Reflection

When I first signed up for this class I wasn't sure I was going to like it. I like Dr. Maluso, and I like Sarah, Logan, and Casey so I agreed to take it more for the good company than the course material. The three main components were literally three subjects that I extremely unfamiliar with: technology, the environment, and feminism. I would say that I was excited to learn something new - but I wasn't. I hadn't ever really had an interest in any part of what the course material seemed to involve. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised.

I've had to blog in previous classes, but I never really liked it. It was always about really dry material. I never played with fonts or colors, I never added in any pictures, and I never spent time trying to come up with clever names. Blogging is actually pretty fun, and I really enjoyed it at the beginning of the term. As the term went on I became more involved in the website and less involved in my blogs, but I did enjoy watching the movies.



I tend to ignore the news, and I scroll over political jargon on my news feed. I'm just too busy for it most of the time. It's not that I don't want to care about farmer's being blackmailed by the large production companies, it's just that I'm so far separated from it that it just seems like an unnecessary burden to take on. But that's the problem, isn't it? People like me don't stop to take the time to become educated on important topics because they just don't want to be bothered, and then they never get fixed. Now that I've seen some of the videos and learned about some of these things, I'm going to be conscious of them all the time. I think it took these videos to make these problems human for me. Underneath the politics and the protests and the things that I feel like I can't change, there are people who are suffering - and that matters to me. While I didn't necessarily like watching all these videos and caring about all these new terrible matters, I'm really happy that I did.

Then there's the website building. That was a challenge to say the least. I don't like computers, I don't like calculators, I don't even like TVs that have too many channels or smart remote controls - I like to do things myself. So I was uncomfortable with trying to make a website because it seemed like a whole lot of frustration to me. But, because I knew it was going to be hard for me, I made myself get used to it. I spent hours upon hours messing with fonts and codes and templates and pictures and photoshop and a bunch of other things that I never would have known how to use if it weren't for this class. I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I did figure out how to navigate our site pretty well if I do say so myself. I don't want to ever make a website again, but if I had to I definitely could, and that's a valuable skill.

Now on to our adventure. I had a blast during this term. We had our ups and downs as a group because group projects are stressful, but we made some pretty spectacular memories. We were really fortunate to have the opportunity to take a hands on approach to our website. I really hated hunting. It was cold and boring and I couldn't remember to stay quiet, but it was pretty awesome that we caught a turkey - and let's not forget about the goats. I will be telling people about Nugget and Babbette for years. Our fishing trip was fantastic (for me). I really love the ocean, and just being on the water makes me feel a thousand percent better than I did on land - always. Poor Sarah and Logan had to deal with my entire family for two whole days, but I think they enjoyed the craziness that is the Gillis Sisters - and some Mother's Day Mudslides.

Our adventure was awesome, and it led to a pretty awesome website. I am extremely proud of all that we did. We were lucky to have stumbled across a really perfect idea for our personal interests, and the creativity just kept flowing. Our finished product is probably not even half of what we had originally talked about trying to incorporate. I couldn't have asked for a better group either. Each person really had something unique to bring to the project.



 Over all I would say this class was a success. I'm really glad that I took it, even though it wasn't super sure that I would like it. I learned a lot of cool stuff, and I have some pretty wonderful memories that I'll take with me.

Food Inc.

On Friday in class, we watched Food Inc., a documentary directed by Robert Kenner starring Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation) and many other well known people in the area. The movie wasn't super surprising for me. Last year in Plants and Peoples with Dr. Egan we watched King Corn, which was similar in a lot of the facts that were shared. We learned about the monopoly of corn in the food industry, and a little bit about the monopoly Monsanto has over farmers, so I knew a little bit about the topics before I saw the movie - but that didn't make it any less upsetting to watch. Needless to say it might be a few years until I eat my next burger, and I'm just refusing to remember anything that might have been said about chickens.

I was really excited to write this blog, because over the weekend I've seen numerous facebook posts about marches and protests on Monsanto. There were Marches on Monsanto in 52 different countries on Saturday. The push in these marches was to require all GMOs (genetically modified organisms) to be labeled in food. There are people who believe that GMOs can be harmful to our health, and the people are protesting for the right to know what's in their food. As of right now the Food and Drug Administration does not require companies to label GMOs on their packages, but some states have passed legislation to make food companies label GMOs in their products - however the U.S. Senate has rejected a bill to allow states individually require the labeling of GMOs. (I'm not totally sure how these two things fit together, but that's what it said on the website) I think that Connecticut and Vermont might have passed the laws before the bill was rejected? Legal/political jargon - it's a bit over my head.

