Pausing in life to experience one's senses!

I want you to close your eyes and imagine your sitting on the ground. The grass is bending and the leaves are rustling in the crisp Autumn wind. The wind is blowing your hair ever so slightly across your face. While the warmth of the sun is radiating from a black jacket you happen to be wearing. The sounds of the city are beating their way through the silence of being outside in a little secluded park. When you close your eyes you can hear the vividness of the wind, leaves, water, birds, cars and the occasional bar from a loving dog. When your eyes open you seethe beauty of the trees with the right shining sun with a few clouds scattered across the blue sky. If you turn your head you see the ocean with all the boats and the slight rippling of the water in the distance. You yourself are know part of the beauty the park has to offer.

This is the experience I had when visiting Forest River Park. It was a beautiful day. It was so relaxing to pause from the fast pace of the world and reflect on the simplicity of being one with nature. There's a sense of calm that rushes over me with the freedom of walking in nature and observing the beauty of the world away from the stresses of everyday life like school, work and even friends. It is an amazing time to sit and reflect on hard moments throughout your week that you need some clarity on.

Being in the park and reflecting on life as a whole helps me to gain another side of my sense of place. Not only can you build a sense of place on taking a break alone to sit and enjoy the beauty, but you may also read a book, draw or even write out in nature. You can write or draw what you see or feel, or you can escape the world even further by sliding up next to a tree and enter a new world through a book. 

I can not wait for spring when the weather is better to be able to go and relax and maybe read draw or do homework next to a tree. I really enjoyed going on this trip and being able to take a break, it allowed me to slow down and actually appreciate the small things in life. That was important because in a busy life it is hard to remember to take a break and just breath in some fresh air away from the exhaust of the cars. I believe that this trip was extremely insightful and was a very rewarding experience just to be able to relax in a class and have scheduled time were it is okay to just sit, relax, think, and to be in the present.

We have a panel of students come in and talk to us about registration and what was important to know about scheduling meeting with your adviser. They had us all write down questions we had for them and they answered them with ease. Informing us on everything and anything we would possibly want to know! It struck me that college is only going to get harder and busier as you get into your major classes. Time management is going to have to become your new best friend to allow you to juggle work, school, friends and most importantly sleep! At SSU you need to fully allow yourself to participate in your community to obtain your sense of place.

Justin Snow also came to talk to us about advising. He reviewed degree tracker, and our unofficial transcript. He was very informative and learning how to use degree tracker is really helpful in the process of trying to make your course selections. Using degree tracker you can see what gen ed classes you still need to fulfill in order to graduate. Knowing that will make sure you keep on track to graduate on time. He also went over our unofficial transcripts which will allow for you to see how many credits you have and after your first semester your grades and your overall GPA.

I contacted my adviser and he got back to me within a day with the process to sign up for a time slot to meet to talk about my spring semester. My meeting was last Tuesday and he was very helpful in helping me determine what classes I need to make sure to get into to stay on track to graduate. This was extremely important because my major includes a lot of vigorous course loads to me wanting to become a physical therapist. He was very supportive of the kind of carer I want to pursue and how to achieve my goal. 

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Exploring My Sense of Place

According to the Article, Developing a Sense of Place Through Native Science Activities, by Clifford E. Knapp, there are 25 different ways to develop your sense of place. Including Orienting to a place, changing positions, understanding yourself, telling stories, naming places, etc.... I have started to develop a sense of place in Salem by exploring the surrounding community at SSU and downtown. Me and my friends have been participating in SSU hosted events as well as adventuring downtown to explore and see where we fit in.

I have found a sense of place by staying in the present which they explain about talking time to realize and remember your past and think about your future and blend it into your present. Also I have observed nature and described how I felt with adverbs, adjectives and verbs. When in nature I have also looked for patterns. When I was younger my parents brought me to a labyrinth that really allowed for me to be able to move around and fully experience the place.

The rest of the methods shown in this article i have not tried and i have no interest in trying them.
I like my ways of getting to know my place in Salem and finding my sense of place at SSU.

Farmers Market Trip!

I met my group downtown at 5 PM at the farmers market in Derby Square. My first reaction was that it was very similar to the market in my town! There were many different farms that where there selling their products. I thought the setup of the market was fun and I loved the fact that when we went there were dancers there! As soon as the song thriller came on all these zombies jumped up and started dancing, it was so cool!

At the farmers market we met with Chris from Grants Family Farm, his Aunt was also there helping him out at the market!

Me and my group were able to ask multiple questions including...
What are your most popular flowers/ vegetable to sell?
Their most popular flowers to sell are Zinnias. Their most popular vegetables are lettuce and arugula.

What is your most popular product to sell?
Eggs are always a big hit and actually when we were there they had sold out of eggs.

In a typical week how many hours on average do you spend tending to the farm lands?
Over the summer he told us that he spends on average 80 hours waking up at 4:30 AM, now that's dedication! Over the winter since there is less to do he sleeps into about 6:30 AM and spends less time tending to the farm.

Being at the Salem farmers market, how does it play a role in developing a sense of place?
Working on a farm and selling their produce at the Salem farmers market is a tradition for him and his family. His grandfather started it and there was a break and then it re started. When his grandmother found out they were starting it up again she was so happy!

Why did the name change from Grant’s Plants to Grant’s Family Farms?
The name changed because they used to plant for garden centers and they changed the name when they started more traditional farming to sell at farmers markets.

