Author Archives: Michelle Lee

More Than Just Soil

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What is soil? If I asked you this question, you may point to the dirt out in your garden. However, if you ask Dr. Solomon, he will answer you soil is a biomaterial that is an integrable part of the environment and can elaborate on it for hours. In the Becker-Rose Cafe on April 6, 2016. Dr. Solomon introduced to us many different interesting facts about soil and educated us on the relevance of soil to our lives. One of the most interesting fact was that there are many different colors to soil. In my head, I have always pictured soil to be dark brown. I never really pay close attention to the different color of soil. From Dr. Solomon, I learnt that soil exhibit a wide range of color, including gray, black, white, reds, yellows and even green. I did a little research on my own. Turns out, the amount of proteins present in the soil can influence soil color. Yellow or red soil indicates the presence of iron oxide; dark brown or black color indicates that the soil has a high organic matter content. In well drained and thus oxygen rich soils red and brown soil colors are more common, as opposed to in wet and low oxygen soils, soils usually appears grey. Another interesting thing that I have learnt was that global warming will get worse as modern world agricultural methods accelerate the rate of soil degradation, which depletes the amount of carbon the soil is able to store, and causes the soil to not be able to provide nutrients for plant growth.

Before the cafe, I have not thought about how much more there is about soil than just a matter that provide nutrients to plant growth. The fact that even just soil that we can see everywhere can be affected by global warming shows us that there are always more around us that we should learn about. Like Dr. Solomon’s research on soil, we use our knowledge, research and other methods to solve situations that we observes and we will be able to contribute to the process of improving our world, even if it is just by a little bit.

^Soil of different color!

More than just bird watching

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The Rose House trip to the Lab of Ornithology Lab was much more than just a mere birding tours. I was hesitant to up for the visit at first because I have slight fear of birds. However, I was glad I went because I not only get to enjoy the nature after a whole week of endless studying, but I also got to get a glimpse into our technology plays a part in spreading the knowledge of ornithology and expanding the scope of the field. For example, the Lab of Ornithology had a very beautiful Wall of Birds depicting the different species that ones can find on different continents. Of course, this artistic piece can show visitors how different species look like and where they can be found. You may think that if the people did not go to the Lab of Ornithology in person, they would not be able to see this art and learn from this art. However, the Lab’s website allows people to remotely see and learn from this amazing art online. The website is interactive. We can click on specific species that are painted on the wall and get brief introduction about the species. The website makes it possible for people to see what treasure the Lab of Ornithology has and to learn more about birds even without visiting the lab in person. If you are interested, click on the link below. It is super fun and educational.

https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/features/wallofbirds/

Besides using technology to aid in spreading knowledge on ornithology, technology also makes many researches in the field possible. To illustrate, the lab had really quality-recordings of the bird chirping sounds. The recording is so fine that the researcher are able to distinguish the separate species from an existing species that got mixed together. Through this trip, I did not get to get close to nature, but also see more how technology plays a role in ornithology research and education. Overall, it was a great trip that I am glad that I signed up for.

How hard is it to play professional tennis in college?

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How hard is it to play professional tennis in college? In short, really hard! In Rose-Becker Cafe on March 23rd, Cornell Tennis Team Head Coach Silviu Tanasoiu gave us a talk on his experience coaching Cornell’s Tennis Team. The first thing he told us was that playing professional tennis in college is hands down difficult–it is like being in the military while attending in college. Why so? Besides hours and hours of practices, and numerous back and forth trips to tournaments, student athletes have to also deal with rigorous academic workloads. Coach Tanasoiu mentioned that many students had their eyes on playing professional tennis only. As a result, many students who were interested in professional tennis find the idea going to college very foreign. However, perhaps one’s enthusiasm for their own interests can help overcome all these adversities that ones may face. For example, Coach Tanasoiu put it as amazing for someone to pay him in playing tennis. He really enjoyed what he is doing with tennis. He found that being to participate in a college tennis program like the one in Cornell encourages student athletes to try their best in playing tennis and pursuing higher education. Personally, I am not good at sport and I cannot imagine how intense doing professional college sport. Sports require practices and it can exhaust an individual so much. I have always thought that athletes have to go through many intense trainings and will not not have time to attend school. However, this talk from Coach Silviu shows me that there are motivated individual who are able to handle both. As long as we have the passion for it, we should go for what we do and there are definitely resources to support you to strive for your dream.