Anyways, it's a great thing that people are finally starting to get pro-active about what's in their food. Many other countries have in fact banned Monsanto and its seeds, and if the people are able to keep protesting and not purchasing foods with GMOs in them, we might be able to get the U.S. there too.

WE killed the electric car

In class on Tuesday we watched Who Killed the Electric Car, which I have to admit, was more interesting than I had anticipated. The movie was about the introduction of the electric car. It seemed pretty fantastic. It didn't run on gas or oil, it was cleaner for the environment, it didn't cost as much to repair, and it had enough charge in it for a normal day's worth of commute. It had a lot of perks, but it wasn't perfect. It didn't charge instantaneously, which can be nerve wracking to someone who's used to being able to fuel their car as quickly as they can type in their pin number. It also wasn't able to run for hundreds of miles on a single charge. The electric cars that we learned about in the movie got anywhere from 60 to 120 miles per charge, and for some people - that's just not practical.



I wanted to see what electric cars look like now in comparison to what we saw in the movie from 2006. The Model S, by Tesla Motors is a nice looking SUV that runs on energy alone, and it gets 265 miles per charge. That would almost get me back to Massachusetts, which is 306 miles away, and takes more than one tank of gas. It has zero carbon emissions and can get from 0 to 60 in four seconds. It seems like a no brainer, but unfortunately it's really expensive. They advertise its monthly price instead of the full price, and they calculate it as "after gas savings". That was a bit of a red flag for me. When I looked into it more, I found that it is actually a $62,000 - $72,000 car. Now, I'm not the best when it comes to car prices. I nearly had a stroke when my boyfriend paid $10,000 for a 2011 with practically no miles on it. For someone who has 76 cents in their bank account, $70,000 for a car seems like an outrageous purchase. At prices like this, I'll never be able to drive an electric car. (although, I was looking for the most updated with the highest miles per charge, there could be cheaper cars out there.)


Let's pretend it's a perfect world, and money isn't an issue, and everyone can afford an electric car - what would happen to the world? There's the obvious perk that we wouldn't be dependent on the middle east for fuel, but what else? What about all those jobs? What about the gas station owners and the auto mechanics out there? Even if they changed gas stations to charging stations, there wouldn't need to be nearly as many. While I can definitely see the positive things that electric cars would do for the world, I also worry about what would happen to the already rough economy. 






A big portion of the movie was about politics and having the wrong people in the right places so that they could maintain control over the auto and fuel industries, and that is positively infuriating - we know what the problem is and we know how to fix it but we pick people to make decisions for us who won't change it. There's definitely a feeling of hopelessness about it.






I think about the future a lot. I think about how our generation is going to be portrayed in history books. I wonder if we're going to go down in history as the smartest and most selfish fools who ever lived, or the people who saved the world.

The Cove

So the other day in class we watched The Cove, a documentary by the OPS (Oceanic Preservation Society) - and it was one of the more heartbreaking movies I've ever seen. It featured Ric O'Barry, who was actually the trainer on the 60's television hit series, "Flipper". Flipper was really the beginning of the dolphin craze, because Flipper (or Kathy) captured the hearts of Americans and raised the interest in dolphins and their intelligence. That's when Sea World began it's whale and dolphin shows, and vacation spots began advertising "swimming with the dolphins".

At the beginning of the documentary Ric O'Barry talks about the incredible regret he feels because he didn't realize that he was creating a monster. He told a terrible story about how he believed Kathy the dolphin committed suicide in his arms, and that night he was arrested for the first time for trying to free the other dolphins on the set. This awesome picture from creative commons made me curious about the webpage on Ric O'Barry's shirt, so I looked it up, and it has a ton of information about the present movement on the dolphin massacre happening in Taiji, and the rest of Japan. Check out SaveJapanDolphins.org to see some interesting news stories.




The story that I found to be the most interesting was one from November of 2012, reporting a public protest of the dolphin hunting in Tokyo. This was huge news because before the release of this movie, many people in Japan were totally in the dark to the dolphin hunting. It was extremely covered up and controlled by the government, but The Cove managed to raise enough attention to make people not only upset about this slaughtering, but angry enough to stand up and do something about it. This is huge because it was the first protest including Japanese citizens. Of course, they weren't met graciously and extreme nationalists went as far as to spit on the pro-dolphin posters.

