Category: Perspectives

I think that the biggest “concrete” skill that I’ve gained so far is a meager level of comfort in playing with code. Before this class, I only really messed with “code” in the sense of modding games and sometimes messing with “inspect element” in Chrome just for fun, but that was never really something that I did intentionally. There are a lot of rules and specific ways to write things that was really intimidating to me. I am much more comfortable with this now, especially from having to do the daily journals, even though I frequent the course page to circle back and double check myself.

One of the most important things to me that I’ve garnered from this course ties into what I said above: I feel like I’m much less “scared” of my computer now. I feel a little bit less like I’m blindly trudging through stuff when I try to move files around or download something. I also feel a little bit silly with how much is automated for me when I try to do something as easy as open a Google doc or something- it was so much more complicated and involved on older computers to do literally anything. It gives me some perspective and even makes me feel a little bit bad when I’m impatient with my parents for trying to figure out technology that is second nature to me.

Not that I didn’t really see it before, but I also have a newfound appreciation for people who transcribe and digitize archives. Those people do not get paid ANYWHERE near enough money for what they do. I rely heavily on Gutenberg and JSTOR for both research and fun reading, and without those transcriptions of text I wouldn’t be able to access so many things that I both need and enjoy. I’ve been using Gutenberg since I had a nook tablet back in 2013 and I have remained a loyal user now through my Kindle, and I recommend it to EVERYONE. This class has made me pay closer attention to translation/transcription differences (as well as how each re-reading feels to me) I’ve seen between different versions and modalities of texts I’ve read- for example, I read the Prime Digital Classics version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “This Side of Paradise” in the airport over the holidays, and then read it on Gutenberg and in a pdf scan of the original book for a class. I honestly preferred the Kindle version, but for the sake of page numbers I used the scanned one and for the sake of copying and pasting for quotes I used the Gutenberg version. Each modality of the text has its strengths and weaknesses.

Sitting alongside nature isn’t a place that I find myself often. Nature is more of a backdrop. The background scene of an event I’ve been waiting for, or the pretty colors behind me in a photo. I can appreciate the beauty that surrounds me, but never take special care to spend intimate time within it.

I tried to think of a place where words would come freely to me in nature, and found myself stuck in the memories that existed within these locations, rather than the intricate beauties that exist among them. The trees in my backyard that remained the backdrop of each graduation photo. The gazebo on the south side of campus where I first met the strangers that would become my best friends. I wondered why the memories clouded the beauty of every scenery to me.

For this reason I took this trip alone. I thought about bringing my boyfriend, or one of my roomates and making a day out of it, but decided that I would instead spend the day with nature.

I searched for a spot that I’d never seen before. One that would be fresh and wiped clean of memory. A place I could truly take in and appreciate. This place ended up being Kenosia Park in Rochester. A massive stretch of grass, littered with picnic tables, and spotted with people on brightly colored blankets staring into the sky.

I found my own spot among the people. A small park bench secluded by two massive trees that faced straight towards the water. The sound of others was low here, and I found myself listening for the hustle and bustle I’m so accustomed to. Instead of the typical babies crying, and people laughing I was greeted by a low humming sound. This humming came from the very top of one of my neighboring trees, the subtle movements of tiny insects blitzing their way around the very top of the trunks.

These insects were grouped together, forming a small circle at the top of the tree, looking down upon me as I gazed up towards them. I couldn’t remember the last time I truly noticed these tiny creatures, small pieces of a massive world in which they can simply shoot from place to place, barely being noticed. Quiet observers of a world occupied by bigger and more extravagent creatures. I wondered how it would feel to be an unnoticed visitor amongst an everchanging scenery.

The insects zipped down towards the water, the sun gleaming into the wide expanse of blue that laid in front of me. I looked past the lake, noticing the houses that were speckled across the land across from me. Houses that grew up long after the lake did. Families that came and went. Kids that learned to swim. The lake was a piece of these people. A constant in a world of chaos.

I realized in this moment the rarity that exists within every piece of nature. The backdrop that we constantly surround ourselves in, but never take the time to fully immerse ourselves in.

Just as the trees in my backyard signify each of my graduating years, they signify someone elses broken arm, or the spot where they had their first kiss. Memory is intrisincally connected to nature for humans. The everchanging scenery of the next event or milestone, but also a whole unspoken world left to be painted as the backdrop.

I will start this blog post off by saying that I sort of did this assignment twice. I did go to the arboretum with my fellow gramaicsy members on great day, but I also was lucky enough to go down to Florida a few weeks ago with my girlfriend, so I will talk a bit about both of those experiences. Also, here’s an image, maybe. It looks like an image in my preview, but not when I publish. I dunno man, I’ll figure it out later.

