Author: Emma

An apology to Clarissa Dalloway, among others

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I read Mrs Dalloway in college and thought it was the worst. I knew I should care that Clarissa’s character was a commentary on the sexual and economic repression of women, but unless I was being disagreeable—one bespectacled boy who always sat in the front had lots to say about The Patriarchy and little understanding of his role in it, evidenced by his frequent description of characters as “bitchy”—I didn’t think much of Clarissa. I wasn’t interested in her stupid party, and it went completely over my head that Clarissa totally had the hots for Sally Seton, which might have at least piqued my interest.

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One more season: The odyssey continues

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It’s been a big week.

Upon returning from Spring Break, I got word that my research proposal had been approved by the Institutional Review Board at APU, which means I have a green light to start collecting data for my thesis project. From what I’m told, getting one’s ducks in a row for approval is often a superlative pain in the ass, so I’m glad to have this hurdle out of the way.

Perhaps more importantly, at least in a long-term sense, is my next piece of news: I accepted a job. For next season.

In Alaska.

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It’s hard out here for a plant: A (very tentative) guide to surviving harsh and hostile lands

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“The living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life-forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”

—Edward Abbey, 1968

A fine layer of red dust covers everything in the tent. It’s the same scene I imagine would greet campers waking up in the vast red desert on the surface of Mars, were they lucky enough to survive a windstorm there.

I unzip the door and thrust my head into the landscape outside the tent. The vista from here is similarly Martian: gargantuan red cliffs tower overhead; craters two, three, four thousand feet across fall away from the red dunes of fine sand across the mesa. It is eerily silent.

The only distinguishing factor—all that stands between us and the Mars rover, it seems—is the series of scrappy juniper and sage bushes dotting the landscape as far as the eye can see. Squatty, hardy, and with a low center of gravity, they appear to have withstood last night’s dust bowl better than we have. Then again, it’s taken them untold generations to get it right.

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“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” –John Muir

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If you didn’t know any better, the pullout at Seward Highway Mile 48 would look like any other makeshift rest area on Alaska’s most dangerous highway. In fact, if not for the half-dozen bumper-stickered Outbacks and Tacomas with toppers, a couple of dirtbags like us might have driven right past it.

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The secret to success: Just. Show. Up.

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As anyone who’s spent much time with me can attest, I am neither particularly athletic nor someone who could accurately be described as much of a “go-getter.” I’m sort of medium at most things I do. I might refer to my ability level as “serviceable” if I felt extra confident in a given skill, but the label of “expert,” in my case, could really only be applied to activities like napping and selecting pizza toppings.

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