Author Archives: Judy Stephen

Wonders of Sleep

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We all face stress at some point. It is difficult to avoid it but at the same time there is no need to completely avoid stress. In fact, stress plays a huge role in my everyday life as I try to get work done. The last Rose Cafe Series talked about how we, as college students, can combat high levels of stress. The talk was well-timed because we are entering the final weeks of this semester. As usual the final weeks are the most stressful in the semester. The most important thing we discussed from the talk was to get enough sleep. We can’t underestimate the role of a good night sleep in our goal of retaining knowledge. I have to confess that I am not a good example for a person with good night sleep. Although I do not get much sleep, I understand the value of it. I do realize that my productivity drastically decreases when I’ve only had 4 hours of sleep. I could definitely use more sleep. We also discussed meditation techniques to combat stress. Although I do enjoy the idea of doing meditation, I cannot imagine myself making it a daily routine. Overall, I really enjoyed the talk and it was very relevant to my situation.

A New Perspective of Soil

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On April 6th, I had the opportunity of attending the Rose Scholars Cafe Series with Dr. Dawit Solomon. I really enjoyed the discussion because we touched upon a unique topic which could potentially have a tremendous impact on the world. When you first hear about climate change, soil is not among the first things that come to mind. Similarly if you think about soil, you do not first think about how useful it is in a variety of situations. Dr. Solomon started the discussion by asking us what we thought soil was made of. We then delved into how soil is connected with greenhouse gas emissions. I was surprised to find out that 25% of emissions comes from soil as a result of land use and land cover changes. Emissions from cars and factories are one of the first things that comes up when we thing about greenhouse gasses, but few would know about how our use of land contributes to nearly a fourth of the emissions. In addition, Dr. Solomon discussed a way in which we can use soil to help reduce the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere.

One of the important environment issues is that the we are releasing too much carbon in the air.  Trees help to reduce the amount of CO2 in the air but we release far too much greenhouse gasses. Dr. Solomon suggests that we use soil to take away the CO2 from the air. We would essentially be locking away the carbon dioxide in the soil. While the CO2 in the air causes global warming, CO2 in the soil can be used to grow crops. We could make rich soil by including CO2 and a other waste products such as bones. I was quite excited by the this prospect of using soil to not only clean our air but also using the CO2 to grow our food.  In addition to this, the overall cost of making such soil is far less than the price an individual would pay to have the soil from big companies. Thus it enables farmers in other countries who may not have the financial backing to buy nutrient rich soil from the US to still have nutrient rich soil for their crops. Overall, I believe Dr. Solomon gave a compelling argument for why soil is important and how we can use it to combat problems with climate change.

 

Difficulties of Changing Habits

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The past Wednesday, I had the opportunity of attending a Rose Cafe where Professor Garrick Blalock was talking about how difficult it is to change a population’s habit even if the population knows that it is the best option. Because this is my second year participating in the Rose Scholars program, this is my second time going to a discussion about this topic. Although I had heard this before, there were some more things that I took away from this discussion that I had previously missed. The entire process of adapting to a new platform or more specifically replacing a current way of life, is difficult. Prof.Blalock’s experience is not unique to one situation, rather it is representative of the difficulties of product adoption.

Prof.Blalock had gone to Uganda to help people adopt a new and healthier option of cook stoves. The current cook stoves that many people in Uganda used were very inefficient and hazardous to their health. The new cook stoves were not only more energy efficient and healthy but they also took less time away from an individual. For example with the old cook stoves, the women would go to the forests to find fire wood, thereby spending a large portion of their day on one task. If they adopt the new cook stoves, there would be less time spent going to the forest to search for fire wood, leaving more time for other things. One of the interesting things was that even though the people were educated on the benefits of the new stoves, they did not incorporate it in their lives. One of the first things that comes to my head for adopting a new technology is to make sure it is at a right price point for the target market. Prof. Blalock’s team had created financing solutions which made it easier for people to purchase the stoves. Although they had covered most of the hindrances to adopting a new technology, the people did not seem to adopt it. It is interesting to try to understand what really stops an individual from using a new technology. Although it is a complicated question, part of the reason might be that people care a lot about short term benefits. Overall, I found the discussion very intriguing and thought provoking.