The Arboretum

As a commuter I spend a lot less time on campus than most students. The Arboretum took me a bit to find, and by the time I got there I was already 30 minutes later than when my group had planned to meet initially. Thankfully, I was still the first one there. Waiting in the gazebo was the perfect oppurtunity for me to stew in the thick fog of that day. Most folks probably wouldn’t have liked the weather, it was cold, gray, the kind where it’s hard to tell if you’re feeling the beginnings of rain or just the crisp air, but those are the days I feel most welcomed by nature. As much as I appreciate the sun and all the life it brings, the light and heat bring a lot of discomfort for me. But the gray days, where the sky is like a pillow and I can bundle up exactly to my liking, those are the days I treasure.

What I heard most of all as I sat in the Gazebo was the rustling of the barren trees in the wind, dead leaves skating across eachother, with the odd low creak, probably coming from the Gazebo itself. It may just be because I rewatched them recently, but it reminded me of the Entmoot from The Two Towers. I was eavesdropping on a conversation between the Gazebo and the woods surrounding it. It reminded me of what I’d imagine it must sound like to be in a large ship, where your seemingly static surroundings are constantly shifting ever so slightly around you.

After maybe 10 minutes of waiting, everybody else showed up. The others were understandably cold and uncomfortable, my dreary days aren’t for everyone. We exchanged some anecdotes, poked around the garden, showed eachother pictures of our families. It was nice to engage in some small way with the campus life I am otherwise quite removed from. I don’t often feel the sense of community I hear folks talk about, but that day I felt like I was part of one, maybe even two of them, just for a moment.

Orlando

My days were quite busy in Orlando, I didn’t get much time to sit in nature and relax. That being said, I still saw plenty. Lizards running around everywhere took some getting used to. The heat was brutal, even on the cooler days. What really got me though, was the birds. I know, it’s such a small thing, and I doubt I’ll be able to really express why they stood out to me the way they did, but I’ll try.

The uncanny valley is a term that I’m most familier with being used in the world of visual effects. If you don’t know, the uncanny valley is a figurative place where things that seem almost normal, but not quite. You may not be able to put your finger on exactly what is different, but you know there is something. For example, think about those weird AI feuled robots with silicon faces, or that makeup trend on tiktok (I don’t use tiktok, please don’t shame me if this trend is no longer a thing).

For my first few days in Florida, the birds all gave me this feeling. Honestly, I thought at first I might’ve been getting the dose wrong on my medication. Whenever I caught them flying, something seemed off. When I could hear them in the parks, they sounded almost like recordings, not quite real.

By the last full day of my trip, I realized what had changed. I was walking through a park with my girlfriend, one she’d walked with her mom as a kid. There we caught a glimpse of a bird, one I hadn’t seen before. It was the most red bird I’d ever seen in my life, I didn’t know birds could get that red. Then it hit me, something that was quite obvious but I just hadn’t considered; Florida has different birds than New York. They’re still birds, they do bird things, they’re not completely alien or anything, but they were just different enough for me, who’s left New York for a total of maybe just over a week since I was 3, to notice.

I’m not sure I can say for certain what all of these differences were, especially since I only registered how these birds were different the afternoon before we left, but it was, sort of embarassingly, one of the coolest parts of the whole trip for me.

Today wasn’t what I initially expected. I impulsively went to the airplane museum and to lay in the fields. I drove down the rocky dirt road that stretched out to the ongoing horizon. The trees, finally now in bloom, curled overtop, encomasping my car in a natural tunnel. I parked by the war planes from prior generations and set up camp underneath the biggest wing. I first laid on my blanket and ate Taco bell, (which is not the most natural of meals) but I digress. If I had to guess, the field stretches just shy of a mile long, which is pretty far when its a flat, unobstructed view. The sun was just about to set in the west, resting above the treetops. Its finally spring, and I can feel the world coming to life again. After a ‘nourishing’ meal I knew I was ready to tap into my inner Thoreau. I walked out a few yards, far enough to feel surrounded by open space. I laid on my back, and hushed the voice in my head freaking out about the grass in my hair and ants crawling up my ankle. I closed my eyes and clenched tufts of grass in my calloused hands. I took deep, intentional, breaths, until they slowed down just enough to be in sync with the rythym of the deafaning cicadas. It was in this very moment, when I let my mind, my skepticism and fear, quiet just enough to hear the beauty of the world around me, that sent icy shivers rushed down my spine- this is when I truly felt alive. I stayed in the moment for as long as I could, until the incessantly impatient tap of the ‘real world’ pulled me out of this nirvana state of mind. I am very thankful to have done this assignment, not only because it was fun, but because it made me engage with the world around me. At the end of the day, college should be about preparing us for the ‘real world’, and it doesn’t get more real than this!

Hello!

