I went to my first Rose Café the other day because it’s the first time that the timing worked out. I have to say I regret a little not going to more. I really enjoyed hearing about his research and fieldwork talking to immigrants about their views on having legal and illegal status. I found it surprising that to most of them it didn’t matter, but that also says something about our legal system. I think if that’s the case, then we aren’t doing enough to protect our legal residents. One thing that Asad talked about was how the only thing that can protect you from being deported is being a citizen. And that, quite frankly, doesn’t seem right to me, especially given the abuses of power that there seems to be in our legal system and the things it makes illegal. One thing he brought up was that marijuana is now legal in some states, but illegal federally. And illegal drug use is something people can get deported over, so how is that legal situation going to effect immigration law? I can already see how under Trump that will be used to trick even legally residing non-citizens. And personally, I’m worried because all of this only shows that there is a lack of empathy in the United States, which doesn’t bode well for anyone.
Author Archives: iad29
Humor in Drumming
After learning to drum with Yamatai a few weeks ago, I thought it would be fun to see them perform at their annual show. I went to see them at Bailey hall, and I’m not going to lie I was a little jealous at how many people came. I wish my shows got that many people. But I definitely understand why so many people came. They were really good, as always. I was surprised at how much humor was in the show, which I hadn’t expected given that the taiko drumming is from my understanding, a fairly serious art form. And of course the performance was even more physically demanding that I had imagined. There was one song where the drummers were basically doing one crunch for the entire song. And another, that was my favorite, where a girl was playing a drum twice as big as she was. The only thing that confused me was when Big Red Raas came out and started dancing and drumming with no mention of it in the program or anything. But overall it was really engaging, it was two hours long, but didn’t feel like it.
Zines Versus Hardcover
I was really excited when I realized that one of the Rose Scholars events was bookmaking. I’m an amateur bookbinder, but I often don’t have the time or space to make anything, so this was a great opportunity for me. I thought it was interesting to learn about what Zines are, but personally I found the actual binding part far more interesting. I made two booklets, one with rounded edges, which made me now want to buy an edge rounder, through the method they showed us, and the other by messing around with some of the stuff I know. Both of these were through a simple folding method, basically like a magazine. This made me realize, though, that I far prefer making hard cover books because they’re less limiting. With the simple folding method, you’re limited to a certain number of pages or else your book won’t lie flat, but with a hardcover book, or I suppose a perfect bound book too, you can have as many pages and configurations as you want. And you can have more creativity with how you bind.
Lessons in entrepreneurship (or not really)
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I was really disappointed by the entrepreneurship conference. Because of classes and tech week for a show I was in, I could only go to one session. I decided to go to one about the entrepreneurial mindset, but it ended up being really only about the academic entrepreneurship programs at Cornell. I learned a lot about the BEST program for graduate students and the Kessler Fellows Program for engineering undergrads, but really very little about the entrepreneurial mindset. I was hoping to hear more about how I could incorporate that mindset into my life and academics, but it was really just a few people talking about their experiences in the programs. I think it would have been more interesting if I even could have participated in some of these programs, but I can’t. It did expose me to some new startups around my hometown which was pretty interesting. I want to look into more community oriented companies in my community. But I wish there had been more that I could have gleamed from the session or applied to my life.
West Campus Revamp
I wasn’t intending to go to a rose scholars event this week, but I saw that they were presenting the design ideas that the landscape architecture students came up with and I happened to be free, so I just had to go. It was pretty cool to see everyone’s ideas and how they all had different styles of presenting architectural plans. And I was presently surprised to get free ice cream out of it. But I have to say I was a little disappointed by the lack of things to do in some of the designs. A lot of them had cool designs for places to sit and new paths, but most of them didn’t seem to address the snow/rain issue that personally I think affects people going outside the most. Also, I didn’t see a lot of dramatic improvement of things to do. While a lot of the designs featured outdoor amphitheaters, most of them had that as their only activity area, which I really wanted to see more of. And very few of them added covering to protect from the elements. I’m probably biased on this, but my favorite design was from the girl who explained hers to me. Her design included these light up swings and at least one awning.
It a good thing I never became a drummer
I saw that Yamatai was going to be having a lesson at Rose, and I thought it would be fun to learn. I’ve seen them perform at lots of different events before, and I always thought it looked physically draining, but not that hard. I was very mistaken. In the course of trying to learn how to drum, I realized that I am not good at non-4-count rhythms. It’s a really good thing I didn’t try to peruse drumming like I’ve thought about doing in the past. I was right though about it being physically taxing. The stance and way you move the sticks is exhausting. It only solidified by respect for the people in Yamatai. Even though I wasn’t very good at it, I did have a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed playing the big, deep drum. Something about it was just a lot more satisfying than on the tiny drums.
