Hot, But Not Much Action

Saturday is a Hotelie's real day off - no class in the morning or evening; one can sleep in, and stay up late. Or, in my case, work on a group project. Thankfully, though, this only took up an hour of my wonderfully empty day; my group was well-prepared (a first for me), and it was only me and Colleen working together to decide transitions, builds, and diction.

Otherwise, there is not much left to write about today. I got to sleep in until 10:30 AM (I would have slept longer, but my roommate's friends came in and woke her up - waking me up in the process) and enjoyed a three-mile walk with my iPod. As I took the long route to the College of Human Ecology, Three Days Grace was telling me that "Life Starts Now," and looking at the view made me believe it. I took a detour down to the arts and sciences area. From the parking lot in the back, I could see all of the campus below, surrounded by tree-filled, looming hills. The 19th-century buildings complimented the scenic background; the only layout mistake was that the view was in the back, where staff can park next to dumpsters. It would have been perfect to have the buildings face outward instead. On my way back up, a wedding procession passed by, and I moved aside for them. They probably liked the view too.

Unfortunately, Savage Hall (which has the Nutrion Science department) was closed, but the walk was fun. It was really hot by the time I began my trek back, though; in the Bay Area, the fog eventually rolls in and acts as a natural air conditioning system. In Ithaca, no such thing exists, and being in my room is especially difficult due to the seeming lack of air flow. No matter what the temperature is outside, it stays a steady mid-80s in my room (the fan does not help, either). If I come to New York for college, I think I'd like to be closer to the ocean.

My walk was the highlight of my day. Tomorrow I have class from 6 PM until 9 PM, but I am meeting with my group one last time at 1 to make sure that everything is correct. For now, I am going to try sleep; even though I increased my fan's speed a few minutes ago, it only seems to have gotten hotter. Maybe the Ivy League Connection should offer students portable ice packs instead of desk fans.

Productive Day

I took advantage of today to get a lot of things done. In the morning I relaxed with Calvin, Alex, Eric, and Frank as we watched a bit of Casino Royal and Flightplan. We then did laundry and saw some people who had no clue how to do laundry. I saw a girl who put her wet clothes into her laundry bag and then put the entire bag into the dryer. While we Waite for our clothes to get clean, all the guys and Matt went outside to play a game of catch. We discover that we wouldn't be a great baseball team because we had trouble catching the ball - we couldn't string 20 consecutive catches in a row.

After our clothes got clean I went to the RPCC computer lab to work on my group's presentation. It was interesting because one of t groupmates, Kathleen, is from China and her English isn't great. I have been to China and can understand Mandarin to some extent but can barely speak Mandarin. She speaks to me in Chinese when she can't explain something in English and I try my best to answer in Chinese but it comes out at about 60% English and 40% Chinese. It's interesting because I get to brush on Chinese, get to know her, and get work done. We made considerable progress and with a little work tomorrow, we'll be ready for our practice presentation with Mark tomorrow afternoon. My job is to speak about the various brands of hotels Host has manage it properties and Host's competitive edge. With practice, I'll be ready to go on Monday.


After a pretty productive day, it's nice to just kick back and relax as I escape the heat in the only air conditioned building in Donlon Hall: the lounge.

A Relaxing Saturday

It feels amazing being able to sleep this late. For the first time since the last Sunday, I didn’t have to wake up at 6:40 AM. I woke up at 9:20 and got ready to go to the Statler building to meet with my group and finish our PowerPoint presentation. I spent about an hour there, getting all my information done, so I would know what to say during the presentation.

At around 11:30 AM, we finished most of it, and I headed down to the Dining Hall. I met up with Eric and the El Cerrito group, and ate lunch. Later, we went down to the common area with a TV, and watched the Matrix, and another movie (forgot its name). It was interesting, but then, we all had to do laundry. We had leisure time afterwards so everyone just hung out in the only air conditioned room in the building, playing games or just doing homework.

After dinner, my friend, Matt, and I went to play some pool. It was one of the first fun activities I played in Cornell. It was pretty fun, but I wasn’t that good. It took some 15 minutes or so to finish one game. After finally leaving, I met up with Eric, who was still in the computer lab with his group making some finishing touches to their PowerPoint. Since it still wasn’t so late, all three of us decided to view the campus. We visited the Science Building, which smelled like one of those newly built, glass buildings. It was completely different from what I was used to look at. There were so many old, classic-looking buildings, and then, suddenly, a modern architecture comes to view. It really pops out, and not in a good way, because modern and old-fashioned doesn’t look good together.

