The journal

Last semester, I had an Environmental Studies class (go figure). We were asked to keep a journal on our thoughts. I thought this was bogus, but whatever. I've looked back at this little book of ideas and thoughts and realized I would like to post them.

9/10/09
I am a pretty random person. My thoughts are scattered and they are sometimes hard to describe what I exactly mean. This journal will be written in different styles, with pictures, diagrams and personal touches. This is just a disclaimer! :)

My classes this semester are all about nature. I am absolutely thrilled about it! :) I am taking *********(course numbers that I would rather not say). Botany lab is outside; right now identifying trees. I'd much rather be outside than sitting at a desk looking at a chalkboard. I guess that's why I always sit by the window. My extinction of species class is so interesting. lots of new ways of thinking about things. Species on average can last 1-10 mil years. Then they die off. Just makes me wonder how long humans will last, or other species since we are depleting our resources so quickly. THe fact that the earth has had several catastrophic extinctions is weird also. Happening over hundreds of thousands of years, which seems long, but in the context of time on earth, it's a blink of an eye. Most of the causes come from Global cooling and climate change.

What is strange is that I feel particularly connected with nature. Last semester, I lived in South east. There are no trees, wildlife, or quiet spots. It was awful for sleeping, concentrating and just depressing that I couldn't see what I wanted to see. When I had to pay my housing bill, I walked over to Lakeshore on the longer route. At a particular time, I saw a squirrel and my face just lit up. I can't describe how relieved/happy/thankful I felt when I saw this animal. I hadn't see one when I was over at Southeast. Lakeshore, is SO much quieter, so sirens, lights, drunk people. There are trees out my window and I look over the lake. I haven't been sad yet like last semester. If I hadn't see that squirrel, I don't know... I think I would've been depressed the whole semester; maybe not even be here.

I feel like I can understand nature and wildlife more than humans. I guess I would classify myself as an antihumanitarian. Humans destroy so much, kill so much needlessly and take too much. I don't understand this behavior and quite frankly, it makes me pissed off and irritated. I feel like I"m on a mission to save the earth. Almost seems impossible, however, I feel that this is what I'm here on Earth for (not in a religious sense). Basically to save the tigers. Sounds corny, but this is where my heart is. So when I hear about species going extinct/endangered, I get angrier and even more motivated. I still don't know how I'm going to go about this, but I feel it will come to me in time.


9/11/09

Day of Remembering those who have fallen.

Yes, I've recently become a pescatarian; I'll eat fish, but no other meat. Also, I don't consider eggs meat, I guess I find this to be ass backwards. Animals are still be overfished and the chickens that provide the eggs are most likely stuck in such small areas and given all sorta of medication and antibiotics. I suppose if I buy organic and free-range chickens or what have you, that would be 100% better. However, what college kid can afford organic? argh! In a rut... Yes yes, these are the things I ponder about.

I figure if I'm trying to help animals, why am I eating them? Also, not eating meat cuts down on C02 and basically is less energy to eat veggies than a cow.

In my EoS class, we are talking about the utilitarian and intrinsic values of biodiversity. The utilitarian values include "goods" as in we only care about a species because it provides us humans with a good/service. My immediate thought was "How selfish and ignorant can we possibly be to even think this???" We only want a plant because it DOES something for us? Jesus, can't we just marvel its beauty and complexity? Humanity makes me sick.

We don't know everything about the world yet, by FAR. Why can't we understand that and save our planet??? No one can justify in economic terms, the value of a species. Animals, plants, land; not a commodity! WAKE UP EARTH!

Everything is connected on Earth. Maybe we don't know it yes, but everything is. Why should we be willing to pay to save a plant in Africa in which you will never see? Save it! If it's destroyed, it's most likely a chain reaction will happen! The environment should NOT be a cost/benefit analysis. If we goof on the saving of species, and it has an important part, who's going to look like an idiot? Most of the world's corporations and economy. They should've listen to us and it'll be too late by the time they take us seriously.

9/12/09

Beautiful day outside. Had some outdated bread so I put it to good use and went for a walk on Lakeshore. Soon enough I found a group of ducks and fed them. They were so damn cute! :) I noticed while I was feeding them that there was red algae below the regular green algae. Isn't this bad?