What would it mean to be certified by a third party?
It would cost a lot to be certified by a government third party.

When did you decide you wanted to work on a farm, and sell your products at farmers markets?
It was an easy choice since he grew up with it. He had an office job for a few months but he was not enjoying his job and so that was when he knew he wanted to work on the farm and sell at farmers markets. However he did tell us how retail is tough and its hard to stand up for four hours and smile and communicate with everyone.

What is the community like in Salem at the farmers market?
He discussed how he loved seeing his regular customers children growing up. He also stated how the whole month of October is crazy at the farmers market.

What is the craziest thing you have encountered since starting up your farm?

When I asked him whats the craziest thing since he has started he said besides it being in Salem I get weird questions. For example when something has run out, "can you check out back" or "are the chickens happy, do they have names".

Did the summer drought affect your crops?
Yes it did make an impact on their vegetable crops but they still had enough to sell at the farmers markets.

Are you in any other farmers markets?
The answer is yes Grants Family Farm participates in three farmers markets, Salem, Swampscott, and Marblehead.

Does any non- family members work there?
When we asked him he said no its all family run and he is the only full time employee the rest of the family is part time.

When did the farm begin?
It began in the 70's when it was bought, for a time it there was a break before Chris and his brother re started it in 2006.

How affordable is your products?
Their eggs are roughly the same price as store eggs, where as the vegetables are a bit more expensive.

I loved going to the farmers market it was a great experience and it was fun to get a fresh insight into another part of Salem! I loved waling around with all my friends and seeing the different vendors there. I also really enjoyed watching the zombie dancers. It was also a great experience to get to talk to some of the locals and met their dogs!! Going to the farmers market helped me to develop my sense of place because it gave me a chance to meet with locals and discover another great aspect of Salem!

Howl-o-ween Parade!

I went to the Howl-o-ween Parade with my friends last weekend, on Sunday! We were going to walk but ran out of time before parade started so we drove. Driving in downtown Salem during October is bad and parking was even worse. However it was a great opportunity to meet some of the locals and who doesn't love animals dressed up in costumes? It was adorable! The parade was held along  Derby Square, in downtown Salem. It was a very family friendly event, with numerous pets dressed up as well as some of their owners. Not only did they parade up and down the street they then preceded into a costume contest.

Some of the contest winners were....

1. A group of dogs dressed up as characters from The Wizard of Oz!
2. Three cats dressed up as a Thing 2, Fish, and the Cat in the Hat!

These were also my two favorites of the day! But I also loved the dog with her own Popsicle cart! The dog dressed up like wonder woman, the dog as the trolley conductor, shark, dinosaur, Hillary Clinton and, the dog with  a jokey on its back!

All I could think of when watching this parade was A. how cute they all were and B. how my dog would love to be dressed up but would hate all the people around. Although going did kind of make me miss my dog and two cats it melted my heart to see how excited they all were and that in itself made me instantly smile!

If you love animals as much as me I would highly recommend putting this parade on your to do list for the years to come. It was definitely worth the trip downtown! I will definitely be going next year!
Howl-o-ween!

Library Tour!

Me and my friends found the library part of our sense of place right off the bat. We found it was the easiest way to get our homework done while being able to be together. It also provided a quiet space with enough seating for us all to work! At first we fell in love with the round booth tables, but as the weeks went by  we realized those were very popular and in a crowded area so we had to find a new spot. From then on we found our spot being the long tables in the back where we could all fit and work on our homework as a big group. We have also rented out study room which make the library that much more fun due to us not having to worry about being super quiet. In there we can play music, help our friends study using the whiteboard walls and, yet still get our homework done. 

First study space for me and my friends!

New and improved longer tables for studying!

The location of the Library is in the center of north campus, which allows for it to be easily accessible to all students. In my mind the location of the library makes a huge impact, it allows for students to always be walking in, near and around the library to get to their classes. That alone may entice students to come after class to get some homework done in a quiet environment and find their sense of place in the library.

The so called "floating stairs"

Through our private tour of the library from Jason I got to fully walk around the entirety of the second floor! I also learned the favorite spots to sit and study with beautiful views of almost all of north campus. I also learned that is acceptable to take naps on the booths/ in the chairs. He also mentioned the reasoning behind the architecture behind the building. For example he mentioned that they built the staircase in the middle of the library with the glass to make it seem like it was a floating staircase. Another one of the features was the big glass windows to allow for a lot of natural light and to make it feel more comfortable. They also incorporated  wood to give it more of a home like atmosphere. Lastly there is plenty of seating and over 200 computers available for students to use; as well as multiple study rooms which are first come first serve and very popular. 

We had one of the faculty of the library support team talk to us on researching. This was an extremely informative session where we found out how to look for CRRAP on websites, use the libraries database to find books and, lookup articles through the Academic Search Premier, through Ebsco. Throughout the process of researching through Ebsco you are able to refine your search. He told us that theirs a magical button that will even find us Scholarly Articles which may become very handy throughout are academic career at SSU!

Mapworks is here to help the university as a whole by connecting students and faculty. They host survey to help determine whether or not you as a student are having difficulties in your academics or just being at Salem State as a whole. Based on the survey they are better equipped for being able to provide you with the correct support to help propel your life here on and or off campus. The survey also asked for suggestions for what the school could approve on.          

Link to a sense of place article in Salem

This website is our schools version of Ebsco which is a data base that I became familiar with in my high school for our research papers. I always found this sight to be extremely useful while researching.