View outside of the Science Building

It was a fun, relaxing day today.  I’ll try to enjoy the last of my easy days tomorrow. I’ll have to rest up so I’ll be ready for that presentation on Monday.

Laundry Day +

My first Saturday in Cornell was a day of schoolwork and housecleaning. I did not leave my room until a little after 11. I spent most of the morning reorganizing my desk, dresser, and bed while listening to music. When we all finally decided to meet up, it was past breakfast time and in to the brunch domain. We had to wait even longer though for everyone to be ready, so Calvin, Eric, and I watched part of Casino Royale. We spent over an hour in the cafeteria, procrastinating before the work we knew would take the rest of the day.

 When our laundry group was finally assembled, we headed down to the basement where the washer and dryers are. While waiting for our laundry to be done, we returned to the TV lounge and watched Flightplan. After our laundry was done we transferred our clothes to the dryer and went outside to play catch with a tennis ball in the field in front of my dorm. Soon enough we overheated and went inside to start the long process of writing our essays.


After a few minutes Alex and I realized we forgot our laundry and ran downstairs to claim it. After folding it and dropping it off in our room, it was right back to essay writing. I started talking with a girl from our class, named Sam, who was also writing her essay and we became friends. At 6:30 it was time for dinner and Calvin, Alex, and I went to the dining hall to eat with Sam, Morgan (another girl from our class), and Gloria (Sam's roommate). We spent the rest of the night with them most socializing (unfortunately), but I also got a lot of work done. It was a productive Saturday full of work, but I also managed to have good time.

Making Buddies!

Today, we experienced our first weekend as "college students." I'm not going to lie, it was not that eventful, but it was fun. I ended up waking up relatively early at around 8:00 AM, and since no one else was up, I spent the morning playing World Golf Tour on my computer. I ended up going to Donlon Hall and watching Casino Royale with the two Eric's before heading up to the dining hall. Unfortunately, all of us being wait-listed for the trip to Buttermilk Falls, we decided to start our essay for the Freedom & Justice class, but was interrupted by the need to do laundry. Just a word of advice to future ILCers; when doing your laundry, do it in small loads because the clothes will not dry in the dryer. For the most part of the afternoon , we watched Flightplan starring Jodie Foster but we never finished it. Later in the day, we played catch in the fields during the hottest hour of the day.

Afterwards, Alex and I went to get our computers to start on our first draft of our final essay. Unfortunately, I was way too distracted to even start it. Since, we were procrastinating so much, Eric, Alex and I decided to head up for dinner with our new friends Samantha, Morgan (who are both in F&J), and Gloria. After we finished, we vowed to finish our essays but that never happened. I ended up only completing two paragraphs, but I finished all the required weekend reading. Once we gave up on finishing the essay, we talked the night away with our new-found friends in the Donlon Hall lounge. It ended up having a lot of fun just talking and hanging out. 

While it was an eventful day, we had a great time making new friends. Tomorrow will be a fun day since Mr. Chan-Law made some plans for us to do throughout the day. Well, motivation better kick in tonight and tomorrow for me to finish this essay.

A Failure Turned Success

Today was a much-needed leisure day.  Unfortunately we did not make the Buttermilk Falls trip because of the extensive waiting list, but we are still trying to organize a private trip with Mr. Chan-Law for another time.  I hope to have pictures for you all another time.  We spent the afternoon doing laundry, watching Jodie Foster's Flightplan, and working on our Plato essay, taking a break to walk around campus to compensate for the trip.  Matt later played the bagpipes outside Donlon Hall while the rest of us spent the day primarily indoors.  We met new friends from Hawaii and Florida today and later joined them for dinner.  I have had a great experience meeting people from different parts of the country, and also succeeded in meeting a foreign student finally: Fabian from Costa Rica.

Having an entire day to familiarize ourselves with the campus was very beneficial, seeing new areas of the school especially.  Unfortunately I left my camera in the dorm room today, which made it better that we did not make the trip to Buttermilk Falls today.  We spent the later hours in the lounge to socialize and meet new people and formed sort of a study group with new Freedom and Justice students.  Analyzing Plato's philosophy on social hierarchy and natural order as a group tends to be easier to understand...

Though this day was particularly relaxing, I felt it was very well-spent.  I read the selections from John Locke and drafted my Plato essay, doing schoolwork that I would normally save for a Sunday.  We will meet Mr. Chan-Law in the morning and hopefully spend the day as a cohort.  Tomorrow is my seventeenth birthday as well and I am excited to spend this special day with my friends on the East Coast!