Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Downtown Ithaca Expenditures

We went over lots of different situations where the situation can overpower people's personalities during the main lecture today. It was shown that most people don't have absolute obedience, but rather indecisive disobedience. When researchers said phrases that said they "needed to go on" or that "the research required them to continue" then people tended to continue after arguing some more. This was crazy to think about how that one phrase could make me do something that I would normally think is inhumane because in one study sixty percent of the participants continued to shock people way past what was considered dangerous just because the experimenters kept repeating those phrases. It really goes to show how not in control of ourselves we are despite what we think. 

During the discussion class, we basically edited another person's essay. I edited Joy's, an international student, paper. She did hers on sleep deprivation. The way she worded everything was a bit awkward, but I helped her edit so that it flowed better. It really reminded me of how sometimes I'm not very sure if something sounds strange or not because it sounds fine to me since that's what it would sound like in Chinese (my first language), but the sentence is actually completely backwards in English. So, I could really relate to her when she told me how thankful she was for me editing the flow of her sentences. 

During the afternoon seminar, we made inspiration boards. The teacher went easy on us because she knew that we have an essay due tomorrow for our regular class. I didn't really think about anything when I was choosing the things I wanted on my board. I just picked up things I liked and hoped it would all work together, which it did in my opinion. I wrote both my American name and Chinese name because I love both cultures a lot and don't want to forget either. I added in the "believe you can make it happen" right above the graduation cap, business, and job quote because I wanted it to remind me that I need to pursue something I love and that I can make it happen. Right below that is an explanation of power napping and this was to remind me that sometimes breaks are necessary and because I really like sleeping. The majority of my board is going in a diagonal path to show that I have a plan and the rhinestones are supposed to be the little bumps (quite literally because I'm constantly tripping) in life that I'll overcome on my path. I also really liked the Home is where the heart is because it really shows that home isn't meant to be about the material possession of owning a house, but rather who and where you feel the happiest. 

Right after this class I went back to my dorm and got a call from the two Dianas and Kachi about going to the Commons, which is in Downtown Ithaca, so I head right back out to Balch. We take the bus to the Commons and go around all their little antique shops. We went today to try the famous New York (I think New York anyways) rolled ice cream. It's super pretty and cool looking when they're making it, but it tastes the same as regular ice cream. I actually prefer regular ice cream because the rolled ice cream was really hard to scoop up with the spoon. It was so hard that Kachi's spoon broke. After buying souvenirs we went to a Thai restaurant to eat. I shared a plate of chicken pad thai with Pinole Diana. It was really good and reminded me of Pinole's Thai Spice. I actually spent a lot of money at the little Ithaca boutique shops, but I'm super happy because I got my friends little souvenirs that I think suit them really well. I was particularly happy at Sunny Days (a gift shop). A lot of their stuff was super unique because they have Ithacan locals create them. Such as, this deck of cards where each card had a picture of a different spot in Ithaca. Another one of my favorites were these little canvases that had hand painted pictures on them by a local artist. 

No comments:

Post a Comment