Today is Wednesday. i officially have no classes today and so i am just sitting around, taking it easy; though i am not idle. One thing i did this morning was to write, in spanish, a letter to a forum at http://linuxmaya.truzone.org. This is the Linux Maya portal for linux users in Yucatan. The reason i wrote them, and the topic that i wrote to them about was regarding my search for a project to work on while i am in Mexico during the winter.
For the final two weeks stay in the Yucatan, all the students have to work on an independent project of some sort. So far, i have not come up with anything certain that i would like to do. The only two things i have thought of are related to using Linux. The first is teaching it in an informal environment. Simliar to what i did in Ghana. The second thing is doing research on the use of Linux in Yucatan. I have not thought of any other ideas.
I know there must be a million things i would like to do for those two weeks on my own, but i can not think of any. Any suggestions? I have asked the people at Linux Maya, and i am asking the readers here. And i will ask more people too.
I feel very happy about my letter in spanish that i just wrote. It is my first. I hope it is readable. I wrote this:
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Buenas dias todos. Por favor, disculpe me espanol. Tengo solemente seise semanas de practicar. Empieze apprender en Septiembre.
Que queiro pedir es este. Pueden alguien ayudanme encontrar un proyecto en Yucatan ese trabador con Linux y ensenanza, o otras son bien tambien. Por ejemplo, algo donde ensano a los gentes informalmente para Linux. Tal vez otro es puedo investigo para la uso de Linux en Yucatan. O, algos ideas esta bien para me. No se tantos ideas, pero necesito y quiero algunos.
Soy estudiante de universidad de College of The Atlantic, en Bar Harbor Maine, USA. Tengo mas o menos cuatro anos de experienca con Linux. Y tengo experiencia con ensanando computadores a la gentes.
Durante de la invierno, por catorce semanas, Siete de Deciembre hasta quincede Marzo vivire en Merida. Por dos semanas, a la fin de tiempo alli, tengo a un proyecto, y otra vez, quiero lo hacer con Linux. Lo puede mismo al trabajado de practica.
Tienen ideas algunas?
Espero estar claro.
Por favor, me escriben con todo ideas tienen. Gracias!
-Chris
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Yup. I wrote it all by myself. I only had to seek help from a dictionary about 5 times. Studying 2 hours on average daily is paying off. :-)
Something i thought about when i was studying yesterday, or maybe it was when i was writting my blog last night was what will happen to my english after i am speaking spanish for 14 weeks straight. I was thinking that upon my return might be a really good time to come back and take an enlish composition course. I might as well continue to work on speaking and writing english better too. It might be a bit dusty too after not speaking it so regularly for such a long time.
Guess what!? On the thusday before halloween i am organizing a pumkin painting day with a bunch of little kids in Bar Harbor. I do not know where i got the idea from, but i think it will be fun to do and i am sure it will make a lot of people happy.
Pretty much what i am going to do is find about 3 people to go with me, about 15 small pumpkins to paint, and the painting supplies to do the painting and go to a daycare center in town called Kids Corner and have a day of painting pumkins with the kiddies.
I will hopefully be able to get all of the stuff that i need donated to me. The pumkins will be coming from my college, and the painting supplies should be provided by the Kids Corner managment, then the volunteers who come with me will help do the work (or play?) It ought to be fun, and a interesting experience.
That’s about it.
-Chris
Posted by drpooville_Admin as College Of The Atlantic at 1:27 PM PDT
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Draft 2
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Chris Ward
Human Ecology
You, Them and Me: Countdown to Self-Destruction?
(I am Comparing only the New England landscape when it was controlled by Native Americans and after colonial settlers moved in. However I believe the ideas expressed here are applicable across larger contexts such as any civilization that prospered by accumulating wealth within society through ‘free’ extraction of the earths’ resources.)
Native American Indians, for many thousands of years, lived as one with the land on the North American continent. The land was well populated with life of all kinds. Then within only a short few hundred years the landscape changed entirely, leaving only traces of the once thriving antecedents. Where before, in the pre-colonial days, American landscapes changed in a very natural and more or less gradual way that allowed life to adapt to the changes. Today, the land changes with an unnatural and violent quickness. This leaves almost nothing with the capacity to survive unless humans take special care for preservation. What North America’s landscapes and its’ Natives experienced was something it had never encountered before; it was not human, but a human concept; it was an idea, a mere way of thinking that changed the world entirely; it was: wealth, derived from the robbing earth of its’ natural capital.
