Author Archives: jtc284

Coping with Exam Anxiety

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Anxiety is an issue I feel a lot of us are familiar with. It can be difficult to manage the stresses of maintaining a social life, getting adequate sleep and being well rested, and doing the best academically that you possibly can. Especially for a lot of us, being at a university like Cornell means that we feel pressure to meet some level of academic expectation, and we hold ourselves to a certain standard. Because of these things, exam season can be increasingly more and more stressful, more so than the rest of the semester for sure.

I was glad to have the opportunity to attend the Test Anxiety Seminar last week. While this semester I was fortunate enough to end up with an exam schedule that was very light, I knew that the skills I’d learn in this seminar would be helpful not only in my last two semesters at Cornell, but the rest of my life beyond. And to that point, I think my biggest takeaway from this event was the mindset that you need to have when in this sort of stressful environment. The idea that you shouldn’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to a friend is a very powerful one. Furthermore, the idea that you shouldn’t lie to yourself, only sit down and think about if something is really worth the level of stress and pressure you’re putting onto it, was also very eye-opening. There was a lot to unpack in this seminar, and I’m incredibly glad that I had the opportunity to attend this event. I think I’ll be processing everything we talked about for a good while still.

I sincerely hope for more events like this one next semester!

An Amazing, Theatrical Performance

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I was really excited to have the opportunity to go to Pulse this year. Having seen them perform briefly at every ClubFest, I was really excited to see a full display of their drumming prowess—doubly so after a friend told me that Yamatai is one of the most well-respected Taiko drumming groups at any university. They’ve even got ties with Bonten, one of the biggest Taiko drumming groups in Japan. So needless to say, the bar was set pretty high. However, they definitely did not disappoint.

I certainly wasn’t expecting this show to be just as much about theatrical performance as it was about musical performance. The movements of the musicians as they played were clearly rehearsed, especially with how synchronized everyone was. It was genuinely hypnotizing to watch. I also really enjoyed the short, silent skits between the longer pieces; it was a really clever way to fill transition time while others were moving around the drums, and it definitely added a lot to the performance. Last but not least, though, I really enjoyed the crossover with Big Red Raas. It was really cool to see such a multicultural performance come to life, especially watching the dancers and drummers switch during their performance together. You could tell that everybody involved was having a ton of fun with it, and that because of that, the audience was loving it too.

All in all, this was a fantastic performance, and I’m excited to go again next year!

Having the Correct Mindset

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Last Friday, I watched the film Sunset Boulevard in the Rose Dining Room. As I wrote about in my previous blog post for Twelve Angry Men last semester, I’m generally not a connoisseur of film, especially older, black-and-white films (embarrassingly, the majority of the media I consume is due to the animation style). However, despite not particularly looking forward to this event, I definitely did find it enlightening as it was for sure out of my comfort zone.

It was definitely a very “literary” (as much as I hate the term, it fits) film. It was packed full of allusions to other films as well deep commentary on the superficiality of celebrity culture, the imprisoning nature of masculinity, and the perpetual sense of discontent with one’s socio-cultural relevance. All of these things went over my head in the film. Part of this, I think, is a consequence of the fact that I don’t watch very many movies. For example, I missed all of the movie quotes in the dialogue between Joe Gillis and Betty Schaefer.

All this is to say that I definitely went into this film with the wrong attitude. I had pinned Sunset Boulevard as a film that I wouldn’t enjoy before even learning what it was about. And while I didn’t particularly enjoy it, not having an open mind while trying something new completely defeats the purpose of trying something new in the first place. Because of this, the biggest thing I took away from this experience was that I need to reevaluate the mindset I have before coming to house events like this one. This experience has definitely given me a lot more to think about.

Equality and Community Service

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This past Thursday night, I attended the Rose House event titled “Community Service: What’s the Point?” I feel like a broken record when I say this about all my Rose Scholars events, but this event was definitely not what I was expecting. This time, however, I feel like it was for a different reason than before. There must have been a miscommunication prior to the event, as the representative from the Public Service Center had though that she would be working with Rose House’s Service Scholars. As such, she wasn’t entirely prepared to work with us. Despite that, I was still very glad that I attended the event. We had some very impactful discussions about why we, as people, engage in community service, in addition to reinforcing why it is important do personal reflection after doing community service.