At the end of the movie Ric O'Barry stood in the streets of Taiji, (?) I think, with the television on his front the same way he walked into the IWC (International Whaling Commision). The ending of the movie showed how little the citizens of Japan knew about the dolphin hunting. The beginning talked about it a little, explaining how it would seem to the world as if Taiji loved whales and dolphins with its museums and boat tours. I think this protest is a sign that the people of Japan are becoming aware of the atrocious actions fishermen are taking towards these dolphins - and they're not ok with it.

Let's forget about the fact that hunting the dolphins is cruel, the more horrifying aspect of these killings is that they are pointless - in my opinion at least. They're no good for food, they're completely saturated with mercury, a point which was justly shown in the movie when the figure head who continuously supported the dolphin hunting tested positive for mercury poisoning.

On the SaveJapanDolphins website I also found a super upsetting article about how the methods of dolphin slaughter are, in fact, inhumane. Well...I could have told you that, but what I couldn't have told you is that they've re-modified their method of killing the dolphins. Even though the movie ended with the bad guys being fired and poisoned and relieved of their positions guarding the Cove, it seems as though that did not last long. The previous method (which was said to be "new" and "humane") of jabbing a lance into the throats of the dolphins (which was supposed to cause "instantaneous death") has been re-vamped to something even more horrible. On top of that, since the release of the movie, the fishermen have upped security, and now there is a large tarp covering the entire cove to keep people from seeing what goes on in there. The "new" method they've adopted is pulling the dolphins under the tarps and stabbing them behind the blowhole. They continue to screech and flail about for minutes on end. There's a really terrible video of it that was taken by a kind of second generation OPS group from Germany. If you'd like to check it out, click here.

Sometimes I think I'd be better off knowing things like this, because I feel like there's nothing I can do to stop it. The more movies we watch in class the more I feel like the government completely owns us - and that industry is vastly more important than the individual, or the earth even. But... I guess knowing is the first step, and I hope to see more protests going on in Japan full of people who are sick of feeling like they can't change things.

'Til next time!

Ithaca Farmer's Market

Two Saturdays ago Logan, Sarah, and I went to the Ithaca Farmer's Market. I was really excited to go because I love Ithaca, and I'll take any excuse to take a trip up. I also really like farmer's markets. There's a really peaceful vibe and lots of fun stuff to look at and try. Ithaca did not disappoint.


We got there right at 9 o'clock, so it was pretty empty and the tables were still being set up. There was wine, paintings, photography, ceramics, wood work, blankets and clothing, sauces, flowers, vegetables, meat, eggs, home made apple cider donuts, coffee, and tons of other home made and organic goods. We stopped at a bunch of different booths, and most people were super friendly and happy to answer any of our questions.

One of the first booths we stopped at was the Culinary Kiosk, which specializes in home made sauces. They also specialize in coffee, tea, garlic, herbs and spices, dry beans, and other gifts. I didn't personally try any of the sauces or salsas because I eat like a small child and don't like anything with flavor, but Sarah bought a jar of peanut sauce for her mom (since it was the day before Mother's Day) and she said she loved it. The products looked fantastic and the owner was great, so I promised I would give a good recommendation!

Another awesome booth that we stopped by was the Windsong Farm booth. I was drawn to it immediately because it said "A sustainable local farm" and I wanted to ask questions about the sustainability.  I also wanted to feel the sheep fur samples that they had on the table. David Stern, the owner, told us that they weren't able to be 100%  sustainable, because it's extremely hard, but that they try to be as sustainable as possible. They use the manure for fertilizer, and they make blankets and clothes out of the sheep fur, and they use everything they have before making any purchasing.



 Before we left the farmer's market Sarah bought some cute flowers for her mother and a gyro from one of the stands, and then we went out and looked at the pond. I really liked this tree so I took a picture of it. On the other side of the three there's a compost, and a trash - but just about everyone was using the compost because most of the food products were either not on any kind of plate, or on something recyclable. The whole environment was so chill and so relaxed, and the pond was gorgeous. There were families, and dogs, and a little boy rocking out on his violin with a tip jar at his feet. I would definitely go back, and I would definitely recommend it to friends. I'm also going to look into farmer's markets near me.

