Where I come from.

The question of where I am from is a difficult one. When someone asks me where I am from I tell them Omaha, Nebraska. But when people ask me where I grew up I tell them Sheridan, Wyoming. Sheridan is a quiet town in the foothills of the Big Horn mountains. It is where I spent my childhood. I have been blessed with the opportunity to experience calm, quiet country life and also lively city life. Granted Omaha is not that big of a city, but it sure was one heck of a change coming from a small town in Wyoming. Sheridan is a very typical small town. Everyone knows everyone. In school, I was in a class of about thirty kids and we had all gone to school with each other since kindergarten. Sheridan is full of history and is often referred to as the Wild West. In the summer, the rodeo is the biggest event of the year. People come from all around to watch men and women in this show. All of the children love the carnival that comes to town during this time and the annual parade. One thing I distinctly remember being excited about when I first moved to Omaha about six years ago was delivered pizza. I lived just far enough out of town that delivered pizza was not an option. It was a twenty minute drive into town and a twenty minute drive back home. Of course the pizza was never hot when we finally were able to eat it. If I was lucky my mother would let me sneak a piece on the car ride. This was a rare occasion simply because we did not eat out very much. One of the first things my family and I did when we moved was order delivered pizza. And boy, it sure was delicious. Growing up in Wyoming provided me with a deep appreciation for nature. The one thing that I miss the most about this place is the scenery. The view of the mountains was absolutely breath taking. Moving to a place that is relatively flat and full of corn gave me an appreciation that I will take with me wherever I go. 

Naomi Klein's TED Lecture: Addicted to Risk

Naomi Klein was a very effective speaker. She spoke confidently and she was well educated about her topic. She spoke about how we [humans] are not taking care of the limited supply of natural resources that we have. She gave examples from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and then she gave example that were more close to home for her. She spoke about the tar mines that extract oil from the solid ground in Alberta. She brings in her own emotions to the topic. Her homeland is being destroyed and the people of her country are suffering because of it. This makes her very passionate about this subject. She wants something to be done and she is attempting to make people aware of this situation. I would consider her credible because the first thing she spoke about was how she spent a week at sea on a research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. She quotes many scientists and has quite a few statistical figures that she refers to. Her visuals were very eye catching. She had a couple of jokes in there that really engaged the audience and lightened the mood of the crowd. However, she did keep it very professional and stayed on topic at all times. What made her speech so effective is how she kept the audience engaged and used the information that she has clearly spent a lot of time researching in a way that was understandable. She didn't make it too much about science. The average person could have come to her seminar and understood completely what she was speaking about. The people in the audience did not have to be scientists to get her message that she was portraying. 

Photo Project

For my photo project, I have chosen to display the beautiful city of Seattle. My family lives in this area and I was fortunate enough to be able to visit them this past August. Located on the eastern coast of the state of Washington, Seattle has the lively city life as well as the calm outdoor life. What I find most fascinating about this area is one day can be spent enjoying the city and the next day can be spent simply enjoying nature. My photos begin with a picture of the skyline at sunset. The space Needle is Seattle’s signature landmark. Another major tourist attraction is the farmer’s market at Pike’s Place, which is located downtown. Crowds come from all around to watch the flying fish show put on by the men and women that work there. Seattle has a reputation for coffee consumption, so it would only make sense the first Starbucks Coffee began there. Seattle is a major seaport located between Puget Sound and Lake Washington. The photos of the sailboat, cruise ship, and ferry boat represent just a few the activities that Seattle has to offer. Next, I move onto some photos that I took while hiking on a foggy day. On average it rains 150 days out of the year. Lastly, I finish my project off with photos of my hike in the Olympic Mountains. These photos really show off the amazing scenery this area has to offer.  Fortunately, the two days that I was hiking the weather was sunny and clear. Had it not been I would not have been able to see the beautiful mountain ranges. On our hike we went past many lakes. My personal favorite was Heart Lake. While hiking, I saw a different side of Seattle that I never knew existed. This side was quiet and picturesque. Between the Space Needle and Heart Lake, Seattle shows how a big city can coexist with nature.

Manifesto: THe Mad Farmer Liberation Front-Wendell Berry

This poem is about not taking anything for granted and having faith in the small things. Berry talks about trusting the Lord, loving the world, praising ignorance, laughing, and simply being joyful. He calls for people to love someone who doesn't deserve it. He wants people to be thankful for our country and the flag that stands for freedom. He advises people to be like a fox. Foxes are sly and tricky. He claims that they leave too many tracks, mainly in the wrong direction. Berry is telling people to embrace life and live it to the fullest, otherwise you might die with regrets.

Sources

Schurm, Christine. "Health Risks from Hog Confinements." The Iowa Source. Aug. 05. Web. 04 Apr. 2011. <http://www.iowasource.com/health/CAFO_airqu_0805.html>.

Thu, Kendall M., and E. Paul Durrenberger. Pigs, Profits, and Rural Communities. Albany: State University of New York, 1998. Print.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

Livestock today are raised on huge farms. Michael Pollen compares going to one of these farms to going from the country to the city. He discusses how livestock is fed with corn, which is the cheapest form of calories out there. He also brings up the fact that corn is not the most healthy thing to feed these animals. We (humans) experience health effects such as heart disease. Cows that are fed with grass do not show the same results, but because corn is cheaper than grass and because there is a surplus of corn it is the food of choice for these animals. Corn not only has the potential to cause health effects for humans, but also the cows themselves. Cows are not built to only eat starch. Acidosis, diarrhea, ulcers, bloat, rumenitis, and liver disease are all possible health risks that the cows take. Antibiotics are given to the cows to prevent most of these sicknesses. This passage was very interesting and was definitely eye opening. The phrase "you are what you eat" now has a whole new meaning.

