Entertainment

KILLING TIME JOYOUSLY | What is Killing Time Joyously?

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As you may have noticed, I have finally given my blog a name – Killing Time Joyously. It definitely isn’t the best blog name out there, but I guess I am just really desperate to have one so this is what it’s going to be until I can think of a much more creative and meaningful name. I hope I didn’t give the impression that this name has no meaning, though. Of course, this blog is about how I, literally, kill time joyously by watching, and then recommending to you guys, various East Asian entertainment shows – but there is more to it. As some of you geniuses may have guessed already, the first letter of each word actually represents a specific country that I plan to focus on in my blog: Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

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WATCH ME IF YOU CAN | Humble Beginnings: Cinema in America

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If not for the strong desire to assimilate into American culture, the film world would have struggled to launch itself.  Immigrants came to America and found it easier to adopt these values instead of embracing their own culture.  However, the content of film was just as important.  With this, there was an ability to make, edit and distribute movies. There was a drive in the technological world, thanks to Thomas Edison and Eadweard Muybridge.

Olympics Week

THE E’ER INSCRUTABLE | 1916: Annus Miser and the Horse Without a Rider

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1916, one hundred years on, is still considered the fulcrum upon which the fate of the European 20th century hung. As the surface of a pond agitates and ripples outward when a stone is thrown into its depths, so too did the fabric of Europe itself writhe and contort as the twin Furies of war and  revolution waxed, their jaws grinding and their bat-like wings outstretched in horrid pride. Nearly 20,000 young British men died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme alone; the Battle of Verdun, the centennial of which falls at the end of this month, remains an objective standard of Hell more unearthly than anything Dante or Hieronymus Bosch could ever hope to concoct. The grand chessboard of empires pitting their mettle against one another lost the respectable sheen of Napoleonic line fighting and became thinly veiled wholesale slaughter. I am not, however, concerned with the strictly martial aspect of the year, despite the looming shadow the Great War casts over it.

Entertainment

MARY’S MUSINGS | The Memories Will Never Fade

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I struggle to go to Cornell. It is an ongoing battle, and while I have made leaps and bounds, sometimes I can only wish that I had transferred. Freshman year, I wasn’t strong enough to ask for help and just wanted to push myself through the pain, through the memories and just get on with my life. I wish that after everything that happened – after the charges were pressed after my first year – I had moved away. Instead, I deal with the pain of walking to campus and passing by the three houses where I saw the monster in Collegetown the first time my friends convinced me to go out freshman year: he saw me and just stared.

Entertainment

GOD’S OLD PARTY | The Evangelical Vote

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This blog will follow the evangelical vote in the 2016 presidential election. I write about it because I am fascinated by the GOP field and the competition between its candidates to draw the blessing of the evangelical electorate. I also write about it because I consider myself an evangelical Christian. I may not speak for all evangelicals, but I have a say as someone who belongs to this ravenously courted demographic. I use the word “ravenously” because, as a general rule, no Republican candidate in recent memory has won the presidency without strong evangelical support.

Entertainment

MUKHERJEE | Where’d the Winter Go?

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Gloomy gray skies, thick blankets of white snow and slippery roads — this description of Ithaca winters was reiterated to me multiple times before I stepped on the plane headed to Cornell. In fact, the entire winter break, I spent half my time getting mentally prepared to come back to a cold land where my best friends would be a coat, gloves and cap. So you can imagine my surprise when I came back to Ithaca and saw green grass, clear blue skies and a temperature close to the fifties. However, I’m not complaining! I come from a tropical country and one of the few things I was dreading about going here was the harsh winter that I would have to face here.

Entertainment

MANGA MONDAYS | The Winter 2016 Hype Train

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I’ve written posts like this one for the last few seasons, so I figure I ought to keep up with the trend. Of course, I’ve also been horribly wrong about the things I say in them and had to post revisions to my hype train. So this could be a terrible idea, but I think it’s always good to let people know what’s out there. Speaking of which, I want to point readers to a handy site: Anichart. This is the site that I’ve been using ever since I began watching seasonal anime, and I find the layout super convenient.

Blogs

PUTTING IT INTO FOCUS | Eight Things I Learned During My First Semester

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By ASHLEY RADPARVAR

It seems like it was just yesterday when I moved into my tiny dorm room on North Campus and started what would be the best four years of my life. Everyone has had that moment of excitement their first few months here — meeting new people, learning from amazing professors, enjoying the gorgeous campus around you. Those first four months contained not only excitement, but amazing learning experiences that I will take with me for the rest of my college career. 1. Take advantage of being a freshman: Freshman year is awesome, never forget that.

Blogs

DENG | Despite Everything

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By SOPHIA DENG

I lay in bed this morning, wincing slightly as I gingerly poked at a red welt that seemed to have grown overnight. I threw aside the sheets and shuffled slowly to the bathroom and gazed at the mirror for a minute. My ashen face stared back at me as I reached below the sink top, feeling blindly for my small makeup pouch. I tugged at the zipper, which stubbornly refused to move. String must have caught between those teeth again, I thought, feeling the all too familiar frustration start to settle in.

Blogs

YU | Going Home

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By CHARLES YU

Like many others this winter break, I will be embarking on the exciting yet frightful journey that is returning home for the first time after coming to college. It’s been almost four months since I last stepped foot in my home in sunny Palo Alto, California, leaving it for the freezing and desolate wasteland (or at least that’s what my parents think it to be) otherwise known as Ithaca, New York. And in only a matter of a few days, I’ll be flying back to the Bay Area, finally returning to friends and family, a luxury unbeknownst to many of my friends on the East Coast who can simply go home with a snap of their fingertips. Back home, there’s so much that I am impatiently thrilled to see or experience again. I miss the important people in my life: my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister and my friends.