I really enjoyed yesterday’s art workshop as it was such a good way to de-stress and relax after a long day of classes! We got to work with various art materials (paints, pastels, etc.) to create an artwork that incorporated a collage of cut-outs from maps. I thought that the idea of using maps was so unique and I personally chose to use the map for color purposes rather than to highlight the significance of the places that the map represented. For instance, I made a cut out of a person using different parts of the ocean on a map so that the person was a blue color throughout. However, as I was looking around the room, I saw such a diversity of uses for the maps and I think that that is what is so special about art – people can have such drastically different interpretations! Another thing that I enjoyed about the workshop was learning about the artists’ works. One of the artists I spoke to is actually an art teacher while another is currently making artwork for a hospital wing! It was exciting to learn about all of the many different projects that professional artists take on. Overall, this was one of my favorite Rose Scholar events and I am curious to see how the mural turns out and where my artwork ends up!
Author Archives: vzl2
The Art of Translating Texts
I really enjoyed listening to Professor Fontaine speak a bit about binge-drinking’s history in this past week’s Rose Cafe. One thing that I learned at this talk was that currently binge-drinking is defined by the government using the number of drinks you consume. It was also really interesting reading Professor Fontaine’s translation of an old text on binge-drinking! I cannot imagine how much time and effort it takes to translate texts in a way that keeps the original author’s meaning and style but still makes sense and flows when read in English. As we went around the room reading the text and trying to decipher its meaning, I was definitely reminded of my previous language classes. I haven’t taken a language class since freshman year so this was a fun refresher of what it was like! Lastly, I also did not know that there were so many different kinds of instruments used to consume alcohol and they all looked very unique and beautiful. I would love to see these instruments in person!
Reflecting
Community service has always been something that is important to me and I have been involved in community service projects since middle school. In fact, community service helped me meet some of my first friends at Cornell as the first organization I joined on campus was the service fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega. Thus, today’s seminar was really interesting to me because although I engage in community service quite often, I rarely reflect on my experiences. Of course, after a community service shift, I will think about how I felt about what I did for a little bit but I won’t delve into why this work was important for me to do. Thus, I was really interested when Amy suggested that we take a moment to reflect on our community service in whichever way felt most natural and comfortable to us – such as through painting, conversations with others, or even writing a song! For me, I think that I would like to reflect on my community service by talking to others and teaching them about the cause that I raised awareness for and learning from their feedback/comments to me. All in all, I really enjoyed this seminar and hope to apply the reflection skills I learned after my next community service experience!
Becoming a DIY Publisher
Yesterday’s bookmaking event was perhaps one of my favorite Rose Scholar event that I have ever been to. I never knew zines existed and it was so cool to see the different zines that Garden-Door Press made. The event made me aware that many people have work that they want to share but that obviously not everyone can get their work published. I think zines are such a great and unique way to allow people to share their stories and ideas. The books themselves were relatively easy to make, especially if you were not trying to go for an intricate design. However, I also like that there are so many ways that you can decorate the books – I saw people using different printed paper, creating various shapes and sizes of the books, and more! I personally made two books and I will definitely be using them as journals to write my thoughts in!
A Good Fit
In Thursday night’s interview seminar, I learned that a big part of having a successful interview is doing the preparations beforehand. Whether this means researching the job and figuring how you and the company fit each other or practicing interview questions, there is a lot that you can do to prepare yourself. Interviews have always been intimidating for me and I always feel a sense of ambiguity because you never know exactly what an interviewer is looking for or whether or not you did well. For instance, my first interview this year was one that I thought I did well in – I was able to answer all of the interviewer’s questions in a clear and concise way, and I felt like I presented myself well. In another interview, I messed up on one of the questions and stumbled to deliver my answer. In the end, I got rejected from the one that I felt like I did well in and accepted into the one that I felt like I did not do well in. Thus, it’s important to keep trying and practicing when it comes to interviews and even if your interview was not successful, you still gained important experience from it. All that you can do is make sure that you prepare yourself beforehand and you know exactly why you want the position and what you can bring to it.
Defining Our Lives
A Man Called Ove left me thinking about how grateful I am for the people I have in my life and how we, for better or for worse, are very much shaped by the people in our social circle. Ove has experienced tragic deaths of his loved ones – he lost his mother at an early age, his father due to a train accident, his unborn child in a bus accident, and his wife when she died of cancer. Thus, on the surface, he became this angry and unforgiving man who was mad at the world. I loved how the movie showed instances of Ove being rude to other people but the movie also showed instances of how his actions still displayed the kind-hearted man he is beneath the surface. For instance, Ove said he did not want the food that his neighbor made him but when he finished it, he wrote a note saying the food was delicious. I think that it is so easy to misunderstand people and to judge them in an instance but we never fully know what a person may be going through. Overall, the film reinforced for me that we all have our own struggles and we are all dealing with different things – however, it is so important to help others when you can and rely on others when you need to.
The Artist in Me
In today’s canvas bag printing, I went in not having any idea what we were going to do. Printing made me immediately think that we would be doing something digital but this was not the case. We actually used a screen and squeegee to put our designs onto canvas bags. Not sure how my design would turn out, I decided to go with something simple and printed my initials onto the bag. I thought that this would be a short process (cutting out the design and painting it on) but getting my two letters on the bag actually took the full hour and a half! In addition, the paint was quite hard to get on – you could not apply to much pressure or else the paint would rub off. It took a couple tries before I could get my letters on and even then, it did not come out as opaque as I would have liked it to. However, it was still incredibly fun trying out this process and the look of the slightly faded letters on the canvas bag is growing on me. All in all, I loved being in the museum and directing my energy away from schoolwork and classes and into my artwork!
Living Within Our Own Social Networks
Tonight’s film 50/50 was one of the most realistic films I’ve seen – I really felt like I was looking into someone’s life rather than just watching a movie. Each character had so much dimension – my favorite scene was when Adam takes a drunk Kyle home and finds a book on cancer in Kyle’s bathroom. Up until that point in the film, I just saw Kyle as an immature best friend but after seeing that scene, I started to think about what Kyle must be going through as well as he tries to find ways to support Adam. While Adam went through so much to fight his cancer, the people around him went through a lot as well. For instance, Adam’s mother had been going to a cancer support group. Thus, in the beginning of the film, I was thinking a lot about what having cancer meant for Adam but towards the end of the film, I was also thinking about what Adam having cancer meant for his close friends and family members. We all live within our social networks and not everyone will support us the way we might want them to in a given situation. But that’s just part of life and we are overall so lucky to have people who care about our well-being and want the best for us.
After Cornell…
In tonight’s seminar on graduate school, I learned a lot about what you need in your application to graduate school as well as how you should look for graduate school programs that are best fit for your needs. Currently, I am undecided as to whether or not to attend graduate school because I don’t quite know what career path I want to take yet (and therefore, if that career path would require me to get a higher educational degree than just my undergraduate degree). I know that I do not want to go directly into graduate school after graduating Cornell and it was nice to hear that many people are taking a gap year traveling, doing independent research, spending some time in the workforce, and more before going back to finish their education. However, I agree that it is important to start thinking about these possibility of going to graduate school early as there are certain experiences (ex. joining a research lab) that would help show your interest in a particular field. The wide variety of graduate programs that exist and differ from school to school does feel a bit scary to me and this seminar definitely encouraged me to start looking into different programs and getting a feel for the opportunities that are out there.