Everday Writer

In chapter 7 a working thesis is discussed. The word working is important because the thesis may change as you write. In other words, your final thesis may be different from your initial thesis. By establishing a tentative thesis early on you are able to write your paper, but that also doesn't mean their isn't room for improvement on your first thesis. In my paper I am going to go back and revise my thesis at the end to make sure that it is strong and tells my reader what to expect. 

Is this Kansas- Eula Biss

In this article, the central theme is how society holds different groups of people to different standards. The main group she focuses on is college students. She first begins with describing her experience at the University of Iowa. Then she describes hurricane Katrina and how people were looked down upon because they were looting to survive. And at the end she compares the tornado that Iowa city suffered to Katrina. Her tone throughout the whole piece is angry. She even writes that she felt safer walking the streets of New York City than the streets of Iowa City.

Grizzly Man Questions

1. Revealing Treadwell's death so early in the film changes the story. It allows for Herzog to describe the events that led up to his death. He is able to focus on what defined Treadwell as a character as opposed to his actual death.
2. When Herzog enter his own film he creates a tone about the film. It allows us to see that he is a real person. It also does make the film seem rather biased.
3. Treadwell is depicted as a guy who loved animals and he was willing to die for them. He seems a little crazy. He loved the animal world more than the human one. Most of his colleagues thought he was a wonderful guy. But those who  were not close to him thought that he was crazy.
4. Treadwell's goal was to protect the bears. But in reality he was doing more harm to them than help. The bears that he was "protecting" were on government protected lands. By habituating the bears to humans makes them believe that all humans are safe which is absolutely not true.
5. The argument of the boundary between wild nature and humans is prominent during this film. Treadwell felt that dying would send a message to more people. Instead he created a controversy. He wanted to live like a bear because their world was so much simpler than ours, what he did not account for was how much more harsh their world is.
6. Treadwell's view points about the world were too optimistic and not realistic. He wanted to escape the human world so bad that he ignored the negative aspects of the bear world. I think that Herzog was trying to emphasize this.
7. They did not release the audio of the death simply because it was too horrifying. It allows the audience to use their imagination. Also it really isn't our place to listen to it out of respect.
8. Treadwell's childhood was very typical. He excelled in diving in high school. Once he got to college he got involved in the wrong group. He dropped out, came home, moved to California and tried to become an actor. He changed his name and did not succeed. He lied about his upbringing. This makes me question his credibility. He was involved in drugs and alcohol for most of his life. The one thing is his life that seemed to make sense to him was the bears.  

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau builds a cabin out in the woods and lives there. He goal in all of this was to become one with nature. He was only a few miles away from town, but he blocks out that world and focuses on the area in front of him. He writes, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discovered that I had not lived." Thoreau wanted to live his life as raw as he could. He wanted to learn to appreciate the nature that he and many others so carelessly live on everyday. So he secluded himself. He build a house with his own two hands that was basically nothing more than a one room building. In doing so he found himself.

Poem

Life is nothing without family
Homeless children
Fighting to survive in  a cold, heartless world
Their courage gives me courage
The strength in their eyes fills me with hope for tomorrow
The love for their siblings makes me question my own relationships
They are so brave at a young age
On the streets of Mexico
They fight to live another day.

The Summer Day

This poem is about life. The author challenges the reader to think about their own life. The quote "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" says much about the author's overall message to get across in this piece. She wants us to take a look into our daily lives. She wants us to think about the small details that more often than not get overlooked. She uses a specific grasshopper to emphasize her point.  She notes the tiny details about this grasshopper that I personally would not to stop and think about, such as, the way she moves her jaws back and forth as opposed to up and down. At the beginning of the poem she asks who created this world and the creatures on it. She talks about how everything dies and usually it happens to soon. This poem conveys the message that our lives get taken for granted everyday and we as a society need to slow down and enjoy every minute of it.

Refuge Epilogue by Terry Tempest Williams

In this excerpt our author finds out that her family has been subject to cancer due to the nuclear bomb testing that has been occurring in the area. She and her father were reminiscing one day about her late mother when she recalls a dream she had been having about a flash of light. Turns out her dream was not actually a dream. That event happened when she was very little. Her family drove past a very intense bomb. Because of that bomb her mother and many of her other family members suffered from breast cancer. After finding out this information she participates in a protest and becomes arrested for civil disobedience on military lands. What is so inspiring about this passage is the fact that the author made a stand for what she believed was right. She made a stand to honor the women that had died from such a horrible disease. She finds peace in being left in the middle of a dessert and when everyone expected her to break down she became stronger.

Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams

I thought this excerpt was very interesting. First, the author describes the Great Salt Lake. She talks about how the depth of the lake fluctuates based on the type of climate that area is experiencing.  The lake has varied as much as twenty feet in the last one hundred years. This in turn effects the land surrounding the lake and many of the ecosystems established in that area. This is where the author becomes emotionally involved. If the lake reaches a certain height it will flood out the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. She and her Grandma spent many years watching the burrowing owls. On her annual visit to watch the birds she finds that they have been kicked out by several men who really could care less. We can tell she is upset simply by how she reacts. She even comes back the next day hoping she would find the burrowing owls just the way she left them the previous year. She then goes on to describe the way she was raised in believing that all life forms had a spirit life before and after life on earth. Her family loved the land and the joy that it brought them. She then goes on to describe her first encounter with bird watching with her Grandmother. This experience gave her a deep appreciation for birds, specifically the owl, that stayed with her for her lifetime.