Dear Bam-Ball-zed,

Oh, you fun-loving students— always sending Your Uncle to Wikipedia for definitions like “a pit, usually rectangular and padded, filled with small . . . colorful hollow plastic balls . . . typically employed as a recreation and exercise for small children.”

Your ball pit sounds delightful, and I was about to stop by the apartment to take the plunge — until you mentioned the bugs and broken glass.  “Home improvements” like that tend to send landlords back to the lease drawing board (“Absolutely no pit bulls or ball pits allowed”).

So Your Uncle is going to have to side with the majority: You’ve had your fun and now it’s time to move on, as you so aptly say.

If you decide to keep your balls, here is a website with a few methods for cleanig them! http://www.ehow.com/how_6541165_clean-ball-pit.html

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Abroad,

My first concern might be where you are studying abroad…and whether contacting local escort services might be risky for you.  sounds like you also may have these concerns.

With that aside, I might wonder if your loneliness is compounded by the fact that you are in a foreign land and you might consider whether you would go ahead and seek these services if he were home. So if the urge is connected to increased loneliness, I suggest that you find alternative ways to meet people your age, either through classes, volunteer work, hanging out at museums, cafes, etc.

If the urge is related to sexual impulses why not try self pleasure and masturbation, fantasy, etc?  Even “friends with benefits” may be more satisfying and safer than a stranger. The truth is there are lots of alternatives to escort services and with a little creativity, getting out to places where people meet and greet, engage in healthy activites that involve exercise like sports and being outdoors and examining the role that possible culture shock and loneliness play in your urges, may set you on a healthier track.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Steamer,

Regrettably, there are no public steam rooms on the Cornell campus. 

When Your Uncle needs to ventilate his snoggy sinuses, he heads to Island Health & Fitness, 310 Taughannock Blvd., where they have separate men’s and women’s steam rooms in the respective locker rooms. 

Membership fees are rather pricey at the upscale Island (Cornell facilties are more affordable for students, faculty and staff) and the parking at Island is nearly impossible.  Better to get there by bus, bike or swim up the channel where Cornell and I.C. crews race.  In fact, Island’s indoor rowing machines are set up by a panoramic window, overlooking the channel —so you can try to keep pace with the rowers (when the ice thaws, of course) — and they sometimes give roof-top classes when the weather’s nice.

If you don't have the money for a membership, anyone can pay $11 a day, for the use of the facility for the entire day.  Road trip!

Uncle Ezra   

Dear On-the-fence,

As people try on relationships they often find themselves in this position, of knowing that some aspects of the relationship are good, and some not so good.  It is always wise to work on the things that aren't going well, as all relationships involve each partner growing and changing to become better people individually as well as partners.  Conversations about how to improve disconnects is a good practice to have, even with friends.

If you are really sure that he is not the right person for you in the long run, it is important to think about the ramifications of being together now.  Maybe you need his support and this connection for now, and will ease out of the relationship as time goes on.  But maybe the longer you are together, the harder that will be.  It is also important to be honest about how you feel and what your thoughts are, so you are not leading him on.

Often when a relationship ends each partner feels some loneliness, some more that others.  This is no reason to stay in a relationship that isn't working for you, just as loneliness is no reason to enter into a relationship that isn't good.

Loneliness is a feeling that can motivate us to connect with others in a positive way.  It is a sign that it is time to search for others; friends, relatives, intellectual companions, leisure time mates, and more intimate relationships. It is also not the end of the world and many have had great insights and personal breaktroughs when alone without distractions.

My guess is that you have learned a lot from being in this relationship, about what you want and don't want in a boyfriend.  Take that knowledge and look for someone who is a better match for you.  Sometimes it is possible to end a romantic relationship and still remain friends, sometimes not. 

One way to start a transition in a relationship is to have a few conversations about what is working and what isn't.  Not only will you be practicing being honest; a very important skill to have in a relationship, but you will also learn from each other, probably grow in relationship skills and the relationship will move along its course whatever that might be.

