Author Archives: jo349

Environmental impact–humans and animals

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Andrew Zepp’s visit as a representative of the Finger Lakes Land Trust allowed me to learn a little bit more about the environment around us and how we affect it. Zepp’s explanation of the algae in the local lakes reminded me of the models we had explored in my BIOG 1500 class freshman year–adding too much of the nutrients found in common fertilizers caused populations to bloom and leave the ecosystem imbalanced.

The discussion took a new turn, however, when Zepp mentioned that it was hard to attribute all of the algae blooms in the lake to the fertilizer runoff of farmers in the region. It was possible that a large portion of it was due to some new kind of clam? fish? zebra clam? in the lake. This was new information to me, but it made sense. You can’t blame all the trouble on human activity when the animal activity could just as well be causing the imbalance. This just reasserted, in my mind, the importance of conducting studies regarding the environment and specific organisms’ affects.

Cuisine as an art and as a practicality

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Attending the Rose Cafe with a sushi making demo opened my eyes to the functionality underlying cooking. Sushi, as far as I was concerned, was good because it tasted good. I, perhaps, had a vague idea that Japan was an island and that fish was probably pretty common, so the dish emerged from fresh fish being available. This cafe demonstrated to me, however, that there was more to sushi than that.

Historically, fish was preserved for long periods of time using fermented rice as packaging. Eventually, technology changed and the fish was able to be preserved without the rice, but people had become used to eating the two together. The fact that this widely popular dish originated out of necessity and practicality boggles me. For all we know, some of the dishes that we make for practicality’s sake today could become widespread, cultural dishes tomorrow.

How to make bureaucracy better

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I, Daniel Blake had many themes and points, but one that struck me immediately was its portrayal and commentary on bureaucracy at the Jobcentre. When Katie, a single mother, is late for her appointment, she is told to leave and make a new appointment. Things get a bit heated, and the manager tells Katie to make a new appointment and leave any complaints there. Even when a sympathetic worker at the Jobcentre tries to help out, she is reprimanded by her manager.

Bureaucracy being inefficient and impersonal is no new critique. But this scenario in particular made me wonder, what exactly is the alternative being proposed? If someone is late, and there are others waiting, what can be done except to ask them to reschedule? If someone is making a scene in your business center, and you can’t appease them by offering the one thing they’re asking for, what can you do but ask them to leave and file a complaint if they so choose? Ensuring management and workers are as compassionate and informed as possible is one way of mitigating the negative effects of bureaucracy–however, being compassionate is difficult when your department is understaffed and your position is underpaid. There may not be any clear solution, and perhaps the problem lays further back than simply the institution of bureaucracy itself.

Past, Present, and Future: West Campus

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Professor Blalock’s cafe with us the other evening focused on a topic I hadn’t really thought about, despite my constant immersion in it: West Campus’ history. When I first moved on to West Campus, I wasn’t too happy about having to live in a Gothic building. I had no clue how old it was, only that it was old. I eventually learned to live with the silverfish and the spiders, and grew to appreciate the view from Lyon tower. Professor Blalock, however, brought to my attention the history behind the Gothic buildings and just how old they were–though I knew about the war memorial and the various plaques across the buildings, I hadn’t realized that they had mainly been built with donations in honor of fallen Cornell veterans.

Additionally, though I knew main houses were newer, I hadn’t thought about what had preceded them. Several West Campus house plans had been implemented in the past, and West Campus as it stands today is really not that old at all. Professor Blalock mentioned that in 20 to 30 years, West Campus as we know it today may no longer exist, and a new house plan could be constructed. That comment in itself put me into a new perspective, and I reminded myself that the present can’t be taken for granted, since it too is going to be history at some point.

It’s all about the path, not the career

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Speaking with Lisa Nishii at the Rose Cafe the other evening provided me with some unforeseen food for thought. I expected to learn more about Nishii’s field in organizational psychology, but ended up learning more about the process of finding your own path instead. One of the most reassuring things I heard from Nishii was — “At your age, I didn’t know at all what I wanted to do, either.” As a student who is rapidly approaching senior year, I often feel like I should have my life planned out. However, hearing that many people just wander where opportunities take them until something feels right–and that this works— was very reassuring.

