In order to fully understand my spot, one has to understand the context in which it lies.The best way i could think to do that was in a video. I wanted everyone to see how my location lies between the borders of our campus. It is far away from the interior castle, yet is not quite on the outside. WHile I feel incredibly isolated there, I am consistenly followed by the presence of people. I can see the Rhoads Patio, where several students emerged while I was sitting, and encoutered several landscape works who cut the grass around me. I am in an indealised locaiton between the exterior and interior of the campus, not quite apart from the center of the school, but not quite away from it either.

Today was my first observation period at the Stephen R. Miller bench, located in the North West corner of Haverford’s campus. The bench is located on a hill in a section of the campus/Haverford Arboretum known as the Ryan Pinetum, and provides an excellent view of the Pinetum’s field and the college Nature Trail. As I was settling into the bench I began to debate by myself of whether the spot would be considered an isolated section of campus or not. There is plenty to suggest that it is relatively accessible, including a trail leading from the Nature Trail that passes right by the bench on a loop of the Pineteum’s field, the occasional hiker and jogger passing by (including one who had left his running shoes on the bench while he ran in the field), and the Haverford field hockey field being 100 feet behind the bench. But at the same time, there existed multiple signs that contradict the notion that the bench is not isolated including, the overgrown weeds and plants surrounding and beneath the bench , the great distance I had to walk from the main part of campus to the bench and the pine trees surrounding the bench which blocked the bench from view from most angles. Besides debating the question of whether the spot was peaceful isolated or not, I also took in how the sights and sounds that I was able to perceive at the current moment might not be there as autumn progressed.

"And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair" - Kahlil Gibran

SIGHTS

Yellow little sunflowers

Sparkling rocks

Sunlight blanketing treetops and bushes

Dead leaves

Falling leaves

Students in hats, carrying books

Hazy sky

SMELLS

Grass

Roses

TOUCH

Wind on face and in hair

Grass in my fingers

Chills (shoulders, spine)

TASTE

Watermelon (just came from lunch)

BEYOND THE SENSES

Foggy mind (need more sleep? too much concentration?)

Slight fear of upcoming Organic Chemistry Lab (in 10 min.)

Thoughts on how to improve mental clarity and improve mental endurance

1. possibly consulting less "academic" sources to see how real-life teachers use technology in their classrooms. i.e. tips/how to , blogs

2. talk about teaching, learning, classrooms 

3. more online engagement outside of the classroom? a more of an “insider” approach might prove useful as not everyone is fluent

4. examples of technologies that have successfully been incorporated into the classroom 

5. share experiences of teachers (yours or that you have observed) using technology in the classroom and how it benefits or hinders learning. 

6. continue to think about how and why I use social media 

7. analyze Clark's methods of proof in his texts and to assure me of the validity of his arguments 

8. discuss Clark's main ideas and how they are/can be applied to the classroom

9. Share about specific person we know and how technology access might affect them

10. to possibly teach/discuss the benefits/disadvantages of technology and see how it can add to human life but not control it or take it over 

I've created an archive of the tweets to #netloged255.  The URL is:

http://bit.ly/Uhb0YA

You can look here to refer back to tweets that are more than 7 days old. The archive will auto-update and collect all the new tweets once a day.

Remember, you have to be tweeting from a public account (not a locked/private one) for your tweets to show up in a search for #netloged255!

After our discussion in class last week about what a female offender looks like, and our reading of "The Real Cost of Prison Project" graphic strip, I see many of the intersections between what we wrote on the board, like "overpolicing" and the overcriminalization of drugs, leading so many of the women pictured in the graphic to prison and all the other consequences that came with their arrest (losing children, not being able to get a job, etc). Reading Alexander's book, however, has gotten me really upset about how hard people fought to criminalize drugs, especially in the 1980s, especially in the war on crack cocaine (used largely by African Americans), and how that vendetta is still so prevalent in our public consciousness today that drug rehabilitation is hard to come by, when offenders are shipped off to prison instead. 

Reading (the DEA officer) Stutman's quote from Alexander's book, on page 52, about how he had to lobby to make drugs an issue that Washington (as a symbol for the government as a whole) would care about and work to combat. I was kind of appalled by the idea of the media lapping at the DEA's story, since "crack was the hottest combat reporting story to come along since the Vietnam War". Making a great, sensationalized story for the masses is not reason enough to create harsh laws and punishment that will impact offenders, too many of whom like the women from "The Real Cost of Prison Project", will be hurt in such a negative and unforgiving way. 

I began my first observation this morning at the Conservation/Wildflower Area by simply observing what I could see right in front of me. But as the hour wore on I began to think more about two things- the rheomode that we talked about in class yesterday, and the multitude of sensory input that I was getting, just sitting on a bench by the garden. I decided to try to use the rheomode and to play with the idea of the five senses. I only realized later that by using the five senses to describe my experience I was negating a big part of the rheomode itself by being so anthropocentric. I also noticed that when I’m trying to write in the rheomode, it’s easiest for me to use passive voice. Anyway, a poem in the “rheomodist” style:

Streaming, inviting, bright morning light looks warm

Sounds of moist, chilly dew

Ugly, grating sound of traffic

Vibrant, bright colors of flowers feel beautiful

Open, inviting, exciting, the taste of the view from the platform

Cold, smoldering with damp, the sound of the air

Rough wooden bench smells of mold

Sounding warm and damp like bells- the flowers

Whooshing, swaying, verdant breeze

Tasting the sparkling light

Seeing the hulking lawnmower- an intrusion on the scene?

Flying, fluttering, turning like tops- freedom of birds

Rough and sad concrete platform

Dark, inviting, peaceful shade

Interacting with the bright morning is good for the soul