The Voice of Bailey Hall

Working for Cornell Productions isn't like working for the dining halls or at the library. I don’t have a certain number of hours I have to work every week. I don’t work a certain shift with a particular group of people. Instead, when Cornell Productions is hired by a show or event, I get an email with all the open shifts for the coming week. If I’m interested and free for any of the shifts, I reply and wait to see what my job assignments are.

Over the past few weeks, I mainly worked stagehand shifts at Bailey Hall, Cornell's auditorium that hosts everything from music groups to dance troupes.

Bailey Hall

As I've mentioned briefly before, being a stagehand means sitting backstage and being ready in case the sound or stage managers need anything. Sometimes we also open and close the stage doors or run the lights, by which I mean slide the switch up or down on command.

After the show, when everyone else leaves, is when things get busy for us. At that point, we’re allowed to come out from our hiding places on the wings. Depending on the show and upcoming events, our jobs range from chair corralling to riser wrangling to wire coiling. (Home, home on the stage; where the chairs and the music stands need-to-be-stored.)

Recently while working, I've heard the Cornell Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and both of the CU Winds bands. You know you’re a band geek when you get excited that one of the bands is playing “Sea Songs” by Vaughan Williams, which sounds a lot like the Vaughan Williams Folk Song Suite which you played in high school, and the other ensemble is playing “Festive Overture” by Shostakovich, which the district orchestra played one year.

Anyway, due to the nature of my job, I can go weeks without seeing the same Cornell Productions people; however, since my recent shifts have all been at Bailey, I've been working for the Bailey sound and stage managers. And in doing so, I've gotten to know who the voice of Bailey Hall is. You know, the guy who says “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to tonight’s show at Bailey Hall. At this time, please silence your electronic devises and note that recording or any kind of prohibited. Enjoy the show.” After the show, he also says things along the lines of, “All the stands and chairs need to go downstairs” and “Someone’s going to have to crawl under those risers.”

Mother's Day

So, apparently today is Mother's Day.  Until a few days ago, I may have been blissfully unaware of this fact, not that I ever do much anything for Mother's Day. . . .  But this is the first year I won't be home to grace everyone with my cheerful and amiable personality, and being notified rather late about this holiday, I didn't think anything I mailed would arrive on time.  Besides which, I don't have any stamps.

Since everyone else sends cards and flowers or makes breakfast, I thought I'd write a blog post instead.  Plus, this is free.

I was totally going for pictures of the flowers, not the geese.

Actually, I was going for the geese.

To my own mother and any other mothers who may be reading this: Happy Mother's Day; enjoy the pictures?

Food Tours, part 1

With a greatly relaxed schedule throughout study week and finals, a few friends and I have been taking the opportunity to eat at some of the cafés and other dining establishments scattered around campus. Cornell has ten dining halls and around twenty other places to buy food, not even counting the vending machines, which means you could eat somewhere different every day for a month. I’m pretty sure that’s more dining options than in my entire hometown. Then again, my hometown’s population is around (less than?) Cornell’s undergrad enrollment. . . .

In just two semesters, I've managed to eat at a fair number of different places. I've gone to almost all of the dining halls (one of the 161 Things every Cornellian should do). What’s good about the dining halls is the variety (usually) of food and that if I feel like eating watermelon with my roast pork followed by yogurt, nothing’s going to stop me, assuming they made roast pork. If, on the other hand, I go to an a la cart place, they will most likely not be selling any dishes consisting of watermelon and pork. Probably because I might be the only person to buy it. Ever.

But I’m actually going to talk about some of the options at the a la cart places I've visited so far. First up, Ivy Room. Ivy Room is on central campus and is pretty much directly across from Olin Hall. If you happen to be spending long hours in Olin, your options usually come down to Ivy Room or the vending machines in the basement. Anyway, I have to confess that I almost always get sandwiches since I don’t eat a lot at a time. (I eat every two hours or so instead.) The Ivy Room’s grilled cheese sandwiches are pretty good, and some of my friends would recommend the salads and noodle bowls. I wouldn't know; I've never ordered them. . . .

Moving on . . . Probably the most interesting thing I've eaten that’s an actual dish and not meat-with-fruit (aka dinner at the dining halls) is chicken on a waffle at Hughes, way down by the law school and Collegetown. I would definitely recommend that everyone tries this at least once, because how often do you get fried chicken on top of a waffle? (I also recently ate a waffle with yogurt and peanut butter. In case you haven’t noticed, I have little to no qualms about mixing food groups.) Plus, they use paper for their tablecloths and provide crayons for you to color.

If you’re looking for something more normal, they make sandwiches and wraps over at Goldie’s in the Physical Science Building (PSB). I've had the chicken panini. The chicken can be a little dry, but the spinach and tomatoes usually make up for that. Fun facts: PSB was built right next to Baker; the two buildings share a wall and there’s a lamppost inside. Also, we watched a lab safety video in General Chemistry last semester. They did a shot where they panned across the outside of Baker and PSB wasn't there. That’s right; the video was made before PSB was even built. To be fair, PSB was completed in 2010, but this video was very obviously filmed around the 80s. No mouth pipetting, guys. Just, no.

