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.

Meal time

I love FGCU's campus. There are so many opportunities to interact with the environment and wildlife. As I was leaving campus the other day, a hawk (or at least I think it was a hawk) soared over the bushes surrounding the pond then over all of the cars. It had just caught a nice meal of fish and was clenching the fish in it's talons. These are the events that I like to see happen. It makes being on campus so much more enjoyable when there is wildlife all around you.

oil spill

Tomorrow marks the 6 month anniversary of the BP oil spill. For this anniversary, a group on campus is going to have a flash mob oil spill to voice our opinion that we have not forgotten and it is not okay. Only a fraction of the oil was ever recovered. This is also not okay. Couldn't they have loaded huge barrels of hay into the oil slicks? After all, oil is attracted to and soaked up by the hay, which can them be scooped up much easier than oil.

Anyways, for the event tomorrow, there will be a "human oil spill" consisting of many students all dressed in black, which is then "cleaned up" by people dressed as BP executive with brooms. The even takes place 2 hours before colloquium class and I hope much of our class will participate in it. I will see how it goes tomorrow.

State of the World

Today, I am going to try to figure out ideas on how my group should present our State of the World chapter to the class. It was a pretty interesting read, about advertising and creating a world in which the onlookers can picture themselves in. I think we should do some sort of game or activity that involves the whole class; something fun to keep the interest up. I just haven't figured out what that should be yet. We do have a week still to come up with something though, so we will think of it.

Haunted Walk

Last weekend, and for the next 2 weekends, there is a haunted walk on campus in the nature trail. When helping to set up, a long black snake slithered in front of me and into the nearby brush. It really scared me, especially since I was in the middle of the trail with no one around. I like the concept of the haunted walk. Just being out in the trail, surrounded by woods, in complete darkness makes it so much more frightening than it really is. What is it that makes nature so scary? Is it just because it is not familiar? I think so.

ECHO

So far, ECHO has been my favorite of the field trips. The concept of the organization is very beneficial and the tour was very interesting. I liked being able to try different edible leaves.

Oak Creek

This past Saturday, Kelly, Vanessa, and I went to the Oak Creek clean-up with the ECO-Action Service team to do our 5 service learning hours for Colloquium. We actually had a lot more fun than we thought we would canoeing around picking up garbage. Even though I already did my 5 hours, I think I will go on other ECO-action trips.

October

I just wanted to say how I love October weather. I feel as if every year on October 1st, the weather realizes that is now October and magically drops 10 degrees. It is cool and breezy, but still sunny. It is perfect weather. I also find it amazing how weather can affect your mood so much. October weather makes me incredibly happy.

Silas

It must be frog season. It seems as if there are frogs wherever I go.

There has been a frog sitting outside the door of my dorm room in the same spot, every night, for the last few nights. Myself and all of my roommates have almost stepped on him on several occasions. Even when he nearly gets squished to death, he doesn't move; just enjoys the nice dark hallway, steps away from the lake. He is a very cute frog, and has been named Silas by my roommate. He comes and goes as he pleases, but he always makes my day when he is sitting outside my door. The picture posted is of Silas outside my door.

Another frog incidence occurred when I was babysitting a few days ago. I was in the pool with the kids when I saw something black hopping on a pool float. This frog was black with speckles, and much smaller than Silas. I don't think he liked being in the pool water very much though, so I picked up the float and put it on the edge of the pool so he would no longer be stranded.

Again with the frogs. I was walking to my friends dorm the other night, which is on the third floor. Walking up the stairs, I nearly stepped on a tree frog, but instead of stepping on the little guy, I lose my balance and fall against the railing to avoid putting my foot down. As I was stumbling on the stairs to avoid the frog, it decides to jump on the back of my leg and cling there. It really scared me, as I was not expecting it at all. I walked up a few more steps and it finally jumped off and back onto the railing. He was very cute as well. Green tree frogs are my favorite.

I am very glad that frogs relate to Colloquium, even more so than the book, I believe. I have never been so frustrated by a book in my entire life.

Philosphy?

Just a few things today;

1) I have no idea what is being said in the book, Living in the End Times. It rambles on and switches topics ever couple paragraphs and lacks cohesiveness. Philosophy makes no sense.

2) Driving to the school using the alternate entrance, I saw 2 bald eagles soaring through the trees and then out over North Lake Village Housing. They are such beautiful creatures. After 2 years of going to my school at FGCU, it was my first time seeing bald eagles flying around.

Mantanzas Pass

Yesterday was the field trip to Mantanzas Pass on Ft. Myers Beach. The walk was fairly short so not many pictures were taken. We didn't see any animals, so the pictures are all of different plants that I liked or that I thought looked interesting.

Corkscrew Swamp

It's a little late but I am finally getting around to posting some of the pictures that I took from our first field trip, to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. I took about 50 pictures, so I will only post the ones that I liked the best. My group also didn't see much wildlife, considering there were several loud individuals in our group. Even with that said, we did see some pretty flowers and a few turtles.

Turtles

I believe that it is turtle hatching time. =] I went kayaking on the FGCU lake today and almost paddled over a baby soft shelled turtle when I was pulling up on shore. It was quite cute. Back home, I live on a lake, Lake Tarpon. Every year, my family would find dozens of baby turtles by our pool, on our drive way, and in our backyard. We usually see red-eared sliders and soft shelled turtles. A few nights a week during turtle season, we would go around our house searching for any of the baby turtles, to make sure that they find their way to the lake, rather than the chlorinated pool. I like turtles.

I was also going to post some pictures of the turtles, but for some reason, it is not letting me right now. So I guess pictures will not be a part of this blog after all.

Monsters below

Today was a beautiful, sunny day. Myself and 5 of my friends decided it would be a great day to go to the beach and get some sun. We ended up going to Bonita Beach, which was nice and not too crowded. After slathering on some sun screen, we headed to the water, unaware of the danger that lurked beneath the cool water. We swam around and chilled in the water when all of a sudden, one of my friends started saying "Ow. Ow. Ow! Jellyfish!" She was laughing and smiling though, so we did not believe her at first. Then all 6 of us were being stung all over and proceeded to swim for shore. Apparently there was a huge mob of jellyfish chilling off shore. We warned others by showing them our battle wounds, but dozens still came across the jellyfish to their dismay. For the rest of the day, we sat by the shore, watching the pelicans soar gracefully over the water and seagulls fight for food.

Today poses as a reminder that nature not only captivates you with beauty, but also scares you away.

Day 1

Yesterday was the first day of Colloquium class. I am interested to see how this blog develops over the semester, considering I have never done a blog previously and I'm not much of a writer. I guess I will see though. Maybe this assignment will actually make me like blogging.

The discussion in class about how the site of FGCU is still very controversial. I thought was very interesting. There were actually a lot of facts that I didn't know. I believe the aim of being environmentally friendly is being carried through, but there is always more than we can do as a school to strengthen this idea.

After colloquium class yesterday, I had a reading class on the history of contagion. An interesting topic to begin with, but somehow every discussion we go into about the reading led into a discussion on its relationship to the environment in some way. Theories of miasma being questioned with the theory of water contamination, how underground water supply is affected by clay earth or limestone, and the idea that human waste flowing into the river will make the fish grow larger were all topics that were brought up. All of this from a book about Cholera in London. From these discussions, it was made clear that the environment is intertwined into nearly every topic.