Author Archives: jo349

Revamping Eddy Gate

Posted on by

When I heard about the Eddy Gate Project, I was initially a little confused. All I knew of Eddy gate was that it was an apartment building. The actual event was held in the alley near the black wrought iron gate next to Cascadilla Hall. The project’s goal was to bring more visibility and vitality to the empty alley near the gate, and I can see why it was needed. Normally, that alley is entirely empty and the gate is an ornate entrance to nowhere. However, the project entirely transformed the area with nice outdoor seating, games, food trucks, and live entertainment. They even had an innovative “polling station” where you could leave a review on the event by dropping a colored ball into a container. Overall, the event was pretty great.

The idea of taking an underused or empty space and making it something valuable is a great one. I feel like most modern thought is geared towards creating something entirely new, rather than simply reworking the old. We didn’t need to construct an entirely new area to be a venue for outdoor gatherings. The Eddy Project took an existing structure and made it into a venue. I think it’s a valuable concept that we can all apply, whether on a small scale or large one.

 

 

*here is a photo for proof that I attended the Eddy Gate project.

Community work never ends

Posted on by

Last week I attended a talk by Mike Bishop, director of Engaged Cornell, about civic engagement and the ways to connect with the community. I was really impressed by Bishop’s experiences in civic engagement, he seemed to have done work in almost every field possible. What really struck me about this talk was the sheer amount of ways there are to get involved with the community. It made me think about the fact that my engagement with the community can occur in many different ways. I do not have to settle on one path, but can jump among different ones as my own skill set changes.

Another key point I took away from the discussion was the idea of addressing root causes rather than the effects of systemic oppression. While helping victims is of course useful and appreciated, more will continue to suffer unless the root causes are addressed. Considering my own skillset, I hope that I can one day be a part of dismantling the systems that enable the continued oppression of minorities and low-income persons.

Is Romance just Fantasy?

Posted on by

Last week I attended a great Rose Cafe hosted by our GRF Sara. Sara’s studies are on romance in literature and how the policing and treatment of romance literature reflects upon modern society’s values. Although I have not done in depth research on romance, I definitely saw where Sara was going with her research question.

Currently, I am enrolled in a class about the medieval romances. This cafe got me to think about how these medieval romances have somehow stuck around for thousands of years after their initial conception. Although I tend to read them skeptically, due to the fantastical and unlikely occurrences within them, I’ve begun to realize this might be the appeal of the genre. No real life romance plays out the way they do in the epic romances, just as no one will really embark on a quest to save the world because they were born the chosen one. I think romance is fantasy, in both senses of the word. Modern day fantasy novels incorporate many of the tropes seen in medieval romance, and fulfill our fantasies at the same time. Whether this is a fantasy of a perfect, epic romance or of vanquishing evil singlehandedly.

This cafe got me to thinking about the reasons I had once used to profess my dislike of the romances in the romance genre. I now realize there is no real reason to think of them poorly as unrealistic ideals of love, when they were always intended as unachievable ideals of love that are simply meant to fulfill fantastical desires. Overall, it was a great cafe that has opened up my perspective in reading the romance era of literature.

Learning is a privilege

Posted on by

Last Thursday I attended a great seminar by GRF Sara about how to apply to grad school. I had always kept grad school in the back of my mind as an option, but was unsure of how committed I was to the idea or what I would study there. The discussion we had helped me think of graduate school and PhD programs in a different way than I had before. They are continuations of education, but in a way they are almost like a job and should be treated as such. I also discovered that some PhD programs will actually pay you, in which case I can absolutely see myself getting a PhD.

When Sara mentioned that being paid to read books all day is like a dream come true, I agreed entirely. It got me thinking about historical scholars of literature, back in the 1700s or even further back. Before education was made widely available (or as widely available as it is today), education was reserved only for wealthy. People who wanted to study books all day and compare intricate symbolism in one genre to another could only do so if they did not need to work. The way PhDs are structured now is so different to the way education was conducted back then. People would just read in their “study” and learn from it, without needing to write long dissertations. It’s possible they did so for fun, but they weren’t accountable to anyone for it. For me to be able to consider doing something like this with my life, despite not being one of those “don’t need to work a day in my life” kinds of people, is absolutely amazing and should be taken as a privilege! I absolutely want to take advantage of the fact that I even have the opportunity to continue my education and hope others will feel the same way.

Overcoming Obstacles

Posted on by

At our most recent Rose Cafe we had the opportunity to listen to Cornell’s tennis coach talk about one of his most inspiring athletes. Bernardo was an international student who defied all expectations by choosing to come to Cornell. He did not have the same preparation for an Ivy League school, since he had attended an online high school. His parents were not supportive of him going to a school in the U.S. And, on top of all of that, his goal was to enter the School of Engineering, one of the most difficult schools at Cornell.

Despite the lack of support, Bernardo was determined to attend Cornell, and he did so with amazing success. He overcame the unsupportive teammates, the failed chemistry exams, and the lack of parental support. It was shocking to me that he was able to stay committed not only to his dream of being a civic engineer, but also to the tennis team and summer jobs.

The story of Bernardo made me think about my own work ethic. Although I wouldn’t categorize myself as someone who is wholly unable to withstand obstacles, I don’t think I could have persevered under the same circumstances as Bernardo. It is definitely inspiring to me, and is something I’ll keep in mind as I continue through my undergraduate career and possibly graduate school. If Bernardo could make it through one of the most difficult majors here at Cornell on top of a sports team and extracurriculars, then I can also do it.