Another thing that struck me from our conversation was that Nishii found her passion through following things that interested her. This may sound obvious, but when you’re young and looking for the “perfect career”, you consider just about every field out there instead of focusing on what you already know you love. If you notice that you’re very into writing papers for a certain class, or that you spend all your free time researching one specific topic in the news, it might be a sign that you’d like to continue doing that.

Overall, speaking with an adult who has actually been through the same experiences and has come out the other end in a happy, satisfying career (and who is not necessarily at the end of her career path–there is always more to explore) reminded me that it isn’t a race to finding the “perfect job”, and that following opportunities and exploring interests as I go is a worthwhile method for enjoying my post-college worklife.

Human Connection, Emotional Intelligence, A Man Called Ove

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A Man Called Ove played with a trope that might be familiar to viewers who have seen Up (and other media, of course, though I’m struggling to remember them at the moment): an older man who, in his youth, fell in love with a woman who helped him come out of his shell, but who lost her in some tragic incident and consequently withdrew from society and human connection. This man will, over the course of the story, learn to love life again and form new connections, no longer relying on his now-dead wife as an intermediary for connecting with others. Even though this is just a media trope, I feel like there is some innate truth to it that causes it to crop up so often in media. Women are often seen as emotionally intelligent, sensitive persons compared to men, and often wives and girlfriends are expected to be the sole bearer of a man’s emotional baggage. When suddenly deprived of that sole outlet for emotional expression, men in the real world might react in a way similar to Ove–cutting themselves off from all other people. If we think about it, how often do you see depictions in the media of women who can’t bear to have any human connections or work through their emotions on their own after their husbands die?

I won’t say that this trope exists solely because of this phenomenon, or even that this male behavior is universal (it’s probably a very Western-centric take), but I do think the trope can provide some insight into how we view the emotional capabilities of men and women.

Informing others on student voting rights

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Last Monday Rose House brought in some representatives from Andrew Goodman Foundation to talk about the state of student voting rights. It was really interesting for me to hear what the students in attendance had to say about voting. For some, it wasn’t something that they thought about very much, and for others, it seemed that there weren’t too many barriers to their access to voting. As someone who has a job dedicated to overcoming voter apathy and increasing awareness about the many barriers that exist to voting, it was nice to engage with students who had the very mindset that I need to understand in order to perform my job correctly. The fact that everyone was so receptive to learning about student voting barriers and the importance of voting left me wondering if everyone would be so receptive to learning about these challenges, and if so, how the information could be better disseminated.

It’s interesting that on a college campus, where everyone seems to be invested in one social cause or another, there is still an alarmingly low rate of students voting. It makes me wonder if the only voices we hear are the loudest ones, and there is a large body of silent, politically uninvested persons. Though it’s understandable to be confused or uninterested in politics, politics will affect you, your family, your friends, and your loved ones regardless of whether you vote or not. Overall, this is my reasoning on why everyone should vote. Hopefully before the 2020 election, we can get more students involved and invested in their representation.

Two ways of entering a country

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The Rose House discussion of The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen was great–I got to hear how other Rose residents understood and perceived the stories, as well as hearing it from a developmental psychologist’s point of view. I and several other attendees had gone to a reading of the collection by Nguyen himself, and something that Nguyen said about his experience with talking to other refugees stuck with me during our discussion. As we went around in a circle and shared our thoughts on the short story collection, many people brought up their own family’s history–a few mentioned that someone in their ancestry had been a refugee, but many more talked about how their parents or grandparents immigrated here. Before attending Nguyen’s reading, I didn’t perceive refugees and immigrants as being very different–there was hardly a distinction in my own mind. But, especially after hearing Nguyen talk about how refugees are often ashamed to even admit they are refugees, and instead assume the title of immigrant, I realized that there is actually a fundamental difference. We can generally say that immigrants come to the United States of their own free will and because they want to do so, even though there may be pressures and dangers in their home country, immigration is essentially a choice. With refugees, however, they are actively fleeing someplace extremely unsafe for them, and may not necessarily even want to be in the US. Of course this is simplifying it, and there are shades of gray, but it’s interesting to me that in our minds we tend to classify these as more or less the same. Someone entering the United States from another country, whether as an immigrant or a refugee, brings memories, trauma, and culture from their home country, and I think that’s what resonates with readers in The Refugees.