Author Archives: zx53

Engagement and Elitism

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As a participant in Cornell Alternative Breaks this past year, and an incoming Trip Leader for the next year, I was already familiar with the Public Service Center before Mike Bishop’s Rose Cafe on Engaged Cornell; however, I was still surprised by a lot of what he discussed, which really illustrates just how many opportunities there are for public service at Cornell.

One theme we touched on during the Rose Cafe – a theme which has presented itself in several other Rose Cafes, I think, and has general relevance to our lives – is what it means to be an Ivy League student with privilege, resources, and opportunities abound that people in the surrounding community (and, honestly, most people in the world) will never be able to access. Almost everyone at the Rose Cafe had some sort of community service under their belt, but a lot of us shared the sentiment that sometimes volunteering turns into a burden or a requirement to fill, rather than reflecting a genuine interest or passion in the community. Especially at Cornell, I think a lot of people can relate to trying to fill up their resume during high school with volunteer experiences, only for those experiences to become vaguely-recalled blips in the past. However, this Rose Cafe reaffirmed the existence of a plethora of service learning opportunities at Cornell, to help students use their privilege for good.

For me, participating in Alternative Breaks was a really great way to reconnect with the same feelings that drove me to begin volunteering in the past, and continue to learn from and explore those feelings (this is a short plug to join Alt Breaks next year!!), but I also recognize that it’s not for everyone. That’s why I was glad Mike Bishop came to talk with us, because he really seemed to push the idea that regardless of your interests and goals, the Public Service Center at Cornell has a wide variety of resources and opportunities for getting engaged – it’s a really great place to start challenging everything you thought you knew about service.

A Less Romantic Notion of Romance

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At GRF Sara’s Rose Cafe, we discussed her research in Romance literature, and how our understanding of Romance (and romance, lowercase) has shifted not only throughout history but also throughout our own lives.

Somewhat surprisingly, a lot of what we consider to be fantasy nowadays would actually have fallen under the category of Romance in the past (and maybe still falls under that category today, depending on your view). Maybe even more surprisingly, nearly everyone in the room felt like they were more drawn to fantasy/Romance when they were younger than they are now, and feel nostalgic about about it, if anything. Sara noted that even in history, Romance was a genre that sought to blend magic and reality, offering a wildly unique take on the world and a transformative experience for the reader – qualities which in my opinion appeal to the youthful sense of wonder in all of us.

Maybe that’s why we “romanticize” things nowadays, or call certain actions or words “romantic” – these terms have deviated from the traditional definition of Romance and likely derive from the modern lovers’ romance with which we’re more familiar, but we often use them to describe things that are unrealistic. When someone tells me a story about what their significant other did for them on their birthday, for instance, I’ll think, how romantic, but what that really means is how ideal. Along those lines, people who romanticize something are idealizing it, or viewing it as a model to be emulated or achieved. In a way, Romance and romance are two versions of the same human desire to experience the unreal, or the ideal. For me, that was the main takeaway from this talk: that Romance and romance aren’t as different as we originally tend to perceive.

A Balancing Act

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At Wednesday’s Rose Cafe, we were able to listen to Coach Tanasoiu of the Cornell Men’s Tennis team discuss the four-year journey of a tennis team alum, Bernardo Casares-Rosa, who had to adjust to life as an international student balancing the Cornell Engineering curriculum with varsity athletics. And although none of the people in the room were varsity athletes, I felt like we all resonated, to a lesser degree, with the struggles that he faced.

Obviously, coming to Cornell – or college in general – from any background is daunting, but I appreciated being able to learn about someone whom, without this Rose Cafe, I would’ve considered as accomplished and talented by nature. This Rose Cafe served as another good reminder that essentially no one at Cornell is breezing through college; we all have doubts and fears and failures that we’ll have to work through over our four-ish years here. I also realized that there are always people to turn to for help. I really respected Coach Tanasoiu’s honesty about how he mentors each of his players, and how he is constantly striving to improve himself along with his players. Even though I don’t have a coach, I’m sure most of my professors feel the same way as Coach Tanasoiu, in that they also take each year and each student as part of a learning process.