Consumer Behavior in Uganda

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In the Rose-Becker Cafe on March 9th, 2016, Professor Blalock gave us an overview on his research on how to encourage people in Uganda to adopt eco-stove cooking solution. It was very interesting to learn that some Ugandan natives build their stoves by putting three rocks together and burn biofuel as fuel sources. The picture below shows how it looks like.

 

Although it looks like a pleasant set up, the Uganda had to walk a long distance to collect the biomass as a large amount is needed in their cooking process. Due to the way the “stove” is designed, heat escape very easily. Also, burning of biomass releases harmful chemicals that can cause lung dysfunction and many other health problems. Ugandans who use these kind of “stoves” may not even live long enough for lung cancer to develop. In order to resolve such problems, one of the alternatives was to encourage the Ugandan to adopt the eco-stove cooking solution, which may look something like the stove shown below.

With the help of programs, such as carbon fund where people donate to offset their carbon footprint(or guilt), the eco-stove were sold to Ugandan for a very affordable cost. They were also offered the options to return, get warranty and financial installments. Although a good number of people bought the stove. Many of the stoves essentially just sit in the Ugandan home without being much used. But why was that? Perhaps, it could be because of conformity. Even though people are concerned about health and efficiency, they may be more concerned about conforming to the norm. Since the Ugandan who adopts the eco-stoves cooking solution are the early-adopters in their country and innovation adoption does not appear to be popular in Uganda, using a strange stove may just appear weird to neighbors. As a result, despite experiencing all the benefits of the eco-stoves, Ugandan may still be very unlikely to use the cooking alternative any time soon.

Message behind the Cuban Art

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Originally when I signed up for the event, I did not look carefully at the event blurb and thought that I would be touring around the Johnson Museum. Besides seeing different phenomenal art pieces, what else can we do in the Museum? However, the event turns out to be a very educational talk on contemporary art in Cuba and the messages behind them. Before we dive into the nitty-gritty discussion of the art, we were given a brief overview of contemporary Cuban history. Having a very limited knowledge of Cuban History, I learnt a lot new things from the talk. For example, I learnt about Operation Peter Pan. Operation Peter Pan was an American-organized program which was first developed after the Cuban Revolution occurred and turned Cuba communist. Many Cuban parents send their children to the United States in fear that the new government was planning to send minors to the Soviet Union to serve in work camps. Besides learning about the history, we were shown an artwork that expresses the sadness of the children having to leave their native country. The artwork is not just a painting. It was an art piece where there is a white-colored sketch of the cuban territory on the floor and there are white clothes on top of the sketch, which illustrates how young Cuban were forced to fly off their own country to somewhere on their own because of the revolution.

After going to the talk, I found that artworks do not only express the artists’ emotions but can also help illustrate the social problems and make the audience to learn more about the problems they are concerned. Overall, I thought it was a really good experience and I am glad that I stumbled upon this talk

Humor in Environmentalism

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For some peculiar reasons, environmentalists seem to like stating facts and pointing to statistics , trying their bests to explain the environmental problem our world is encountering, They are so busy to get their ideas across, and that may lead to their always sincere character. Unfortunately, others may not take them as seriously as they are. Comedians, for example, like to make fun of the stern stance that environmentalists always pertain. To illustrate, we watched a short clip of a discussion between the environmentalists and the politician. During the discussion, the environmentalists deploy a very earnest and virtuous position. The politician, on the other hand, tries to be more humorous during the discussion but resonance did not seem to successfully built up between the two parties. In the clip, the environmentalist see the world to only have two types of people: wolf-lover and non-wolf-lover. The environmentalists, although, are right about the fact that we should take precautions to save the wolf packs, they did not show enough understandings of how being environmentally aware could also impact other people’s lives negatively. The clip demonstrates how the public generally perceive environmentalists to have a more stand-off position and have simply interest in the environment but nothing else. However, if environmentalists have been seen this way, why cannot environmentalists try to use a more humorous approach to make their ideas more easily accepted by the public? Maybe more environmentalists should learn how to present their ideas in a more likable way such that they can be appear less environmentally focused but a little bit more humanity focused.

Sad vs Melancholy

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Nowadays, we may not be aware that there is a differentiation between the word “sad” and “melancholy”. From the Rose-Becker Cafe on February 17th, we explored the actual meaning of “melancholy”. Interestingly, Sarah explained to us the root meaning of “melancholy”. Turns out, by splitting the word “melancholy” into “mela” and “choly”, it literally means “bad yellow bile”. But what exactly is that? De facto, Hippocrates suggested that emotions and behaviors were caused by an excess or lack of body fluids, which are blood, yellow biles, black bile, and phem. Based on this, we can already scrutinize that the fundamental differences between “sad” and “melancholy” lie under that “melancholy” is not just a reflection of emotion, but also has a biological connection.

