Tragedy Of The College Students

“The tragedy of the commons is a term to denote a situation where individuals acting independently and rationally according to each other's self-interest behave contrary to the best interests of the whole group by depleting some common resource.”--Wikipedia

            The first example of tragedy of the commons that I remember hearing in my Global Environment class was the example given about driving on the turnpike. Usually by the time people are getting off the Jersey turnpike they are frustrated with the aggressive drivers, the awful scenery (if they’re in the north) and the long distance they have traveled. When they finally reach their exit all of the lane lines disappear and it can turn into a weird game of Frogger to reach the tolls. People are desperately searching for the quickest lane and cutting others off in order to come out on the side closest to the north or south road they are planning on taking after their E-Z pass is recognized.  Before this class I couldn’t have told you a thing about tragedy of the commons. I think that this concept is so interesting. Now, whenever I exit the turnpike when I head home for the holidays I think about how being a little more courteous as a driver could have a chain reaction on the rest of the commuters. 

             Growing up I was raised to recycle, to compost, to reuse, to donate, to find a better place for everything that most others would place in a non-biodegradable plastic bag. Coming to college has made all of this very difficult. The takeout boxes from the dining hall and weekend festivities are made of Styrofoam, the red solo cups at parties aren’t recyclable in New Brunswick are all sitting in a landfill somewhere. While at school I had fallen out of my green ways, not because I didn’t care but because of convenience.  I still felt guilty about throwing things in the trash instead of waiting for a recycling can; I just didn’t let that guilt bother me enough. 

Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing
but pictures, and carry your reusable
water bottle. 

            Since this class I have realized that by me doing this I am only acting in regards to my own best interests. I am contributing to this theme of the tragedy of the commons. It had been eating at me for a while how wasteful things were becoming in my life compared to normal. Then in class we had our lecture about waste production and that was it for me. My guilt was back, only paper bags at the super-market, refusing bags everywhere else, avoiding the Styrofoam cups at the dining hall takeout and shaming my boyfriend into buying a reusable water bottle. I became a vegetarian again, stopped buying anything that came in individually wrapped packages, and boasted to all of my housemates how great the reusable menstrual cups are.




*I wrote this for an extra credit assignment for my Transforming the Global Environment class at Rutgers University. 

The Power of Quilting

 Every night growing up I climbed into bed in my light blue room, with my light blue curtains, and my twin-sized bed. On that bed was a patchwork quilt comprised of two quilts that were so worn and torn they could no longer support themselves. These two quilts were patched by four generations of my family. Then they were sewn together using red embroidery thread. This connecting red thread is so bold and crooked that it stands out. Running perpendicular to the rectangular pattern of the patches, the stitch goes straight through both quilts connecting them into one. Often times in bed at night, I would find my index finger tracing the thread, imagining my Nana’s soft hands driving a large needle through the quilt.

When I was six, my Nana taught me the art of embroidery. With a pencil-drawn circle for a face and two triangle ears, I watched her hands show me how to push the needle through the soft, thin fabric while staying on the dotted lines. Like most young children learn to write their letters, I was learning how to sew; preparing myself for when it would become my turn to patch the family quilt. I spent hours pushing a red thread through my white fabric to create the outline of a cat. This experience was special; by learning the art of embroidery, I was overcome with joy that Nana believed me responsible enough to handle the sharp needle all by myself.

 My Nana is a teacher, a quilter, a wife, a gardener, a mother of three, and that was barely the beginning. Her hands experienced cold winters, needles and thread, broken dishes and glasses, roots, thorns, holly trees and more. Those hands cooked meals every night - carrying scalding hot pots and plates as if they simply had no temperature at all - and baked hundreds of pecan pies, snicker doodle cookies, and brown sugar tarts. They learned to type on a typewriter and then on to computers, Netflix, and Gmail. Her hands did it all.

However, the most important task was the quilts that they made. There was a quilt for every occasion.  There were quilts for graduations, weddings, and babies. As loved ones grew, so did their lives along with a new quilt.  With love in every stitch, the quilts were signed, dated, and gifted. Each milestone was rewarded with a quilt. As each of the children’s lives grew into their own busy families, step by step, they were also growing away from Nana and her hands.

 Following in Nana’s footsteps, it soon became time for my hands to stitch up seams and sew on warm flannel patches. I few years ago it was my turn in the family quilting experience, to make the quilt strong, so that my children can one day continue this work of art.

