Archive for the ‘ Involvement ’ Category

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8
Apr

Wrapping up the Week

wtf

I’m slowly losing count of how many papers I have due in the next few days (4? Maybe 5?) Here’s to hoping that I’ll be uber productive during my 3 hour layoff in the Philly airport. See, I wasn’t too bummed about staying in Ithaca for Spring Break because I have a trip planned for California, commencing this Saturday. I will mostly be spending time at Stanford University for a conference on US-China Relations. On Wednesday, the group of delegates are going to San Francisco for a day of fun. Hopefully I’ll have plenty of pictures to share!

P.S. – A shout out to the newly accepted Cornell Class of 2014, congratulations!

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9
Mar

Life is Good

I apologize for the lack of updates. Looks like I failed one New Year’s Resolution already, but fear not, Spring Break is just around the corner and since I am being extremely lame, I will be staying in Ithaca for the break and treating it as some sort of zen sabbatical.

I did pretty well on one resolution so far – Take every opportunity to travel. There was Mock Trial at Yale in February. This past weekend I was in Shippensburg, PA with the Cornell HR Games (basically Jeopardy, HR style) team competing in the Northeast Regional. Both Cornell teams made it to the semi-finals and went head-to-head. To my immense surprise, my team made it to the finals and went on to beat Shippensburg University. NORTHEAST CHAMPIONS, HOLLA! It’s so nice to have the plaque back after the series of Penn State wins in the past couple of years.

So other than that, why is life good? Canada broke the record for the number of gold medals at a Winter Olympic game! Ithaca is finally showing the first hint of spring! I may have exciting plans for next spring semester! NY Fashion show just keeps fueling my love for fashion! School is chill but interesting! Love, love, love Cornell.

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9
Mar

Mock Trial Invitational at Yale University

Cornell is known for its outstanding mock trial team. We have eloquent defense attorneys, quick-witted prosecutors, hilarious and genuine witnesses, and dare I add, dutiful timekeepers. And then there’s me, newbie to the team and what’s my role? A forensic entomologist (Think Hodgins from Bones, just girlier). Getting thrown into the world of mock trial at the end of first semester meant immersing myself in bizarre (unless you’re in law school) practices  like referring to everyone by their last name and odd terms that apparently meant a whole lot more like “438″, “Rule 804-B1″, “this matter is not offered for the truth of the matter but merely to show the speaker’s subsequent action”.

Cornell Mock Trial has 3 teams, 436, 437, 438, as designated by the American Mock Trial Association. My team 438 fluctuates between 7 or 8 people, with the oh-so-dapper Captain Fanelli at the helm (wink).

In the weeks before Cornell’s Big Red Invitational and Yale’s New Haven Invitational, we had practices every night, sometimes going til midnight at Goldwin Smith. On cross practices, I got grilled on miniscule details from the 9-page affidavit I had to memorize. And thank goodness too, otherwise surviving the UPenn and Carnegie Mellon cross-examinations would not have been easy.

So let’s talk about Yale. The campus is a spectacular collection of gothic structures packed into a couple street blocks. It had the same austerity as Harvard, but like Harvard, we discovered the quaint little coffee shops or lunch places that Yalies frequent. I didn’t spot too many places that could’ve been sets for That’s Why I Chose Yale, which might be a relief. My photos are on Facebook.

Competition-wise, we did pretty well for a mostly-newbie team haphazardly brought together only four weeks before the tournament. One member even won an Outstanding Witness award for, dare I say, mastery of the Alabama accent.

Best of luck to the two Cornell teams moving on to the next round!