Author Archives: Ore Afon

Fun Facts

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As my last Rose Scholar’s event for the year, I chose to attend the Cafe series with Andy Zepp from the Finger Lakes Land Trust. He had a lot of fun facts to share with the group, and I was very excited to hear what he had to say. For one, there are 50,000 acres of public land surrounding Ithaca and 35 Tompkins County unique natural areas. Thousands of these acres, according to Mr. Zepp, are productive and agricultural timberland, a fact I found quite surprising.

Additionally, there are apparently more than 140 miles of recreational trails, including 78 miles of the Finger Lakes Trail, which runs all the way from Lake Eerie. Mr. Zepp also showed us several pictures of many gorgeous waterfalls in the surrounding area, and that made me that much more excited to stay in Ithaca this summer, something I was actually dreading as recently as a few weeks ago.

Also, learning some of the interesting new facts about the very town that we live in also got me excited for my summer position as a tour guide/information specialist; having fun tidbits of information to share with prospective students, their families, and individuals visiting campus will make walking around backwards, talking for hours all summer a little more fun. 🙂

Each One Reach One, Each One Teach One

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Today, Ithaca College professor Cynthia Henderson came to Flora Rose House to hold a workshop  on racial discrimination and race relations in America. Though the topic is a very relevant one, especially in today’s world, I was unpleasantly surprised to see that only one other person showed up for the workshop. All I can say is that everyone else really missed out because it was one of the best events I have ever attended.

The three of us (the other Rose scholar, Cynthia, and I) began by writing on three different boards the first things that popped into our heads relating to “black people”, “white people”, and “privilege”. Attached is a photo of what each of us wrote down, and the circled items were things that we felt have brought us, or people that we know, pain in the past. Some of the things that I circled included the words “discriminated”, “affirmative action”, “black-on-black crime”, “appropriation”, “Black Lives Matter”, and “misogyny”.

This activity was extremely important because it not only gave me the chance to share how certain things have brought me pain in my life (such as intersectionality, #AllLivesMatter, and colorblindness), but it also allowed me to expand on why they’ve done so. But on top of that, I was able to hear the feelings of the other Rose Scholar in attendance (who happened to be White), feelings on race issues and how she felt stereotyped against at times, a perspective I never thought to take. Sometimes, it’s so easy to get so wrapped up in a cause that we forget other individuals who are indirectly being affected by it or who are indirectly being prejudiced against as well, and this activity enabled me to recognize this and make plans to amend my way of thinking.

Following this, we were given individual mini notebooks to do a modified Privilege Walk, where we were asked a series of questions, to which we either wrote a minus sign if it didn’t apply to us or a plus sign if it did. An example of such a statement was: “If you learned about your ancestors in elementary social studies class, take a step forward/write a plus sign.” By the time we had completed the activity, I had a total of 12 pluses and 13 minuses, while the other Rose Scholar had 21 pluses and 4 minuses. This was an observation I was half expecting, yet I was still surprised to see such a divide between the two of us….And that was only after 25 of such questions. Something Cynthia was sure to remind us of, and something that I really appreciated during the duration of the workshop, was the fact that someone’s privilege as a White person, or someone’s discrimination as a Black person, isn’t a result of our own doing, but rather a result of the way society has unfortunately been structured for centuries. That point probably resonated with me the most, even though I already knew that it was the truth: being African-American is not my fault, just how being born White in a country that caters to White people is not the fault of every White person in America.

Something else that I particularly enjoyed about the workshop was the last activity that Cynthia had us do: taking what we’d written down on the boards and writing a poem about an race-related event that we’d experienced in our lives that we hadn’t said anything about at the time. I won’t share what I wrote in this blog post, but being in such an intimate setting with just Cynthia and GRF Antonio gave me the confidence I needed to share three events (of many) that had occurred that I’d never had the courage to talk about. And that’s something that I’ll honestly treasure for the rest of my life. As a writer, I know the importance of writing things down and the emotional release that accompanies doing so; that’s why I’m so thankful that Professor Henderson allowed me to keep the notebook, so that I can continue this practice of reflecting on my experiences and allowing them to shape me into a better person.