 Last but not least, Buy Local! It helps your community and gives you something awesome to do on the weekends!

Ecofeminism in Avatar

The other day the assignment for www.women.com was to watch Avatar, keeping in mind the sources e-mailed to us by Dr. Maluso concerning ecofeminism. The first source she sent to us was an article called "Ecofeminism: Women and the Environment" for the most part this article is talking about the rising rate of breast cancer and how products that we use daily can be dangerous for us - specifically cosmetics and plastics. The article was interesting, but most importantly it defined ecofeminism as "a feminist approach to environmental ethics." I actually didn't know what ecofeminism was  - I mean, I could have guessed it through a basic understanding of the English language, but it was good to have it written in stone.

The other source we were supposed to look at was "How Ecofeminism Works" which is great, because I love How Stuff Works pages. This page went into a little more detail about how feminism and ecology are connected. The article emphasized how women were connected to the earth, and how the oppression of the planet was similar to the oppression of women. You can definitely see how this idea of women and nature has been developed through history. Demeter was the goddess of the harvest, and she was said to be the being that brought fertility and life to the Earth. If you think of it that way women and the earth are definitely connected,  because they both bring life and sustenance. That's a pretty powerful statement, to connect the oppression to the environment with oppression to women, but it seems to fit. I've never heard her called "Father Earth" after all.

So anyways, bringing this back to Avatar, there's definitely examples of ecofeminism throughout the story line. The most obvious example of this is Neytiri, who was so comfortable in her skin and so at ease with the environment. She showed Jake Sully how to manipulate his body and the earth so that they would work together. Neytiri is an extremely powerful woman and she is constantly shown as being connected to nature.

The other woman in this movie who is an example of ecofeminism is Grace. She is so interested in this world and so connected to them - she is by far the expert on the tribe, and for some time she seems extremely powerful. However, when money and greed become more important to the men on her team, she gets pushed aside as they seek out to destroy the Na'vi tribe.

When you look at this movie from an ecofeminism perspective it seems like the men have no right to the land because it's part of the women - so therefore they have to take it and oppress both the women and the environment. I'm overdoing it a little bit here, but it gets poetic the longer you think about it I swear!

Scavenger Hunt

So on Tuesday we went on a super awesome scavenger hunt at Tanglewood Nature Center and Museum. It was a ton of fun, and we found a lot of interesting things. We started out by the pond, and we took pictures of dew on the leaves, and a goose on the water, and my reflection in the water. Then we went onto the blue trail (something blue) and found a "Red Oak" tree (something red). We also saw three or four deer, but they were pretty far away so our picture might not be great. We kept walking along the blue trail, and then we cut through the woods onto this big field, and we took a picture from the top of the hill. We also took some pictures of a pretty cool tree (and me trying to climb the really cool tree).

After we moved on from the field we switched over onto the yellow trail where we found a makeshift stopsign, some pretty awesome "Caution Zombies Ahead" litter, our "baby" trees, and all sorts of other fun stuff.


After we came back from the trail we went into the museum to see if we could check off the last few things on our list. It was really cool in there. There was lots of interesting taxidermy, some big snakes, and to my horror a really gigantic frog. We were able to cross off everything on our list, and it was great to get to spend the beautiful day outside.

Fracked Either Way

On Monday in class we watched "Gasland" which is a documentary by Josh Fox about the negative effects of fracking. Fracking is a big deal around this part of New York, because we fall near the gas shales. Our assignment for this blog was to fact check two points from this documentary. I'm not going to talk about whether or not it's good for the environment - it's not, and I'm not going to talk about whether or not it's really affecting people's lives, homes, animals, and health - it is. I hate digging through the muck trying to find out how large corporations can see the bubbling water or the faucets that literally catch on fire and then say that fracking isn't having any effect on the drinking water. I just kind of wonder what all the nondisclosure agreements were about if nothing happened.




#1 Halli-Who?