If you want more help thinking this through, see a counselor at EARS by calling 255-EARS or stopping in for free, confidential counseling without an appointment on the 2nd Floor of Willard Straight Hall any day from 3PM - 11PM.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Prospective Student,

If you shop for higher education as if it were a “product,” you risk hearing— especially from a former builder, businessman, politician and university founder like Your Uncle — some smarmy branding slogan e.g. “Nowhere else will you have so much fun learning more than you ever imagined, make friends you’ll cherish all your life, and solve all the world’s problems.

Actually Your Uncle did make one of those claims long ago (Twitter-fied these days to read “Any person . . . any study”) but I can’t say this place is best for YOU because . . . well, because I hardly know you. 

Here’s a better idea:  Talk to a Cornell grad living in your community (more than 8,000 around the world volunteer in the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network, and the Undergraduate Admissions Office http://admissions.cornell.edu/ can put you in touch). The Cornell grad will try to learn something about YOU — your interests, abilities, aspirations. And you’ll hear how Cornell University worked out for HIM or HER. That’s straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth info you won’t get from the Department of Redeeming Characteristics and Highway Billboards.

Here are the answers that I received from a few current students:

--The brilliant and devoted faculty who give engaging and innovative courses, stimulating you to think about new issues and in novel ways.

--Friendships with students who come from different backgrounds and from around the country and the world—some of whom you will stay close with the rest of your life.

--The chance to live in Ithaca for four years—one of the most beautiful, culturally progressive, and accepting places I have ever known.

--The amazing opportunities to follow my leisure activities whether they be music, dance, political action, tree climbing or tea tasting.

Hoping to see you around campus sometime soon,

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Curiouser,

Passing along your TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) question to the Arts College Career Services center in G55 Goldwin Smith (where the Question of the Day, every day since the Recession began, is “Where can an English major find a job?”) Your Uncle learns that classes to prep for TESOL certification are not offered anywhere at Cornell.

At A&S Career Services http://www.arts.cornell.edu/career/general.asp the assistant director, Diane Miller, points to the Transitions Abroad website http://www.transitionsabroad.com/  (while stipulating that this University does necessarily endorse or support prep courses or job opps offered there or at other websites).  Further, Diane advises that every English major’s dream job — traveling to foreign lands and teaching OL speakers to talk like we do — can be awfully hard to land these days.

Sorry not to be more encouraging.  Why not consult with a Career Services counselor in your particular college?  Your Cornell degree is much in-demand in some of the most amazing places.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Kin,

There are many sources on the internet to search my geneology as well as your own.  Here are a few places that you can use to start your search: http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/Ezra-exhibit/EC-life/EC-life-2.html

http://cidc.library.cornell.edu/cornell/ezra27.htm

http://boar ds.ancestry.com/surnames.cornell/167/mb.ashx

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Disturbed,

You’re right – computer labs and most other services in residence halls and classroom buildings at this University are strictly for the use of registered Cornell students (and for faculty and staff).  Anyone causing a disturbance (even fellow students) should be reported to the on-duty attendant.  And if the attendant is asleep at the switch, call the Cornell Police 255-1111. Remember that they are there to make sure that everyone is safe and sound.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Presumptuous,

You presume correctly.  White Hall, one of the original three stone buildings on the Arts Quad, indeed is named for this University’s founding president.

Good old Andrew Dickson what’s-his-name. He also gets a mention on the one-time University president’s  “villa,” as mansions were known hereabouts when A.D. occupied it. (“North University” was the original name of White Hall.)

And all your Founding Uncle gets is his name on a street in Collegetown and a fleet of laundry trucks.  Oh, yeah, and a major university.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Ghostbuster,

Unless you’re an entomologist, an ag college insectary (like Cornell’s at the northeast corner of Tower and Judd Falls roads) can be an awfully creepy place. It takes a special person to spend an entire career raising six-legged arthropods in cages, studying what they need to live and what it takes to kill them.  And a really special person to stick around in the afterlife and haunt an insectary.