The last thing I did before I left was ask Cynthia  few questions that I had, of which included what I was supposed to do about my younger brother and cousin who will both start college in the fall. As young black men, they are in constant danger of having their lives taken from them for simply walking down the street and/or for simply being black, and I told her that sometimes I feel personally responsible for “waking them up,” so to speak, so that they’re aware to the differences that will exist between white people and black people in college–from blatant racism to smaller microaggressions. “My mom always used to say to me, ‘Each one reach one, each one teach one,'” Cynthia said in response to my question. And by that she meant that as each Black person scales a hurdle or achieves a milestone in life, it’s important to reach back and help bring along our brothers and sisters, never forgetting to only take on what we can handle, but always striving to advance the successes of our race in this country.

A New Perspective

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Maybe it’s just me, but yesterday, when Professor Dan Schwarz came to speak in the Rose Cafe, I got a very paternal vibe from him. It could just be because I haven’t seen my dad since January and I’m missing him something serious or it could be because the speaker actually reminded me so much of any caring father. His book How to Succeed in College, from what I could tell, seemed like such a comprehensive piece on a subject that so many find so important. And even though I had to leave the talk early, he covered so much information in the time that I was there that I’m tempted to buy the book from the Cornell Store just so that I can read more of his advice for myself.

The first thing he discussed was senior year in high school and how choosing the right school and letting the right school “choose” you was so important to the rest of one’s life. That part clearly didn’t apply to many of us in the room, but as an older sister to a senior in high school, I felt that the tips that he gave were very relevant to my own brother’s college selection process. Something that Professor Schwarz said, though, that I found so surprising was the statistic that the Ivy Leagues, because they’re need-blind institutions, may actually cost less than some of the much smaller state schools. In fact, at Cornell, between 45 and 50% of students receive scholarships of over $35,000. I knew the financial aid packages here were super generous, but I never knew just how generous, and it made me so proud to know that I attend a school that makes the financial burden of attending such an elite institution as this easy (or easier) for over half of the student population.

Another thing that Professor Schwarz brought to my attention that I hadn’t previously realized was the concept of the “Red Zone.” According to him, this is an 8- to 12-week period at the beginning of freshman year where 3/8 of incidences such as sexual abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, and/or depression occur in a student’s life. Though an unfortunate statistic, this was a very important point that he brought up; especially to those of us who are still in school (even if we’re no longer freshmen) and to those of us who have younger siblings, cousins, and/or friends heading to college next fall.

After this, Professor Schwarz touched on the sophomore year for a moment before discussing the junior year abroad and how important he thought it to be for students to gain invaluable experience living with another culture and gaining independence. Even though I’m not going abroad, I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

Overall, I’m glad that I was able to hear all the good things Professor Schwarz had to say, and I’m glad that, in the process, it made me think of my own dad and how I only have 4 weeks left until I see him!

Getting Down and Dirty

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Yesterday in the studio of the Johnson Museum, another Rose Scholar from across the table said, “I can’t remember the last time I got my hands this dirty  and didn’t care,” and I couldn’t have agreed with her more. I’d never heard of Studio Thursday until sometime last week, let alone been to one, and I can honestly say that this  event was probably my favorite one out of all the others that I’ve participated in. When we first arrived, we were shown beautiful clay sculptures from ancient South and Central American groups, each one unique in its own way.

Clay Designs in Johnson Museum

After that, we were taken into the studio to start designing our own masterpieces. Given an apron and a block of either gray or red clay, we had the freedom to roll, mold, and shape to our heart’s desire. Most of us in the studio were Rose Scholars, but there was also a family with two young children there and watching them work was the highlight of my afternoon. The dad carried his son, who was maybe 4 or 5 years old, around the room to see what everyone else was working on. Someone at the table next to me was molding a face that the little boy said looked just like his daddy, while the person across from him was making a vessel so tall and smooth, I was tempted to ask him if I could take it home for myself. (I didn’t.) One of the girls at my table made the cutest clay hippo in existence (that may or may not be an exaggeration), another made a turtle, and a third made a sunflower.