Overall, I think this was a refreshing reminder that despite Cornell’s academic environment, it is possible to get through it (although I will state that I don’t want to diminish anyone’s struggles with mental health by making it seem like all you have to do is “try harder” – seeking help however works for you!).

How to Fit Your Life on a Piece of Paper

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Last Thursday, I attended GRF Seema’s mini-seminar on constructing a resume. As someone who had never really received any kind of instruction or guidance in crafting a resume (maybe explaining my bad luck with internship applications), I was glad to receive more formal, structured guidelines for my resume (and my CV – the two are very different, as we learned!).

Seema was incredibly clear and helpful, and I did walk away feeling better prepared to tackle any future applications; at the same time, however, I couldn’t help but feel a little dejected that so much of my future was hinged on a piece of paper (or multiple pieces of paper, in the case of a CV). Where’s the section on my human joys and sufferings? My trivial habits and quirks? My beliefs and opinions and morals? My Myers-Briggs personality type?

Obviously, these factors probably are only vaguely important when employers or schools are considering me for a position, so of course they aren’t sections on the standard resume – but why don’t employers or schools consider these factors? Can they really glean enough about me from a few pieces of paper and one or two brief interviews – in which I’m most definitely going to be faking it until I make it – to be certain that I’m a better or worse fit for their institution than other candidates?

Thanks to the seminar, my resume is at least 200x more put-together now than it was before the seminar – a good thing, since this piece of paper is the key to almost anything I would ever want to do in the future. But it’s still strange to realize that for countless people, their only perception of me as a human being – with my own set of minor and major life experiences – will be from a series of arbitrary achievements and power verbs.

One Child, One Earth, One Power Structure

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Right before watching What Happened to Monday, we were all asked to consider how the power structures in the movie – along with the measures used to enforce them – could potentially connect to things we see in today’s world. As someone who had a limited conception of what the movie was about, I was curious what this discussion question implied in terms of the plot, and expected some sort of Hunger Games-esque system of political control.

My prediction wasn’t totally far off – there’s a villainous, despotic political leader with vaguely well-intentioned but absurdly twisted morals; a crew of underlings, named and unnamed, who follow the leader’s orders unwaveringly and with unclear motive; and a small band of “heroines” (plus an unlikely ally from the enemy side) forced to fight and somehow bring change to their entire society.

But of course, the question was about any parallels this movie draws to real life – which are numerous. The checkpoints were practically identical to TSA security checkpoints in airplanes, all the way down to the random selection for questioning. Likewise, the level of police brutality displayed in apprehending the siblings in the film was startlingly similar to videos from riots and protests across the nation in just the past few years (read: Ferguson, MO or Charlottesville, VA). And of course, the CBA’s use of ruthless, unrestricted, no-matter-the-cost force in covering up a blemish on their record is an image which, while more of a suspicion than an actuality in the United States, is perhaps still pertinent to many other nations.

Ultimately, these tropes are common in all kinds of dystopian fiction, and obviously don’t mean that the United States is going to start incinerating non-firstborn children anytime in the future. However, it’s a bit unsettling to note just how many commonalities there are between the society in What Happened to Monday and our own – are we about to reach our own dystopia?

Chillin’ at the Chili Cook-off

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Last Saturday, I braved the dreary weather for some soul-warming chili. As the official dish of the state of Texas, chili (more formally known as chili con carne) is essentially an American classic by now, and could even be considered a staple dish in certain parts of the country. I think it’s also a food that allows, and even encourages, flexibility and ingenuity in its creation – between the long-running debate on whether it should include beans or tomatoes, and the expansion of its applications to hot dogs, fries, and other dishes, there’s a lot of room for the chef’s personal exploration.