First of all, I cannot seem to figure out how to get my image in here, as it says it is too big – I have tried reducing the size of it (similar to how we did so in class) and cannot seem to figure it out! That’s why I have a link attached to this post – let me know if it takes you to the image as it is supposed to!

Anyway, something which I have been talking about with my friends a lot is the way in which we all feel so much better at this time of year (particularly Daylight Saving Time, which was March 10 this year. Of course, there have been several studies on seasonal depression and other related mental illness which can be triggered and attributed to short and cold days. However, it always seems like such a surprise when the time of year rolls around and we all start to feel so much better, even if we don’t feel as though we were in a necessarily bad place in the winter time.

I think a lot of the reasoning behind this is that the sad, slow, cold, dark, monotonous winter (can you guess my least favorite season of the year?) slowly gets people to settle into a different lifestyle: one which exists mostly indoors, with nighttime routines taking place much sooner, and much less time spent with nature in general. I think this all happens so routinely and gradually that a lot of the time, we don’t even notice that it’s happening. I believe that this is telling not only of seasonal shifts in mood but with a lot of mental health ebbs and flows. It is hard to notice the sort of place I am in until I realize how much better I feel once I begin spending some more time outdoors and enjoying longer days.

Another thing which I have always associated with happier times and good weather is the migration of birds back into our area. Going outside and hearing birds chirping and feeling the sun on our faces is such a wonderful feeling every year, and usually leads me to realizing that my baseline mood for the winter is not the same as it is in the summer.

On popular social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram, there are trending “sounds,” or audios which people use on their videos of birds chirping. The videos under these sounds typically deal with nostalgic aspects of childhood, getting the viewer to reminisce about playing outdoors as a child. There seems to be a general link between birds and happiness, often accompanied with nostalgic undertones.

I find this very interesting, as I find myself reminiscing each year as the days get longer. In fact, one of the most surefire ways I know that summer is approaching is when I go outside for the first time, breathe in a breath of fresh air, and think to myself that I feel eight years old again.

Overall, I feel as though a lot of people can probably relate to this, though we don’t usually talk about it as much (potentially because we don’t realize how much these things affect us). The picture I have attached below is of three birds which I saw perched in a tree when I was on a walk the other day. They reminded me of the summers of my youth and how good it feels to be outside.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you can see my picture with the link!

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=394174af4b&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-a:r4984978039260014532&th=18f1d19167485519&view=fimg&fur=ip&sz=s0-l75-ft&attbid=ANGjdJ-Y6GCd-GBJh0oCGLgwzPeP8SfHRxH2CDRkjgQhPs7F210wm_C69_OYfpX8kyQz6s4MX0K84HjPWctZOmVbHhJMhS-BkOGlMQTe5Rfj0SDMG0bmObeeDeFMEhs&disp=emb&realattid=18f1d19033456301e8a1

Dandelions, white and green. Their stems are straight and tall but their heads are round and soft. They sit next to little yellow flowers with frilly ends. I thought they were different species that are different from one another but they are the same. In the life cycle of those flowers, the frilly yellow ones, the dandelions are only lingering ghosts of the sunny, yellow pedals they used to shine when they were younger. Now only a dandelion remains, waiting to be blown away like dust and disappear as all things do eventually.

They say if you blow on them and let each seed dissipate in the wind, that whatever you wish for will come true. I have tried many times to blow out each dandelion infructescence but I have never been able to do so in one try. When this happens, your wish has not worked and it cannot be granted. It always disappointed me then, like I had missed my one chance at my one wish, and now it would not come true. Still, I would blow on it a few more times, but a few of the white puffs still lingered, clinging on to their home flower, like they were not yet ready to disappear. In capitulation, I’d pluck those off with my fingers and drop the green stem back to the ground. The stark realization that none of my wishes would come true that day. And why should they?

When I was a child, there were yellow buttercups that sprouted in our backyard every summer. All the neighborhood kids would pluck them from the ground and hold one under their neighbor’s chin. “If it glows, that means you like butter,” they all said. The golden light cast its own shadow on their skin, underneath their chin. I can’t remember now the last time someone tried to see if I liked butter, but I’d bet it was a long time ago.

I wonder if those flowers still sprout on my lawn. I don’t see why they shouldn’t but I no longer live there, and although I visit, it has been too long of a time since I last checked. As we grow older, those flowers and dandelions become ghosts forgotten behind everything else. We step on them now, just like we plucked them then, forgetting they are living until they are not.

My landlord was mowing the lawn just yesterday, and he paid no mind to the taraxacum or the buttercup flowers. The grass must be trimmed, so that houses look nice and you are not judged by your neighbor. This is the colonization of land. This is how we have dominated nature. This is all that we know. And despite these irreversible effects we have cast on nature, we still torment her. We use her and defile her because she can give us what we need but she is running out. She will become a ghost like the rest of us. We are all doomed to the same fate.