Tune in next time/week/in awhile for more enthralling commentary on Cornell Food and Life in General. I know, you’re thinking I should have my own food network show. Cornflakes with pudding and yogurt, anyone?

These are a Few of my Favorite Things

Some of my favorite things, unrelated to Cornell:
- Color: orange, but I own a lot of lime green clothing.  At least I’m easy to spot in a crowd.
- Planet: Pluto, which is a planet
- Sports team: New England Revolution*
- TV show: Jeopardy! (though I was recently introduced to Star Trek)
- Movie: Lord of the Rings. The entire trilogy.
- Quotes*: Don’t panic.
Nobody tosses a dwarf.
Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to.
- Movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto: 3rd.
- Scientific calculator: Casio fx-300ES. Don’t get me started on what I think of TI scientific calculators. (And yes, I was in math team in high school. For four years.)

And now my favorite things about Cornell:
- the Big Red Pep Band: It’s big, it’s red, but no, it’s not a dog. It does, however, show up to dozens of sporting events at Cornell including, but not limited to, sprint football, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, lacrosse, and of course, hockey. There’s just something about freezing at Schoellkopf stadium while the lacrosse team scores over fifteen goals and we get to play variations on Davy (our fight song) or being in Lynah rink and watching the hockey team score a game winning goal with one second left. We’re finishing up the spring season with lacrosse, but don’t worry, we’ll be back next fall.

- Cornell Outdoor Education: They offer not only climbing, but also hiking, and skiing, and all sorts of my other favorite activities featuring dirt and sweat. Taking PE classes with COE does cost money, but it’s completely worth it. As in, rock climbing is one of my new favorite activities and I go to the wall when I should be doing homework at least a couple times a week.

- the clock tower and chimes concerts: I like music, and I like walking, so naturally I like getting to hear live music as I’m walking to class. One of my favorite things I've heard is still “Under the Sea” during Hurricane Sandy.

- AAIV (Asian American Intervarsity): Some of the first people I met at Cornell (after the people in my dorm) were members of AAIV. They were mostly friendly and welcoming, and since then, I've had some incredibly amusing dinner conversations, gotten to go care packaging and reverse trick or treating, participated in a photo scavenger hunt in RPCC (it was too dark to go out on campus), and just enjoyed their fellowship, among other things.

- the trail around Beebe Lake: Recently I've been going out running more because I probably should get some exercise rediscovered my love for sweating and going in circles. The trail around the lake is about one mile long and features great views and lots of geese. It’s also nice because I prefer running on dirt or grass rather than on the road or on a track.

- Cornell Productions: As it turns out, I really like the backstage aspect of setting up and taking down shows and events. So far, I've been allowed to set up lights, help set up sound, stack chairs and stands, and coil and gaff wires. It’s been a lot of fun.

- This place: Three more years. I can’t wait.

*Virtual bonus points to anyone who knows what sport the Revolution play without looking them up. Similarly, name the origins and speakers of the quotes and receive an internet high five from me. Feel free to leave responses in the comments.

Math and Music

It’s said that there’s a connection between the logical realm of math and the more abstract land of music. Scientists have done studies analyzing the rhythmic and structural underlyings of music to try and understand how they help to enhance math skills. They've got the research. I have the real life experience. Now presenting: How to become a math genius in three easy steps with the three Bs: Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven. That time in MATLAB I was reminded of pep band. Which isn't that hard, because a lot of things remind me of pep band.

Anyway, it was the last MATLAB lecture of the semester, and we were finishing up with sorting methods. We’d just done recursion, so the last sorting method we were learning (after insertion and bubble sort) was the merge sort. To start our discussion of the merge sort, the professor asked us if it would be easier to straight up sort a thousand items or merge two sets of five hundred items that had already been sorted. Well, this one time in band . . .

Actually, it’s been a lot of times in band. So the pep band “folders” are stacks of half sheets of music shoved into a pocket-type holder made of construction paper and/or duct tape. Normally, people keep their music alphabetized so they can find it more easily. However, during our busier events (hockey), most people don’t have time to put their music away between sets, so after the game there’s the folder, and then there’s the giant pile of music outside the folder . . . that needs to be sorted.

At this point, you have three options: one, take each piece of music and go through your folder to find out where it goes; two, alphabetize the music outside of your folder and then combine (hint: merge) the two piles; and three, ignore the giant stack of un-alphabetized music by shoving it into your folder and regretting it the next time you have to find a piece of music. Well, if you ask me, options one and two sound a lot like the insertion and merge sorts.

Speaking from experience, if around half your folder is sitting in a heap waiting to be put back into the folder, alphabetize it first so you don’t have to flip through the a’s seven billion times. (Merge sort) Otherwise, just sort each song in the order you find it. (Insertion sort)

And that is how math (okay, computer science, which needs math) is like music.