Thursday, December 11, 2008

A Kewl Blog

So I went on the serch to find an interesting blog and I found one it called Green blog, the link is http://www.green-blog.org/green-blog/. I really enjoy the lay out of the blog and find it real easy to navigate my way around. This blog was orginally started to give you green news around the world but they couldnt keep up with it and shut it down in the beginning of 2007 and restared it up in June 2007. But this time they took a different approach and decided to get outside writers to write for them on different green topics that go in in the world. I like it because I can find out about things that arent just going on in my country and seeing what other places i n the world are doing to make a better change.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Museum Of Natural History and My Experience

I recently visited the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York and it is quite an enjoyable experience. The last time I visited this museum was in high school but I had an agenda to fill for a project and did not get to enjoy it in the mix of everything. There where four halls that I visited the Hall of Planet Earth, Hall of Bio-Diversity, Hall of New York State Environment, and the Hall Of Human Origins. The two halls I found most interesting were the Hall of Planet Earth and Bio-Diversity. The Hall of Human Origins did strike some interest but I was not as intrigued as the other two I listed.





Picture of Ice Core, Credit: Denis Finnin



When I first walked into the Hall of Planet Earth It covered a lot of topics we have discussed in our Ecology and Human Spirits in the beginning half of our class. The first thing I layed my eyes on was a piece of giant ice in pole form.I thought this giant piece of ice was real cool you can see all the variation between the years how they measure the carbon monoxide in the atmosphere. This particular ice of is from the Greenland and measure time from 88,670 BC to 5671 BI.



The Hall of Planet Earth caught me by awe there were all these different size scales of rocks and minerals that were simply amazing. One thing that caught my eye for quite sometime was these large sulfide chimney found in Juan De Fuca Ridge called Godzilla. Godzilla was found in 1991 and it collapsed in 1996. While Godzilla was still around it stood 47 meters and the water that traveled through it was at the temperature of 302 degrees centigrade. The Godzilla is made up of quite a few minerals they are chalcoprite, copper-iron suffide, zinc-iron,wurtzite, calcium, suffate anhydrite iron sulfide,oxide, and silica. The composition of all these minerals leave this sulfide chimney with a beautiful interior. The sulfide chimney holds a beautiful crystal like interior with gray undertones where it gets rich in gray color through out the chimney. There are as well these beautiful purple undertones mixed in with the gray and leaves an gorgeous sight. The chimney holds over all an odd beauty gorgeous on the inside but quite ugly on the outside. When the Godzilla collapsed in 1996 over the next year another spire grew 20 meters high in it's place. Nature truly works in some amazing ways. This is a picture of sulfide chimney like the Godzilla but a little smaller and is found in Mothra Field. Picture Unknown, founded on http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/hottopics/names.html



Then my feet lead me to the Hall of Biodiversity and I peer my eyes through this glassed area saw all these different trees with unique exotic animals throughout it. It is a replica of the Dzanga-Sangha rain forest in Africa. In Africa they have develop reserve to help to protect the ecosystem. The local people where still able to live on the reserve and as well work on it. Humans are biggest threat to the forest through actions of extracting timber and diamonds, killing of animals, clearing the land of its agriculture and other basic needs really put this land in jeopardy. Some hunting in this land is okay for peoples basic needs of eating. Unfortunately commercial hunting puts a lot of pressure on the people and they illegally set up snares and traps to kill the bush meat (gorillas). Cable hunting is not allowed but is what is used by most of the hunters this type of hunting is the most devastating to the wildlife. People do not check there traps on a daily bases which leave the animals to die and the meat go rotten, as well as the animals captured are left to prey to predators, and there are times the animals that are captured are lost. About 1/3 of animals that are captured are lost. So a place that was set up to protect the land and animals is still beaning attacked in many ways. I found that to be a really twisted scenario and just kept wondering there got to be something more these people can do to protect this area before it all disappear before there eyes.

Overall I found my trip to the museum to very interesting to me. I learned many new things and it as well retaught me things that I forgot from my early a education. I loved to here the children in the background fascinated by all the different things as they learned new things. Plus i was able to find a couple of interesting topics that allowed me to do outside research cause I wanted to know more than what they told me on the little cards. By the end of the trip I made a kool friend which was one of my classmates.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Cultural Extinction


I did not really know what I wanted to write my paper on for a while and it was a real struggle for me to find something to focus on. I felt anything I was chosen would make me sound like racist cause I was not exactly sure what the paper was asking me what to write about. Then I sat down and really thought what the paper was asking for. Once I figured that out I had to find a topic I was interesting and how I wanted to approach it. It was a struggle for a long time for me to find a topic I wanted to focus on until I visited the Museum of Natural History. As I was walking through the museum I found a an exhibit on cultural extinction. I found this real interesting on how other people are destroying people and there cultural completely. The group of people I found to be real interesting where the indigenous people of west Siberia the Khanty - Mansi people. I am going to focus on how oil drilling that started about fifty years ago. These people have died in a short period of time at least two-thirds of people have been killed from the many effects of the oil drilling. I find this to be very shocking that a cultural can be completely lost to benefit other people's consumer needs. I am writing to all people espically students. Students tend to have the loudest and most active voice when comes to protesting and making a change. I also would like to see posted in an internaional news because people all over the world are using this oil and are not paying attention to the people they are killing off. Siberia is not just land where people are sent for imprisonment but actually people live and strive off this land and use it for it's best abilities but at the same time they see everything getting taken away from them.

