My Time in Nature

The times in which I observed nature were both night and day. Taking in the fact that the same earth can look, sound, smell, and feel so different with a simple twelve hour difference. Day is full of energy and movement. The sun is out, people are working, going places, and making things happen. It feels active and productive, with noise, light, and hustle. Night, on the other hand, is quiet and calm. The world slows down, the stars come out, and there’s a sense of peace. It’s a time to rest, reflect, or just enjoy the stillness that daytime doesn’t always allow. While there is such a great duality between the two times of day, there is the common threds between the two that I observed. Even in their busiest moments, both day and night have space for pause — for silence, reflection, and calm. Stillness doesn’t belong to one or the other. It’s tucked into both, if you know where to look.

In the Light of Day

I chose to turn one of walks that I take daily, into an opporunity to observe all that was around me. This was was simply taken within the streets of gorgerous Geneseo. Typically one of these walks is taken for physical activity and is brisk, rushed, and rapid meaning observation and nature is lost within. Music is usually blasting, thought are elsewhere, senses are turned off only to notice the hustle and bustle of others. This walk however, was taken on a Sunday afternoon, sun shining, ears free of headphones, senses turned on. The sights, the smells, the sounds or lack there of, and the feeling of cool sunny air on my skin. Much to take in. I noticed that much of the hustle and bustle of the day time is human made, the loud music, and lack of appreciation, the lingering stress in the air. Something that particularly caught my eye within this time spent in nature was the simple beauty of a patch of purple flowers, one may consider them weeds, others may consider them a sign of hope for their day. Stopping at the patch, I observed, took in the beauty, took a deep breath, and had a relization. This patch exists all of the time, day and night. What changes is the environment around it, darkness, humans sleeping, the stillness of the world, and the flowers stay put, watching it all happen. I was then inclined to observe the night as well. https://dh.sunygeneseoenglish.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2025/04/E359A105-1754-41AD-9630-129E0B725A1D_1_105_c.jpeg

The Still of Night

The night is quiet, serene, full of reflection, and hope for the next day. This particular night held space for a fire outside with eight tired girls wanting to unwind and breathe after a day in the light. As the sun set, sky got darker, and the world more still, the minds of myself and my seven roomates also stilled. I took it in. The glow of the fire, bats above our heads, the occasional gust of wind through our hair, potent smell of fire we all love to hate. The whole world slowed down. However, it is not the world that slows down, it’s the humans in the earth that slow down. This observation of duality reminds me to stop, think, look, listen, breathe, no matter what time of the day it is. https://dh.sunygeneseoenglish.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2025/04/IMG_1886-scaled.jpeg

Use of AI

In this blog post, I did use AI for the creation of the titles of my paragraphs. Something I would like to try next time would be to write the paragraph first and then ask AI to title the paragraph based on the content rather than asking it prior to the writing of the paragraph.

In Walden, Thoreau writes:

“Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.”

I began this class with essentially no knowledge of my computer other than it helps me complete tasks such as homework, communicate with others, and speeds up processes. Walking into this class I was very set in the mindset that I would never understand anything more than I already did about my computer. This is a very closed mindset, however through the class thus far my mind has since been open to the fact that I am capable of more with my computer!

My computer

Here are a few things I’ve learned about my computer:

While these may be extremely basic to most, these things about my computer were not known by me previously to this class. First of all I learned how to locate my OS version on my Mac and find out information about my computer. I also have learned what a file system is and have gained knowledge about my computers graphical user interface or its GUI. After fixing settings within my computers system to make navigating the GUI easier I now have a much better grasp on what this system consists of and how to use it. I have also learned how to navigate both Windows and Mac with some education on some similarities and differences of both. While I have a Mac, my classmates with Windows have opened my eyes to how the different computers operate and where the differences lie.

Visual Studio Code

Prior to this class I did not know that GIT Bash, the terminal, or Visual Studio code were a thing that existed. Starting with the terminal, I have now gotten a lot more comfortable navigating where documents and files are within my computer and have used it in other classes other than this one. When asking AI the benefits of VS code it said, “Visual Studio Code is a free, lightweight, and cross-platform code editor with built-in Git support, smart code suggestions, and a debugger. It has an integrated terminal, extensive extensions, and customization options. VS Code runs efficiently and supports real-time collaboration, making it a powerful choice for developers.” I would have to agree with most of this, I find VS cofe to be extremely effective and customizable with many great features. Something I do not love about VS code is the lack of autocorrect, which I know is a small complaint, however I did not realize how much I rely on it in other platforms.

AI/Chat GPT

In full and complete honesty, prior to this class AI and Chat GPT were simply platforms that helped people come up with ideas to me, however I have learned many new things about this type of technology that I did not know before. I have learned about the environmental downfalls of this technology as well as the dependency that can be created because of AI. A quote that stuck out to me in “Rage Against the Machine” was “None of us has ever found out or proved that the people around us in our lives actually think or feel. We just take it for granted.” This really resonates with the fact that AI cannot replace humans, as there is no emotion or feeling behind it.

Technology and Humanities

In terms of humanities and technology the crossover holds both pros and cons that I have become educated on throughout this class. This came into play while learning about how to go about transcribing texts from the past digitally. Some argue that this takes away from the authenticity of the documents and the meaning behind a physical document is what keeps the content alive. Others argue that this digital content is a positive because the documents can reach many more people than if they were simply physical. I am eagar to learn more about this topic moving foward in the class and look foward to becoming more fluent in this subject.