Busy life [and a project]

I'm still alive! I know it's been awhile since I have posted on here... life has been busy! In a great way. I am loving life right now. 

Here's what's up with me right now:

• I'll be moving into my apartment either on Saturday or on Tuesday! I've been staying with friends since I got here and I'm so grateful to have had a place to stay... but I am also so excited to be getting my own space. I'll take pictures and get them up once I move in. Right now I'm just waiting for the apartment to be cleaned so that I can start moving in. 

• I am officially signed up to volunteer at the North Mountain Nature Center, a local (in town) educational facility. They focus on programs for kids, and I will be helping with lots of their different educational programs. I'm most excited to help with service learning, which is an opportunity for school or scout groups to learn and then do some community service to reinforce what they learned. There are a variety of topics including water quality, invasive species, birding, and environmental art. I'll also be helping a little bit with school groups (focusing mostly on Native Americans of the Rogue Valley) and with the puppet theater presentations on the 2nd Friday of each month. Click here for the Nature Center's website.

• My classes are extremely challenging, but I'm loving (almost) every second of it. I have to admit that I am not loving some of the topics in my chemistry class right now... *ahem*quantum physics... but I'm starting to realize the beauty of knowing what quantum physics is, even if I don't understand it. My favorite class is definitely Crystals and Minerals. It has just enough chemistry to be interesting and still be fun, not to mention we get to play with rocks for 6 hours a week!

• I have been spending the majority of my time on campus in the basement of the Science Building. Most of my classes are in the Science Building and the geology classes are all down in the basement, and consequently all of the geology labs and study materials are down there too. There is also a study room down there for students to use, which is such a great resource. We have our own storage drawers for books/materials/food, which is nice to have on campus. All of the earth science/geology majors hang out there and it's right across the hall from most of our professors. Sounds great, right? There's one problem that I can find: If you spend enough time down there, you have the tendency to forget that the rest of the world exists. I was in the basement for 6 hours the other day, and when I left I was surprised to find that it was a bright-sunny day. That was definitely a motivation to make an effort to study outside more!

• I'm working on a group project in one of my classes right now. We are organizing an event called "Don't Ignore Your Back Door" to clean-up a local multi-use area. The event date will be November 20, 2010. For those of you familiar with Southern Oregon, the site is around Anderson Butte (between Talent and Jacksonville). It's spread out over a huge land area and we have identified 10 sites within that area to focus our efforts on. Right now we are recruiting volunteers and trying to build enthusiasm in the community for the project. I'm so excited about this! It's by far the most rewarding class project I have ever worked on. My group is terrific, I couldn't think of anyone who is more motivated and driven than these guys (which is rare in a group project). We have a facebook page for the project and event, please check it out here and 'like' it to show your support (I also put a link on the right side of the page). This is going to be quite the feat for 5 college students to accomplish in a 9-week term, wish us luck! Here are some pictures of the area... it's gross! I can't wait to get in there to make it clean and beautiful again.

An old couch (and some other trash).

There are tons of shotgun shells littering the ground. And electronics that people have used for target practice.

Lots of plastic around. 

Here's a little known fact: When plastic breaks down it doesn't chemically decompose. It simply breaks into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. This happens all the way down to the microscopic level. When these plastics break down and end up in the environment, they eventually make it to the streams... and our water supply!

Yuck! I don't want that in my water!

Can you see the car? One of our biggest challenges is trying to figure out how to remove it from the hillside. The area is obviously barren, and probably prone to landslides. Any ideas?

This old trailer is obviously abandoned. It's already been tagged for removal by the BLM, but maybe we can help expedite that process.

Check out those awesome views. Wouldn't they be so much prettier without all the shotgun shells and trash?

The area is big with off-road vehicles. I think (or hope) they would appreciate a clean space to ride in. We plan on involving the local motorcycle and off-road clubs with our clean-up.

One of many dump sites. We were actually able to find some mail mixed in with one of the dump spots. We were wondering if that could maybe be used to track down some of the people dumping illegally (not by us, of course!).

And finally, some comic relief (because I know we needed it as we were going through all these sites!) This is Bridget and Tom, two of my partners for the project.

Thanks for listening (or...reading), I know this was a long post! Please let me know (via comment or email if you have it) any ideas you may have for this clean-up project. Thanks!