Elizabeth's blog

I barely touched the soil. I sat on a tree branch and listened. I listened to the back and forth of bugs. Conversing with others, trying to scare others away, or making noise just because they could, I don't know. All I know is that they spun a song that only I, under their willow tree, could hear. This afternoon, I parted the vines that the falling willow branches formed. I decided which of the four large branches to sit on, and then I listened. I expected the shade of the tree to make the chilly day even more goose bump-inducing, but the enclosure that the willow's branches formed made me more cozy, so I didn't notice the chill as much as I had walking to the tree. After I sat, I walked around the tree, as if to pay respect to all of the tree's attributes, not just the one branch I sat on. There are initials gashed into the tree's exterior, some hearts, some that seem to have been made by lovers, and others by one person trying to stake his or her claim on the tree. I saw a pool of water that has been there every time I have paid tribute to that willow, stagnant in a basin that a root has opened into. I decided that I will work my way up the branches. Today, even though I was sitting in the tree, my feet were still firmly on the ground. Next Sunday, I'll go higher. I'll slide and climb and jump my way onto the highest position I can sit in by the end of this project. Along with observing the word under the tree, I'll also become more adventurous, inch by inch, and Sunday by Sunday.

This image of Katharine Hepburn was the picture that I used as my visualization of the Bryn Mawr campus for my essay on Friday. It’s a photo from Hepburn’s acting days, and one that I thought could easily be associated with Bryn Mawr. Throughout my short time here, I’ve heard Hepburn, who graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1928, referred to numerous times in connection with the college. A quote of hers is on a wall in the Student Center, the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center is named after her (and her mother), and she is one of the most famous Bryn Mawr graduates. (And the administration is awfully proud of that!). I didn’t think that this picture could possibly encapsulate all that there was to Katharine Hepburn. Even if it did, though, it also wouldn’t be able to accurately describe Bryn Mawr. Although I think that the community of Bryn Mawr makes us so special, I also think that as individuals, we are extraordinary, but only one of us can’t encompass all that there is to Bryn Mawr and its community. I have begun to associate one special tree with Bryn Mawr, though. It’s a weeping birch that we sat next to on our first outdoor class, and I’ll be sitting in it and next to it this semester.

Hello, Ecological Imaginings! My name is Elizabeth Vandenberg. I'm from Iowa City, Iowa, which is a college town, so it's only (surprisingly) marginally filled with corn fields. I grew up in Northern California in a really small town in the foot hills of the Sierra Nevadas and in Springfield, Illionois. I've never been on the East Coast for such a long time before, but I'm really glad that I'm here at Bryn Mawr, because it seems like a wonderful, wonderful place. Because it's been raining so much, and the sky is so grey, I think that everything I've walked past outside seems misty, all the greens of the plants seem more mysterious and less vibrant now that the sun is away and the bark around them has been turned an even darker color by the water that keeps sinking into it. I've been going in and out of the Dalton Hall staircase for the last couple of days, and that, I think, has been an even more interesting experience, at times, than being outside. (Although, because most of those times would have involved being soaked to the skin if I were outside, I might be a little bit biased.) The glass staircase seemed like a much more sterile, disheartening place than the puddle-dotted outdoors. I was reminded that I was not a part of the outdoors anymore, and the never-ending emptiness of the staircase and its air conditioning made Dalton's staircase feel far less hospitable than the fertile place I had to leave. Although I think that plants would have liked a break from the downpour, I don't think they would enjoy the staircase.