Odd Beauty That Destroies Our Spirits

"The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity." - Chris Jordan
I like Chris Jordan feel the sight of these industrial ports contain an image that are "even darkly beautiful". You look at these industrial and shipping ports and you think how gross it is how much we just consume and throw to waste. Then you do some thinking and wonder how much of these waste can actually be useful. I love the art and beauty of vintage cars and I see how they cars just crushed and just piled up and it crushes me. Cause I think how you can take those old cars and reuse that metal for so many things or make new cars for people use that can have environmentally safe engines and recycled cars parts from old cars. You can take old beauty and refurbish it into new beauty. The dark part behind it is just sits there and goes to waste but still poses a twisted beauty.

Photo by Chris Jordan from exhibit Intolerable Beauty Portraits of American Mass Consumption 2003- 2005 http://www.chrisjordan.com/



"I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits." - Chris Jordan
The thing I would like to focus on is how we are destroy planet at the same time we our destroying our spirits more than anything. I feel in today's world as the future we are slowly loosing how to appreciate the simpler things in life. Like people have become such technology junkies and feel the need to get the newest things out there. Mean while the things that people already own are perfectly fine. For example by the end of this year you will see people start throwing out all there T.V.'s for new digital ones. Which really does not make sense because they could just go out and by a converter box for less money and then there T.V. will be able to work on the new digital network. Which really is the simpler thing in life. I have the same T.V. in my living room from 1984 which works perfectly fine all I'm going to do is buy the converter box. I chose the simpler and more cost efficient approach in these tough economic times to keep my old T.V. and just get a converter box. People these days are quick to through something out that is in good condition and replce it with something else because it is the new it thing, instead of apperciate what they have and turning it into something better. But there are people that decide to take what other people consider junk and turn it into some thing new. The people that do that there spirts are not lost into consumerism but apperciate the simple things that are out there and given to them or what they find.

I give dumpster divers alot of respect because they take old simple things and turn them into new treasures. I have never actually jumped into a dumpster but I have picked up things from the crubside. I have found peices of furniture that have become useful in my home and if not in mine I see if any of my friends can make use of it. I have also found some really cool book and old magazines. I hav read the books and passed them onto my friends to spread the knowledge and I know people that collect old magazines so I have given it to them. I as well have donated things I have found to different shelters or organizations that can make use of them. There are many churches in my area that have afterschool programs and homeless shelters so they are always willing to take things and find use of them. A friend of my mines mom worked in really wealthy areas as a cleaning lady and sometime on her way home she would find really great peices of furniture on the crub waiting for garbuage to come pick it up and toss it in some hole. Alot of these peices of furniture would cost alot of money and people didnt care cuase there menaing of value was something else. So my friends mom would takes these peices of furniture and toss them in her car and bring them home. She would refurbish them and polish them they would look brand new. She would find use of them in her home or give them away to someone else who could use it but she shore hated people seeing things go to waste. My aunt as well is a painter and she likes to paint different wood peices. She was working on a moral in a house and they were going to throw out this beautiful wodden rocken chair she decided to take it home with her. My aunt stripped the wood and painted different peices all over it and gave it to her husband as a birthday gift. So my aunt took something nobody wanted and turned it into a work of art as well as gift to someone. I'm not saying we should all go out and jump into dumpsters cuase it is not something im necessarily comfortable yet to do but, the next time ur walking down the sidewalk dont just look at the stuff on the crub as trash because there can be some useful peices there.

Photo by Unknown, http://www.planebuzz.com/Inspirational---Discover-Dumpster-Diving-Poster-C12085747.jpeg

Unfortunately thoughI feel our spirits have become consumer absorbed instead of appreciating the simple classic things.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