As for my sculpture, at first I tried to mold a bowl with a cat face and cat ears on it, but since I’m not exactly the most artistically inclined person on Earth, that was a disaster. My second attempt was just a cat, but that too was quickly smushed back into my original ball of gray clay, so instead–since my stomach was starting to growl–I asked for extra clay and molded a hamburger and fries. Granted, when I asked the student intern what she thought my models looked like, she said a mushroom from the Mario video game and a mortar and pestle (the things pharmacists use to crush pills). Close enough, right?

I’m so glad I was able to attend this event, and I’m looking forward to going to more Studio Thursdays in the future!

Take a Deep Breath

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This week at the Rose Cafe, mental health experts Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Andrea Gerding came to speak. I’ll gladly take advice on managing stress any day, especially during the last few weeks of the school year, and I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to learn a few more tricks to help myself deal with stressful situations. Since high school, I’ve struggled with anxiety, and it was almost comforting to know that others at Cornell (specifically those who were also attending the cafe series along with me) stressed the same way I do. In fact, the speakers started the discussion by asking, “What is stress?” Some of the responses that were given included: lock jaw, shallow breathing, insomnia, a racing mind, and appetite loss, all things that I’ve personally experienced during the height of prelim or finals season.

Asides from feeling put at ease that I wasn’t the only one going through stress that affects both my mind and my body, I also appreciated the destress strategies that the speakers gave. A few of them I was already used to, and even practicing during times of stress, such as using a planner and having a pre-homework routine. But the rest of them were strategies I’d never even considered, namely the Italian “Pomodoro” Technique of using a timer (any timer, not just a tomato timer, as the name implies) to take a short (20-25 minute) break from work. This break can include doing some jumping jacks, walking around, taking a shower, making a short phone call, etc. If one is to break up their work every so often using this technique, he or she is sure to find themselves more able to concentrate, according to the speakers.

Additionally, Ms. Rubenstein-Gillis and Ms. Gerding mentioned a study where it was shown that checking Facebook during work can actually bring down people’s moods and decrease their energy. Sure, I knew scrolling through my news feed every half-hour was probably a bad idea, but I had no clue that it could actually have negative effects on my concentration or energy. Knowing that has definitely allowed me to rethink how I study, how I spend my time, and how I structure my day. Like I said, getting advice on how best to succeed at Cornell always comes at just the right time.

Tennis Coach … Life Coach … Same Thing

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In the Rose-Becker Cafe this Wednesday, the head coach of Cornell’s Varsity men’s tennis team gave a talk about what it means to be a student athlete in college, particularly at an Ivy League college, and more specifically at Cornell. There were five main points that he presented, and though I wasn’t able to stay the entire hour and hear him expand on each of those five, they all made a lot of sense and seemed extremely transferrable to other aspects of life, not just collegiate-level athletics.

The first thing that Coach Silviu discussed was the privilege of being a student athlete at Cornell. “There are 48 Ivy League tennis players out of seven billion people worldwide,” I remember him saying. “There’s a higher chance of winning the lottery in every country than there is becoming an Ivy League tennis player. This statistic not only shocked me but really forced me to take a moment to stop and reflect on how lucky we all are. I mean, yeah only six of us at Cornell play for the men’s tennis team, but another similar privilege can be applied to us: out of tens of thousands of applicants, each of us was hand-picked to attend such a prestigious institution as ours, an honor that is sure to help us reap many benefits in the future.

The second point discussed was the responsibility that comes with that privilege. At one point, Coach Silviu compared being a student athlete at Cornell to getting a medical degree while also trying to complete military school. What a comparison, I remember thinking, but then again, that’s probably an accurate assessment. Although it doesn’t even seem like much, being in 18 credits and working 6-8 hours a week already stresses me out enough as it is; I couldn’t imagine adding to my schedule 6:00 AM workouts and weekend games/matches out of state. By being at Cornell and enduring the workload that we do, we’re all inevitably sacrificing something, but this point specifically gave me a new appreciation for those who do all that and then some.

