1. Why you chose the place.
    1. I chose my place out of necessity at first, I knew that it would be a project that I would put effort into. I had originally wanted to sit out front of old main near the basketball hoop or on the Teletubby hills. As I walked to the places, I thought would be good candidates I passed through campus greens, I saw the deer roaming around the area and a bench facing a bare tree. I knew that I would be documenting the area and how it shifted through time so I believed the tree would be a good center piece that would bloom come spring. Little did I know the surroundings would shift but never the tree. Sitting there, I still considered looking around a bit longer but as I sat, I remember feeling a sense of peace I hadn’t felt in weeks possibly even a couple of months. There was very little visual stimulation and it had been weeks since I had last sat down with nothing more than my thoughts, I felt the breeze on my skin, heard birds twitter about and sat as deer passed me by like I was a mere extension of the bench. At the time I knew very little of how much more this project would become than a simple submission on Friday nights.
  2. What you have enjoyed about connecting with it;
    1. The thing I have enjoyed most about connecting with place is being able to see how theories can be applied in the quotidian. It was incredibly helpful to be tested to see what ways theories, that are often complex and contain so many aspects of the greater world, can be toned down and used in the “unremarkable” aspects of life. Not only has the educational opportunity of it been enjoyable but also a chance to relax, observe and remove yourself from boundaries that kept you from seeing nature as both separate and intertwined. In daily life I consider myself human over animal, human over nature, human over geography and human separate from the different theories that tie our physical and theoretical world together. This not a purposeful mindset and instead how we are reared to view the world, sitting and connecting with nature is a way to connect with yourself and recognise that in the grand scheme of the world we are but participants, and by no means are we outstanding. This has been the case for me for years but I had no words to describe it and no critical understanding of how humans have shaped the idea that they are the singularity in a world that operates based on systems. If I were to directly connect it to a geographic theory it would humanism, I paid attention to my experiences and not that of non human actors. Now I see how each individual aspect of life is apart of a system whether due to world wide corporations and the conveyor belt system that that the economy revolves around or even the theory of romanticism where humans are actors within nature, not controllers but intertwined with it as one.
  3. Which course theme/term idea you found easiest to connect to it and what that connection was;
    1. Chapter five, romanticism… We as humans are equal to all in nature but have developed translatable language, systems of gathering and nesting that include complex tools. We operate as others in nature do, we are born, develop, mate, eat, sleep and die. In my view, and in romanticisms, all are equal in nature. It is difficult to pin point every reason why this theory and chapter were the easiest to connect to my place but I believe it is due to how I interacted with the area. My goal when visiting the area was to give it all my attention, no phone, no headphones. I believe that when I gave the place its own audience and voice it helped to put me in the mindset that I was apart of the space. When sitting in the area it was easy to view each piece as equal since I had nothing that put me apart from it, no technology, I was an animal above being human. This experience allowed me to connect with romanticism on a deeper level than any other. Romanticism really brought out my interactions with two geographic lenses, humanism and more than human. These both allowed me to gauge my own experience in the area and to put myself in an outer mindset, like that of the trees, grass and animals. The mixing of these two lenses was helpful in understanding the place better.

 

  1. One thing you are grateful to your place about;
    1. I am grateful that my place gave me the opportunity to engage much deeper into different lenses of geography as well as more time into my own thoughts. The area was beautiful and I would often be accompanied by birds, other students, deer and the hints that moles had popped up from time to time. Sitting in the area was a nice break from the fast-moving pace of life and gave me the opportunity to find connection which can be difficult in non human relationships. I am incredibly grateful to have a place that means something to me. It is often de- valued when a space has become something but I am incredibly lucky to have a space that I can now see and be automatically surrounded by memories, thoughts and feelings.
  2. One reason that your place might feel grateful for you.
    1. When visiting my place, I would often try to leave it better than I found it. This would be through garbage clean up, Fixing the cast of a little tree or even defying social awkwardness to remind it of all it does for not only me but the community around it. On my last day I went into the garden area to get garbage I couldn’t reach before and ended up finding enough to have to do two trips to a dumpster I am still fearful I wasn’t supposed to put stuff in… Through and through I hope to have given my place enough to feel even close to how grateful I was to it.