A couple Saturdays ago (August 13th), it was Left Handers Day. I didn’t do anything special on the day itself (I had other exciting plans that I might eventually write about) but I celebrate all year long by complaining about everything right handed. Enjoy the following representative list of things that are moderately terrible for left handers.
1. Pens that smudge. Enough said.
2. Contoured right handed scissors. Contoured specially to gouge holes into your hand while you hack ineffectually at lines you can’t see.
3. People pitching to the wrong side of you in whiffle ball because obviously you must be the one standing on the wrong side of the plate.
4. The icons/buttons for the Xbox Kinect. They’re all in the top right corner which is a major pain to reach with your left hand.
5. Accidentally getting shots and blood drawn from your left arm.
6. Cheese slicers.
However, there are some things I don’t have handedness-related objections against: corkscrews, can openers, the gearshift, and peelers. I also enjoy non-dominant hand chopsticks and bowling.
And on the plus side, if you’re left handed, you can a) still draw a weapon while shaking someone’s hand*, b) use a mouse and write at the same time, and c) have an excuse to repeatedly elbow people at the dinner table.
*The internet indicates that a possible origin of the handshake was as a salutation used between two parties to show that each had come peaceably without weapons in hand.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Off Belay
[Part 3 of 3 of my Gunks trip. Part 1 here and Part 2 here.]
After another cold night, we again awoke at six in the morning. Everything covered by my sleeping bag had been warm enough, but keeping your face comfortable consists of alternating between warmth and oxygen. I changed into a relatively clean outfit and packed my things. My tent partner and I managed to be the first to take down our tent and have it packed away.
We had another breakfast of oatmeal, made more sandwiches for lunch (peanut butter and jam for me this time), rechecked our packs, loaded the van, and drove off from our campsite for the second and last time. Our second day at the Gunks, we climbed at a different part of the cliffs, accessed this time from a very steep, very long series of stone steps. I actually like stairs, but stairs with an unwieldy blue beast strapped to me? Not as fun. With the departure of another of the class members for a wedding, we were down to four students and four instructors. I was climbing with a different instructor, and we set up at the bottom of High Corner, our route for the morning.
The Gunks are popular enough that there are often climbers waiting for routes, but of the five multi-pitch routes I climbed that weekend, I didn’t have to wait for any of them, partly because of how early we got to the cliffs both mornings. Even though it was barely May, the weather was absolutely beautiful. Sunshine, clear blue skies – it almost got too hot, though that had approximately no effect on my chalk use. My hands can sweat in forty degree Lindseth just by thinking about climbing.
I ascended High Corner, sorting out a tangled rope on the way up, and was on top of the cliffs for the fourth time. There’s something about looking down a vertical face and thinking, I climbed that. We met up with another climbing pair and took part in a four person, two rope rappel involving the European death knot. A break for lunch, and then I climbed my last pitch on Jackie. It was a fun climb; at one point I was under an overhang, and the shorter you are, the more you find yourself hanging upside down as you try to swing yourself up and over. I’m pretty short. I eventually hauled myself up to the anchor, did my last rappel, belayed my instructor down, coiled the rope, and took off my shoes to sit in the sun and watch the other groups climb their last climbs.
The van ride back to Cornell was long. We stopped to eat a pizza dinner in a bug infested field next to the highway. When we returned to COE, we had to sort through every single piece of equipment we’d taken on our trip. But even before we pulled up to the curb at Bartels, I wanted to go back to the Gunks. It was exhausting, hanging off the rock, clipping and unclipping, letting rope out and gathering it back in, but it was also a challenge to be accepted, exciting in a way that only being a hundred feet off the ground with nothing below your feet could be, and just plain fun. I don’t know if I’ll get to go back, but I sure want to. Because when you reach up for the next hold to pull yourself upward, always upward, and nail the move, it doesn’t matter how bruised your knees are or how scraped and cut your knuckles and palms are. It feels good.
After another cold night, we again awoke at six in the morning. Everything covered by my sleeping bag had been warm enough, but keeping your face comfortable consists of alternating between warmth and oxygen. I changed into a relatively clean outfit and packed my things. My tent partner and I managed to be the first to take down our tent and have it packed away.
