Middle Eastern Ensemble Fall Concert

11.21.10

This past September, I was awarded a one year fellowship to study Greek. The fellowship is offered through the US Department of Education and specifically encourages students to learn uncommonly studied foreign languages (e.g. Turkish, Greek, Portuguese, etc.). As stipulated by the fellowship, I will take Greek language classes as well as related culture classes for the Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 semesters. For my culture class this semester, I enrolled in a Mediterranean music ensemble. I had the opportunity to sing in Turkish, Arabic, Greek, and Hebrew. The pictures below were taken at our end of the semester concert.

My fellow choir members: Rebecca, Amy, and Enrika

Practicing before the event starts. (Adem and our conductor Harold).

Adem and Tara

I wasn't expecting such a large crowd to turn up for this event. It made me so happy to see so many of my friends faces in the back of the Carriage House loft. I'm so grateful that you all came!

I really enjoyed singing with this group of talented musicians. I will most likely be continuing with the choir for the Spring 2011 semester and promise to inform you of my next performance.

Buffalo is great!

11.10.10

My neighbor, Margene Weiss, recently sent me a video highlighting the great things about Buffalo. Most people know about Buffalo because of its record snowfalls, but there is so much more to it then this. While the clip focuses mainly on architecture, it does pinpoint other historical and natural aspects of Buffalo. Buffalo was the first city to have electricity. It's about 20 minutes away from one of the oldest state parks in the nation, and besides Central Park in New York City, it has one of the most extensive Frederick Law Olmstead park systems in the nation.

So next time you hear someone say that Buffalo is "lame", you can send them this:

Buffalo, New York: This Place Matters

Poster Presentation for ACSF

10.29.10

Because our research project in Crete was funded in part by Cornell's Atkins Center for Sustainable Futures (ACSF), my group was asked to design a poster highlighting our findings thus far. We knew most of the audience would be administrative staff and alumni so in addition to our poster, we created a game to teach people them about water use in Crete, Greece. Basically, they would roll a die and the number they rolled would determine how much rain fell in a given year. Rain/water was symbolized by little silver buckets. For example, if they rolled a 1, they would get 16 buckets (400 mm of cumulative rainfall in a year), versus if they rolled a 6, they would get 36 buckets (900 mm of cumulative rainfall in a year). They would then allocate these water resources to different uses. Some were mandatory (e.g. domestic use) but most were optional and had a monetary value associated with them. For example, if you decided to plant one hectare of rain-fed olive trees then you would use 4 buckets of water and make $3 million dollars that year. Once they allocated their buckets they would have to roll a pair of dice and rearrange their water resources.

In the end we wanted to show that the crop that was least taxing on water resources was the rain-fed olives. The citrus on the other hand might give more money but they take a considerable amount of water to grow successfully; nearly twice as much was as is required by the rain-fed olive trees. If leaders in the municipality can promote the maintenance of rain-fed olives this would be best for conserving water supply for future generations.

This is the poster I made with the help of Margaret (a student in Natural Resources), Michael (a student in the law school), Gail (the director of the Mediterranean Studies program), and Tammo (my advisor).

This is the poster for our game. The finished product had bright green foam letters spelling out the title: 'Tipping Points: A Race to Sustainable Water Resources'.

All my heard work on the game paid off when we were awarded 3rd place (and an $1000 prize to go towards our research) in the poster competition.

Shellbot and Jack Skellington

10.24.10

With the Guster concert on Monday night, Shelley decided to drive down to Ithaca on Saturday night and stay for the weekend. I showed her all around Ithaca and even roped her into helping me carve my pumpkin.

Shelley and I at Ithaca Falls

The Headless Shelley

There she is!

Toby doesn't look amused.

You can see the world differently when you look at it through the eyes of Jack Skellington.

Thanks to the radical pumpkin carving kit that my mom sent me, it was a lot easier to make Jack Skellington.

Compared to the cartoon version, I think we did a pretty good job.

A Visitor from the ATL

10.6-13.10

Over fall break, Jon Newman flew all the way from Atlanta just to visit me. I picked him up from the airport and helped him get settled in my house. We did a little hiking around my neighborhood, made some dinner, and headed to Cornell's Fuertes Observatory. Every clear Friday night around 9pm the observatory is open to the public. Because it was a clear night, the message on their machine assured me that the observatory was open. While you walked around to look through the telescopes, members of the Cornell Astronomy Club would help explain what constellations you would expect to see. We were able to see Jupiter (as well as the sunspot on its surface), an owl constellation, and a comet. The Astronomy Club members were very friendly, knowledgeable, and welcoming. One of them told us about some of the stories behind the constellations. Jon and I both liked it.