This was not the first I've heard of the Halliburton Loophole, but it was the first time I paid attention to what it was. Before yesterday my general understanding of the Halliburton Loophole was that it was some conspiracy theory - it sounds so outrageous that I thought there must be more to it. I thought maybe there were other regulations it had to follow or something, because it just doens't make sense. If fracking is unable to meet the standards of the Safe Drinking Water Act/ Clean Water Act, maybe, and I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe it's not a good idea.  It's a real thing, a real law set in place to excuse fracking companies from having to abide by the Safe Drinking Water Act/Clean Water Act, which means that it is causing harm to the environment as defined by the law that Congress voted in. Instead of changing the fracking system to meet the standards of the law, they changed the law to meet the needs of the fracking system, at the expense of the people. My understanding is that the Halliburton loophole is still in effect, but that the EPA is striving to change the situation. The law stated that as long as diesel fuel was not used in the process, the EPA had no responsibility in the matter, and many fuel companies agreed to discontinue the use of diesel fuel in their fracking. However, many companies did not hold up their end of the bargain, so the EPA sent a guidance document to the White House in December 2011 which will hopefully regulate the use of diesel fuel in fracking and finally set real limitations for the industry and hopefully put us a step in the right direction. That was in 2011, the newest information I was able to find on EPA involvement had to do with the revision of the Fracking Impact Results in 2013.

#2 Produced Water
When I first heard the term "produced water" my first thought was what even is that? It's an extremely vague name for an extremely dangerous thing. Produced water, or wastewater, is the 20-30% of water that comes back from fracking, littered with oodles of toxic chemicals. So what do they do with this water? Sometimes they send it to treatment or sewage plants that are not equipped to deal with it, sometimes they discreetly place it into larger bodies of water such as rivers or lakes, sometimes they place it into open pits where it presents a major threat to people in wildlife in the area. There's also an extremely high rate of radiation in this water that many plants are not able to get rid of to meet safety standards, but that water is still released into water sources. For more horrifying information on produced water check out the Catskill Mountainkeeper's programs and information on fracking.

Here's where it gets tricky. What about this? What about the jobs that fracking offers to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people? What about the truck drivers and the drillers and the riggers and the traffic directors and all of the people involved in the process, and what about their families? As someone who wants to work closely to the welfare system it's hard for me to nonchalantly say that I think they should completely shut down a project that provides so many jobs, but I'd like to hold the optimistic view that a lot of jobs would be created in the clean up process. The choice seems to be between two evils, but the way I look at it is, poverty and and unemployment won't matter much on a planet that has no water.

Fortunately, Massachusetts doesn't seem to be a main target for fracking right now. I haven't seen a shale in Massachusetts on any map I've looked at, but that doesn't mean that we won't be affected. The water in this country is really connected, with many small rivers and streams branching off into other bodies of water. Fracking isn't just a problem for people who's faucets are flammable, you don't want those kind of chemicals in your water, and you can't be sure you're water couldn't be contaminated. If you want to check out more information on fracking in your area, check out a fractracker, like this one.

Litter Bugs

So on Friday we went out into the beautiful city of Elmira to pick up trash and litter in order to beautify the streets. I actually spent the majority of the time with Dr. Maluso and the wonderful Gertrude Stein to help with retrieving the bags of trash and scoping out neighborhoods in need. When I did switch out with Sarah and Logan to go with Cassie and Casey, we started at The Branch and then made our way back towards campus from Davis Street. We picked up the front lawn of a middle school that was either shut down or not in session, and then we went through some neighborhoods. We didn't pick an ideal spot necessarily, and most of the trash we picked up was small, and it was few and far between. The most common items found were scratch tickets and cigarette butts, and then crushed beer cans and glass out behind The Branch.

I try my best not to litter, mostly because I'm afraid of the karmatic repercussions, but it's sad that people can't just pick up their own trash. Elmira isn't as bad as a lot of us make it out to be, and there are parts of it that are really nice. If there was more of an effort to get Elmira clean and keep it clean, it would be a lot nicer place to be.

"Hey babe, let's like...go green and totally eliminate our carbon footprint!"

This is a conversation I never want to have, but for one poor retail and reality TV show obsessed housewife this nightmare was a reality. Today in class we watched "No Impact Man" which followed Colin Beavan and his family as they attempted to completely eliminate their carbon emissions for an entire year.

What does this mean? Well, it means a whole lots of "no's" Here are my notes from class:

No coffee? Come on, Colin. Have a heart!

