Humans of an Off-Campus Apartment

 

When did you first start feeling an attraction to the outdoors? Probably, I wanna say high school, when I was younger I’d play outside and stuff, you know on my bike, I’d like going into the woods but you know, I wasn’t that into skiing or fishing, or hiking like I am now. I don’t know, I guess just over time I came to appreciate those things a little more and I think part of it is just appreciating nature and the environment. As much as I do now? It probably started in my...who knows, I think it started off as a spiritual thing, with like, you know, me transitioning from atheist to discovering and exploring different spiritual mindsets and stuff, a part of that was largely based on the essence of nature. So like, right off the bat I started looking at nature and the outdoors in a different way...and then I kinda, then, came to appreciate, you know, where I grew up in New Hampshire, and all the outdoors has to offer.

Is that when you got into hiking?  I’d say, I mean yeah, being so close to hikeable mountains, it definitely helped; and yeah, I never hiked until high school, I don’t know. It was when I became more conscious and reflected on my relationship with the outdoors and everything. Also, as a way, I never work out, but I’m always interested in fun things to do that will move your body, so that I don’t have to go to the gym, and hiking is definitely one of those things, so there’s that. Yeah, I just kinda, I think also my interest into biology as well, the study of life and the scientific aspect.

That was my next question, what made you interested in microbiology? Was it that? It definitely started from that, biology in general...I remember sophomore year in high school, that’s when I first started kinda getting interested and actually considered it as a possibly for my future, which...you know, as a biology major now, that’s how it ended up. With microbiology specifically, I think it was my sophomore year at UNH, so two years ago...

How old are you now? I’m 22 now, and I was 20 then, living by myself in the Mini’s actually...so I had, you know, my time was my own, I just did whatever I wanted to, a lot of it was spending time on the internet...too much time, you know, probably.... But I came across this one YouTube channel called Journey to the Microcosmos and they do exclusively cool microbiology videos with insane footage, I’m sure I’ve showed you them. But seeing that in such high quality imagery....and also just being exposed the diversity of the microcosmos in microorganisms.....that really interested me. After I made that investment in the microscope, you know, that was like 400 bucks, so once I had that, even though I haven’t touched it in a minute, I think about it all the time. Once I got that, I could start exploring and looking at things, it got to the point where I’ve got the jars and things.

 

In between when you started going out to nature and stuff, and when you got into microbiology, what do you think made you choose that instead of like, water streams or something? I think my experiences, if I saw some awesome YouTube channel on water systems or something that really interested me, then I’d get into that, or like weather, or...tornadoes are cool and shit but like I’m not looking at those...

It sounds like microbiology is almost a taste? Figuratively speaking. Yeah it’s like, it just happened to be my interest as well, it’s like you can’t really articulate it, but something about microbiology is appealing to me you know...I guess I haven’t taken the time to uh, actually sit down and determine what exactly it is but...I think its things like tardigrades, you know. I did my project on the tardigrade like last week. They’re eight legged, can live in space, and these are like microscopic animals, these are animals. They’re tiny multi-cellular creatures, and the way they operate.... we’re relatively large, but were also complex, but then you look at Protists, which are single cell bacteria, there’s multicellular Prokaryotes, there’s unicellular eukaryotes and whatnot....And the way they all behave is similar but its also different so its like, you know, there’s just so much to explore and discover in a single drop of water. There’s a lot of different things you can look into, and also the fact that you don’t ever see it. You can see images of stuff, I guess, but being able to so instantaneously look them......like, you can find them anywhere. So it’s not like you have to go to Africa to study hyenas like my one professor did, you know... It’s just convenient, its convenient biology. That part was pretty appealing.

What do think our society’s relationship with the outdoors should be? Well...I think right now, it’s...I mean the outdoors is a resource you know, its not necessarily like a home, you wouldn’t start ripping apart the walls of your house you know, because that’s where you live. So in a way the earth is our home but, the way we see it, it’s just something to be taken. We shouldn’t destroy...I mean I don’t wanna start off preachy like that....Well, anyway, yeah, I think we just take advantage right now. I’m not like a....I am an environmentalist, I consider myself that, but I’m not you know, a fear-monger when it comes to that kind of stuff. So I don’t think that were doomed from where we’re at right now. I think there needs to be and should be, a conscious shift and we should start to appreciate natural resources and like, actually try and fully understand our impacts, and really consider what our priorities are – I think that’s what it really is, right now our priorities are money, and corporate success, not really the....I mean you can argue that it’s for the betterment for humans but.... you know, you can’t just say that and say it’s worth it because the costs outweigh the....I can’t remember who I was talking to but they said....

The costs outweigh the returns? Yeah, something like that, and how orangutangs are...For an example, orangutangs are being - their habitat is being destroyed, jungles being cleared for Palm plants, for Palm farms.

Like palm oil? Yeah, like palm oil is in a bunch of different stuff, but I mean, orangutangs are incredible creatures, their one of the four great apes out there, or three, I guess, I always consider us as part of the great ape family, even though we’re not apes but...

We kinda look similar in a way...Yeah, but, you know, they’re being hunted anyway because they’re rare, you know whatever...Poachers and stuff, you can’t really understand them...

You feel like that shouldn’t be our relationship to the “natural world” so to speak? Yeah, we should consider that our actions will have long lasting consequences on flora and fauna throughout the world. And personally, I don’t think any material item is worth destroying something as precious as, you know, species, that are potentially going instinct because of our behavior, and the effect of...just destroying, I mean it’s beautiful as well, nature is beautiful and I think it has some worth there in itself, just how beautiful it is and just, you know, is it really worth destroying a jungle and an ecosystem for some money? I’m sure we could figure out a way to go without palm oil you know.... But yeah, that’s essentially kinda what I think about that. It’s...I’m not...I think it should become like a bipartisan issue.....I think it’s largely not. You don’t really hear Republicans, or right wing politics, at least in Western politics, you don’t really hear them talk about the environment. But at the same time you know I think, some people who do advocate for this environmental stuff, they’re just not...it’s not realistic. It’s just too idealistic, we should try to make it work, we should figure out a solution first before we start transitioning into a different way of life. You know, take a look at California and how they’re treating energy, where they don’t use a lot of natural gas for the energy and they try and have a lot of green energy, but the result is people have to turn their power off or people just straight up lose power because they don’t have enough energy and electricity to support every single person living in California. And I think that is has some, the way of life, you know, that kinda has some...I know it sounds like an American Privilege kind of thing ‘cus, of course there’s still people in the world without electricity but at the same time, you know, once we’ve gotten to this place for a while where you can have running electricity whenever you want in your house, and then that standard goes down, you really gotta consider if it’s....I mean, maybe people in California are like: “Yeah let’s do it!” but...I don’t think a lot of people are....It gets hot up there...you can’t run the A/C’s.....You know when it gets really hot....But you know...among other things, if they have electric cars and then you can’t charge your car? I think that approach has some repercussions...so you know, we can’t be too hasty, we have to make a good plan where you don’t have to look back, you know, you don’t have to worry about something not working in terms of having to go back to natural gas for it but, I don’t expect that to happen, probably not in our lifetime, unless electric vehicles work out but...Anyways.....

Thanks Graham