Nearing the end of the semester, on my very last day of finals (yes, Ms. Procrastination at her finest), I sat atop the Hilltop, staring out from Main Building. The shiny glimmer of the carpet of the grass of the soccer field was a beautiful thing, accompanied by feelings of nostalgia, and memories of past academic frustrations, past debaucherous activities, and past romances. A lot has happened on this campus, but reflecting on the moment through an hour was much more impactful than.
My view of the walk to Main Building before the sun came down.
“I am glad I will not be young in a future without wilderness,” by Aldo Leopold comes to mind first. Though, might I add, it was slightly depressing to see my generation being the ones who have failed to sustain the earth properly and let it get to this state of danger.
As I reflected on the past semester, it was as if the emotions of the moment blended in and mirrored the colors of the brilliant sky. I was sad I could not do this blog at a cool part of the Green Belt, but realized that I was underappreciating what some call the best view of the Austin skyline.
I was grateful for the weather, nice, sunny, breezy. The sun was coming down at the hour, reminding me of when I sat in the same spot as a freshman entering college, one night when I was still heartbroken from a first-semester-in-college-ever romance. Ridiculous. But hey, memories.
I tried to stay positive in my experience. It was wonderful sitting in the grass, almost manicured to perfection. I loved the smell of it, the feel of it. The view of the skyline shined brightly, though pictures never do it justice. Ever. It’s just one of those things you have to see for yourself. And I felt badly for anyone who has not had the often-corny driveby of the hill above the soccer field. Main Building itself was glowing with years of maintenance and reparation.
It wasn’t a beautiful and glorious Green Belt visit, but it was most definitely a beautiful place. Someone once told me, “St. Edward’s is some sort of fairytale world. Nothing goes wrong. Everyone’s rich. It’s weird” and so it goes, he dropped out of the school.
I thought about him and what he said. It was sad, because I agreed with him, at least partially. It was, at times, creepily true and yet here I was — perfect and manicured — but also sort of a Lego Land. Not to mention, the sustainability initiatives of this school were not as great compared to other schools like UT, which has Green plans set in place for the entire University.
As I reflected on this crazy train of thought and then was swiftly interrupted by someone who wanted to take their graduation photos. Moving to another part of the field, I noticed more and more people approach the area, probably to take their graduation pictures, too. I was a little disappointed with this, since I was expecting to have a nice and silent moment on the hilltop, but of course, it was too much to ask for seeing as everyone was nearing the end of their finals.
I reflected on the word cloud: “nature,” “time,” “water,” “tree.” Plenty of nature and trees and they were absolutely “beautiful,” but it was the “water,” subtley balanced on each leaflet of grass, that really had me going on a mind tangent. And time — it ticks by pretty slowly when you’re waiting but goes by so fast when you’re living presently. There’s just something about Main Building’s view of the skyline that makes you think, and also feeling slightly jealous of an inanimate building because if you were Main Building, you’d wake up to the most beautiful view, every morning until there are no mornings left.
In the word cloud, I also noticed smaller appreciations of nature like the words “bloom,” “people,” and “wildlife.” It really is underappreciated and I feel like it’s not the bigger words that matter as much as the smaller words, the ones that aren’t used as often but speak for the entire experience.
I was surprised at a few things:
1. “year” is slightly up there in words used. I suspect time was just as important as nature in these reflections.
2. “Leopold” was surprisingly underused. I was surprised since that’s one of the requirements is to have a quote by him.
I reflected on the things I learned in this very mindfully impactful class. Environmental Science taught me a lot, especially through the debates on Atrazine, bushmeat and climate change. I also grew an appreciation (or greater appreciation) of local businesses in Austin because of my final project. And I learned the scary facts about climate change, having to rid of fossil fuels by the year 2050 to make an impact on the current sustainability of the globe.
I was sad about our role in environment matters. “Our” as in the current generation, and past generations leading from the Industrial Revolution when we started producing more than was within our capacity. I was proud that as the generations grow closer, each year seemed to get closer and closer to understanding the real urgency of the matter. Younger generations really led a movement to environmental sustainability, and once we take Big Money companies out of politics, perhaps one of these days, we can actually pass bipartisan legislation to better protect the environment and lower our national carbon footprint.
The class was a great crash course on subject matters that probably spread on for miles in stacked research papers. It was challenging to remember all of the information and sometimes it could be very overwhelming to study for tests, but I really enjoyed the class a lot.
Thank you, Dr. Wasserman, for being the realest! You’re obviously very passionate about the subject matter, and I loved seeing you nerd out at certain monkey types. I will miss having you as a professor, and believe me you, I don’t say that too often to any of my professors.