is under intense scrutiny, specifically the ethics and secrecy surrounding the clinical trials.
I couldn’t help but think about how the general public would react knowing that we could genetically engineer babies. People have a hard time accepting plants and food that have been manipulated scientifically, they’d blow a gasket with these babies.
I share the sentiment that if not regulated properly, this technology could lead to racism and classism and even the eradication of cultures. I’m reminded of a tweet from known model and deaf activist Nyle DiMarco where he shared a report that talked about scientists using CRISPR to “cure” a deaf baby. He was livid with this news and indicated that “curing” deafness is really the eradication of an entire culture and that we need to stop looking at deafness as a disability. I agree with this notion and if scientists start curing diseases like autism too, what message are we sending to society about people with these diseases? That there’s something wrong with them and that they must be fixed? It’ll only further societal stigmas already in place.
The search for equality in Myanmar
Of the three films seen this Friday, I want to reflect of the first one, Myanmar: Whistle for Help. Here, the women of Myanmar developed a system to help fight sexual harassment often conduced in the public transportation. These women recognized a problem and sought out to fix it, by their own means. They taught themselves, developed their own tools, and carried out a plan that had an impact in their community. I was moved by all of this. Their drive and passion to right a wrong in their society led to a community project that was greatly received and pushed how a lot of people in their society view men’s actions towards women. Coming from a mainly patriarchal society, I understand the women’s frustration and shame that they felt when put in situations where they were met with unwanted advances by men. They felt defenseless, ashamed, and hopeless at the time but the whistle project gave them a voice and power in the situation, which I thought was extremely powerful.
129 minutes
I am a big fan of musicals and RENT has one of my favorite soundtracks because of its edgy rock sound. I was really excited to see it was playing in Rose since last year we never really saw any of these types of movies.
I know the show by heart, I’ve seen the movie and live productions of it, so when it started playing and I didn’t recognize it at first, I was confused for a good minute there. Then, Reneé Elise Goldsberry’s protrayal of Mimi lit up the screen and I knew that I was watching RENT: Live from Broadway. After enjoying the film, I came to the conclusion that this was my favorite version of the musical. The actors really give a lot of heart to these characters and make it so you’re enthralled by them and their stories, which is important when you’re talking about topics such as AIDS and discrimination.
All throughout the film, I kept singing the songs because they’re some of my favorites so I think I made a good choice by sitting in the back of the dining hall so as to not bother anyone. I’m only slightly disappointed we didn’t see the second act, it is the most heartfelt and emotional half of the show, although I get why it wasn’t shown, it would’ve made the night a lot longer.