This point tied in really well the third and fourth ones: the adversity faced as a student athlete is something that needs to be turned into a good thing: “‘Turn adversity into your best friend,’ I always tell my players. It’s through adversity that one has the chance to explore how far they can go, how far they can push themselves. It’s important to be thankful for this because it’s part of what makes you who you are.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. And (once again applying it to my own life), I found myself thinking about how I often remind myself when I’m basically sinking in schoolwork that it’s all going to pay off eventually. Even though it may stink at the moment, it’s going to give me an awesome foundation for my future and better prepare me for both my career and my adult life. This point was a nice, and well-timed, reminder of this.

And lastly, Coach Silviu brought up relationships, and used a personal anecdote to drive the point home. Growing up in Romania, he didn’t have the opportunities that many athletes are afforded here, but when an amazing one presented itself (the opportunity to play in Miami), his parents made the ultimate sacrifice of selling their car in order to buy him a round-trip ticket. This point was also extremely well-timed in that it prompted me to remember just how much my parents have done to get me where I am today as well as how much they’ve encouraged me through everything, highs and lows alike. And just as I was getting super homesick, too…

Clearly, even though I was only able to attend half of this cafe series, I learned A LOT from tennis/life coach Silviu Tanasoiu, and I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to hear him speak.

IMAGE is Key

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Yesterday, in the Rose Cafe, GRF Esmeralda Arrizon-Palomera talked on the subject of undocumented youth in the United States, particularly in Southern California. Being from Atlanta, on the complete opposite side of the US, I’d never heard about something called the Dream Act or even seen the road sign that’s apparently quite common in SoCal that “cautions” drivers about families crossing the border. I was, and still am, aware that the topic of illegal residents is a very hot, very controversial one in our nation today, but I had no idea that there are currently up to 6 million undocumented individuals living in the U.S. And I had no idea that their experience is what it is. Esmerelda spoke on how certain policies, such as the Dream Act and DACA (or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) have been formed to help these undocumented youth, but that over time, such policies have actually come to harm some of these individuals. By that, she meant that even certain propaganda–such as posters depicting a youth in a cap and gown–don’t encompass every undocumented child or adolescent in the country. There are other individuals who may not want to go to school, or who don’t want to, or who are content with working in the labor force; what about them? Where’s the legislative backing for those individuals? If they don’t qualify for the Dream Act, what happens to them? Why is this group of people not being depicted on posters or being supported by President Obama?

I mean, granted, the president has done a lot for this demographic (maybe not all that he could’ve, but nonetheless, he’s done made strides), and that’s something that can’t be said for everybody, and specifically can’t be said for every candidate currently running for president. I hate to get political, but listening to this talk prompted me to think about the men and woman running for the title of the President of the United States and what exactly he or she plans to do to help the fight for rights of Latinos–and all minorities, for that matter. At one point, Esmerelda said that many of these undocumented youth have paralleled their experiences to the African-American struggle/experience, and the Civil Rights Movement. An example of such a comparison was La Gran Marcha, which took place in May of 2006 in protest of a bill that was in the making, which would have effectively made being an illegal resident a felony and would’ve made offering assistance to an undocumented individual a crime. Because of the solidarity of Latinos that was shown during this event, the bill was struck down; “If people can come together to do something so great,” Esmerelda concluded, “what more can be done to bring down discrimination and establish actual human rights for Latinos and African-Americans in the United States?” And how much easier would this be if our next president won’t just fight for the rights of privileged white males (or females), but also for the rights of EVERYONE–male, female, Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Native-American, queer, straight, young, old, rich, and poor. A girl can dream right?

Questions That Need Answers

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I found the Rose Cafe this week quite interesting. House Professor Garrick Blalock gave a talk about technology and its role–or lack thereof–in the lives of underprivileged people in our society. Something I found particularly intriguing was how interactive Professor Blalock made the cafe series. For example, he opened up the discussion by first asking how many of us in the audience owned/drove cars that weren’t electric (most of us raised our hands), then went on to ask if we agreed that greenhouse gases (such as those emitted from our cars) are bad for the planet. Everyone did. “There seems to be a disconnect,” Professor Blalock said then. And he was right: if we all believed that emitting harmful gases into our atmosphere was horrible, then why weren’t we making an effort to reduce our impact on Earth by driving more eco-friendly cars?