• NO TV
• NO shopping...ever
• NO trash, instead a a compost with worms in it, inside the house
• NO electricity (except for a convenient solar powered laptop charger when the rest of the family was still trying to keep their milk cold in a makeshift Egyptian contraption made out of clay pots.
• NO make-up
• NO normal diapers
• NO cleaning supplies
• NO take out
• NO COFFEE NO COFFEE NO STARBUCKS NO COFFEE NOT EVEN IN A RECYCLABLE CUP! (unless I'm misunderstanding)
• NO laundry detergent
• NO planes, trains, or automobiles except for when vacationing at organic farms
• NO ice, unless you borrow it from an uncomfortable neighbor
• NO restaraunts
• NO MEAT
• NO second child for you wifey (and then when she got pregnant I got really excited for her, and then very sad again...)

A little more coffee appreciation

All I can say is, this woman made a whole lot of sacrifices to just be the wife of the "No Impact Man". I spent the whole hour and a half thinking "why isn't this the No Impact Family? Is it because sometimes she would sneak ice into her recyclable coffee mug with tap water in it at work????? I surely hope not. The answer that I came up with is because it wasn't about the family, it was about Colin finding a new passion, and a family that hopped on board. While I definitely think Michelle was not given proper credit in the naming of this project, I don't think the family was terribly centered around Colin. I think the No Impact Man was his idea, his project, his baby if you will, and I think that Michelle was trying to be supportive of that. I have to think that if I was in the same situation I would be inclined to do the same thing to support the person I loved. (NOTE: I said "would be inclined to do the same thing" NOT that I would do it, because I would not.) The Beavan's household was obviously not filled with gender stereotypes, in fact, Michelle cooked her first meal for the family ever while making the movie, and it's obvious that her work is a major priority to her, and that she is well established in her field. There was also a little tiff between Michelle and Colin indicating that Colin probably did most of the dishes, and he was also seen doing cleaning and laundry. All I'm saying is that even though it seemed like this movie, and this family, revolved around the man.... I really think that if Michelle spear headed a project like this Colin would have been on board and played a similar role in it as she did.

I'd say they're project was a huge success. They really were able to make major lifestyle changes and stick to them for most of the year, which is huge. How many people would decide to go completely green and actually stick with it without making any major rule adjustments or finding solace in the comfort of a divorce. Really, our generation isn't meant to be without electricity, we're not. People may have lived for centuries without electricity or cars or internet shopping, but we are not those people, and I know for a fact that it would be a major problem for me, and most of the people I know, to make these drastic lifestyle changes. I definitely don't think I could stick to it, especially if it wasn't something I was particularly interested in.

Despite the fact that I am not willing to live my life without coffee or even half of the nail polish in my room, I think what the Beavan's did is great. They really made a lot of positive changes and as far as I know, they held on to a lot of those good habits. That's something we can all do. I might not be okay with washing my clothes with Borax in the bathtub, or turning off my refrigerator, but there's a really awesome farm near me that people buy time shares in, and then every other Saturday they get to go pick out the newest freshest vegetables. I know someone who does it, and she always comes in with awesome fresh produce, and it's helping a local business tremendously. There's definitely other ways to decrease your carbon footprint, and there are great ideas at noimpactproject.org. Check them out and see what changes you can make.

Websites that Suck

Today we went through a couple of the major Do's and Dont's of website building, and here are three things that I think are important to making a good website:


1.) It needs to be Quick and Easy to Navigate. There's a whole lot to be said for technology these days. You can send a text message from your phone at the movie theater and then find out what it was dreaming about while it was shut off during the movie. (I thought it would be cooler than it was, but if you're interested check it out here) but anyways, my point is that there's so many possibilities and cool things that we can do these days, but putting your whole bag of tricks into one website can be confusing. NOBODY wants to spend fifteen minutes navigating a webpage to find the information we need. We live in a world where the average person will redirect their search after a wait of three seconds. If someone can't find what they're looking for right away, then they're not going to bother spending the time looking for information that they could find somewhere else. Ideally, a person should be able to find all the information they need within three clicks.This website here is a great example of how cool technology can get in the way of the over all goal of the website. The graphics and things going on are super awesome, but I can't find what I'm looking for, so if I were a reader, I'd move on. So ultimately, show off your awesome skills, but keep it simple!

2.) It needs to be Easy To Read and/or Look At. If you want people to actually look at your website and find it enjoyable, you need to make sure that it doesn't give them a migraine (or a seizure...) Fancy fonts and colors can be fun, but too much stimulation can be tough on the eyes. If the words are hard to read the message is going to be hard to decipher, and since we live in such a high-tech world, people don't need to be bothered with a website that is esthetically unpleasing. There's a couple million more just like it that are less frustrating. If you're not sure what I"m talking about check out this webpage. I DO NOT support any part of the message or design process of this website... it's just an example of how crazy colored and mismatched font can be a major turn off.