There is one part of our conversation that I find incredibly problematic, though. We had a brief discussion about what a society that didn’t need community service would look like. I posed that this would be the ideal society—nobody would have to worry about having their basic human needs met (shelter, food, water, education, etc).

However, some others proposed that without community service, we would lack culture. I want to push back against this. I find the idea that the existence of marginalized communities somehow develops our “culture” to be abhorrent. Culture is derived from so many different factors of our lives, ranging from all the different art forms to our shared lived experience. Culture does not exist because of the socioeconomic stratification of our society. Community service is about working with those who have been disadvantaged to give them the same opportunities that you had; it’s about reaching a level of equality that we’ve been striving towards. I engage in community service because I want to see our society reach that level of equality. Equality does not mean the loss of culture.

The Importance of Diversity in Media

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Last Friday, I attended Rose House’s showing of the the film Black Panther. Generally I have a distaste for superhero movies and action movies in general because they tend to follow the same formula and it’s definitely grown old, at least for me. However, this film was definitely an exception to that rule. I definitely enjoyed watching it for a variety of different reasons.

The first reason is that it tackles a lot of themes that are increasingly pertinent today, especially in this pre-election political climate. We discussed a lot of these themes together as a group after the movie—for example we discussed the implications of colonialism/imperialism in the 21st century, global responsibility to help marginalized communities, and the role of violence in politics. All of these things are incredibly important, and deserve to be discussed. For a want of time and space, I’ll leave them for another Scholar to talk about though—I’d like to talk about diversity representation in popular media.

As a queer person, I grew up keenly aware of the fact that the vast majority of characters in popular media were straight, white, and cisgendered. Needless to say, I’m a very big proponent of LGBTQ+ representation of popular media, because I feel that it’s incredibly important to grow up with positive role models on the big screen who are like you. Because of this perspective, one of my favorite things about this film was the sheer number of strong black characters, especially strong black women like Nakia and Okoye. In general, I’d happily watch a lot more “superhero” movies if they were all as written as intelligently and if they all had such a diverse cast and crew as this one.

Designing a Better West Campus

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Last Friday I attended the Rose House’s Design Charrette. I genuinely didn’t know what to expect walking into this event (especially considering I had to google the word charrette!). I suppose that in my head, I was initially picturing some sort of panel of people who were spearheading the redesign of west campus. I thought that these people would give a presentation on what they were planning to do to update west, and that they would briefly open the floor up to us residents to provide our input and feedback on their design plan. This was very incorrect, however—the actual event ended being much less one-sided than I had expected, which was definitely a very positive thing.

The event almost resembled an art show, with posters scattered about the room with different pictures of design ideas. We were asked to put small green stickers on photos that elicited a positive response, and to put red stickers on photos that did the opposite. This was a very interesting, and surprisingly difficult, exercise for me (especially as someone with very little design sense). After this, we sat at tables with a map of west campus and were asked to draw all over them what we would like to see changed. Again, having such an open-ended, free-form task was much more difficult than I initially expected.

After this, each of the different tables presented their ideas to the rest of the group. In general, there were a few common themes, the biggest of which was that there’s way too much “open space” on west. Most people wanted more gardens and seating areas. All in all it was a cool event to attend, and I hope we have more opportunities like this in the future, especially since now I know what to expect!

My First Foreign Film

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I’ve never been one for foreign films, or even films in general. Prior to the Rose Scholars program,  the only movies I’d see with regularity were cute animated films, especially Pixar ones. Anything beyond those movies I never would’ve gone out of my way to see. Most of the other films I watched were simply because some friends wanted to watch them, and I was indifferent. Throughout my time in the Rose Scholars program, however, I’ve grown to appreciate film as an art medium a lot more, but foreign films had always seemed like another step that I wasn’t quite ready to take. In fact, I originally hadn’t intended to attend this event, but it was the only one that fit my schedule last week—a coincidence that, in retrospect, I’m very glad for.

I was genuinely blown away by Rolf Lassgård’s performance as the titular character, Ove. Despite not speaking the language, the haunting sincerity he brought to the role was remarkable. It was also a fascinating case study in the nonverbal communication. The way all the actors and actresses in the film were able to convey deeply complex emotions without words was powerful, and it’s definitely something that I’ve become more cognizant of in my own life.  (Warning: spoilers ahead!)

