EcoLit 313

I was listening to the most recent This American Life, which centered entirely around the theme of animal sacrifce, and I wanted to share one of the stories from the show because I feel like it directly relates to our dicussion of Coetzee/Costello's beliefs. The journalist, Camas Davis, periodically holds classes that teach people how to raise and butcher animals for food. These classes somehow, counteractively to popular perception, actually tend to prevent people from eating meat by introducing them to the complexities of home-butchering/the meat industry in general. II really loved the story, and thought alot of Davis's quote directly responded to Costello's desire to realize the consciousness of animals.  

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/480/animal-sacrifice?act=2

Hope you guys like it!

Last year at this time, I was recording an album.  After we played the same song over, and over, and over, again my friend would say: “Ehhh, we just gotta let it gel.”  Sometimes I think school is sort of like recording that album.  We do the same thing over, and over, and over again and doesn’t always look good or sound good or feel good until after we let gel.  You have to take a break to figure out what still needs working on.  It was nice to have a break from reading, discussing, and sitting in chairs this week because it meant that there was time to let things gel.  I need more gelling time.  I suppose that this is what the future is for.  What started gelling for me this week was largely unrelated to what we were doing together.  At first, I felt a little guilty for not focusing on class.  I don’t anymore.  

I enjoyed our two shared rambles this week; thank you for venturing outside w/ me!
Next week we conclude our work together. Here's the plan for our upcoming shared events:

By 5 p.m. Thursday, record on-line your final set of weekly observations of your adopted on-campus "site."

By Sunday @ 5, post on-line your reflections about our two excursions this week. (Max, who was unable to join us today, is hoping to "experience" the blind field shuttle on Serendip, so please think of your posting as an attempt to include her in that activity.)

For Monday's class,
* srucara will select our site

* please come ready to tell me what groups you've organized yourselves into, for our final teach-in

* review the instructions for completing your checklist and portfolio:
/exchange/courses/ecolit/f12/portfolio
and come w/ any questions about the process

* please also read, in preparation for our discussion,
Timothy Morton's Introduction to Ecology Without Nature: Re-thinking Environmental Aesthetics
(it's in our password protected file: /exchange/courses/ecolit/f12/readings )

* On Wednesday, we'll do final evaluations, and then have
a teach-in, sharing with one another what we have been learning...

* My last day on campus will be the following Wed, Dec. 19.
Before then, you need to schedule a final writing conference w/ me.
Please come to that having reviewed my comments on your last paper,
as well as your other work for the semester,

Every experience is dependent on the way you frame it. Carmen Papalia was one of the most positive people I’ve encountered in a long time. For me, losing my eyesight is a terrifying idea. Sight is generally considered the most important sense that humans use. It is “essential” to our functioning in the world. However, Mr. Papalia showed us another way of thinking. He framed being vision impaired as not an impairment at all, but as something to value and even celebrate. And after his blind field shuttle tour of Bryn Mawr’s campus I would have to agree with him. Through the tour I was able to get to know both the campus and my classmates a lot better. I felt more connected to my surroundings out of necessity. One wrong step and I felt like I was going to fall down the slope that led into Morris Woods. But I didn’t, which I think that it was largely due to my classmates. This in itself was interesting since it was literally the blind leading the blind. None of us could see. Even our leader could not see perfectly. But as eetong and I discussed on our way out of class, this, in a way, made us feel safer. We felt that since he had had so much experience being in our situation, that he was a very trustworthy guide. Granted, I was in the middle of the line and so protected by both the people in front of me and the people behind me (both would feel uneven terrain before I did.) I was also protected by my height (any overhead branches would hit the people in front before hitting me.) I wonder how my experience would have been different if I had been in the front of the line?

Today’s observation period at my sight sit besides being my last was also the first one that I’ve managed to have for a few weeks. With the weather conditions making the day feel more like it should be in March rather than December, it felt like it was going to be a rather pleasant hour at my bench. Unfortunately though, the visuals that I witnessed at the bench were not as pleasant as the weather. Although the sight of the trees along the nature tree and the pine needles healthily covering the bench were still there, placed right in the middle of the Arboretum field in front of me, was a cleared section of dirt and gravel. Leading from this spot were both a similar dirt and gravel path and a black plastic fence snaking away towards the Nature Trail and apparently extending all the way to Haverford Road. Upon inquiring about the cleared patch later, I found out that the field was being prepared to be turned into a temporary parking lot for the golf tournaments that were to take place on local golf courses during the summertime.

I'm conflicted about the result of our trip, so my reflection may be a bit scattered. There were some things I really liked and some that I didn't like so much, but overall I think we made the right decision to experiment with this alternative class structure.

Still, I think we failed in our objective to connect with water. I spent a lot of our ramble looking into the water, but I couldn't find much except for mossy rocks and trash. The water itself seemed a bit dirty (probably due to the trash surrounding it), and I think that may have been why I didn't see a lot of people doing what I was doing. Most people I observed were talking in groups or exploring the plant life around the banks. I'm completely okay with this, but I think if our intention was to explore in this way, we should have chosen a different location. 

The water was cold and contrasting with the overwhelming (to me) surprise of Monday's heat, and I enjoyed being able to sit on a stone in the center of the creek, surounded by water on all sides, and look for frogs or minnows in its slower parts. I didn't find any, though. I guessed that this might have been because of the conditions of the creek area which, again, weren't very good. In result, my individual ramble was a time of pastoral reflections shadowed by the real, ecological concerns of litter and irresponsible human behavior. I don't think I did much connecting in result, but I do think my experience was important.

It felt quiet in Ashbridge Park. It wasn’t, not really, because of the omnipresent leaf blowers and speeding motorcycles . But the sounds felt more muted, and somehow farther away than in our usual spot outside English House. I liked that our class was able to lead an entirely self-directed class. I felt like I re-learned a lesson on how to listen, and how to be still. I learned things that I forgot I knew.

I also enjoyed reading poetry while sitting outside on the sunny grass. I was especially pleased with the reactions to the poems that I had chosen. I picked Traveling Through the Dark by William Stafford (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/traveling-through-the-dark/) because of its understated sadness. I think that the last two lines about the speaker’s only swerving were poignant, and got to the root of our relationship to nature. We can’t always relate well to it. Sometimes horrible things happen and we ignore them.

Additionally, I was happy to have found an applicable Robert Frost poem that seemed less pastoral than some of his other works.

http://www.poemtree.com/poems/SoundOfTrees.htm