New Possibilities for West Campus
I loved going to the Design Charette. I still have no idea what the word charette means, but we got to look at different design elements and talk to landscape architecture students about what we wanted for the outside of west campus. I really enjoyed seeing and voting on the different possibilities for things to add, especially all of the possible play spaces. One thing that I did notice while talking to the architecture students is that none of them have been here over the summer and had formed some assumptions as a result. They all assumed Ithaca is nice in the summer. But it pours out of nowhere in the summer. Constantly. It’s really a lot. So even when it’s warmer out, people don’t want to be outside. Personally, my philosophy is if it’s built for the winter, it will translate into the summer, but not the other way around. Both seasons really need for there to be coverings outdoors to protect people from the elements so they can actually spend time outdoors. And have things to do outdoors beyond just sit. I really want a sledding track so the central grassy area is actually used in the winter. The professor for the class said that they’ll be back to present their designs later in the semester, so I’m really looking forward to that.
Superbowl Bets
I attended the Superbowl event with very little interest in football or sports in general. That didn’t change. But it was really interesting learning more about betting on the Superbowl. In my family we normally make a square and just bet on the ones digit on the ending score of both teams. The scores are put into a checker board and we put a quarter on each square that’s claimed by everyone and each square costs the person betting $1. Whoever has the winning score wins everything. At the event, we learned about betting on winning teams, winning scores and more, with bets having different returns if you are betting on the favorite or underdog. I found it really interesting and possibly worrying that the way the bets work are pretty similar to what I’m learning about in finance class. Not sure if that means that investing is a bet, but it’s definitely something to ponder.
Normalizing Vaginas
I wasn’t really sure what to expect going into the Vagina Monologues, but it was way funnier than I ever expected. Based on the mission of the project, I thought it would be serious and dramatic. Instead the monologue balanced humor with serious drama. The balance really helped cut the tension over some of the awkwardness of talking about vaginas. Personally, I never really thought about my vagina that much before, which was a very common theme in the production. But the monologues made me realized that conversations about sex need to be more normalized. I think the biggest problem is starting conversations. I don’t really know how to help normalizing these conversations, but I hope they are in the future.
Climbing to New Heights
I had so much fun rock climbing with the Brothers of Climbing! I enjoy rock climbing, but I don’t get to go often because it can get expensive, so it was a treat to get to go. I’m afraid of falling from heights, but fro some reason I’m much more comfortable rock climbing than just standing high up. I like to push myself to do more difficult routes or a larger number of routes each time I climb. This time I climbed more routes than ever before! I even pushed myself to try the bouldering wall. Even though I fell from the bouldering wall, I realized it wasn’t as scary falling as I thought it would be. It was really nice getting to climb with a lot of other people. There were twice as many people there than I’ve ever seen before, and there was a lot more diversity. I’m sure that was because the event was hosted by the Brothers of Climbing, whose goal is to get more people of color rock climbing. The interesting thing, was that the brothers were telling us how they would go into climbing gyms and see only white men. My experience has been that when I go into climbing gyms it’s mostly occupied by women. I wonder if that’s due to changes in the demographics of the sport or just pure coincidence?
expensive dog toys
When I went to go make dog and cat toys this past weekend I was not all that surprised that, like myself, not many people had spare tee-shirts with them. Personally I don’t bring extra clothes that I don’t use to school because I have to travel across the country. When everyone came back from searching for shirts, most of them seemed to grab t-shirts that they may have been willing to cut up, but were still in use. In that observation, I realized a problem. It seemed like the main goal of turning t-shirts into toys was to save money for shelters that the toys were donated to, so they wouldn’t have to buy new toys. While the project did succeed at helping the shelters it seemed to have an unintended consequence of additional cost to students who may now have to replace those cut up t-shirts. It also didn’t seem like the best use of the t-shirts because while we used a good deal of them, there was still a large amount of each shirt that remained unused. It seemed like a secondary goal of this project was sustainability, but that wasn’t really accomplished. In fact, it seemed like there was actually more waste created since the t-shirts were previously in use. I wish that the event could have happened latter in the semester. I think it would have had a greater impact with less waste and cost.