William Cronon, the author of Changes in the Land summed it up well when he said “[By] choice…Indian populations of the pre-colonial northern forests had relatively little impact on the ecosystems they inhabited.” (Cronon, Changes in the Land, 41) Indians that inhabited the New England area in pre-colonial times had a different concept of their relationship to the land. It is said by Cronon that the Indians abide by an understood system of usufructuary property rights; “property rights, in other words, [which] shifted with ecological use.” (Cronon, 63 ) They thought of land not as property–something that in itself could be “owned” by one person or group as though it was a private gift from nature–but instead they saw land as the place where the necessities of life could be captured to sustain life, perhaps even at a comfortable level. They considered the land as not being owned by anyone, and so, in general, all inhabitants unquestionably shared it. Everyone had equal rights to live off the land. The only property that was acknowledged and respected by the Indians were objects that existed after some amount of physical labor was exerted into the creation of the object, such as meat, corn from crops, flint stones, wood for fires and housing, etc. Indians also did not respect the idea of wealth by accumulation of objects of property that were not of any immediate, life sustaining use. There is no doubt that the Indians of New England had an impact on New England’s’ ecology. However in comparison to what was to come when the colonists began to appear with their ideas on wealth and property ownership, the Indians ecological footprint, or “the ecological impact of [their] activities as measured in terms of the area of biologically productive land and water required to produce the goods consumed and to assimilate the wastes generated” (Environmental Studies, http://scilib.ucsd.edu/~pcchau/ENVR30/reader/glossary.html) theirs must have been significantly smaller.
In contrast to the Indians thinking that land should have “open access” and should be considered “non-property” (Rights to Nature, Hanna, Susan, et. al. Pg. 4), the American settlers brought with them and imposed a strict law-based system of private, completely sovereign ownership of land and all its resources. Settlers could squat on any property that was unclaimed or they could purchase land from higher-level authorities that already claimed ownership of the land. All they had to do to have ownership of land formally recognized was “improve it.” Once the land was “improved” after acquisition (usually acquisition from Indians who had once roamed freely on it), any resources contained within the property’s boundary such as trees, water, air or soil were also contracted out in the deal. The recognition of private ownership of the land balances on this idea of “improvement”. What it meant was that in order for the ownership of land to be recognized, one had to make changes to land in some form or fashion. Such as, for example, by draining wetlands, deforesting, overturning soil for agricultural, burning the ground, or simply by building a fence on the land and perhaps making it a new home to dozens of invasive foreign animal species. In other words, everyone was expected to detach the land from the natural ecological system it was once part of and change it to fit some human desire. The irony in this necessity to “improve” the land was in that they were really everything but improving it. Many times they disrupted whole ecosystems that ultimately would crash from exhaustion or complete annihilation in only a few years after having been thriving naturally for thousands. All for the sake of one thing: wealth. Everywhere wealth has been derived by exploiting the earth’s natural capital as if it were free, has been a place that has seen negative consequences regarding the sustainability of the lands natural ecology. As long as the capital of the earth–for example trees, animals, water, air and soil–are treated as if they are simply raw forms of income waiting to be turned to cold cash, we can be certain that living comfortably in tandem with nature, as the Indians had done for so many years, will be made much more difficult; perhaps even impossible. As Andrew Kimbrell put it in his lecture on October 8th, 2004 on Technology and the Earth at the College of the Atlantic, every time “economics confuses capital with income,” we are brought one step closer to “the demise of our natural system.”
It is commonly accepted that history repeats itself if we do not learn from our mistakes. The Indians have been all but destroyed and with them, the sacred earth is going up in smoke closely behind. I think that if we do not figure out a way to overcome our obsession with wealth that is freely derived from the earths natural capital banks, without learning also that reinvestment into the system at a level that returns a net gain is essential for sustainability, history will repeat itself once again. This time though, the context will be a little different. We, the human species, might find ourselves facing the sparkling grin of the grim reaper, who would be more than ready to give mother earth a rest and take our precious existence from us like we have done carelessly to so many others.
