r.graham.barrett's blog

As I arrived and settled into  my position on the bench, I did so with some expectations , chief among them was that I was going observe a huge amount of change in observations in comparison to my last week two weeks ago .  I expected this change to be part of the ongoing and inevitable march of autumn into winter.  In some ways this was true as there was not one uniform color scheme for the leaves in the visible tree line, I had a much better view of Haverford Road from angles and positions previously covered by foliage and there were absolutely no birds in sight or within earshot. These observations of autumn though seemed overshadowed by several observations that suggested that seasonal transitional wasn’t transitioning as fast as I thought they might/should. The most notable observation to back this up was that it was HOT sitting on the bench, as the temperature was pretty high, the sunlight was bearing down on the bench directly, with no tree shade or clouds and hardly any wind to cool the area down. Also in comparison to bird life which had been nonexistent, the area surrounding the bench was filled with insect life, and I found myself swarmed by bees, lady bugs, and gnats  (due to the isolation I guess I was the only living thing in the area they could swarm to) as well as observing spider web-like silk threads drifting by on what little wind there was and clinging to anything they touched.

My latest observation at the Miller Memorial bench really put into perspective how isolated the spot really was. True for the most part the spot and the surrounding area was not as lonely as it had been.  Seeing how it was early afternoon on a day with fairly warm weather for an October day, I saw plenty more hikers, dog walkers, and runners (especially one who streaked across my field of vision 4 times in a 20 minute period) than there had been on my previous observation periods. Yet while it was more common to see people nearby than before, surprisingly there were huge spans of time where I was completely alone in the area and quite frankly enjoyed it. It was quiet and peaceful and made it hard to believe I was close to a busy road nearby and with a hugely populated college campus no more than a football field behind me. I was not only one who seemed to finally accept this spot as a quiet little bubble to get away from it all. When I first arrived, there was another observer, a local resident it seemed like, on a bench nearby, and it was only my arrival that forced him to reevaluate his position and leave, his content isolation apparently shattered by myself. But for me the highlight of the hour ( and perhaps of all my observations so far) was seeing a fox move out of the bushes bordering the Nature Trail and quietly slip back in after a few minutes.

Looking back at my first web paper, the account of my Thoreauvian walk around Bryn Mawr, I wrote the piece in a pastoral from. Specifically, I wrote the essay as a non-fictional, 1st person account of specifically what I saw and what I was thinking at the time of the walk. Although the style I wrote in accurately retells what had happened, I could have easily changed the style so as to be not as dependent on reality as it had been. Instead of writing in the genre I did, I could have used the experiences of the walk to serve as the inspiration for a fictional story set in a science fiction setting just as Le Guin had done in her story. Doing so would allow me to use my imagination to create new visuals for the reader to experience, similar to what I had experienced on my Thoreauvian walk.

            Original

The first few minutes of my third trip to my spot followed the basic general format that I had followed in my previous observation periods. I sat on the bench, taking into account how there were growing splotches of color in the tree leaves above the Nature Trail, noting the relative isolation of the spot being interrupted by early morning runners, noticing the mushrooms starting to grow around the bench, hearing the car horns as a traffic jam started to form on Haverford Avenue, and looking for other aspects of my location that were not the same as the previous week’s visit. But after a while of this, I kept thinking back to the alien world in Vaster Than Empires and More Slow and our class discussion about potential forms of plant sentience.  By constantly thinking back to these subjects, I started considering whether my surroundings had a form of sentience and wondering if my presence at  the bench was being registered by an alien mind? I began asking myself more and more questions regarding this concept such as:

                - Did the leaves and pine needles lying on the ground share the same manner of sentience the trees they came from hold and lost that sentience when they fell from the trees or did they possess a separate form of sentience than the trees they come possess?

Original:

                In reexamining one of the class’ visual representations, I chose to reexamine the visualization I had previously looked at, the one that was a shot of the Haverford Nature Trail. As I am looking at the image once again while keeping in mind the keywords we were using in class, I managed to come up with some new ways to visualize my picture. When I first began to reexamine the photo, I was under the impression that the definitions of the words would clearly fit in with the visualization of the Nature Trail or they wouldn’t. In my view, permaculture did not fit well with the photo’s image, as the Nature Trail was not designed for agricultural purposes and gives off no sign of being a self-sustaining natural system. On the other hand though, I was harder time examining the photos and trying to figure out whether anthropocentric and garden fit into the visualization of the image. It could be argued by some that the Nature Trail as displayed in the photo, is not an example of an anthropocentric environment as the Nature Trail’s purpose is to highlight the natural qualities of the Haverford arboretum rather centralizing the focus on the artificial and man-made aspects of the campus. At the same time though, the Nature Trail was created with the intent of increasing human enjoyment of the campus and the arboretum.

Today was my first observation period at the Stephen R. Miller bench, located in the North West corner of Haverford’s campus. The bench is located on a hill in a section of the campus/Haverford Arboretum known as the Ryan Pinetum, and provides an excellent view of the Pinetum’s field and the college Nature Trail. As I was settling into the bench I began to debate by myself of whether the spot would be considered an isolated section of campus or not. There is plenty to suggest that it is relatively accessible, including a trail leading from the Nature Trail that passes right by the bench on a loop of the Pineteum’s field, the occasional hiker and jogger passing by (including one who had left his running shoes on the bench while he ran in the field), and the Haverford field hockey field being 100 feet behind the bench. But at the same time, there existed multiple signs that contradict the notion that the bench is not isolated including, the overgrown weeds and plants surrounding and beneath the bench , the great distance I had to walk from the main part of campus to the bench and the pine trees surrounding the bench which blocked the bench from view from most angles. Besides debating the question of whether the spot was peaceful isolated or not, I also took in how the sights and sounds that I was able to perceive at the current moment might not be there as autumn progressed.

Sustainable-

Oxford English Dictionary (online): Etymology. It comes from the earlier adjective sustenable and French forms of the word. First used as early as the 1600s

Definition(s): - Capable of being endured or borne; bearable

-          Capable of being maintained or continued at a certain rate or level

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online): circa1727

Defintion(s):    - Capable of being sustained

-          Of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged

-          Of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods

Dictionary.com: Origin: sustain + -able

Definition(s):   - Capable of being supported or upheld, as by having its weight borne from below

-          Pertaining to a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continual reuse

-          Able to be maintained or kept going, as an action or process

-          Able to be supported as with the basic necessities or sufficient funds    

Intereaction-

Sustainable-

Oxford English Dictionary (online): Etymology. It comes from the earlier adjective sustenable and French forms of the word. First used as early as the 1600s

Definition(s): - Capable of being endured or borne; bearable

-          Capable of being maintained or continued at a certain rate or level

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online): circa1727

Defintion(s):    - Capable of being sustained

-          Of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged

-          Of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods

Dictionary.com: Origin: sustain + -able

Definition(s):   - Capable of being supported or upheld, as by having its weight borne from below

-          Pertaining to a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continual reuse

-          Able to be maintained or kept going, as an action or process

-          Able to be supported as with the basic necessities or sufficient funds    

Intereaction-