Cornell Tech: Integrating Technology with Humanities

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Technology can sometimes be thought of as incompatible with the humanities. However, in the end of the day, the technology is used to enhance human lives which requires knowledge about how humans may interact with it. There is very little higher education that is focused on teaching technology, business and other humanities. Cornell’s new venture, Corenll Tech is going to fill this gap in higher education.

I had the opportunity of attending a Rose Cafe Series with Dr. Adam Shwartz who came to talk about the Jacobs Institute at Cornell Tech. They have different concentrations to accommodate people with diverse interests who all want to incorporate technology in their field. The fascinating idea is to bring together people who have a different background who think that their field can benefit through technology. For example one of the programs is to connect health with technology. I could see many applications and benefits to our lives through the programs offered at Cornell Tech. It is a great new chapter for Cornell. It is very experimental in terms of a higher education program. They are striving to make it more applications based than theory. The students also get to discuss their projects with local startups and well established companies to understand how the work they are doing at Cornell Tech can be applied in the field. Our future is going to be based all on technology and it is exciting that Cornell is taking the first steps to creating professionals who understand the role of technology in different fields.

Comedic Side of Environmentalists

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There is a part of me that has always cared about the environment so I was interested in attending the Rose Scholars event on February 24. Professor Aaron Sachs gave a unique talk about the environment. I say unique because the talk focused on the one thing that media does not portray about environmentalists, humor. Prof. Sachs talked about how media in general has portrayed environmentalists as very serious people who sometimes don’t understand why certain things could be more important than the environment to other people. It has diminished the importance of taking care of the environment. Prof.Sachs proposed introducing comedy when talking about the environment as a solution to making more people understand the importance of the environment.

At first thought, it seems almost paradoxical to think that people would take you more seriously if you made fun of yourself, but I could see the merit of Prof. Sachs’ idea. In our current situation, environmentalists are often seen as too far away from society to really understand how radically different our lives would be if we cared more about the environment. We saw a great video about a group of environmentalists proposing an idea for a wolf highway across the Canadian border. They were proposing the idea to a government official. In the environmentalists mind, the main idea was to build a safe path for wolves in order to increase the population. On the other hand, the government official’s main objective is to understand how this idea might affect the people in the region. The government official brings up a great point about how the farmers in the region see the wolves as a threat and would not be welcoming of this idea. The environmentalists in the video don’t seem to consider the situation of other people when they proposed the idea. The video just emphasizes the point that environmentalists are seen as people who don’t understand other people’s situation. In order to remedy this situation, environmentalists can use humor to make them more relatable which would strengthen people’s support of their cause. Humor allows us to come together and if used wisely, it could be used to strengthen support for taking care of our environment.

Essence of Melancholy

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Before going to the Rose Cafe Series on Wednesday, I had given little thought to what it means to be melancholy. I thought I understood its meaning however the talk by Sara Schlemm, helped me see the nuances of melancholy. Although I would not say I completely understand its meaning, I could say that I have a better understanding of the situations where it could be present. There are times when exploring the meaning of words may seem pedantic but Sara made a good presentation by integrating a movie into the conversation. It was nice to turn the abstract art of understanding melancholy into something concrete by applying it to an example. Although I had never seen Vertigo before, I thought it was a good example of melancholy. It showed how melancholy is not simply a synonym of sadness, rather it takes up a whole different mood.

The discussion on melancholy was interesting. It was good to have a concrete example of all nuances of melancholy. Before the examples from Vertigo were shown, I had started to think that maybe my understanding of melancholy was incorrect. However it was great to learn that my understanding was correct and still understand how it plays a role in history.