We had another breakfast of oatmeal, made more sandwiches for lunch (peanut butter and jam for me this time), rechecked our packs, loaded the van, and drove off from our campsite for the second and last time. Our second day at the Gunks, we climbed at a different part of the cliffs, accessed this time from a very steep, very long series of stone steps. I actually like stairs, but stairs with an unwieldy blue beast strapped to me? Not as fun. With the departure of another of the class members for a wedding, we were down to four students and four instructors. I was climbing with a different instructor, and we set up at the bottom of High Corner, our route for the morning.
The Gunks are popular enough that there are often climbers waiting for routes, but of the five multi-pitch routes I climbed that weekend, I didn’t have to wait for any of them, partly because of how early we got to the cliffs both mornings. Even though it was barely May, the weather was absolutely beautiful. Sunshine, clear blue skies – it almost got too hot, though that had approximately no effect on my chalk use. My hands can sweat in forty degree Lindseth just by thinking about climbing.
I ascended High Corner, sorting out a tangled rope on the way up, and was on top of the cliffs for the fourth time. There’s something about looking down a vertical face and thinking, I climbed that. We met up with another climbing pair and took part in a four person, two rope rappel involving the European death knot. A break for lunch, and then I climbed my last pitch on Jackie. It was a fun climb; at one point I was under an overhang, and the shorter you are, the more you find yourself hanging upside down as you try to swing yourself up and over. I’m pretty short. I eventually hauled myself up to the anchor, did my last rappel, belayed my instructor down, coiled the rope, and took off my shoes to sit in the sun and watch the other groups climb their last climbs.
The van ride back to Cornell was long. We stopped to eat a pizza dinner in a bug infested field next to the highway. When we returned to COE, we had to sort through every single piece of equipment we’d taken on our trip. But even before we pulled up to the curb at Bartels, I wanted to go back to the Gunks. It was exhausting, hanging off the rock, clipping and unclipping, letting rope out and gathering it back in, but it was also a challenge to be accepted, exciting in a way that only being a hundred feet off the ground with nothing below your feet could be, and just plain fun. I don’t know if I’ll get to go back, but I sure want to. Because when you reach up for the next hold to pull yourself upward, always upward, and nail the move, it doesn’t matter how bruised your knees are or how scraped and cut your knuckles and palms are. It feels good.
Monday, August 15, 2016
Climb On
My alarm went off at six in the morning. We ate oatmeal for breakfast before transforming the table into our lunch making station. On the menu for the day were sandwiches, brownies, and apples. I packed my backpack with my lunch, water, one hundred feet of rope, climbing shoes, chalk bag, helmet, and harness with belay device, locking carabiners, nut tool, cordelettes, slings, and the climbing guide book neatly clipped to its gear loops. When I wrangled everything into the day pack, it resembled a small child in size and weight, but with less whining and kicking.
After everyone had eaten, made lunch, filled water bottles, and loaded packs, we piled into the van to drive the final miles to the Gunks. There was a COE top roping class camped further down the road, and as we rolled past them, their campsite was quiet and still. “I’m not saying we’re better than them,” one of our instructors said later, “but we’re better than them.” He had a point. We’d driven all the way out here to climb, so we were going to climb every minute we could. Plus, they were top roping, which you can do at Lindseth. We were going trad climbing. Multi-pitch trad climbing, which is why we needed so much gear.
In the parking lot, each instructor collected his or her students. Due to the small size of the class, the instructors, except one, had only a single student each. After a final gear check, we shouldered our packs and walked to the cliffs. Most of the Gunks can be accessed by a convenient carriage road that runs below the cliffs. To get to the start of a climb, you just have to walk from the carriage road to the base of the cliff instead of bushwhacking three miles into the middle of nowhere. My instructor and I located our first climb of the day, I reviewed the climbing commands, then we set our packs down and got ready to climb. We put harnesses and climbing shoes on, and I laid the rope out (known as flaking) and set up my belay device.