9/13/09

I went for a walk out to Picnic Point yesterday. It was a long walk for someone with crappy hips like I do. Today, they hurt from it. :( However, my friend and I bought a cheap loaf of bread, walked there and fed the ducks. I got great happiness from doing this. Such a nice sight. Most of the ducks were female Mallard ducks. I wonder where the males are? Some of the seagulls were fairly annoying and swooping down to steal the duck's bread. :(

There was a lot of, dust I wanna say, on the leaves of the plants. Also, there were a TON of spider webs. I'm not afraid of spiders in the least. Just that the webs feel weird. I've saved a couple of toads from bikers maybe running over them =)

My panic attacks were bad yesterday. My friend texted me wondering if I wanted to hang out. I said sure. I tell everyone I don't know what causes/triggers it. It really bugs me, so much, that I don't know what causes it. I believe it to be something with light. With that being said, maybe something like the Purkinje Effect. Anyway, I wished to go outside and we walked to Picnic Point. My anxiety subsided thank god. I don't know how it worked, but I find it frustrating that nature can both cause me to feel like crap, yet cure me for the time being. Just don't get it...

When birds migrated toward other islands like Darwin suggested, why did the birds decide to stay there? What made them migrate in the first place? when two different species mate, what EXACTLY causes them not to have offspring? If it's not the case with Lamarks' giraffes' necks theory, then how do we even get different body types? Eye color? Hair type? What are the points of these andw hat makes these inheritable and not giraffe long necks? Hmm, guess I'll just have to ask when I have my class next. I don't know though, my dad says we all have our traits for a reason, like different races. I guess I can see it. Not to be so blunt about it, but black people have large lips, big nostrils and short, slow growing hair. Did these come into play with their way of cooling off from the heat of Africa? If this is the case, then what's the point of different colored yees? or why different hair colors? Why do asians/orientals have slanted eyes, Native Americans with "red" skin?What evolutionary purposes do they serve?
With that being said, why do humans have an appendix? or Tonsils? Tailbone? Aren't these useless and just cause harm? Why haven't those been eliminated yet? Why do men have facial hair when most women do not?

I guess...how does a trait become hereditary?


9/15/09

I meant to write this yesterday, but got too busy. As I was walking back to my dorm from one of my classes, I was listening to "Ferris Wheel" - BT.; beautiful, looking around me truely enjoying nature. Suddenly I felt a grasshopper jump on my boob. He stayed there for about a mile and then he jumped off, ready to go to his next stop. I don't know why, but I found this incident to be just beautiful. He was kind of hitchhiking on me, almost as if it was giving me hope to not give up. I named him John Muir because we were right by the Noll.

We went around campus ?for my class and went to look at the Limnology building also in Greek, NOT Latin, Λίμνηλόγος , or lake knowledge. I think it's very interesting that so many things of importance happened at this campus and I am truly privileged to be apart of this history. Very happy that this campus is so ecosavvy and also pretty liberal.

The field trip was awesome. This is exactly the kind of environment that eases me when I'm panicky. The fact that he just had fruit/veggies to eat in his yard was incredible. I'm glad he doesn't spray it with anything. It was so peaceful and it just made me want to save the earth and habitats much like that one. Really realizing just how many lives are out there, whether its a beetle or a slug, we are all doing our own thing in our own world. That is fascinating. Eating organic foods was so different, but so refreshing. Walking in the peat, water squishing between my toes as the earth gave into my weight. The soil/peat was black, like my cat's fur. Just a cool feeling. In my hands, squishing it. This material can preserve things so well, 10-12,00 years ago the plants that are now liquefied were alive. Such a strange way to think of it.

It kind of pains me to see houses so big in an area where quaint in the norm. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Very, very sad. I had a lovely time. Only wish I could spend more time there, really get to notice things I hadn't before.

Today was a good day. =)

9/18/09

It almost seems like tragedy is the inevitable. So much destruction of our fellow species; just wish the earth would intervene, as if it knew we were slowly destroying it. Just cause a virus/bacteria in the air that would wipe out 1/2-3/4 of the world's pop. I don't know if that would solve anything, but it would get the attention of the people and would slow down the rate of pollution and destruction. Maybe prove that we aren't the almighty species and we should show some respect to this wonderful Earth. I believe everyone on Earth, should be required to take an environmental course in order to pass highschool. Stricter fines for dumping and not recycling; emissions testing and reducing what we buy. If we didn't buy so damn much, we wouldn't use so much damn energy to make stupid plastic bottles.

