The End

Colloquium is officially over as of yesterday. We took our last field trip of the class to Downtown Fort Myers to discuss urban sustainability and the changing of land over time. It was short and probably my least favorite of the field trips, but the park was nice.

Only 1 more week of the semester left...finally.

trail

This blog is a little bit late, but I guess it is better late than never.

A week or so ago, our colloquium class went on a lovely tour around campus. We looked at bird boxes, the air chiller plant, and the landscaping of the man-made ponds. Then we made our way to the nature trail. It was a little bit muddy but not a big deal. I think it was actually good that it was muddy, because it allowed us to see some pretty awesome animal paw prints in the mud. As we wandered through the trail, we came to a portion that was flooded. So off came our shoes and along we went. I also didn't think this was a big deal, but quite adventurous. Most of the class, however, were greatly upset at this endeavor. We continued wading through the flooded trail, tripping on water-covered branches and painfully stepping on cypress stumps. After awhile, there was one last curve and we would have been out of the flooded trail and onto dry land. The paved road was even in sight. This is when the class processions stopped. There was a water moccasin blocking the trail; our exit. Poisonous snakes are possibly one of my greatest fears. After finding an alternate path through the trees, we made it out. Fortunately, no one got hurt. It was quite the school tour.

CREW

This past weekend, the majority of my colloquium class participated in the C.R.E.W. cleanup. For a few hours, we pulled up a weed called cedar weed (I believe), but we called it duck feet, and picked up garbage along the road. We picked up bags and bags of garbage, a couple tires, and even a vacuum cleaner. Along our walk along the road, we came across several dead carcasses, including an armadillo, a deer, and a baby raccoon. It was a very nice day outside and we all got the last 5 hours of community service that we needed for the class.

Hawaii

The weather was beautiful out today. Not too warm, but also not cold. This is the weather I like. I hope it stays like this for more than a few days, but knowing Florida's erratic weather pattern, it probably won't. I wonder if the weather is like this in Hawaii. My parents just flew to Hawaii yesterday to be in a wedding. Luckily, they spent the day 4-wheeling through the rainforest, on a trail that led to a waterfall in which they could go swimming in. I would love to have spent the day like that. It wasn't a very environmentally friendly excursion however. Makes me wonder what the limit should be between adventuring to experience something new and impacting a necessary part of the natural world. I don't know.

ideas

I have been trying to think of what to write my colloquium paper on for the last few days. I have thought of several ideas that I am interested in, but still not sure. As soon as I think I found the topic to write on, I come up with a new one. Hopefully I will figure it out tomorrow and knock it out. Doubtful, but I can try. Until this paper is turned it, my mind will be turning.

Only a few more weeks of class.

SAS

A few days ago, I sent away my application for the short term voyage for Semester at Sea. The voyage is based around the Millennium Developmental Goals and engineering new ways to obtain an equitable and sustainable future. The application required an essay about how the voyage goals correspond with my career goals. When I sat down and thought about it, I realized just how much every profession can be related back to the environment and sustainability in some way or another. Being a nursing major, I had a lot of ideas but chose to wrote about the overuse of research and fabrication of synthetic drugs, rather than researching and discovering new, natural drugs. I believe some of my thought process came from the field trip to ECHO, and specifically, the Neem and Moringa tree which had numerous health benefits. This topic has been on my mind ever since, and I plan to research the topic and write and Honors scholarship competition abstract about it. I find it very interesting.

poisonous?

Last night, my roommate and I were walking along the backside of our dorm, which faces the FGCU lake, and came across a coiled up snake at the bottom of the stairs. It was a skinny snake and as it uncoiled and slithered away, we realized just how long it was. For being so skinny, the snake was probably at least 3 feet long. My roommate was freaking out because she automatically said it was poisonous because it had yellow on it... and she's an environmental major. However, I am pretty sure that just because a snake is red, yellow, and black, doesn't mean it is poisonous, but matters on the order of the colors. I would have liked to have know for sure by looking at the color order, but it was too dark to tell and it slithered away.