Grace Hall Griswold (1872-1946) certainly fit the first description.  Although the Minnesota-born Miss Griswold didn’t reach Cornell until her forties (earning a biology B.S. in 1918 and the PhD in invertebrate zoology in 1925) she stayed for keeps.  She was said to be inspired by the teaching of Cornell’s John Henry Comstock (and the work of his wife, Anna Botsford Comstock) and soon Dr. Griswold, who never married, was teaching economic entomology, studying clothes moths and carpet beetles, and working on the taxonomy of plant pests called aphids. 

She was fascinated by the life-and-death dramas playing out every day in the Insectary: The geranium aphids that gobbled ornamental plants, and the ravenous parasitoids (like A. inquisitor) that slew the aphids. Her 1937 “Common Insects of the Flower Garden” helped gardeners choose sides (aphids are still winning, the last time Your Uncle checked).

But her focus on indoor pests took a more toxic approach.  In 1932 Dr. Griswold recommended “Fumigating the Immature Stages of Clothes Moths and Carpet Beetles with a Mixture of Ethylene Dichloride and Carbon Tetrachloride.” As if regular mothballs  (with flammable naphthalene, aromatic camphor or risky para-dichlorobenzene) weren’t enough, the entomologist was zapping Insectary bugs  (and filling the air) with the heavy-duty stuff. 

All too soon, Grace Griswold developed cancer. She took her own life, ingesting poison, in the Insectary.  She left a modest endowment to the Department of Entomology, and it is used to fund graduate research and lectureships in her name.

So is the ghost of Grace Hall Griswold haunting the Tower Road Insectary?  The very special people who work there now aren’t so sure. A sophomore entomology student named Dylan Beal has toiled late into the night  — alone, he thought, except for millions of busy bugs. He reports unexplained noises in stairways and the Insectary’s dank basement.  Sometimes lights go off unexpectedly. Doors close.  The creaky old freight elevator seems to have a life of its own. Does that constitute a ghost? Let’s be scientific about this, please.  

One thing is certain: Those $500 grants from the Grace H. Griswold Fund —each time they are acknowledged in published papers by Cornell students— are making her a Google Ghost year after year.  Now that’s immortality.

Uncle Ezra   

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Student,

Great to hear that you are intersted in making things happen at Cornell and that you found a group of people who share your interests.

The Student Activities Office has this answer for you:

Cornell University will only allow registered student organizations, registered greek organization, or official university departments/affiliates to reserve space on campus. Registering as a student organization is pretty easy. Information, including policies and procedures, can be found at the student organization website at http://sao.cornell.edu/SO.

I'd also suggest referring to the Campus Code of Conduct (maintained by the Office of the Assemblies) for additional information on the principle of freedom with responsibility.

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Future Niece,

Not need to be nervous!  As an incoming first-year student, you will apply for housing between April 1 and May 1 (at housing.cornell.edu), and will have the opportunity to indicate building and room type preferences, and tell us about your lifestyle and habits so we can match you with a compatible roommate (or roommates). 

Cornell has a variety of housing types open to first-year students.  You’ll be able to request to be placed in a single-sex building/hall/wing, in the Townhouse Community, or in any one of Cornell’s eight themed residence halls (also called “Program Houses”).  If you do not indicate a preference, the housing office will make your housing assignment for you.  You may also request to live in a single, double, triple, quad, or a townhouse apartment.

If you have someone in mind in your incoming class with whom you’d like to live, you may request that person as your roommate.  Otherwise, you will be asked to complete a section of the housing application about your lifestyle preferences and habits; the housing office has an automated system that will use that information to match you with a roommate (or roommates) who submitted similar answers.

Uncle Ezra   

Uncle Ezra