sarahj's blog

This is my post that was due on Thursday.  I sprained my ankle this week and end up on crutches at the end of the week, so walking to my spot by Perry House became impossible.  Or, not impossible, but suddenly it involved a lot more energy on my part.  It became so much farther away even though the garden is still the exact same measured distance from my dorm. 

I live in Merion a very centrally located dorm which is a good part of its appeal to me.  But, when relegated to crutches, it seems a lot less appealing.  I remember walking from the health center back to Merion after being given the crutches and thinking that I would never make it back to my room.  That slightly inclined driveway by cartref became a mountain.  I was panting by the time I got to the road by Dalton.  My underarms were beginning to feel battered and bruised...later I would look to see deep red marks and splatters where I assume some of my veins had burst.  My good leg, my left leg, was burning and my arms were startng to shake from bearing so muc weight.  I had to pause and rest three or four times on my way back to my room.  This experience replicated itself everytime I had to go out that day...and all I kept thinking about was getting myself to Perry House to do this post.  I didn't get there, although I suppose I could have asked the Lantern van to take me there at night.  However, I'm not a fan of being in secluded out door spaces by myself at night.  I decided to cross that bridge when I have two good ankles on w

As I stood in the garden adjacent to Perry House the sounds held most of my attention and although many of them came from man-made instruments, it was the sounds that came from the leaves, wind and non-human life that were most memorable.  To illustrate my response to my environment I am providing the following video.  It captured how musical and harmonized the outside "natural" world sounded to me that afternoon.  If I could find a piece of music that had a few instances of man-made sounds such as people talking, cars driving by and airplanes overhead, I would add that.  Maybe I'll keep looking.

Foliage

‘Foliage’ from Oxford English Dictionary Online

Etymology: The English word foliage is an altered form foillage, which comes from the French words fueillage and foillage which in turn stem from the French feuille leaf.  It comes from “foil”, meaning “leaf od a plant” and from the suffix “-age”, which forms  “nouns denoting something belonging or functionally related to what is denoted by the first element (and sometimes denoting the whole of a functional apparatus collectively), as leafage n., luggage n., roomage n., signage n., vaultage n., etc.”

It has the following meanings:

Foliage n.

1. The leaves (of a plant or tree) collectively; leafage (1601)

1a. In Art: The representation of leaves, etc. used for decoration or ornament (1598)

1b. A representation of a cluster of leaves, sprays, or branches (1699)

It has several compounds:

C1.

A1. Foliage-border n. (1891)

A2. Foliage-stem n. (1884)

A3. Foliage-trimming n. (1818)

      B1. foliage-bound adj. (1805)

C2.

The sight I chose to revisist throughout the semester is the garden beside Perry House and one of the features of that garden also happens to be the photo I chose to be my map of Bryn Mawr.  

            I’ve never been very good at wandering or walking without any sort of plan.  Hence the reason a planned to circle the campus out edges and then explore its inner parts.  Of course, like with any sort of plan, it inevitably changed. I began my walk after brunch, around noontime, heading down Erdman Driveway.  In this part of campus, the boundaries were very clear, usually marked by sidewalks or beautifully trimmed bushes.  After deciding that these boundaries were easily identified, I turned my attention toward my surroundings, marveling at the clear sky with perfect clouds and reading license plates.  Eventually my gaze fell upon this little white house right beside the Admissions parking lot.  Here began my true saunter and my plan began to fade away.  I was able to identify the building as the site of Human Resources and continued through the parking lot to take a look at the next never-before-seen sight.  After learning that the gate to Admissions was adorned with lanterns given to the college by the Alumnae Association to celebrate past, present and future Mawrters, I turned the corner onto Yarrow Street and was met with a yet another gateway that presented me with a little bit of a conundrum.

Hello everyone! I'm Sarah Shaw and I'm a senior English major at BMC.

My Happiness Ranking

1. Campus Center Parking Lot

2. English House

3. Dalton Staircase

4. Park 20

5. Morris Woods