In addition to this, the plot of the film itself was very good. It had a very affecting storyline that managed to straddle the line between humor and tragedy very well. I will say, however, that I have two minor qualms. The first is that the continued misdirection at the end of the film was a tad much, and didn’t seem to serve much purpose except to be a “gotcha!” moment. This, combined with the “heart too big” trope, felt contrived to me; I couldn’t help but compare Ove to the grinch afterwards, which certainly didn’t do the film any justice. The second thing that broke my immersion was the scene where young Ove almost got hit by the train. The idea that he couldn’t hear a train slowly rolling up behind him was ridiculous. The train itself was moving so slowly that he could’ve just walked out of the way. I understand that indie films like this often don’t have a very large special effects budget, but it still really broke my immersion in the film.

All in all though, it was a very enjoyable experience for me. I look forward to watching more foreign films like this one in the future.

Opening a Dialogue

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This past Friday, I attended Rose House’s showing of the film V for Vendetta. It’s a film that I’d heard about fairly frequently prior to attending this event, and as such I was interested to see what it was all about. And while action-thrillers are generally not my favorite movie genre, it was definitely still an enjoyable viewing experience and I’m glad I chose this as my event for this past week.

I have a few thoughts about the movie, and about the way people use it to communicate their own ideas. In a bubble, a lot of the points made by this film are salient. As a queer person myself, I definitely agree with the idea that institutions can both directly and indirectly oppress those who aren’t perceived as “normal” (for a subjective definition of normal). In addition to this, it was very refreshing to see LGBTQ+ characters in a film whose character arcs didn’t boil down to them learning to accept their sexuality and/or gender identity. I especially loved seeing Valerie be the foil for both V and Evey, and I’d love to see more films with similar characters in the future.

However, in pop culture I’ve seen the film used to promote the abolishment of government. I have a few thoughts in response to this. In many ways, I believe that a lack of governmental involvement causes the same issues of oppression that the fascist regime in the film was inflicting on its citizens. This is especially true for those of lower socioeconomic strata—people who already tend to be queer and/or racial minorities in the first place. For example, there are over 700,000 homeless LGBTQ+ youth in the U.S. alone. These queer homeless youth make up ~40% of the homeless youth in America, while they are only ~7% of the overall youth population (link to study). I believe that it’s our government’s responsibility to help these people who have been systematically disenfranchised. Without a government, these people would continue to be homeless. In addition, the limited protections offered to them by the federal government would be taken away, effectively making their already horrible situation worse.

For the sake of brevity, I’ve only briefly written about a few of the things about this film that jumped out at me while watching it. And I suppose that means the film is serving its purpose—it’s opening a dialogue about social, economic, and political issues, and is highlighting how intersectional all of these issues are. And for that, I commend it.

The Facts Behind World Hunger

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Earlier today, I attended a panel-discussion on how to appropriately address the global issue of world hunger, titled “When is free lunch a good idea? How to address global hunger”. This talk was very eye-opening for me, on a few different levels.

The first and most literally way it was eye-opening is that it highlighted just how little I knew about a topic I had initially thought to be simple. Until this panel, I had been under the impression that global hunger was an availability issue, meaning that there simply wasn’t enough food globally to feed all the human beings. This, however, is incorrect. The vast majority of the issue of world hunger is caused by a lack of accessibility, not necessarily a lack of availability, meaning that socioeconomic status plays a very large role. There are many farming communities that go without food because they cannot afford not to sell their produce. Additionally, I learned that when we speak about world hunger, we don’t necessarily mean those who are starving to death. The vast majority of deaths are due to malnutrition, not a lack of calories. Micronutrient deficiencies are commonplace, and play a large role in food availability.

Perhaps the biggest thing I took away from this event was just how intersectional this issue is. While the problem itself may seem simple at first glance (people aren’t getting the food they need), it is so much more than that. The issue of access is tied into economics, sociology, food science, and almost any field you can think of. And that is exactly why panels like this one are so incredibly important. It’s an opportunity for people of all different backgrounds—religious leaders, academics, engineers—to come together and work on a solution to an immense global issue.