In the beginning of the semester, we read "The Mappist" by Barry Lopez. Our assignment after having read was to make maps of our own. But not 2D road maps. Maps of our daily activities, our lives, our whatever. This is my final map for the class:
33°33'60''N, 101°52'25''W
The past month or so, I've been doing a lot of reflecting. At first, trying to sum up my past four years in college was more of a bummer to me than anything, and I spent a lot of time upset about it. I couldn't help but question myself. Should I have gone out more? Maybe I was too conservative with my time. Did I spend too much of it face down in a biology book? Too many times I felt my insides all screaming in unison, "YES.. you wasted your time. And it's gone now. Gone, gone, gone."
But then I got to thinking more about the whole thing. My parents didn't raise me to live any which way normally. They just didn't. So why in hell would I beat myself up because I didn't (for the most part) have the "normal" college experience?
And then I reckoned further.
...Maybe it's more important - if I'm going to spend so much time reflecting anyway - that I look instead at who I was when I began college, and who I am now. Let's forget about the part that's supposed to be spent dying your hair pink for a week or canoodling with frat guys or protesting something just to say you did. Let's forget about what society deems the stereotypical middle part... the "college" experience.
So I did a little forgetting, and a little remembering. Instead of looking at anything I may have missed out on, I'm choosing to remember the transition I've made in college. From what I know, to my hobbies, to how I feel about life in general. The remembering part was my inspiration for writing this post; my final assignment for my Fieldcraft class.
33°34'6''N, 101°52'41''W
We leave our nests and come to college with a hundred bazillion different stories. For some of us, we've never been away from our parents for longer than whatever time summer camp lasts. Some of us choose a college that's down the street from home, and some are 20 hours away. I was in the middle of all of those stories. I was 10 hours from home (including food, fill-ups and wrong turns) and I was a summer camp go-er. But, regardless of how far we are from home, the truth to coming to college is that we leave behind our nests. We leave behind our parents in hopes that whatever knowledge they've helped us stuff into the back of our vehicles will suffice. It's time to learn on our own -- whether we fly from that nest or hit the ground, however, is not so black and white. As much as I hate admitting that there are shades of grey: there are shades of grey when it comes to flying.
My first two years at this school were grey. I survived on my own, I did well in classes, but I spent a good deal of time unhappy. My mother wasn't there to remind me every time I frowned to go outside, and my dad wasn't there to walk down the dark hallways of the biology basement to remind me to stop taking myself so damn seriously. Beginning college meant an overload of in-classroom learning, but the cease (for the most part) of the little life lessons and pointers my parents spent the previous 18 years showering me with. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't completely miserable, but being 10 hours away from home sort of left a void. It wasn't until I began taking Dr. T's classes that I found a remedy to it all. While I know that this post is supposed to be about our Fieldcraft course, it's hard for me to make sense of anything without incorporating Dr. T's lessons outside of this class. The lessons continuously blend together.
N33° 34.786', W101° 52.5281'
I remember my very first day in Dr. T's landscapes class vividly. I walked in, sat down, and the professor sitting in front of me wore circular rimmed glasses and a sport jacket--- the stereotypical professor. Shortly after, Dr. T walked into the room -- apparently there had been a mishap with the classroom numbers -- he was not my professor for the semester... she was. She looked like a professor, but I soon learned that she was in no way stereotypical.
We met in a classroom, but she promptly explained to us that our classes would be most often held outdoors - as goes for all of her classes. Learning happens outside a classroom? I didn't realize such an opportunity existed outside of Junction, TX. But I was wrong, and I was appreciative for it. When she first mentioned the rule, I remember thinking to myself, "my God. This woman is a straight up hippy." Hippy or not I couldn't put a finger on it exactly, but I knew that she reminded me of someone.
Latitude: 33.54611 / Longitude: -101.818314
On one occasion very early in the semester, I mis-read Dr. T's blog. I read her post for another class, and thought we'd be meeting by the English building that day. I even printed out the damn post because I was so concerned about going to the right spot. Come 2 o'clock, I was the only one there. Maybe everyone's just late today. Wrong. Around 2:15, the panic began. It was before the days of the savvy iphone, so I hauled ass to the library computer lab to figure out where I went wrong. Sure enough, our class was supposed to meet at Urbanovsky park. It was 2:30 by then, and I was hyperventilating. At the time (senior year changed my goody two shoes routine a bit), being late was worse than the idea of death for me. I contemplated sparing myself the trauma of getting yelled at for showing up so late, but skipping was just as painful. I showed up to class expecting Dr. T to scourge me with embarrassment, but I was seriously and pleasantly mistaken. She genuinely believed me (or did a hell of a job acting like it) and told me that I wasn't an idiot. Not a whole lot of people in this world can calm me down once I get into my freak out sessions, so naturally I was surprised when my breathing pattern quickly returned to normal. I've watched Dr. T treat plenty of students the same way in the past three classes I've had with her. It never gets old to me.. It's just unusual for a professor (from what I've seen) to trust a student, and if they do trust them, it's unusual to expend any more energy comforting them outside of simply believing them. She's the exception to the rule.
As part of the class, we'd need a bike. Well, I had one. It was my mom's from God knows when. I honestly don't even know what it was doing in my apartment besides collecting dust. Smith* had two flat tires, a partially existent seat, and 1/2 of its brakes missing. I think it's safe to say, however, that I was in worse shape than Smith.... I mean, I couldn't possibly go out in public on a bicycle. The idea terrified me.
But, I sucked it up.