With that definition in mind we started watching some video clips and understand how the concept of melancholy can be accentuated in different types of arts. In one of the clips we saw, the protagonist looks at a painting that gives him the nostalgic, melancholic feeling. When we were watching the clip, we also got the intense emotional feeling from the art. The painting in the video clip has a woman standing in the center with her hair style pertaining to a swirl. The swirling hair style, in fact, is what has stirred the feeling in us. The portrayal of her hair has the effect of drawing us into the dark color element and make people feel lost in the painting, and essentially feel sadden. However, what is important is to note that the protagonist, unlike us, are not just sad but melancholic because he had recalled some tragic memory that he had and he was trapped in his terrible thought in his head. Ultimately, the painting because of his biological acceptance of the negative impacts of his past trauma, he ultimately had a much more intense feeling towards the painting than the viewers.

Protect what’s important

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I WAS SO GLAD I ATTENDED THIS INSPIRATIONAL EVENT. I was on the waitlist for the event, but my roommate and I decided to check out if there was any spot left. Turns out two people did not show up and both my roommate and I got to go to Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival at the end. The event is really unique because it is not a one-story documentary. It is a screening of multiple short videos filmed by individuals who went on incredible journeys. The one that struck me the most was the one about capturing the Eclipse at the Arctic. Many people may want to see the eclipse, but go all the way to the Arctic, one of the coldest places on earth? I guess not. But these motivational individuals from the film portray such great passion. They were not afraid of cold; they were not intimidated by the severe wind. They shared an estimate of two weeks to scout the best place for photographing the moment when the skier jumps right in front of the eclipse. They went through such a long and harsh journey but they managed to get a breath-taking picture of such a magnificent moment. It may be really cliche, but this reminded me how there is no limit to what we can do as long as we have the passion for it. All the short films propose the importance of protecting what we value, such as the environment and our passion. Nowadays, there are so many different stress in our society, but we shall not be afraid to protect what we value simply because of external stress. I am sure all of us can achieve our dream, promote our value as long as we want to and give our best!

What should be done to help reduce poverty?

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When people speak of means to reduce poverty reduction, the first thing that usually comes to mind is that developed countries can provide resources to impoverished communities and help alleviate the impact of poverty in the region. While this is a kind thought, how much does simply bringing some resources to the communities really help? After watching “Poverty Inc.”, I realized that it may have helped a little in the short run, and undermine the community progress to rid poverty in the long run.

There are two major reasons for giving the poor people means will do more harm than benefits. First, when the developed countries provide aids to the destitute communities, we are indeed disrupting their economies. Using the example from the documentary, the shoes company TOMS promises to donate a pair of shoes to someone in need when customers buy a pair from them. Although it sounds really nice that when a consumer buy a pair of shoes, they can also help some one from a poor region to get a pair of shoes. However, the problem is when the poor communities know about the free shoes, who will buy shoes from the local shoemaker? Some people may lose their jobs as a consequence of our so called “kindness” and the poverty problem will just continue. In addition, when we give the poor people means instead of the chance to work for themselves, we are instilling in their heads with the ideas that they are helpless and they can only depend on us. Communities cannot rid poverty not because they have no ability to make money but because we did all these thing to prevent them from making any economic progress by themselves. Perhaps, we should all think about what we should actually do to help the communities in need than blindly sending limited means to them.

Skate with Fear

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Sometimes I doubt that I have tachophobia. Every time I go skiing, snowboarding or roller skating, I have always been so frightened of going fast and immediately halt myself once I gain a little bit of speed. Ice skating at Lynah Rink with my fellow Rose Scholars was not an exception to my fear of speed. In the beginning, once I stepped on the rink, I felt that I lost control of everything. However, everyone gave me a hand when I was about to fall and I gained confidence about skating bit by bit. For the first time, I was able let go of the handrail and ice skated a very short distance before I screamed at the top of my lung.

Overall, I had a great time with my friends at the rink despite the fact that I was worried about going ice skating at first. I think big group activities, such as ice skating, bowling are all great events that Rose Scholars Program can organize more. I heard from a friend who lived in Keeton that they once had a trip to Ithaca mall and do ceramics painting. I think that will also be a good option for a Rose Scholar event.