Sunspots (https://sunspots.cornellsun.com/page/74/)
By KATY HABR
40,000 feet in the sky, I am floating, balancing, hanging. I am in between borders, continents, countries, lands. I feel detached and untethered, not just physically, but culturally. It doesn’t matter where I arrive because it will not feel like home. Home could be anywhere, but it is nowhere.
By SARAH CHANDLER
Just because prelim season is a time for testing doesn’t mean it’s not longer a time for learning. As told by The Office, here are just a few things we can learn from this most marvelous and preliminary of seasons. We learn how to ask the right questions if something isn’t making sense. We learn not to overestimate ourselves, but not to underestimate ourselves, either. Especially when it comes to our ability to consume caffeine.
By HEATHER HERMAN
The first time I remember passing someone living on the streets, I was in middle school, heading to my father’s office to pick out a new winter coat from the fashion company he works for. There I was, on my way to spend my parents’ money on an expensive coat I probably didn’t need when we passed a homeless man. Hesitating, I lingered by the street corner. After dropping in two dollars, my mother reminded me that we don’t necessarily know where that money is going. He could use it to buy lunch or he could put it toward drugs.
By TANISHA MOHAPATRA
A piece of short fiction
You always walked me to the playground – not too many times, but in my mind, those few times constitute “always.” I don’t quite remember how many counts “always” comprises, and most of the times we spent together are hazy anyway. But I remember you always walked me to the playground because that’s what I conditioned myself to remember. Through human haziness, however, that rusty swing set stands out in all its cold metal glory, just as I remember it from back when I was too scared to approach it. I built my muddy temples at the summit of the four reddish-brown posts, carefully avoiding the oscillating masses and the odor of oxidized iron. You always looked at me from afar, and when dusk turned too dark to tell my silhouette apart from the bushes and the ivy, you’d walk over and ask just one time if I wanted to try.
By OLIVIA TICE
What could be better than eating cereal while watching cartoons on a Sunday morning? Here’s what: Eating cereal on a Sunday morning while watching a cartoon that directly references/totally comedically annihilates the very cereal you are eating. This, girls and squirrels, is Adult Swim’sRick and Morty. Created by the duo who brought you NBC’s Community and loosely based off ofBack to the Future, Rick and Morty takes sci-fi adventure along with absurdity, cynicism and comedy and rolls them into one lolz-inducing burrito of subtle/meta social commentary. The essential bit of the show is that Morty, a twiggy pubescent kid, and Rick, his formerly estranged grandfather/mad scientist (think Back to the Future’s “Doc” as an animated alcoholic), travel across the universe in which infinite other planets, possibilities and lifeforms cause them all kinds trouble.
By SARAH PALMER
When I entered the college sphere, I had no grandiose plans. I just wanted to survive. It was only through friends that I was introduced to the world of rallies and die-ins: the grand tradition of student activism. There is an inexplicable rush that comes from standing up and questioning the status quo. With so many glorious causes that still need champions, answering their call seems like a virtuous path.
By GRETA OHAUS and ELENI TOUBANOS
Based on our mutual interests, match.com would — for a lack of a better word — “match” us in a second, but most Millenials would rather tinker with Tinder and I’m not so confident that we would have matched on this more superficial app. We were fortunate enough to meet in real life and run into each other frequently because of our shared major, Fiber Science and Apparel Design. Fast forward three years as we migrated from admiring racks in Bergdorf’s to the Great Lawn of Central Park: We found ourselves once again reflecting on the beginning of an epic friendship. ET: I remember when I first met you and exactly what you were wearing. GO: I also remember exactly what I was wearing that day, probably because I planned it months in advance.
By KAYLEIGH RUBIN
50 years ago, Rosa Parks defied legal segregation by refusing to sit in the “colored” section of a Montgomery bus, becoming the first lady of civil rights. Two weeks ago, Kim Davis violated the Supreme Court’s opinion on gay marriage by refusing to issue marriage certificates to same sex couples and was consequently and is now being hailed as a martyr for religious freedom. While Rosa Parks was a private citizen engaging in civil disobedience, Kim Davis is a public official refusing to fulfill her position as county clerk. While Rosa Parks was an activist for minorities, Kim Davis is an opponent of tolerance. And though gay marriage dissenters and GOP candidates alike are now comparing the women, the pair’s sole commonality is that they both spent time in jail.
By GUNJAN HOOJA
I distinctly remember the day that the Sandy Hook Shooting happened. I was a senior in high school living in Stamford, Connecticut — barely an hour away from Newtown. I decided to head out early from school and get an early start to the weekend, so I grabbed coffee and made my way back home. It was approximately 10:30 a.m. when I put on the news and surprisingly found that CNN was showing clips from my local news station broadcasting the details from Newtown. The shooting had barely happened an hour before and the details were blurry, coming in fast with no clear summation of what had actually happened.
By CHARLES YU
We’ve stigmatized the concept of “vulnerability,” and as a consequence, we have cast it as a mentally unwanted state among all other psychological ailments and malicious states of being. Ingrained in our speech and in our culture, it’s become a pejorative for weakness. We dread cracking and letting our inner fears and insecurities reveal themselves, and so despite the tumultuous chaos we may feel inside, we outwardly guise ourselves with calm demeanors and cheery smiles. Vulnerability is a familiar notion that we’ve all experienced before, but it is a constant and particularly resonating feeling for a certain population on campus: new college freshmen. As a member of the Class of 2019 and a Cornell University student of just 31 days, I can attest to this claim.