Posted by drpooville_Admin as College Of The Atlantic at 3:22 AM PDT
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Man, it seems like it has been a long time since i last srote out for a blog. Hmm. So much has happened since then too.
The last time i wrote was when i was in Ghana. Strange, it seems like so long ago already. I did not ever finish writing about the last few days of my stay. I wonder if i can remember them. I will save it for other day though.
I am in school now. It started in september, about 5 weeks ago. I went to my spanish class one day, on the first day of class and found myself unable to speak to a lady who was only speaking spanish to me. I got scared. Honestly. Nothing i could do about it, scared.
I had thought i could remember some of the spanish i had learned couple years back in Highschool. But i could not remember as much as i could. And so dropped her 2nd of 4 difficulty levels (span. 101, 202, 303, …) down to the introductory 1st level. I have found to be very happy with my choice. Don’t let the level fool you though, it’s a difficult class. From day one for instance, karla, my teacher disapproved of anyone speaking enlish while in the classroom. But really fun, comforting, who also teaches well.
She is (sorry to do this to you, but i need to practice) moreno, con pelo corto . Es Mexicano, de Yucatan. Porque ella es Yacateco, tiene altura de medio. Piense que tiempo esta muy frio. Tiene frio mucho. Cada dia le viene en la clase deciendo cosas como “tiene frio!” hasta depsues se ande en interior de la clase.
Anothing thing she does a lot is that she gives us a lot of work. :-)
Usually the way my spanish works is something like this. I get to school somewhere between 7:15 – 7:45. Which end of that scale i end up on arriving nearer too depends on if i feel like i need to study more the next morning. Most of the time, i get to school by 7:30.
For the past 2 weeks i have I been going to the dining hall (aka. Take A Break, or TAB) and grab a bite to eat. But for the days before that, i would just go straight to the the spanish classroom right when i got to school. Then, simply put, i study spanish for an hour and a half. But afterwords i study for even more time.
Yo estudio, y decanso antes voy a la clase. Cada estudiantes andan despus. A punto de los ocho en la manana, commencamos la clase. Hay siete personas in la clase de espanol. Mochas de los estudiantes venen de otras notaciones despues aqui. No puedo deletrear los nombres de los estudiantes. Tan, solemente se entiende, hay ochos personas, sin incluiendo las meastra, Karla. Este hece el total estar nueve.
Karla is a pretty cool teacher. I feel like i am learning a lot by her and that i am well guided by her. I really like the other students too. All of them bring something different to the table, and they all really fun.
We have to study a whole hell of a lot. I feel good about that. Otherwise we would be in for an even bigger shock when we get to our new homes for the winter.
I already feel pretty nervous about how little spanish i can speak. There are only 5 more weeks of classes, well, 4 and ½, and pretty much then i will be in Mexico. Help! Might not work so well there! Ayudame! Hehe.
This trip also is going to help me determine if learning languages is something i really want to do in life. Maybe it is a little odd to think of it, but i think i would like to be an being an interpretor or translator in the future. I can just imagine being able to study the pyramids, or ancient green in any way (philosophies, religions, mathematics, medical knowledge, history, tons of things…), or any group of peoples, things, ideas and actually be able to read the primary documents, the originals. How much more you can learn that way. It seems unfathomable. The final thing, and probably most important reason i would like to learn many languages is to socialize. I just want to be able to communicate with people directly. I really don’t like having communication hampered by something that is so universal as speech. I find it frustrating when i want to speak to someone who could very well speak back, but not in a language that i could comprehend.
The question becomes then, as i started off with asking (or…did i?) is this really what i want to do? Do i want to learn a bunch of languages?
That answer should come during the stay in Mexico.
Meintras vivo en Mexcio, mas correcto, Yucatan, convivo un familia de Mexicano. No les se llamen, o no se algo. Estoy felize para este. Especialement porque el tiempo esta bien comprar lo a la tiempo de Bar Harbor en la invierno.
Esa es my espanol mejor.
Estoy sueno. Esta vez voy a la cama. Necesito duermo.
-Chris
Posted by drpooville_Admin as College Of The Atlantic at 3:21 AM PDT
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