The instructor had the nuts and cams that would secure us to the rock. She asked if she was on belay, I applied in the affirmative, and she started climbing. I watched as she disappeared up the rock face, the rope snaking up behind her. Occasionally I could hear the clink of metal or the rope hissing against the rock, friction fighting against a change in direction. Mostly I watched the rope, waiting when it stayed still and feeding it through my belay device before it threatened to pull taut. Then the call came that my instructor had reached the first anchor. I felt the rope pull against my harness, and it was my turn to climb. There are some instant differences to climbing indoors – outside, you’re allowed to use whatever you want for your hand and footholds, and there’s more dirt. If you’re trad climbing, you also have to remove gear as you climb. When you reach a cam or a nut, you have to find a stance that gives you enough free hand to remove the gear and transfer it to your harness. As you ascend, you steadily gain weight, and depending on the length of the pitch and amount of protection, you arrive at the anchor with your harness weighted down and crowded.
It took all morning for my first three pitch climb. At the top of the cliff, I sat in the grass and looked out across the expanse of trees and forest below. I had made it. We rappelled down and took a break for lunch. My turkey and cheese sandwich, grimy with dirt and warm from sitting in my pack, was the best sandwich I’ve ever had. I followed the sandwich with a brownie and lukewarm water, but saved the apple for a snack later. Despite, or perhaps because of, the dirt that must have transferred from my hands to the fruit, the apple was delicious as well.
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| View from the top of the Gunks |
We climbed two more routes in the afternoon. My muscles ached, my knees were bruised purple, and I was incredibly tired and happy. Before returning to the campsite, we met up with the rest of the class to do a couple of top roping routes. I climbed one Gunks 5.7 and tried another, but kept falling. It was a good thing I was wearing my helmet the whole time, because I managed to fall between the wall and a boulder and bump into it hard enough to be grateful for head protection. Finally, after most of the class had tried the route and the sun was sinking below the trees, we headed back to camp for dinner.
We had pesto pasta with tomatoes and mozzarella followed by banana boats (or just bananas) around a campfire. Then we headed off to bed, smudged with sweat and dirt, sore with bruises and scrapes, but full and satisfied, for another early start the next morning.
[In case anyone’s familiar with the Gunks and interested, I climbed Beginner’s Delight, Minty, Blueberry Ledges, and Laurel and attempted Ken’s Crack.]
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
On Belay
[Throwback Thursday on a Tuesday? My blog, my rules. I wrote this well after I went on the trip and I’m posting it well after writing it. This is Part 1 of 3. Here are Parts 2 and 3.]
On a Friday night at the very beginning of May in the year 2015, I set out from Cornell Outdoor Education (COE) for my next great adventure. It really started during the spring of my freshman year, when I satisfied a longtime desire to go rock climbing by enrolling in and successfully completing COE’s Beginning Rock Climbing class. Except I didn’t stop there. I went home for the summer, returned to Cornell with chalk and climbing shoes, and kept climbing through sophomore year. That summer, I stayed in Ithaca and bouldered, then dragged my friend out to the wall to belay me as soon as she got back to Cornell. Throughout the next year, I gradually began to conquer the easier routes at Lindseth, and at spring pre-enroll, decided to try out outdoor rock climbing. I signed up for a weekend class at the Shawangunks (known as the Gunks).
We had a couple of classes before our weekend trip, to familiarize ourselves with the equipment and learn to lead belay. Then on the last weekend of the semester, we loaded up one of the red COE vans and drove out of Ithaca to the Gunks.
After a dinner stop, we arrived at our campsite. I couldn’t find my borrowed day pack with my also borrowed headlamp, so I set up the tent with the only other female student on the trip mostly in the dark. The class has space for at most, eight students, which is two to an instructor. We had started with seven enrolled. One didn’t show up to the classes before the trip, which brought us down to six. My friend, who enrolled in the class and showed up to the initial classes, got infected by my roommate and decided it would be better for her to stay in Ithaca. Five. Who would be next?
Those of us remaining pitched the tents in the woods. The tent I was sharing had the weirdest pole structure I’ve had to set up. If I remember right, there were two not straight poles and one or two more poles that were neither straight nor the same length. Eventually we got the tent set up and dumped our things inside. We had arrived at the campsite rather late, so by the time we had the tent standing, we set up our sleeping bags, put on extra layers for the night, and went to sleep. We had an early start planned for the next day, because it would be time to climb.