On Saturday Jon, Johan (my climbing friend from Cornell), and I left bright and early for Blue Run Rocks near Gaines, PA. This was my third time climbing outdoors but it was really fun. The most exciting part was learning how to how to lead climb. Because Jon and Johan both have had a lot of experience lead climbing, they were great teachers. To explain, lead climbing is basically a type of sport climbing where you climb above your rope. Usually the first person that ascends a route will lead climb, set up an anchor at the top of the route for the next climber(s), and then be lowered down to the ground. As the climber moves up the wall they use special carabener sets called "quickdraws" to clip into bolts that have been permanently screwed into the rock face. Once the climber comes close to a bolt, they grab the quickdraw from their harness, clip it a portion of it into the bolt, pick up the rope dangling below them, and feed it through the second part of the quickdraw. The hardest part of lead climbing is making sure you clip in as soon as possible. Because you're climbing above your rope you will fall as far as your last clip. This fall can be scary if the bolts on the wall are spread out.

Besides lead climbing there is also top roping. I normally climb using this technique because it is a easier and requires less equipment. In top roping your support rope is above you; the rope has been anchored into the top of the route. Since this was my first time lead climbing, Jon helped me rig up the ropes so I was top roping and lead climbing at the same time. If I fell then I wouldn't fall nearly as far as if I had been lead climbing alone. One step at a time.

Me

Jon

Johan

Pride Rock

This place reminded us of the movie Fern Gully.

Jon is very focused as he belays Johan.

While Jon belayed, I scoped out the surroundings and found this cool cave.

I found some ferns!

I also took pictures of Johan.

Peace (Johan)

Bunny Ears (Jon)

Here I am lead climbing for the first time.

It was getting late and we had to walk back to the car.

Jon and I!

Besides climbing on Saturday, we did a lot of wandering around Ithaca. I took Jon to the farmer's market, to the Cornell plantations, to my favorite restaurant (Sticky Rice), up to campus, and around the Commons. On Tuesday Elliot invited us both to see his PhD defense. I learned a lot about what he studied and was happy to see the finished product of all of his hard work.

I was sad that Jon had to go back to Atlanta but he has 6 more trips to go before I can visit him in Atlanta. That's the rule: 1 Atlanta trip for every 7 Ithaca trips. ;)

Cornell Camping 2010

9.18-19.10

Every fall, a group of people from my lab and other departments at Cornell organize a weekend camping trip to the Adirondacks. Last year I had to miss the trip but this year I was able to go. Christine, Christian, and I got to the cabin so late that everyone had already fallen asleep. Christian and I helped Christine set up her tent and then set up our own sleeping bags in the kitchen. It wasn't the ideal location but it was good enough.

Morning!

Helen and Veronica (my cubicle-mates!)

Since it was Helen's birthday we stuck a bunch of candles in this stack of pancakes and sang to her. I think she enjoyed it.

Christian

Mappy watches as everyone else rushes around after breakfast.

We're ready for our hike. (Christine, Christian, and Stephen)

We started on our 2.7 mile hike up Ampersand (&) Mountain.

Julia (aka Beef) is leading the group. This part of the hike was very flat but about half way up the path became steeper.

The forest was quiet except for the sound of our footsteps.

At one point we were just walking up a stream bed. The trees were amazing; growing up and around the boulders.

Stephen was always one step ahead of us.

Maybe I can move the mountain?

Christine is almost to the top and I'm following right behind.

We made it to the top! The view was amazing.

I was hoping there would be little tadpoles in the water but there weren't.

After hiking that mountain we had big appetites.

Christine and I

My Bandito Pose

Christine's Warrior Pose

The Three Peas in a Pod: Christine, Christian, and I

This is a benchmark. It's used by geographers as a reference point for our maps. I learned about these in one of my classes and it was interesting to see them in person.

Stephen

Helen and Veronica

We were already half way down the mountain when Ali came to tell us that Nate had broken his ankle. I gave Ali some Advil to bring back up the mountain and we continued down the path. There were already a group of people to stay with Nate at the top and we couldn't offer any extra help. While we continued down the path, the group at the top of the mountain prepared for Nate to be airlifted to the nearest hospital. Luckily, there was a doctor on the top of the mountain who was able to set Nate's ankle with a makeshift splint.

Waiting for the Helicopter

Nate took an emergency helicopter ride to the Saranac Hospital.

When the rest of the group got back we had hot soup and biscuits waiting for them. We were happy that they all got back safe and sound.

Campfire with S'mores

Chinese Lanterns

The Whole Gang!

lefft to right back row: Matt, Alexa, Julia (aka Beef), Mappy, Alex, Holly, Ali, Stephen, Francois, Trevor, Helen, Nate

left to right front row: me, Christine, Christian, Marie, Veronica

Nate's ankle was definitely broken.