Dining

A Local Restaurateur’s Look at Influx of Students

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Carriage House Cafe, John Thomas Steakhouse and Ten Forward Cafe.  These are just a few of Ithaca’s restaurants forced into early closings by the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, Ithaca business owners had to reevaluate as they faced massive losses in revenue; as it is estimated that Cornell students spend around $4 million every week in Ithaca, the loss of this steady income took its toll. Yet as Cornell students begin to interact with the greater Ithaca community once again, how are local restaurateurs reacting to our return? Is it a welcome change to have the students back in town once again, or has our arrival made some Ithaca business owners’ jobs even harder?

Columns

GUEST ROOM | Grief in the Time of COVID-19

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One of my favorite memories of Didi dadi is from the summer of my freshman year when I was doing an internship across the street from her apartment. I had gone over during my lunch break to find the dining room table overflowing with plates of fresh mango and lychee, cookies, savory Indian snacks and madeleines. Somewhere in the midst of catching up on my first year of college and her move to Chicago from the suburbs, I guess I mentioned that I liked the madeleines. When I got up to go home, Didi reached above the fridge for the round plastic container full of them and dumped the whole thing in a bag, insisting that I take the cakes as well as a fresh, round watermelon home with me. I convinced her to keep the watermelon, but I was eating madeleines for days.

Columns

GHAZI | Year of No

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I think I cracked the secret to adulthood many years and mistakes before I was supposed to: Wash your dishes when you dirty them. It’s advice that hits like “be yourself.” I hear you, I know you’re right, but I just can’t right now. Freshman year, my roommate and I built an impressive stack of dishes atop our microfridge that grew taller with every extracurricular and four-credit course we added. The evidence of our five-minute breakfasts and midnight ramen became the leaning tower of “yeses” we said to everyone but ourselves. I thought I would miss so much about my former Cornell life.

News

Why People Refuse to Wear Masks, Explained

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“Mask-wearing can be framed by some people as a means to protect themselves, their loved ones and their communities from this disease, while other people frame mask-wearing as an infringement on their rights and an unnecessary response to the risk,” Schulze said.

camping

Gen-Z: COVID Killers or Good Samaritans? — Reflections from an Atypical Quarantine

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Boredom — modern man’s worst fear. Typically it’s avoided by countless hours of swiping left and right through cookie-cutter Tinder profiles in hopes of securing a post-quarantine hookup, scrolling through meme feeds on Instagram that no longer make you laugh, browsing your favorite subReddit in hopes of finding a new post since the last time you checked (two minutes ago) and sending pictures of your blank face to other expressionless victims of the same archaic curse. How else is a Gen Z-er supposed to pass his time when forced live like a Band on the Run? Any way you look at it, quarantine presents a psychological and social quandary of the likes my generation has never had to deal with. Solitude.

Columns

ST. HILAIRE | Fighting on Balch’s Frontline

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I’ve been told many times over the past year that I have a “Balch Vibe” and I don’t know how to take that. On one hand, I can interpret it as having the vibe of someone who grabs the patriarchy by the throat and kicks it in the balls (a vibrant visual).  On the other hand, I can interpret it as fitting into all the negative stereotypes of living here: Just another prude, nerdy, radical feminist, who lives among the bugs. I don’t think I fit into the latter stereotype, but what do I know? I don’t see that in Balch so maybe I wouldn’t see it in myself either. I see the “Balch Vibe” as a sort of subtle anger.