Columns

ONONYE | Creating Connections, Mask Edition

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Last week, I thought I saw one of my good friends in Zeus. By good, I mean actually good. We were in the same new member class for our law fraternity, we currently sit on an E-board together and he’s a great mentor to my younger brother. But, I ended up waving at a stranger whose confused face confirmed that he was not my friend, which prompted me to scramble into a seat hoping that no one around me saw the awkward interaction. I proceeded to text my friend to tell him about the horrific moment. 

Confusing a stranger with my good friend is just another example of the awkwardness that is masked interactions.

Columns

BETTEZ | The Death of the Acquaintance

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An acquaintance was once someone who you could run into as you rush through Ho Plaza on your way to class and chat, or attempt to catch up with over the roar of a frat party’s Spotify playlist. Maybe they were even a friend of a friend, or an ally when you frantically needed help on your problem set the night it’s due. Without these relatively inconsequential interactions, Cornell’s campus is no longer a community of interconnections, but a set of isolated bubbles. An unfortunate, but not unexpected consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic lasting as long as it has is the death of an entire class of friends. The loss of the acquaintance is just another symptom of the loss of the campus space and sense of community we’ve experienced over the last year.