3.) It needs to be Substantial and Informative....assuming that's what you're going for.  It needs to be direct, clear, entertaining, and most importantly correct. Grammar, spelling, pictures being in the right place, and appropriate content can make or break a website. If a person is trying to learn something, they're going to want to be confidence in your competence, and you can do that by providing them with the right information in a fun but not over the top way. This website here is example of how poor grammar and factual mistakes can make a person question the competence of the authors. This website is apparently about a kind of juice, but all of the information seems to be random comments from consumers written in all different ways with many spelling mistakes. There's a place for user commentary, but definitely not on the main page, and not without being labeled!

A good website should be all three of these things, but many are not. For a good laugh check out webpagesthatsuck.com and search through some of the stuff on there. What irritates you the most when going through the sites? How can you eliminate those factors in your websites?

Tree Hugging

Meeting My Tree

 So Friday in www.women.com we went Tree Hugging, in the most literal sense. We drove out into the woods of Elmira, and then were blindfolded, disoriented, and brought to our tree. We had ten minutes to get to know our tree before we were led back to where we met. We then had to find our trees without our blindfolds.

It sounds hard, that's what I thought at least. There were a whole lot of trees in the area, and I didn't know how I would possibly be able to tell one from the other, especially if I hadn't seen it. Some of the major characteristics of my tree that I committed to memory were the sound it made when I played it like a drum (don't laugh, it really worked! It made a funny rattling noise, and it vibrated all the way through when I did it), I also measured it's width by hugging it, noting that I could wrap my arms around it and touch my elbows, and there was also a funny knobby type thing right at the tip of my fingertips that I could feel.

Reunited!

Now, I don't know if I would be able to identify my tree a second time if I was blindfolded, or if it would have made a difference if I was more disoriented, but I was able to find my tree really quickly. I knew that I had to have been close to the street because I could hear the cars clearly, and I knew I was on an uphill slope - so once I took off my blindfold I had a good idea of the general direction I wanted to be in. Then there were only three trees with index cards on them. The first one I drummed on had the right sound, so I wrapped my arms around it and touched my elbows, then reached up and found the knob, so I knew it was mine. It was actually pretty fun. If you'd like to see a video of us stumbling around the forest hugging trees click here!



It was a really fun field trip, I like being outside and I liked watching everybody hugging their trees. I wouldn't say it necessarily made me feel closer to the environment, but it was a different and silly experience, and nothing like what I expected - which was something more along the lines of this....

So maybe I wasn't expecting this on our field trip on Friday, but, this video is what I think of when I hear the term "treehuggers". However, there are awesome and less frightening ways to be eco-friendly and this website is a great source of information on the environmentalist movement, so you should check it out! There's lots of awesome stuff from new environment friendly technology to bicycle sharing programs (and also a pretty awesome piece on house raiding baboons).

Til next time!

5.42

My Carbon Footprint vs. National Average

That's the number of Earth's we would need if everyone on the planet lived the same kind of lifestyle as I do, according to myfootprint.org. (What's your carbon footprint) I based my quiz answers off of my family's household, and I was surprised by that number because I thought we did a lot to conserve energy. We all take short showers (mostly because the water gets cold, but none the less), we recycle literally everything that we can because the town of Abington only allows one trash can and one recycling bin, we use energy saving light bulbs even though they really bother me because you can't see in the dark until they've had time to warm up, and by then you already stumbled around in the dark and found what you needed. We also grow our own vegetables, and have a compost in the back yard- but that's about all we do. There are two cars, one truck, on SUV, a boat, and three snowmobiles in the driveway. We have too many TVs to even talk about and we tend to forget to shut them off when we leave a room. We all travel pretty frequently and we don't usually use public transportation because it's not available in the suburban area where I live really.Unfortunately it looks like mine isn't the only family using up more than our fair share of resources.