We as a society are so different that we need to get our heads out of the clouds and into common sense. I do like that more people are using those metal containers. I'm hoping they didn't put bottled water in there though. I really hope there is enough time for the earth to be helped. =\

9/20/09

I went to the Elegant Farmer today. I picked up some applesauce (cinnamon flavored) and honey sticks. All organic. Nice weather and out in the country. We saw cows laying down and no clouds in the sky. I read the we were supposed to get rain, so I trusted the cows knew better than us. Right now, it's raining. I love how nature is connected :) We need the rain, the earth has been thirsty.

I've finished the Michael Pollan book and I've thought very highly of it. Glad he backed up his claims with data. I went grocery shopping and actually tried to buy "real" food. He makes a lot of valid points.

9/22/09

Woke up to rain outside, that was different...the earth was dry, allergies bad and now everything is drenched. The earth is happy for the time being. I hope it keeps up. I Love the rain. We went to Eagle Heights CSA farm thing. Very cool and very wet. I guess that made everything that much more fresh. We went weed identifying and surprisingly I identified a lot of them. I kind of still don't know the main point of this class yet. There seems to be a lot of random stuff and a lot of little facts. There were a lot of little toads on the CSA farm. There are hardly any toads where I am from, urban area. I just like seeing little critters. I'm debating on whether or not I should still eat fish. Am I a hypocrite right now?

I'm really trying to be a better person to the earth and I want to do all that I possibly can. My roommate asks me why (when it's daytime) I sit without the lights on. I can see perfectly fine, plus it keeps the heat down. I just wish people were aware as I am.

9/28/09

The zoo was sad. It's basically against my ethics to see animals confined in such small quarters. I realize they need to be helped from extinction, but I think we as humans can give up more land for these creatures. For one, I never knew tortoises made a noise. Two of them were mating and the male made a noise so loud, I didn't believe it was coming from a tortoise! SOme of the exhibits were great for the animal, others, not so much. The polar bear only had a little pond to play in and two anacondas in a 6'X12'ft thing isn't big enough for just one of them! It's just sad....

I'm very sad that I didn't get to see my favorite animal, the tiger :( The apes were interesting. The lady that worked with them basically scolded us for our behavior, treated us like kids. She was knowledgeable, but came off in a very bitchy manner. I would rather see these creatures in a much more natural setting, like a reserve.

10/13/09

For our lab, we went to the County Landfill. What a sight and smell! The director told us about the contents, seepage, smell, compensation, how they deal with the methane and various tests they must pass by the DNR. One of the regulation was that the landfill must not be < 20 ft within ground water. They put plastic down, clay, gravel, trash, soil, clay soil. Or something relative to that. Seeing how much we freakin' waste is stomach turning.

The mantra of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is the core of sustainability. Reduce what you use, packaging, food, energy, so we don't have to find ways to make them with other energy. Reduce what you buy, eat and stop being materialistic. Reuse what you do buy to also cut down on the speed of garbage and save $$$. Finally, if you somehow can't reuse, recycle what you can. Cut down on the pressure of landfills and using oil to make these products. I wish everyone on the earth was as conscious as some of the people that worked there.

Today, I got a package from my dad with gifts in it that you could pick up at Frank's. I did and realized it was an aluminum container with a paper bag in it. Inside the bag was two miniature water bottles, 3 granola bars, apple and orange and a box of nerds with a bag of popcorn to pop. Now, why not just put the gifts in a sturdier bag and ditch the aluminum? WTF? The granola bars are individually wrapped, then placed in a cardboard bag. Too much packaging! The water bottles should been the aluminum kind, maybe even use the aluminum pan for the water bottle. Refill this type of bottle, the kind people got at SOAR this year. Just wasteful. I mean, I've stopped buying H20 bottles to save every and reduce production of them. Now, I just carry around my aluminum bottle. That I fill up at the bubbler :)


10/18/09

I've been meaning to write this, just haven't gotten around to it. I'm saddened that we are talking about physics and astrophysics. I've never understood that subject and actually changed my majors so I would have to take calculus or physics; both of them which I am absolutely horrible at. In my botany class, we learned that blue and red ends of the light spectrum are absorbed in the plant and green is reflected, thus why plants are green. I still don't understand physics. I don't understand why the speed of light, matters. What good will it do here on earth? If an asteroid is coming towards us, what good is this equation going to do? We can't stop asteroids with a fucking equation, so I don't see the point in learning about this subject.

