Where Sasha Walks

 Viewing Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y9qojNzjE1RY79PSWBipu7mDlMYgtji9/view?usp=sharing  Reflection Paper       Looking back on this semester, one of the first things we talked about in our video was why we chose to take this class. For most of us, it was honestly just because it felt different from a typical lecture-based course. We liked the idea of getting outside instead of sitting in a classroom all the time. But over the semester, it turned into a lot more than that. We started to see how the class connected literature to real experiences in nature, which made everything feel more meaningful.      Throughout the course, one idea that stood out to us was the feeling of being small in nature. At first, that might sound like a negative thing, but it actually felt the opposite. Being outside made us realize that we are just a small part of something much bigger, and that was kind of grounding. It helped us step back from ever...

Top Ten Photos My best and favorite photo is a picture of Kuilima Farms, a regenerative farm on the North Shore of Oahu. I loved this moment because you can see a chicken and her babies—and I think it truly tells a story. She was walking them back into the field, and everyone at the farm stopped and watched for a while. It always touches me when animals are doing things with their families because it is something that we can easily relate to. I also enjoyed that other people liked this moment as much as I did, which is why I wanted to make this my top photo.  The rest are in no particular order:  Pinkladies on the Trinity Trail Sunset from the TCU parking garage  Baby horse Paw prints in the snow this January in FTW My favorite photo I have taken of Frog Fountain! Love that TCU incorporates nature on campus, and this moment seemed special :)  A tree I saw in Oahu -- I think Banyan? -- but this tree was one of the few that did not get knocked down during the storm in ...

Hello Blog,  This is my final blog entry for Treks & Texts, and for it I was asked to answer one question on a personal level: why do I need wild? I decided to make a poem:  I need wild because it asks nothing of me  no deadlines, no plans, no carefully constructed future, no scrolling through apps that never quiet  always demanding I keep up. In wild places, I have watched animals who do not wonder why they are here. They just simply are. The gorilla with her baby, the birds calling back and forth above my yard, the cat that plays in the street,  moving at exactly the speed it wants to move.  I need that reminder. I need the clouds in Hawaii dancing slow circles around the sun, and the waves at Kailua that looked nothing like the waves at North Shore a whole world of difference if you are still enough to notice.  I need the shift that happens when you cross the state line into Arkansas and suddenly, the trees close in around the highway and your s...