Carbon Emissions at their Lowest since 1994

The first factoid I wanted to look into was the difference in carbon emissions in the U.S. since 2005. In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore showed that the United States had the highest rate of carbon emissions on the planet, at that time the carbon emissions were rated at about 7,147.2 million metric tons according to the U.S. Department of energy . In the past eight years though, the U.S. has made significant strides in decreasing its carbon footprint. According to Suzanne Golenburg, recent energy saving technology has brought us more than halfway to meeting President Obama's goal of cutting down our emissions by 17%. This is due to an increase in the use of hybrid cars, as well as natural gas and renewable energy such as solar or wind power over the past five years. China is now the world leader in carbon emissions, although we are still dramatically ahead of them per capita. Here's a nifty spread sheet from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that shows the carbon emissions from each country from 1980-2010. All the graphs and charts and numbers make me a little bit dizzy, and I definitely can see how there is conflicting information out there, but from what I can tell it looks like America is on its way towards becoming more eco-friendly, but we have a long way to go, and it would be a lot easier if everybody would get on board!

The other factoid I was interested in looking up was the cyclical climate changes that people use as a counter-argument for global warming. In An Inconvenient Truth Gore covered the basics. Greenhouse gases and other carbon emissions are thickening the outer layer of the atmosphere, which inhibits infrared rays from reflecting off the surface and then going back out to where they came from. Because the atmosphere is so thick the rays get stuck there, and they heat up our planet, which is melting the ice caps and glaciers which could flood the world as we know it. This is all information I studied in seventh grade Earth Science, but it's always been a little over my head. It sounds like a real thing to me, and it seems to make enough sense, and the Earth is getting warmer, so why not? I am curious, however, to see what this "warming cycle" Gore referred to in his presentation is, and what effect, if any, it might be having on what we consider to be global warming. An article from CNN by Manav Tanneeru in 2008 explained a little bit about the Earth's natural warming and cooling periods, which tend to last up to twenty-five years before switching directions, the last "global cooling" ended in 1975, which would indicate that these past twenty-three years have been a part of this natural process. Some scientists think that global warming is a phase, and that people on the bandwagon are crediting naturally occurring things to this phenomenon. Although it's possible that these things are part of a natural cycle, I can't help but think that the damage we're doing to the environment HAS to be having some effect on it, even if it's just adding insult to injury in a stage in a naturally occurring cycle.

So here's my REAL problem with global warming. Drowning polar bears make me sad and the idea of being cooked to death in my old age is somewhat disconcerting, but here's the worst of it: No more wine! I'll be cooked sober, and that's just unacceptable. Another article by Suzanne Goldenburg explained the repercussions of the climate change in popular wine producing areas such as Tuscany and Napa Valley. The harsh change in climate makes those places unsuitable to grow the grapes to make the vine. While the loss of this industry may be devastating for the economy in these areas, no worries! New areas that used to be unideal for grade growing may become more suitable by 2050.

This does NOT make me happy.

Getting Started

Why Hello There!

I'm Amanda. I'm 21 years old, and a Psychology major at Elmira College. I like babies, the color yellow, singing, and reading really outrageous summer romance novels. I made this blog for my Term III class, www.women.com with Dr. Maluso. I guess we're going to do some awesome hippy-dippy tree hugging exercises and I think it'll be a perfect way to end the crazy chaotic mess that has been my undergraduate education.
We're also going to be talking a little bit about hunting and fishing, which I could not be more thrilled about, partially because I really like fishing, but mostly because I really like watching Logan in stressful situations (which I think fishing might be for her). These next six weeks are the final stretch for me at EC, and although I'm super excited about this class, I cannot wait to be back at home.


Speaking of which....

Island Grove

I grew up in Abington, Massachusetts. It's a small town on the South Shore with a lot of history and a ton of heart, and I'm proud to call myself a townie. One of the most spectacular places in Abington is the Island Grove. The Island Grove is where I caught my first fish ever (it was a rainbow trout), where I learned how to swim, where I learned how to read, and where I have been employed as a camp counselor for the past six years.
My dad always wanted a son to pass on his legacy to. He wanted a boy to wake up at 4am to go fishing with, and spend hours in the shed fixing the snowmobiles with, and someone who would be ok with camping somewhere that wasn't a campground with electricity and public bathrooms - but he got me, so he had to make due. I hated waking up at four o'clock in the morning, and there's nothing I found more disgusting than putting a live worm on a hook, and as I reeled in a heavy line with a fish on it I would pray that it wouldn't be a pickerel because they have sharp teeth, and I would have to unhook it myself - but those are skills not everybody has, and it gave me a real appreciation for the outdoors, so I'm definitely excited to learn a little bit more about the environment while getting to spend some time outside!