In the Mind of Mike

Yesterday I went to a rally in Middlebury against the pipelines that are currently proposed locally and around the country. It was part of the Draw the Line day of action organized by  350.org.   It was a Green Up event so I got to drive one of the school vans down which is always nice since the club can pay for gas that way. There are three main pipelines that we were protesting. The biggest one is the Keystone XL pipeline which would bring tar sands from Alberta Canada down to New Orleans. Vermont was also protesting the fracked gas pipeline that is proposed for Middlebury and another tarsands pipeline that would go through the north east kingdom. The Saint Mike's crew. Some of the people lined up along Rt 7.   There were not as many people as I thought there would be, but there were similar actions going on in many towns around Vermont so I'm sure if you added all the people up it would be a large amount. There were a few speeches talking about the effects the

This past Saturday I went on a trip to Mt. Mansfield for my Ecosystem Ecology class. It is the tallest mountain in VT and is the mountain that Stowe is on. We left at 9:00 and made are way to Stowe and drove up the toll road. I have to say driving a huge van up to the top was a little scary at times but we made it. Once we got to the top of the mountain we hiked about three miles round trip going from near the "nose" to the "chin" and back (the mountain looks like a face). Professor Hope made sure to stop along the way to tell us all about the plant species that we were passing. We also measured striations in the rocks to find out how the glaciers moved over the mountains. Using compasses we recorded the direction of the lines and made sure to take note of the elevation and longitude and latitude using the GPS. After a nice lunch we continued our trip to the chin but at a much quicker pace since Professor Hope took up the rear so we were no longer constantly stoping

I can't believe I've already been back at Saint Mike's for over two weeks. What is even more scary though is the fact that I'm a senior. If anyone has figured out a way to stay a fifth year without having to pay now would be the time to let me know! Sadly I don't see this happening so I'm just going to have to cram as many memories as I can into this year. All the senior O-leaders Since I got to come up here a week early for Orientation I've already done a lot. Orientation was a blast. All my O-babies are awesome and it was great meeting all the other orientation leaders. As a thank you for coming up early ( like we really had to be talked into that) the orientation leaders got to go on a boat cruise around Lake Champlain. We had great weather and I can't think of a better way to start the year. Sunset from the boat cruise After a week of classes I think I can say that I'm going to enjoy this semester. I'm only taking classes that rea