When I wrap myself in my patchwork quilt with the red embroidery thread, it is like Nana’s arms wrapped around me. I can close my eyes and feel the softness of her sweater, her hair, her skin, and also feel the unexpected strength of her hug; a hug I hope someday I can give to my granddaughter. A hug from Nana is powerful. It is a reminder that she loves me always. It is a reminder of my Grandmothers Ann, Ruth, and Marlene and all the time the put into this quilt. Someday, it will be a reminder to my daughter and granddaughter to always love their daughters and granddaughters and to cherish every moment with them and every stitch of love.  

"I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list." -Susan Sontag

Hiking Olomana Three Peaks Trail in Hawaii

I  have viewed Monet’s Water Lillie’s, in three countries (and counting). I have had my picture taken on the London Towers Bridge, the Ben Franklin Bridge, and the Golden Gate Bridge. I have been to the top of the Empire State Building (twice). I have visited the only Royal Palace in the United States and snorkeled in Shark’s Cove, Hawaii. I have seen the casinos of Las Vegas, ice skated in the most romantic park in Vienna, and toured the U.S. Capitol building.

I have climbed up the twisted spiral stair cases of numerous light houses; I usually find the experience to be lackluster. I have ascended scores of spiral stair cases in cathedrals, and always find them exhilarating.  I once went on a ghost tour of Savannah, Georgia and did not believe a thing I was told. I have stood where Martin Luther King Jr, Juliette Gordon Low, Mickey Mouse, and Adolf Hitler stood. 

I have tasted the ancient healing mineral waters of Bath, eaten beef and broccoli in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and devoured the best Italian food while dining in Germany. I have backpacked a section of the Pacific Crest Trail and rafted on the American River. It was 106 degrees on the river. I have seen where Teddy Roosevelt lived, where Abraham Lincoln was shot, and where John F. Kennedy is buried.  I have been a spectator for a sheepdog herding festival in Canada as well as the only Penny Farthing Race in the entire United States.

Enjoying far too many Bratwurst in Vienna, Austria

I’ve never been to the Midwest, nor to Asia. I can also not check off anywhere in Latin America…not yet at least. 

 I have seen the Stade Olympique in Montreal and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. I learned not only have I been pronouncing “ Nev-AD-a” wrong my whole life but “Ha-vai’I” as well! I have climbed on castle ruins in Germany and gone bird watching on the Eastern Most tip of Long Island. I’ve been to Disney World with every combination of my family members possible and then my high school senior class. I’ve trekked the battle grounds of the Revolutionary War, Civil War and both of the World Wars. I went to Texas once, that was enough. I’ve gazed down from above the canopies of the Ghanaian rainforest and looked out at Chicago from inside of a glass box. I have frolicked in the very hills that are alive with the sound of music and sipped tea from the oldest café in Salzburg. 

Holding a giant bug in the Smithsonian Natural
History Museum in Washington D.C. 

 I have been to the site of the Valley Forge winter encampment -in the summer- and explored Manhattan too many times to even keep track. I took a cruise to Bermuda once… but the only significant part of that was the hunky boy who kissed me in the elevator. I have been in the steps of the millions of immigrants who passed Lady Liberty in awe and were processed at Ellis Island. Twice a week I am honored to tell their story to visitors from near and far.


 I have seen the original constitution, Van Gogh’s skies, and Dorothy’s ruby slippers. I once felt the electricity of the fans in the streets of Cardiff after an Ireland Wales rugby match. I’ve seen a door of no return in a slave castle on the coast of Ghana. I have spent summers down the Jersey shore, West Africa, California, and New York. I have felt the heaviness of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in DC, been silenced by the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, and gazed upon the Grandest of Canyons.  I have been to fifteen states and seven countries. I have now traveled through exactly ten airports without my mother and only once did I almost miss my flight (this was not my fault).

Learning about Victorian era fashion and trying on corsets at
the birth place of Girl Scouts in Georgia. 

This summer I trekked as far away as Honolulu, as close as Philadelphia, and a multitude of places in between such as  Manhattan, San Francisco, Gettysburg, and the High Sierras in California. I recorded these beautiful months in a journal that I kept with me at all times. In this journal I pressed flowers, taped ticket stubs, placed bird feathers, and filled the pages with stories about the absolute peaks of my days (alongside stories of the peaks that I hiked).

Receiving my tribal print from a native Hawaiian at a Luau. 

I am so fortunate for all that I have been able to do and see so far in my life and soon I will embark on my next adventure; Paris. I will be studying abroad for exactly five months. I have a goal to visit twenty five countries before I turn twenty five. This blog will be about those travels, and everything in between.