Finger Lakes and the Environment

Posted on by

This past week at the Rose Cafe we had a speaker who worked in environmental preservation. He shared with us his experiences in trying to buy land through government grants. I thought it was interesting how he often had to go through long, drawn-out negotiations with people who were unwilling to sell their land. On one hand, I see why the organization would try and get a continuous stretch of land, but on the other hand, the owner of the land was taking good care of it too and probably would have continued doing so, so buying it off of him was possibly unnecessary.

I loved how our speaker went into detail on how he ended up at his current job. I often see people in certain jobs or careers where I wonder how they could possibly have known they wanted to do that at a young age and worked toward it. I am learning, however, that most people end up stumbling across their current career position by accident. Circumstance and chance lead them to a job position that they ascend in rank until it is their career. It is heartening to know that I do not have to have an exact position in mind to aspire to, but can let my career path take me where it will.

Resumes and Productivity

Posted on by

Last week I attended an interesting workshop on how we should write our resumes to be most effective and appealing. Some of the things that most surprised me from this workshop were how little time any employer would spend looking at a resume. It made me take a step back and look at my resume and how I constructed it. Rather than spending a lot of time crafting beautiful job descriptions, it was probably better to focus my time on finding good action verbs to start off my bullet points with.

The fact that employers will look for time gaps in resumes really surprised me. It seems that employers expect potential candidates to always be doing something, and even a summer off can look suspicious. This got me thinking a little bit about the intense work culture that college students all go through. Taking time for yourself or not being productive is seen as wasted time. It’s a little disheartening to see that in order to be hired, all that is really valued is your productivity and references.

I definitely will apply some of the tips into re-working my resume, and really appreciated the advice given to us by our GRF.

Changing views on Pilots

Posted on by

When I first saw the poster for an airline pilot coming for the Rose Cafe, I was plunged into the past when my dream was to become a pilot. There was a good three or four years where I was convinced that I wanted to be a pilot. Although I no longer aspire to being a pilot, I still found the cafe very interesting. He addressed a couple of questions that really interested me back then- what was it like flying with a co-pilot? how do you start the process of becoming a pilot? what is it like staying in different hotels most nights?

A life of travel and unpredictability seemed very appealing to me back then. I didn’t anticipate wanting to settle down anywhere, and couldn’t imagine anything better than traveling from one place to the next every day. After hearing his account of a pilot’s work schedule, I wonder if perhaps the idea I had of a pilot’s lifestyle was entirely wrong. There doesn’t seem to be quite as much freedom as I had once thought, what with there being restrictions on how many hours you can put in every week and the short overnight rests at hotels. Not to mention, it can get cramped in the cockpit for long international flights.

As much as I appreciate the service that pilots provide travelers like me, I have to say that I’m glad I abandoned that career path. As wide and open as the sky is, it must feel pretty uncomfortable when you’re stuffed into a cockpit for upwards of ten hours.

Forrest Gump’s View

Posted on by

Although I had seen Forrest Gump before as a child, my experience viewing it then was very different from my viewing this time. I remember my main takeaway as a child was how sad and disadvantaging it must be to be “simple”, as Forrest was described. To me, intellect was the main trait to aspire to, and to be lacking in any way was a tragedy. I thought the movie was sad, because Forrest didn’t understand so much of the world around him.

Having viewed the movie now, my outlook on the movie was very different. I recognize it more for what is was meant to be- a simpler perspective on our complicated world. Forrest wasn’t very much concerned with the politics behind the Presidents he met, nor was he worried about the logistics behind his shrimping business. Forrest simply did things because he liked doing them. I feel like his outlook on enjoying life to the fullest is something that many of us could aspire to. Forrest has some existential anxiety about whether life is predestined or random, a question that plagues many intellectuals as well. Despite this, he focuses on enjoying his current life and making do with his lot in life.

Although I can’t imagine the world would work very well if everyone was like Forrest, I do agree with his mother’s statement that there’s nothing wrong with him being different from other people. Being smart is not the only valuable skill in life. Forrest’s kindness, bravery, and compassion are really commendable, and often the smartest people don’t have these qualities. The world is better for the people like him who show us that life doesn’t always have to be as complicated as we make it.

The Custodians Behind West Campus

Posted on by

This past Wednesday I attended the Rose Cafe on the custodial services here on West Campus. I was initially drawn to the event, since recently my roommates and I had been thinking on how gross our floor bathroom would get, and how thankful we were for our biweekly cleanings. Although we do not often see the custodian that cleans our bathroom, we all anxiously await his visits. This got us all to thinking- for a service that we rely so heavily upon, we don’t know much about the person or the organization that we have to thank for our clean facilities.

After attending the Cafe, we learned that a lot more went into our services than we expected. Custodians have to check that the soap is filled, take out the trash, check for grime in the showers, and deal with clogged drains. This is only regarding bathrooms- there is a whole other set of procedures when cleaning out rooms at the end of the semester. In addition, there is a whole set of procedures for responding to maintenance requests.

Hearing at the cafe that the custodial services were there for just that- to serve us and make us comfortable here, was actually kind of a surprise. I was so used to feeling like a little bit of a nuisance for calling in maintenance repairs. However, according to the head of the custodial services, it’s actually better to call in maintenance when you need it. If people do not, then the data will never reflect the fact that there could be, for example, a West Campus-wide problem with shower curtains. Overall, this cafe made me think of custodial services as more of a service that I could utilize, with real people behind the work that wanted to help me.