10/20/09

We went to the Arboretum today. So beautiful since the leaves are changing colors. I wish maples would stay that vibrant orange, yellow and red. Surprisingly from my botany class, I know/remembered a lot of the trees; there were some new ones however. In a way all of the class I'm taking leave me feeling like crap, like nothing will change and people are always going to be disturbing the earth. Makes me feel like I can't do anything to change the world. We watched a video before exploring the arboretum and around the room were pictures, rather paintings of Native Americans,j and in the video they said something like "before the white man ruined it". It almost sucks to be white. I mean, I personally didn't do anything, not even my ancestors! But it makes it seem that white people are from the fiery pits of hell and we ruin everything we touch. Kind of sad really. There are a lot of Wild Turkeys, squirrels too. Makes me wonder also how many people have walked where I've walked.

10/22/09

In class, we watched Planet Earth and it was AMAZING. I've never seen it before and the footage was so wonderful and a lot of interesting facts and ways of thinking. I didn't know that in the S. Hemisphere it is a forest at the same latitude much like the coniferous ones we have in the N. Hemisphere. They were more succulent though. Also, for some reason, the animals there we miniatures of what we have in the N. Hemisphere; such as deer and cats. The cicadas that came out every 17 years we crazy. So creepy, yet cool the way the earth kind of gave us a species that offers themselves up to other species and fertilizes the ground with their exoskeleton. So unselfish of the earth =)

In the school newspaper, there was a comic that I cut out and posted on my door. It was a graph with a positive line, the x-axis is Beauty and the y-axis is Trees. I was very happy to see this.

10/27/09

Sewage Treatment plant day! What an awful smell. I seriously , cross my heart, almost heaved because it was the WORST smell of my life. It was interesting, however.

How they colored the pipes in certain colors to classify what the contents are in the pipes. What types of insects are around the plant and streams tells the workers also just how clean the water is. I thought that was neat. Some of the things thrown down the toilet are...wow...Toys, money, pagers, I always thought that you can throw tampons down the toilet. I'm glad to see how many precautions they take before the water is sent back out to the environment. Also, they take back up measures, which I would've suspected, but they are fairly thorough.

10/29/09

In class, going over ETC, Glycolysis, ATP, ADP and the Kreb Cycle is all review, just went over it in Botany about a month ago. However, this is nice to relearn it. There are so many things about plants that are just amazing and complex. How they evolved is incredible, miraculous and really, I may have learned this, but, how do plants know to make opposite or alternative leaves? what about leaves 90 degrees from each other? How do they know what shape the leaf is supposed to be, when to stop? Are these genes? or a chemical like Auxin? I find heliotropism, thigmomorphogenisis, gravitropism and photoperiodism and the like so interesting. Just the way things have turned out for the better in plants. Almost doesn't make sense. It's common knowledge that trees and plants provide oxygen for us and animals to survive.We KNOW this, yet we still destruct and harm the environment. Why hurt something that is keeping us alive? Seems pretty stupid. We get ALL of our materials from the earth, whatever it's cotton, wood, or a carbon atom, it's still apart of the earth. Why can't we just tread lightly and with respect to something that has been around for MUCH longer than we have. It is had billions of years to form and shape itself, when we've only had several hundreds of thousands? Doesn't seem fair. We aren't wise or as evolved (to our benefit I believe) as the Earth.

11/03/09

Natural House today! What a cool house! There were so many to recycle and reuse. I really don't see why all of our houses are like that. He wanted to see how a house would be built if we only use recycled, sustainable, eco friendly products. He did it and hopefully the rest of us can follow.

Lately, it's been trendy and "hip" to be "green". So paying for sustainable, organic, eco-friendly products are higher than junk products. In this economy (hopefully it'll get better buy the time I can buy a house!), it's tough to be green, but the house used 1/3 less wood than a conventionally made house. That's gotta be cheaper, right?

I need to have things that are smooth and clean. So I couldn't have the rough, unfinished wood because how the hell would I dust? Think of all the cobwebs! I'm sure my cats would climb the rafters and use it as a litter box! Overall, I like the idea.

