The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/stress/)
This week’s Breathing Room is an encouragement to us all to stop for a moment and remind ourselves that, yes, we are privileged to have time and air to breathe, and most importantly, to stop and take that breath.
This past Wednesday, I learned a surprising life lesson: Ambulances are surprisingly comfortable. Let me explain. On Tuesday, in an attempt to start eating healthier, I bought a nut-free, almond butter-esque spread that happened to have sunflower seeds. Upon consumption, I promptly began to have an allergic reaction, which devolved into mild issues breathing and my first call to 911 — by myself, for myself. So instead of spending my Tuesday night doing homework, I was whisked away in an ambulance to Cayuga Medical Center. I have learned quite a bit from this entire ordeal.
Thanks to the Ithaca winter, students are increasingly forced away from the outdoor spaces that have become a critical social nexus as a result of COVID-19 safety guidelines.
Now, everyone will have to face the music. We don’t get to take days off without consequence — and doing so feels wrong, especially during a pandemic and other crises.
Floods, famine, power-hungry villains, war . . . all the makings of an apocalypse movie. Except, this isn’t fiction; it’s the narrative that environment and sustainability and other majors can begin to feel is unavoidable when faced with teachings about the dangers of climate change on a near daily basis.
As lectures come to a close and finals creep around the corner, many of us are preparing excitedly for what is likely our last social event of the semester: formal. Amidst the quest to find a sickening dress and killer shoes, I remind myself that there is yet another item left on my checklist: the quest to find a date. Formal, for me, is yet another opportunity to stress endlessly about my lack of a love life. A friend of mine recently relayed to me a piece of advice she had once offered: If you’re not using formal to scheme your crush, you’re doing it wrong. Seeing as I’ve brought a friend to every social event in the last two years, I guess I’ve been doing it wrong.
Pride fueled my strut out of Morrill 111. With a finished problem set in hand and bags under my eyes, I had just pulled off my first homework all-nighter. I celebrated the occasion with a hike down the Slope and a West campus breakfast. After all, while my fellow classmates slept, I worked. Impressed and gratified for completing this seemingly underground Cornellian rite of passage, I would heroically describe my feat barely fighting back a smile — only to resign to collapsing eyelids later that morning.
Oh boy, it’s that time of year! The familiar cacophony of sniffles and coughs echoes throughout each lecture hall, derailing my focus as I attempt to complete my 427th level of Candy Crush. Most of my floormates, who can typically be found occupying the lounge at 1 a.m. with CTB and chemistry textbooks, are now cooped up in their rooms, waiting for their illnesses to subside. Cornell University — filled to the brim with bustling, sleep-deprived students — has warped into a Petri dish of sickness and disease. But that’s not even the worst of it.
There is also one extremely important thing that significantly affects how memory works: sleep. Lack of sleep degrades all aspects of memory performance.
I once sat in on a college info session, where a stereotype named Jessica gushed about her love for the musicals she’d produced at her university. I don’t remember her major; I don’t remember the others who’d spoken on the panel; I don’t even remember the university where this took place. But I remember Jessica’s presumed willingness to die for her college, and the musically inclined students she led. I remember the life in her eyes when she described the fulfillment student leadership awarded her. It was a true college love story, which inspired and nauseated me simultaneously.