Personally, I think that’s what makes chili a great cook-off food as well – the wide range of possibilities. Every single sample of chili I tried last week was unique, but I’ll list some of my favorites: Texas Roadhouse’s chili was sweet and much thinner than almost every other recipe I tried; Ithaca Bread Co.’s Jalapeno Cheeseburger chili made up for the lack of cheeseburger flavor with the abundance of jalapenos; and Luna didn’t hold back with their chocolate-covered pork belly (one of the most surprisingly delicious food combinations I’ve ever tasted, if anyone was wondering). Most of the recipes left an impression on me, and even if they weren’t memorable to the point of me being able to recall the taste a week later, I definitely didn’t think any of them tasted the same or – heavens forbid – bland in any way at the time. I’m not sure if there’s any other food as conducive to improvisation as chili, since even the base ingredients seem to be highly contested, but that is definitely not a bad thing. Plus, I think each of the chefs, along with the institution they represented, got to showcase their individual talents, and I’m never one to not cheer on someone when it’s their moment to shine.

In the end, I left with a full stomach and a full heart. While walking through the commons, chili in hand, and looking at the thirty-or-so local chefs who were able to share their edible passions and dreams with us, I realized just how easy it is to get so caught up in playing the game of life that you forget the simpler joys of life. Amidst all my papers and exams, I’m glad I was able to witness a gathering of people who love what they do so much that they’re willing to share it with their entire community – and I only hope that my future is filled with the same kind of satisfaction (and high quality chili).

An Incomprehensive Guide to Humanizing Court Cases

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Prior to this Rose Cafe, my image of a judge was, in hindsight, slightly over-exaggerated: a faceless purveyor of justice whose cold shadow, cast down from their impossibly high seat, looms unforgivingly over every courtroom in which he/she sat. In reality, this is probably accurate half the time – as Judge Miller said, a judge must, in some capacity, be emotionally removed from the case in front of them. “[We’re] not there to be annoyed,” he reminded us. Every time he steps into the courtroom, someone’s life could be resting entirely in his hands.

However, it’s easy – at least for me – to forget that victims and criminals (or defendants, since Judge Miller also pointed out that the problematic connotations of the word “criminal”) are fellow people. They were born into the same world, walked the same streets, and maybe even once dreamed the same dreams as me. I believe a concept Judge Miller spoke about, and one that is commonly heard, is that in the courtroom, human lives are often intersecting in the most unforgettable, tragic way possible. In the courtroom, all of their past hopes and memories are suddenly irrelevant in the face of their uncertain futures.

One of the cases Judge Miller recounted was of a young girl who had physically fought her would-be rapist for twenty minutes, who was in turn apparently surprised by her resilience. If I had read about it on the news, I probably would’ve felt, at most, a pang of pity and sympathy for the victim, and immense anger at the attacker. However, listening to Judge Miller describe it in person, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that the fight lasted for twenty minutes – so far, I’ve spent twenty minutes on this blog post. I couldn’t imagine fighting someone for that long, or what would be going on in my mind. Would I only think of survival? Would I remember past regrets? Would I think of my family and friends and all the trials I’ve already overcome? Would I think of all the things I once saw myself doing five years from now? Would anything matter besides surviving those twenty minutes? The same goes for the rapist – what drove him to commit such a horrific act? What drove him to continue attempting to commit that act, even after the victim demonstrated, by fighting back, that she was another human being who had a life to live? Did he ever, even for a second, think about her?

How does a judge learn to sit there, high above the throne, and even begin to process all of those all-too-human feelings while making a just, informed decision?

Obviously, there must be a line drawn between humanizing someone, and excusing or being an apologist for them. The attacker committed a serious crime and deserved punishment, regardless of whatever good he has done in the past. Nothing he did before, or does after the attack, will ever come as close to defining him in the public eye as this single incident. Perhaps that’s good or bad; that’s not for me to decide.

However, I will no longer view criminal trials and court cases as stiff, detached, and – heavens forbid – boring events. Judge Miller has reminded me that, when you strip down a court case to its bare bones and lay it out flat, all you’ll find is raw, human emotion.