Author Archives: yz923

Whether to change your choice or not

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Last Friday, I watched the movie Arrival  with other Rose Scholar fellows. It was my second time watched the movie, but it still brought very strong feelings for me. The movie is about the main character, Louise, can see the future. She knows that she will marry her colleague Ian, but their daughter will die early and Ian will eventually leave her.

 

I think about this choice with my own experience and ask myself: If I can see the future, especially some heart-broken event, will I still make the same choice? I am 20 years now. I enjoy studying in Cornell and getting along with my friends, especially in Cornell in which most of them come from completely different backgrounds and offer me a brand new view of the world. However, I also experienced some failure/heart-broken moments. I know that this seemly not so pleasant moments bring me valuable lesson, and makes me much more stronger and mature than before, and cherish what I have more. So if I were Louise, I would do the same choice, because life is not only about results, the love, happiness even sadness during the process of getting the result is also very valuable.

First Clay Experience in Johnson Museum of Art

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Last Thursday, several other Rose scholars and I, together with GRF, attended a weekly clay workshop in Johnson Museum of Art with no prior experience required. Before we got our hands dirty, the instructor guided us through some clay collections in the museum. What really surprised me is how the utility and beauty of sculpting with clay can be combined so well. I really like some of the collections in which the shape of the sculptures with clay represent the jobs of the owner, such as farmer.

For our workshop, the theme is fruit. I created an apple, which is the classical fruit representing harvest. The instructor gave us hand by hand instruction and always encouraged us no matter what kind of fruits we choose. Even if we may not very proficient in making sculpture with clay, we did feel the creativity brought by the infinite possibilities of the art. There is no designated form for any specific fruit, and we can create them in any form we what, as long as we experience happiness and fulfillment of creating our own sculpture.

Two sides of social media

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Last Monday, we talked about whether we should quit social media with GRF Sara. Just as many Rose scholars pointed out, social media brings lots of pleasure for us. We share interesting videos and share memorable moments of our life. Even if we do not post too much, it is still a great platform for us to know the latest news of our friends and family far away. As an international student who lives far away from my hometown, I deeply feel the same. WeChat/Facebook is an important tool for me to get connect with family/friends for me. However, I also realize the opposite side of social media. For example, people usually post their happy moments in social media and avoid the negative side. There are some potential psychological problems caused by this phenomena. There are also some very radical and bias words spreading around the social media, which attacks others psychologically even not intentionally.

 

At the end, I believe that we should not abandon social media completely, but we need to be more careful about the way we use it.

Thoughts about transgenderism/transracialism

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Last Monday we talked about trans-racialism with GRF Sam. The topic was come up because Rachel Dolezal, a while female who claimed to transracial to be an African American by changing her appearance, such as making herself very tan etc.

 

As an international student, I did know about transgender before, and I kind of feel the connection between transgender and trans-race. They both share the feature that some people would prefer to regard themselves as someone with different social identity “assigned” to them. However, just as Sam talked about, for trans-gender, we could say this is because male and female are biologically different, some people may prefer to have one other than the other, which is more objective. However, for trans-race, talking about the biological differences because of race is the original definition of racism. And it is hard to image that by only changing someone’s appearance can offer the intrinsic culture/social experiences related to a specific group. Personally, I can partly understand what Rachel Dolezal is trying to do, but I cannot agree that she can become an actual part of African American by her actions.

Bike Sharing System and its future

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Last Monday, we talked with GRF Seema about the future of Bike Sharing System. As a PhD student in urban planning, Seema has profound knowledge and rich experience in bike sharing system. She used to participate in the construction of bike sharing system in India. Before taking part in the table talk, I thought that bike sharing system is established by government. However, surprisingly, I realized that it actually originates in Amsterdam by some social activists. They would like to protect the environment.

 

Now Bike Sharing System has spread around the world. It definitely has many benefits, such as providing a convenient way for people to transfer between locations and locations with cheap cost. Especially nowadays provide a way for people in cities who do not have much time to exercise a great way to workout. However, it has problems too. For example, I know that in some cities, theft and violation problem of sharing bikes is commonly seen. Though that is not necessarily the case for everywhere. However, I still believe that with the maturity and development of the system, such problems will happen less and less in the future. Considering all the pros and cons of bike sharing system, I would like to believe we should try our best to develop it and finally it will become a popular way of transition around everywhere in the world.

some thoughts about Monday

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One Friday night, I watched the movie What Happened to Monday with all other Rose scholars in the dining hall. The movie mainly talked about in an virtual future country, the government restricts people from having more than one child. For a family that has octuplets,  in order for the children to survive, each of them can only appear 1 day in a week. As a result,  the oldest girl is called “Monday”. However, one day “Monday” betrays the family to do a barter with government because she falls in love with someone and wants to protect her children(a twin).

 

Personally, as a person who was born in China under one child policy, I thought a lot when I watched the movie. Even when I did not feel a lot when I was a child, I do wish more and more now that I have a sibling: If I have a younger sister/brother, I can teach her/him read, write and play; If I have an older one, I may have someone to talk/get advice from if I have any problems. Just as what the GRF said, sometimes we are told that by someone that “we do this for all of you” “we will only do this now to have a better future”. But is that actually the case? Will it ever stop once it starts? The answer is unknown.

 

The movie itself has some violence situations that I do not like much, but it does provoke me to think deeply about many things, especially as a single child in family. Also, I understand more what it means to be a family by watching this movie: No one can change the relation. Members of a family will be linked forever, no matter what happens.

Forest Gum and Jenny

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I watched the very classical movie: Forest  last Friday in Rose dining hall. Before coming to US, I watched this movie when I was very small at China with my parents. At that time, I simply regarded this movie as a very normal movie which encourages people to head up and do things they want, because what distinguished Gum from others is that he is much more simple, and does not consider too much whenever he makes a decision. He simply did whatever he would like to do.

 

However, this time when I watched this movie, I view it from another perspective. First, kind of ironically, Jenny is a very strong, persistent and pretty girl: She had pain childhood memories related to the way her father treated her; She wants to be a singer, and is not afraid to travel around the whole country and leaves her hometown. But she failed almost every time she tried to do the things she wants. On the contrary, Gum never considers what his life “should be like”. Instead, he went to college, and became football star, went to Vietnam War and survived without losing part of body like others. He went home, rejected by Jenny, and ran. Then he became a a running star again. He bought the stocks of “Fruit company”(which is actually Apple) and becomes rich. He leads a very good life in a traditional way.

 

So why Gum seems “Get everything” without a specific goal in life, while Jenny(Or Dan) does not get the life goal they set even if they pay actual efforts for it and persists on it. That is a question to think about.

Super bowl, a culture symbol

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Last weekend, I was lucky to watch super bowl and know about it background knowledge with GRF Shiv and Professor Blalock. As someone who has never knew about football or other popular US sports before, I felt a little awkward at first when looking at the question sheet and watching everyone else was so excited. Thanks to Shiv and Professor Blalock, I knew about the rules of the game from scratch. However, after talking more with Professor Blalock, I realize that what is interesting is not the game itself, but the culture and controversial issues behind it: For example, many children from relatively poor family are sent to the football sports team because their parents regard this as a way to make quick and big money, even if the sports may cause serious brain knocking; US people regard super bowl as a world game, which in fact in the world nearly only Americans love football(others may prefer baseball etc). I was deeply impressed by the atmosphere in dining hall that day, and the issues behind the game.

 

This is a great opportunity for me to know more about US culture and step further about this culture other than academics. I hope that in future I can have more this kind of opportunities.