My life is busier than I thought




I usually am a huge consumer on the regular I actually take a lot of pleasure in shopping. I love fashion and I love shopping for it. Lately my economic situation has not allowed me to go shopping for much the past two months. But usually I can spend about five to ten hours alone a weekend or during the week for shopping just for clothes, shoes, and accessories to find the right combination of things that work with the stuff I already have and to make new outfits. It is truly one of my passion because at one point I even aspired a career in the fashion world. I love to buy fashion magazines there are three major ones I always buy that is Vogue, Elle, and Nylon. I read those magazines from front to back and absorb it all. That reading takes about ten hours a month of my time. But when it comes to any other shopping for like groceries or basic needs I spend the most is two hours a week.
I do watch TV some weeks I watch more than others but on average the most I’ll watch TV is ten hours. The computer is not my friend but I use it when I need to for very few things and the two major things I use it for is school and to check my e-mail. So my time I spend it varies on how much school work I have to do but I’ll say the most I use the computer total in a week is twenty hours. There is one thing that I use all the time all day long and that is my cell phone, it is insane the amount of hours I spend on it. I can spend anywhere from fifty to a hundred hours on my cell phone. Working out is a big part of my life I spend between eight and ten hours a week.
I love to do photography, draw, and paint but I don’t do it all the time. What I do the most often when I have time is photography. That can take a lot of time if I am not just shooting pictures and decide to develop my own film and spend time in the dark room it can take up twenty four hours in a week. Photography as well is not the most earth friendly thing because sometime I waste few sheets of paper on making the right print as well as the chemicals that are used are extremely toxic to the environment.
I spend whatever time is free between school and work the rest is spent with my man, mom or friends. That is straight relaxing and no work I can not really put a time frame on of the time I spend with them because it varies so much.

Photo;http://www.ximnet.com.my/thelab/images/upload/FF_70_brain1_f.jpg

Friday, October 3, 2008

My Goal

For the longest I can remember I have always had people around me to support me and tell me to follow my passion. I have been lucky as well to be surrounded by people that have followed there passions which have inspired me to follow my own. I have come across many different people that have told me I need to have one thing I should want to do with myself, especially people in my schooling have told me this. Then one day someone told me you can have many passions in life that you want to complete some will be more important than others but that is for you to choose but just do what you love and enjoy. I always agreed with that person because there are many different things a I want to do with my life.

Since I have been in High School some where in my freshmen year I wanted to get into the field of psychology. When I first graduated high school I did not get into college right away I took sometime off and just worked. I realized working was not going to allow me to follow one of my biggest passions which is to work in psychology. Since I had messed up in high school and did not have the greatest GPA I decided to go to LaGuardia Community College to get focus on what I wanted to do again. After this semester I will graduate with an Associates in Liberal Arts Social Science and Humanities. From there I am going to attend either Queen or Hunter College to get my Bachelors in psychology and eventually lead to my PhD in psychology.

With my in PhD I feel I will be able to help people in many different ways . One thing I want to focus on is all the psychological drugs that are being prescribe to our children and adolescence. I feel a lot of children and adolescences are being mis-diagnosed or over prescribed drugs. I do not over object the use of psychological drugs because they are needed at times but I want to see them used properly. I feel people are becoming to dependent on drugs and there needs to be a real change.

Photo Founded: http://www.alz.org/braintour/images/00a.jpg

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Does my Daily Life play a major effect on the enviroment



There things I do in my life that are not necessarily eco-firendly but I try my best to be. Today I happened to take two showers today. The first shower was in the mourning after I was done working out. The next shower I took was after I got out of work. I try to keep my showers under ten minutes. There are times when my showers can be fifteen to twenty minutes though that when I have to wash my hair and shave the legs. The reason I try to keep my showers as short as possible so I do not waste that much water. I also had to travel from Queens to the Bronx to my man's house the choice of transportation I choose was public transportation. I have my driver's license but I choose not to own a car and take public transportation instead. I know it is still not good for the environment because buses use gas and trains use electricity which put toxins into the air. I do feel taken public transportation is a little better than driven a personal car because it transport more people in one shoot than just a few people. As well I think people abuse the option of haven a personal car because people will drive just around the block or few blocks away just to go to the store instead of walking. In this day I also went grocery shopping but I did not use the stores plastic or paper bags that store provides I brought my own bags. That I know I'm doing something all around good for the environment because plastic bags are not bio-degradable plus I am not wasting plastic bags.
I do not do much for the environment but I do some things. First I bring my own bags to the supermarket. Second thing I do is recycle my metals and plastics. I also recycle paper two ways. The first way I recycle paper is when I print things if I do not need the paper anymore I will print on the opposite side. The other thing I do is recycle any other paper products. I also try to walk to places instead of taken other means transportation. In my house if I'm not using an electrical appliance I will keep it unplug so it does not use any form of energy. I also use florescent light bulbs because they use less energy plus they last longer and my energy bill is less. As well I do not leave lights on in the house if nobody is using the room or if they are not needed. When I'm out in public and I have garbage i do not just throw it on the floor where I please I wait to dispose of it in the garbage.
I have many different concerns about the environment because it is everything we are surrounded by plus it can slowly destroy us. The drastic temperature changes that have been going on the past few years scares me because it triggers a lot of different things. Such as the glaciers melting at rapid speed will end up leaving us with no fresh water eventually. We as well will see places we love to go visit be buried under water. Another concern of mine is the damage cars are doing to the environment. There is research done all over the world to show we do not need to use oil to run cars that there are other options That wont do damage to the environment. This something people need to start investing in instead of the gas guzzling machines