We spent the rest of the semester riding our bikes to various locations all over Lubbock: parks, local coffee shops, downtown, students' favorite places on campus, and then at one point we traveled (via vehicle because of the distance) to the Haute Goat Creamery for a tour. We read. A lot. And we wrote. Tech's landscape architect even gave us a whole lecture on his thought processes behind the landscape design around our student union building. We used our brains in ways I hadn't used mine in too long a while. We weren't asked whether we agreed with an idea or liked a landscape; we were asked why. We had to use our brains to formulate an opinion, and then explain it. For the first time in my college career, I was learning lessons similar to the ones my parents had taught me before I left the nest. I was riding in the car with my mother while she explained to me the little bits of knowledge textbooks don't provide.
At some point during the semester while trying to figure out what it was about the class I enjoyed so much, I realized that the person Dr. T reminded me of was my mother. A west-Texas, liberal PhD version of my turquoise sporting, knowledge spewing, outdoor loving hippy of a mother. I enjoyed the class because my mother's lessons didn't feel 10 hours away anymore: they were every Thursday from 2 to 4:50 PM.
Two years later, the seeds that the Landscapes class planted within me continue to grow. I'll never think the same way about the SUB's landscape, a coffee shop, or cheese the same way again. I now appreciate a lawn covered in concrete. I get excited as I drive past farmer's markets that I didn't know existed before the class. I ride my bike.
Latitude: 33.582488 / Longitude: -101.879611
I knew after landscapes that my lessons from Dr. T were not finished. I wasn't done learning, so I enrolled in Current Readings in NHH. The class focused on reading and writing primarily. We met in small groups weekly and workshopped our papers together. The idea of sharing my writing with anyone outside of the comfort of my loved ones terrified me. I spent a good deal of my life taking critique in gymnastics, but writing was different. It was more personal. I didn't like the thought of 3 other college students and Dr. T ripping apart something so personal to me. I didn't like the thought of having to write so much at all. But like so many other inferences I've made, I was wrong. In the workshops, we started with positives, and moved on to room for improvements. We were all equals in the classroom (AKA the grassy area outside the Honor's college), and all of our writing abilities grew in unison with each other. We were constructive. We respected each other's stories and we became friends. I learned that writing and editing is not something to cringe over, but to enjoy.
I learned that for too many years of my life, there was a whole stress-relieving hobby of mine that I was missing out on. And here I am today. I find myself writing all the time - whether it's posted somewhere or not.
Latitude: 33.56656 / Longitude: -101.815399
This semester in Fieldcraft I'd have to say, has been my favorite learning experience of them all. The class was certainly the most off-beat of any of my classes with Dr. T. But, I have to go out on a limb and say that Dr. T's comfort zone is the word off-beat, and everyone knows that we all flourish within our comfort zones.
We spent our first classroom experience on an excursion through the back alleys of the Tech Terrace neighborhood. For what, you ask? Bird watching. We checked out binoculars, learned how to use them, and walked around identifying birds.
I personally had never really given much thought to the whole bird thing --- I never really thought to look up into the trees instead of the 5'4'' height in my immediate forward glance. Nevertheless, I skeptically tagged behind and listened on that first day of class. We learned about trash birds (the ones who aren't supposed to be here), how cool the great-tailed grackle really is (they're iridescent) and how a savvy birder conducts herself (soft voices, wear caps to look less predacious, and no sharp movements). It was all a whole 'nother world for me, and I honestly wasn't quite sure how I felt about it.
The first couple classes I spent somewhat bored. Turns out it's no fun to sit through birding when you don't know a burrowing owl from a blue jay (I exaggerate). So, the next week I made a pact with myself and Dr. T (so that she'd hold me to it): I would learn all of the current winter birds in Lubbock by the next week's class. A somewhat daunting task, but I was excited for the challenge. I spent the next week toting my color-coated-86-winterbird-bird book everywhere--- including my sorority house. I got teased a lot for it, but the end result was worth it. The next week we met at a cemetery to go birding, and I experienced giz* for the first time. Mountain bluebird. End of story. I was delightfully hooked.
Ever since then, my walks across campus have been much more enjoyable. I search up into the trees as I walk looking for an opportunity for giz. While I know that I probably come off as bat-shit crazy to passer by-ers and I've definitely tripped a couple times in the process (relax mom, nothing serious), I can honestly say that birding is an addiction.... a newfound hobby.
As part of the whole bird experience, we learned about Lesser Prairie Chickens. Because I owned chickens as a child, I couldn't help but feeling connected to the birds sentimentally before even learning about them. Because of their declining population, they're the under-dogs of the birding world, and under-dogs are my favorite. They have a bag full of problems when it comes to the source of their decrease in population: their kind doesn't do well with man-made structures, farming, or livestock... In other words, their kind doesn't do well in Texas or New Mexico--- the states that make up the majority of their native land. Like every other bit of knowledge we gain from doctor T that even gives a whiff of "text-book," she throws us outside to dabble in it. Nothing stays 2D in her class --- not even a lek of prairie chickens that only come out at 5 AM in an area that's at a minimum of 1.5 hours away.
Latitude: 33.678635 / Longitude: -103.340009
Owning up to her reputation, she took our class to the Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival for a weekend in April to carry out a service project/watch the birds perform their mating ritual. The service project included us marking fences so that the birds wouldn't get caught while attempting to escape predators; an unfortunately common occurrence. The mating ritual? Can't be done justice by anything I have to say... the only way to really know would be to go see it for yourself next April (
Oklahoma LPF or
New Mexico LPCF) I can say, however, there are certain noises in my head that will
always be reminiscent to me of the prairie chicken mating dance.