Developing Ithaca

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On Wednesday February 10, I had the opportunity to hear Lisa Nicholas from City Planning of Ithaca, talk about developments around the city. As a student who enjoys the Ithaca Commons and the natural beauty of Ithaca, I was interested in what the future may hold.  The last time I visited the Commons, I learnt about the construction of the new hotel. However, I was unaware of the plans to build a new hotel in a fairly small plot, near the entrance of the Commons. Although I was aware of what city planners do, I did not have a deep knowledge of how they make decisions. The Rose Cafe series was very helpful in broadening my knowledge about city planning.

I have to admit, I do not take as much time to roam around and enjoy Ithaca as much as I would like to. After going to this event, I learnt about the long stretch of pedestrian path along the water. In addition we have the wonderful Commons which is one of the few completely pedestrian roads still left in the country. There is a lot of effort into making sure that the personality of the Commons is consistent. We learnt about how a project to build a new apartment building near the Commons was not accepted. The original plans tired to fill the entire lot without giving much space for pedestrians. While it may have had more apartments, the building itself would take away from the personality of the Commons. It would take away from the welcoming nature of the Commons. The city planners try to balance both the prospects of having more apartments and making Ithaca a beautiful city. Overall, this Rose Cafe Series was very informative about the improvements made across Ithaca.

Role of Government in Development

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I was excited to go to the Rose Cafe series this week with Professor Nicolas van de Walle from the Department of Government. As a high school student I had started to develop an interest in government. I had some experience living in a corrupt country so I was very interested in the topic of how politics drives economic development. Professor van de Walle has a lot of experience, visiting and living in some countries in Africa so he understands the depth of corruption in some of the countries. We started the discussion with the history on how donors viewed foreign aide and then delved into how foreign aide can be used to improve economic development. It was interesting that I shared his views on how foreign aide could help developing countries.

At first thought, people would think that giving more money to the developing countries would help them. However experience has shown us that even with all of the money, there is something more about the human nature which hinders the development. After realizing that giving more money to the countries does not yield a proportional development, the donors decided to spend more money on education. It is a rational thought, after all the developed countries have a high percentage of the population getting a higher education. Although the new focus on education improved the countries, there was not as much development as the donors expected. One of the major reasons for this is the rampant corruption. As a person who has lived in a country with significant corruption, I understand the difficulties of improving people’s lives in such an environment. When you live in such a country, corruption becomes a very real part of everyday life. It is always there as a hindrance to anything you want to accomplish, which also takes away from the motivation of accomplishing your goals. Donors continue to face the issue of corruption in the highest level of governments. If there is a solution to eradicate corruption in the highest levels of government, we would see a ripple effect. If we are able to find a solution to the corruption, most of the problems the developing world face would significantly reduce.

Lots of Falling: A Second Adventure with Ice Skating

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I had never skated in my life before I came to Cornell. My first time skating was at Lynah rink last year. Although it was difficult, I had a lot of fun so I was very excited to go to open skate night on January 30th . However my joys and excitement of getting on the ice quickly became overshadowed by my fear of not being able to skate. It was going to be my second time skating so I hoped I would fare better than my first time. Luckily, all the fear faded away as I began my second adventure onto the ice. In the beginning, SA Caitlan talked about the history of Lynah rink. It was named after James Lynah a director of Cornell athletics. Before building Lynah rink our hockey players would have to train on the lake. However there was one year when the lake did not freeze over so the university decided to build Lynah rink. Caitlan also taught us some very helpful tips for skating. As a beginner I found the tutorial on how to get up once you have fallen to be really helpful. Although I was not moving as fast as I had hoped, I was able to get myself away from the edges and skate on my own fairly quickly. It was a small accomplishment but I was overjoyed by this advancement. It was exciting to go on to the ice by myself without falling for one time around the rink. However that did not last very long, as I found my self falling on the ice many times. Needless to say, I was very glad to have learnt how to get up again after falling. It is an essential skill in both ice skating as well as in life.