WEEK 9

The Final Journal Entry.

Phenological side by side changes!

Top: September 28th

Bottom: December 4th

Left: September 28th

Right: December 4th

1) How has your perception of your observation site changed through the quarter?

I have become more in tune with nature this quarter.  In tune to me meaning that I was self-aware that I was looking around more.  I was looking up to see what the tops of the trees looked like more.  I was looking up more to see if I could see the birds I hear chirping.  I then was also looking down more to see if I could see mushrooms and fungi.  I went to visit my nature spot in Ravenna right after our rainy mycology workshop and I was thinking to myself, oh I should be looking for some mushrooms on my way down to my site, and I immediately saw some I had never seen before.  And then another one.  And then another.  Going home for Thanksgiving, I live north of Seattle, I realized I was missing out on the-usual-relatives-asking-"How is college going?" because I saw a bird or two in the trees outside the dining room window.  The best part about that anecdote but I turned to Same, my brother and was like, "look, birds" and that was all it took for us to start trying to ID them.

2) How has your sense of the Puget Sound Region changed through the quarter?

 Well my sense changed because frankly I knew where it was now.  I have a terrible sense in direction and its taken me, and is still taking me, everyday of keen observation to learn where I am in the world and in Seattle.  I realized when I was on the bus to downtown once that while I was on the bus I could be not only trying to figure out the grid of Seattle and UW, but I could also be taking all that bus time to be figuring out where I was in the Puget Sound Region and the Puget Trough.  That, I must say, was harder than figuring out where on UW campus I was, but I tried, and several times I was able to pull out a map that we looked at in class and orient myself with that map instead of the one on my phone. 

3) What does it mean to intimately know a natural place? 

Intimately knowing a place to me means, knowing it well enough to predict what is going to happen to it next.  I tried a lot each week to imagine what I think would have changed before I even got there so that I could see if I was right, therefore, I was testing myself to see if I even knew the place as well as I thought I did.  I think intimately knowing a place means that you love and care for it.  I have taken trash out of my place because I found it there one day and I was appalled and I did not want that to be in my area of all areas. I also consider myself to have an intimate relationship with the Puget Sound Region. Since this class I have traveled to several, and by no means not all, key and awesome places rich in natural history that have given me a better sense of the region and I have always lived here and I plan to always live here which fosters my love of the region even more.

 Cassie Maylor signing off