Going off of this, Professor Blalock discussed the process that usually goes into buying a car, starting with online research and on-site test drives and ending with signing the contracts and paying for insurance. But what about those individuals who don’t have access to computers or the Internet or a way to get to the car dealership to test drive the car at all? How do they make the best, most informed decision about purchasing the right vehicle, nevertheless a vehicle that will have the least damaging impact possible? By posing this question, Professor Blalock really made me think about how things that we, as individuals from well-to-do families, often take for granted, and how different life could be for other people if they had access to the things that we do, such as certain types of technology.

Further, in my Anthropology of Food and Cuisine class (ANTHR 2450 for anyone interested), we recently read a few articles about the difference in diets between poorer and middle-class families. While the latter usually don’t have to worry about where the next meal will come from, members of the former demographic don’t always have access to the best foods, let alone the most nutritious and sustaining foods. By combining what I’ve heard in both the Rose cafe and in my anthropology class, I want to make it a personal goal of mine to stop taking everything that I am lucky enough to have access to for granted and start thinking more about others.

Making Ross Geller Proud

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This morning, I had the pleasure of visiting the Museum of the Earth a few minutes away from downtown Ithaca. Even though I didn’t know that this museum even existed until a few days ago when I signed up for the event, I’m so glad that I was able to go. On our tour, we had the chance to explore the different eras of time, which included various different organisms, some of which I’d never even heard of before. It’s been a while since I’ve taken Earth Science (in fact, the last time I did was in 8th grade), so it was fun getting a mini-lesson in geology, evolution, and paleontology all in one.

One point that I was most curious about through the tour was whether or not the Earth is currently headed for another massive extinction (like the ones at the end of all the eras preceding our current one). With climate change and global warming very serious issues in today’s time, I was glad that GRF Yashira brought this point up with our tour guide. Though the Earth may still have a few million (or billion) years to go, it made me think that if we want to preserve life (and history, such as all the artifacts presented in the museum) on Earth, we have to do more (as the human race) to keep this planet and its inhabitants healthy.

I think, overall, I would’ve made Ross Geller (my third favorite character from Friends) extraordinarily proud. Go ahead, ask me a question about the Jurassic period. I probably won’t be able to answer it correctly, but I’m sure I’ll get close, thanks to this event! 🙂

Below are some photos I took while touring the museum. If you ever get an hour or two of free time (which can be rare here at Cornell), take a trip down to the Museum of the Earth. I would have to say it’s one of the cooler, more educational parts of the city of Ithaca.

A skeleton of a woolly mammoth.

A skeleton of a woolly mammoth.

Great Whale Fossil

A fossil of a Great Whale that died in the 1990s. This fossil hangs right at the entrance of the museum and instantly got me excited for the tour when we walked in.

The Ins and Outs of “Inside Out”

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The film Inside Out was such a touching one. I mean, granted, I’m always a fan of children’s movies, especially one by Pixar, but this one in particular topped the charts (for me, at least). To quickly summarize, the movie is about an eleven-year old girl from Minnesota who is forced to move across the country to San Francisco, start classes at a new school, play ice hockey for a new team, and try to adjust to her new life. All the while, inside her head, her five main emotions–Anger, Fear, Joy, Sadness, and Disgust–are trying desperately to keep things running smoothly. Besides the adorable, but tear-jerking, plot line and the annoying, but lovable, characters, the movie also contained clearcut lessons from the fields of psychology and human development.

As a psychology major, I tried watching the movie through the eyes of a “scientist”, which I think allowed me to more easily relate it to life itself. More than that, it prompted me to ask several questions about emotions (and understanding them), personality, culture, and depression in real life; it was this reliability aspect of the film that appealed to me the most. One question that I was particularly interested in getting an answer to was whether the difference child-rearing styles in distinct cultures have an effect on how those children eventually grow up to raise their own children. Professor Tamar Kushnir, a professor in the Human Development department who was watching the film with us, called this the “Immigrant Effect.” Not solely about emotional expression, this effect is an attempt to explain why certain people act the way that they do while living and interacting with others in one culture but while being raised by parents of another culture. This effect was especially relevant to me, and Professor Kushnir, both children of immigrants, and I felt that this movie did a great job of prompting those questions within us.