On a Friday night at the very beginning of May in the year 2015, I set out from Cornell Outdoor Education (COE) for my next great adventure. It really started during the spring of my freshman year, when I satisfied a longtime desire to go rock climbing by enrolling in and successfully completing COE’s Beginning Rock Climbing class. Except I didn’t stop there. I went home for the summer, returned to Cornell with chalk and climbing shoes, and kept climbing through sophomore year. That summer, I stayed in Ithaca and bouldered, then dragged my friend out to the wall to belay me as soon as she got back to Cornell. Throughout the next year, I gradually began to conquer the easier routes at Lindseth, and at spring pre-enroll, decided to try out outdoor rock climbing. I signed up for a weekend class at the Shawangunks (known as the Gunks).
We had a couple of classes before our weekend trip, to familiarize ourselves with the equipment and learn to lead belay. Then on the last weekend of the semester, we loaded up one of the red COE vans and drove out of Ithaca to the Gunks.
After a dinner stop, we arrived at our campsite. I couldn’t find my borrowed day pack with my also borrowed headlamp, so I set up the tent with the only other female student on the trip mostly in the dark. The class has space for at most, eight students, which is two to an instructor. We had started with seven enrolled. One didn’t show up to the classes before the trip, which brought us down to six. My friend, who enrolled in the class and showed up to the initial classes, got infected by my roommate and decided it would be better for her to stay in Ithaca. Five. Who would be next?
Those of us remaining pitched the tents in the woods. The tent I was sharing had the weirdest pole structure I’ve had to set up. If I remember right, there were two not straight poles and one or two more poles that were neither straight nor the same length. Eventually we got the tent set up and dumped our things inside. We had arrived at the campsite rather late, so by the time we had the tent standing, we set up our sleeping bags, put on extra layers for the night, and went to sleep. We had an early start planned for the next day, because it would be time to climb.
Friday, July 15, 2016
The No-Longer-Hypothetical List of Exciting Things That Have Happened to me at Cornell, Spring 2016 Edition
1. Grad school visits – Besides partaking in fun activities and alcohol, I met professors and grad students and found out about the places that could be my new home for the next five years. Highlights at Carnegie Mellon include walking around Schenley Park and a night visit to PNC Park, while at Michigan I worked on my bowling skills and went ice skating. In my travels I also got to take eight plane rides and visit five airports.
2. Cayuga Trail – Ever since one of my roommates and I hiked the whole Cayuga Trail in a day but returned to Cornell a different way, we wanted to hike the whole Cayuga Trail, out and back, in a day. Over spring break, we finally did it. We met a little after eight in the morning and ten hours later we were at the Commons eating burgers. We did walk down to the Commons but we rode the bus back to my apartment. My final mile count for the day was somewhere around 20 miles.
3. Fancy dress day – Weekly presentations for Senior Design require business formal dress. Fancy dress day involves almost everything except business formal. The best costume award went to the group dressed like Pac-Man and ghosts, but other costumes involved everything from balloons to animal footie pajamas to full body blue paint to a lightsaber. The lightsaber was mine. I gave my group’s presentation in penguin pajama pants, socks, and an American flag bow tie using my lightsaber as a pointer. It was actually the best pointer I’ve used. The rationale behind fancy dress day is that if you can present dressed like a hippo or half naked or whatever, you can certainly present to a few industry representatives. I think that argument has some merit, but honestly, but that point in the semester, everyone in Olin Hall could just use a laugh.
4. Pep band al fresco – This was my very last pep band event. As always, for the last rehearsal of the spring semester, we took the band outside to play around campus. We played a variety of perennial band favorites, ending on the slope with the Alma Mater, one last time. Besides ChemE, pep band was really the only other thing I did week in and week out for all four years at Cornell. I’d like to go back to concert band in grad school, but I’ll miss playing the Canadian and American national anthems, Davy times ten thousand, the Alma Mater at every single game, movies on bus rides, Lynah traditions, the band room, nonsensical heckling (e.g. “Princeton’s in New Jersey”), and all the other ridiculous things that happen in a student-run band for whom the name of the game (and their actual name) is pep.
5. Graduating – Well, it happened. Finally. We had unfortunate weather on Saturday for Convocation and different unfortunate weather on Sunday for Commencement. We then returned to our home away from home, Olin Hall, for the ChemE ceremony and reception. The diplomas were mailed and received, and just like that, we were done.
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| Schoellkopf Stadium during Convocation |
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