Sunspots (https://sunspots.cornellsun.com/tag/cornell/page/6/)
Welcome to mi casa, — suit du jour —the place where fashion governs everything. While I am half-kidding, I am also half-not. I love fashion and believe it can change you. It can transform your mind, even your soul, if you let it. Are you willing to find your, suit du jour, the one subject that rocks your world daily?
On its diversity and inclusion webpage, our ever enlightened university boldly regards itself as “a place where intercultural skills are developed and enacted among diverse campus constituencies”. Cornell bumptiously claims that more than 39 percent of undergraduates identify as students of color, and each year the admissions office touts “the most diverse class to date”. Yet the stark reality stands in opposition to the propagandized malarkey that is smeared across administrative outlets. Student life at Cornell remains largely segregated. Under the guise of special interests and cultural celebration, cowardice for sake of comfort has been condoned.
On August 22nd, Gawker, a blog that had over 800 million page views in the last year, and posted more than 200,000 articles in its lifetime, was destroyed. Some in the media have argued argue that this came about because of Gawker’s own sins and that Gawker’s posting of “non-journalistic” material such as sex tapes and its public outing of powerful people led to its downfall. Yet I believe the truth is much more complicated and sinister. Gawker was destroyed because a billionaire wanted it destroyed. It was destroyed because an avid Trump supporter and tech billionaire decided that the website had done him too much harm and so he bankrolled a number of lawsuits which eventually made the website impossible to operate.
Auburn Correctional Facility is less than an hour’s drive directly north of Ithaca, in a city whose population is comparable to that of total enrollment at Cornell. Sitting atop one of the Finger Lakes, it looks like any other town to pass by on the rolling hills of Upstate New York. But if obscurity has different degrees, Auburn is not a place without a name. It’s where Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman lived and died. It’s also home to one of the nation’s oldest prisons, one that pioneered the practice—the “Auburn system”—of daytime penal labor followed by solitary confinement at night, all under enforced silence.
“If you can bring this to the States…” He kept his voice low, trying not to make a fuss, but he could not dim the shine in his eyes. Four weeks ago, I probed into the underground art market in China, where insiders trade information with hungry artists trying to exhibit their pieces abroad. The market was lively: drunk art dealers from Europe were laughing hysterically and handing each other different flavors of vapor cig, girls wearing night-club mini skirts were ordering cocktails with incomprehensible names that sounded like the Chinese translation of random German words, and a kid was screaming an “F” word embroidered on a shirt and asked his mom what it means. It was loud and dreamy, and the air was infused with everything that was supposed and not supposed to be there. So when he kept his voice low, I could barely hear what he said.
Marketing experts say that consumers love choice… but I’m not so sure. Especially in a day and age where all of us are, for some reason, becoming more indecisive, having too much choice can be supremely frustrating. So, when the starry-eyed freshmen, sophomores and even juniors like me wander into Bartels Hall for ClubFest this semester, they might as well be flipping through the terrifyingly gargantuan menu of The Cheesecake Factory. Even after narrowing down our menu options – like only looking at the Glamburger section (love you Cheesecake!), it’s still daunting. Today, we’ll be diving straight into the Business Fraternity section of the business menu.
I think part of me always knew I wanted to be more than friends, but in an attempt to avoid the emotional impaling that often comes with trusting another flawed human being, I kept the burgeoning feelings to myself. It wasn’t until she offered me socks that I realized I was in love with her. We were sitting on the edge of her ratty green couch, legs touching, our slush-ridden boots strewn across the carpet. My teeth were still audibly chattering from the cold (or maybe from sitting in close proximity to her?), an involuntary mannerism, more nettlesome than painful. “Do you want a fresh pair of socks?” she asked with a solicitous hand on my arm.
I didn’t expect to be so excited about living on West Campus this year, but boy, am I enjoying its perks! This past Saturday, August 27, two charter bus-fulls of us West Campus students went to Niagara Falls for a ridiculously low price of $15 each(price of transportation, boat tickets and breakfast included). Now, I don’t know how much all of this would usually cost, but here are the ticket prices:
Yes, people, the boat tickets alone were worth $18.25 per adult…which means this trip isn’t going to be that affordable for most of you unless you have your own car or live on West Campus next year and sign up for this steal. And yes, that brochure is sticking out from the back pocket of a stranger’s pair of jeans under a poncho. Hehe.
Recently, The University of Chicago notified first-year students that it does not support trigger warnings or safe spaces, going against the current trend in a higher-education system that has been characterized by suppression of uncomfortable ideas. But just when it seemed that the tides had started to turn, Cornell University doubled down on the coddling culture that has consumed American campuses by capitulating to the demands of certain students, with the director of the Cornell Plantations, Christopher Dunn, announcing that he will be recommending the Board of Trustees to rename the Cornell Plantations to the Cornell Botanic Gardens. Black Students United demanded that the name be changed because the word “plantations” invokes imagery of black slavery and causes distress among students. Never mind the fact that there was never a black slave plantation in the state of New York. Never mind the fact that there’s no evidence of Cornell using the name of the Plantations as a means of condoning slavery.
Having devoted the better part of my free time to social media (and not proudly so), it has been remarkable to witness the transformation in the kind of material that crops up in my feed. There have been tangible shifts, to the extent that everyone I know seems to have become a political activist at some level. Recently though, I have gotten into too many spats with people who have pulled out articles they saw on their Facebook feed on the alleged perpetuation of rape culture by the present-day Indian society, or people who have quoted a friend’s tweet verbatim to back up their point about the presidential primaries, only to stand corrected after being presented with a news report that speaks otherwise. I have become extremely wary of these quickly formulated opinions: while everyone is at perfect liberty to air theirs, generalized statements featuring charged words make me immediately put my guard up. I think this largely stems from my worries about where such opinions originate and whether they are informed or not.