Besides my curiosity on that subject, I also considered the topic of depression, and mental illness as a whole, while watching this movie. Professor Kushnir actually posed a great question about this topic at the end of the movie: are people more genetically predisposed to fall victim to depression and certain life events (such as moving from Minnesota to California) are just triggers of this or are those life events the cause of depression or depression-like symptoms?

Even though I’ll admit I cried three times (at least) through the course of Inside Out, I thought it was an incredibly beautiful movie that touched on a lot of important areas of study, and I would recommend it to anyone, whether 6 years old or 20 or 45.

To First World Countries: Wake Up

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Poverty, Inc. was such a great documentary to watch. If there was some way to make every human being on earth (especially those in the first world and more specifically those in poverty relief industries), I would in a heartbeat. Right off the bat, the first thing that absolutely shocked me was discovering that the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid was about the 1984 famine in Ethiopia. Taking the time to actually hear, and see, the lyrics, I realized that the song was nothing short of a joke, trivializing the struggles of those in third world, underserved countries. I completely and totally understand that celebrities, and many common people in developed nations, for that matter, just want to help. But, as a first generation Nigerian-American, I can confidently agree with the producers of Poverty, Inc. that there’s a better way to do this than releasing star-studded music videos. There’s a better way to help than perpetuating “stupid, poor, helpless” stereotypes about the people of Africa, South and Central America, and the Caribbean.

Another point that was heavily emphasized in this film, that I stand by 100%, was the fact that foreign aid alone isn’t actually helping! As one rice farmer from Haiti said, “Instead of foreign countries sending us rice, we would like to export it to them.” In other words, how are farmers, entrepreneurs, and businessmen and women in these countries expected to get back on their feet if they’re constantly leaning on the metaphorical crutch that Western nations are forcing on them? Like Ghanian business mogul Herman Chinery-Hesse noted, there’s never been a developed nation that ever got to where they were solely off of foreign aid. Instead of just shackling these countries hit by natural disasters and the like in loans and debt, better-off nations need to take responsibility and enable their poverty-stricken counterparts with the ability to become independent again. By not taking business for them, say by only shipping in free rice or providing free TOMS shoes for the period of time right after a disaster hits (and not for years and years after), first-world nations would thus be helping poorer nations more so than if they continued on the course that they’re currently on.

One last point that wasn’t particularly covered in the documentary, but one that I was prompted to think about nonetheless was the topic of service trips to third world countries. When people travel from their homes to “give back” in underserved areas, the whole idea of a “Savior complex” is perpetuated. Who benefits from such trips other than the people who go to “feel good”? I mean, of course, the families who have water wells and houses built for them now don’t have to worry about living without water or shelter, but those are skills that they could easily be taught to utilize themselves instead of just having hand-outs given to them. Like the old English saying goes, “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.”

Poverty, Inc. was an incredible movie, and I so hope that in my lifetime as an immigrant to this country with family still back home, the way that poverty relief corporations are structured changes for the better.

One That Hits Home

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CHIRAQ was such an amazing film, and I’m so glad that I was able to start my Rose Scholars events this semester with such a great movie. Not only were the actors who had parts in the movie actors that I know, love, and appreciate, but Spike Lee is also one of my favorite directors, and the message that the plot delivered was fantastic. And it only made it that much better that all of these actors were singing half of their lines (side note: musicals are a great pastime of mine).

Although I live in the suburbs of Atlanta, and not quite the heart of the city, as a black woman myself, I related to this movie on a very deep level. Crime, police brutality, and social justice are very hot topics currently in the United States, and at times, I’ve felt hopeless about the plight of black people in regards to the way that we’re both portrayed and treated. So, the fact that this film took an old play and related it to the struggles of black individuals, thus addressing those very problems and setting women of color as the protagonists of the movie, really resonated with me.

 
Furthermore, seeing these women using their sexuality as a good thing, as a weapon of their own, to fight their fight against innercity crime and unnecessary death, really hit home. I’m personally tired of seeing women’s sexuality, particularly that of black women, being viewed as this horrible thing that should never be discussed or expressed, and it was refreshing to see another spin put on it in this film. Overall, I love that topics that are very near and dear to my heart were seen in this interesting adaptation of a play from thousands of years ago.