11/4/09

With the talk of the rainforest destruction from lecture on tues, I couldn't stop feeling helpless. I feel awful thinking this, but I kind of just want to give up. But with all that I've learned and now the Rainforest is apart of the carbon sequestration and it's vital to maintain the earth, I can't give up on that. How can I slowly suffocate myself? Kind of selfish, but whatever. Plus, I still have to somehow save the tigers. The genetic diversity is going down as they died and if I do save them and bring back up their numbers, where would they go? Their habitat is being destroyed and there can't be tiger running around in streets. Maybe I can save them while working on protecting habitat. However, their range is in China and India, the worlds most populated countries. This is harder than I thought.

11/17/09

Rotation, Vibration, Translation. Today's lecture was all about this. Cal had us jumping and spinning around. Guaranteed I wouldn't forget those 3 things. For lab, we went to a PDR sight, then to Cal's. We didn't do much for the lab, just reflected and discussed how the class went. The grassland/wetland was baron, brown and dormant. It was cloudy and windy; an overall gloomy feeling. There were no leaves, no animals except geese and turkeys, no sun. Sort of depressing but an accepted part of the cycle of life. We went inside his house and had donut holes and coffee/tea/cider. Very generous. We just discussed the accomplishments he's done and what his current topics are. I never knew he was so into turtles and reptiles. Good to see someone has a passion like I do, just not with tigers.

I love cats so much. I want to do everything I am able to do, just to save them. I have to start by saving the land. They require several countries practically to have enough area to roam. I MUST do this. If I don't make this, I lost my purpose in life. I have a calling to nature and I have an itch to answer back. They are so big, majestic, feared, graceful, beautiful. They are probably not one of the more needed species on the planet, but they took thousands of billions of years to create. We should really bow down to time and respect that it know what it's doing. The more I spend time in classes about nature, the more I despise humanity. The way humans lack the capacity to understand that the earth takes care of us, why do we hurt it? I'm sorry earth. I wish the Lorax was real and we could hear what nature has to say.<3 This passion is so much apart of me, I almost feel sub-human. As if I am more wild than human. I hope I can put my passion in use as Dr. DeWitt has.

11/25/09

I'm on a plane ride to Ohio right now. The view is just breath taking. It's hard to imagine that us as little ants, can cause such havoc on the earth. The clouds and the concept of them are so crazy. i don't know much about chemistry or the atmosphere, but how do clouds have a definite shape sometimes. Some of them are so rigid, edgy, rather than whispy. I guess I just find it another phenomenon, because of my ignorance mostly. Seeing the sen set is incredible, above all the clouds. Above the airplane is dark, dark blue. It's just very relaxing to see the world at such a different perspective.

12/1/09

Wow, just wow. I can't believe how depressing the lecture was today. The fact of the rising temperatures all over was just too much. Quite pathetic when I got back to my dorm, I just layed in my bed and cried. I felt SO helpless. I almost feel this doesn't need to be said to this class. so much because we are taking this class and most have an understanding of the climate change situation. I think it should be taught to people in human studies (psych, children) where they don't need that many science courses.

There a guy on my floor and he even said that he doesn't believe global warming is not real because somehow he thinks the earth as actually been having a "cooling period". Granted, I know the earth has those, but they are basically non-existant anymore; now the global warming took over. I explained that the average world temperature rises. There are more dramatic changes in the weather, lots of rain in one place, and another gets nothing. The weather is being thrown off course. He just shut up after that thank god, I hate debate. I just feel there is not future for humans, we are so stubborn and stupid that we would rather use so much fossil fuels to satisfy our material possessions, that realize we are messing up our own house. We are pathetic.

12/8/09

Tonight it is snowing and I just found out it's going to be a snow day tomorrow! I can't believe it! Can't wait to hear the rounds of "so much for global warming!" I hope there is more of this to come!

12/14/09

This semester went by fast and my way of thinking has expanded. Most of the things I'm learned in this class, I've known (except the random facts) It was still fun and a good semester...





That's my journal. I kinda wanted to write more, but there is only so much you can write about before you sound like a broken record. In fact, as I typed this, I felt I was pretty damn redundant. I guess that just shows how passionate I am about this topic.


If you did read all this, thanks. Take what I've said about the earth with your heart. Please, be more conscious and have love for things that are wiser than you.


-Beth.