Jeremiah

I traveled to New York City with my sophomore honors class (well, the remaining who didn’t go to Castle Well) this past weekend. On Friday, the group traveled to the Bronx Zoo. With the lovely pouring rain and cold winds, our group essentially had the zoo to ourselves. The weather did not keep the animals from coming out to play. The tigers and bears were playing in the puddles and quite entertaining. What I could not get over is the fact that we were watching wild animals in the Bronx. This oddity was then reinforced when Professor (I forget her name) (yes, Emerson College has a National Geographic Explorer on staff — look for her on the cover in about eight issues) spoke while the class completed its gorilla observation assignment. I have a difficult time keeping animals in captivity for any reason other than assisting the species in survival.

Saturday the group went to the American Museum of Natural History. I don’t mind keeping fossils in captivity. The dinosaur displays were neat, but one can only take so much. The human evolution floor (the focus of the trip) was well designed, but reinforced many unfounded generalizations about human evolution. The dioramas with soft tissue and cultural situations of hominids are completely speculative (just like all dinosaurs were varying shades of green). The planetarium was super nifty because the seats rumbled like a Disney ride. Just don’t be like Mia and touch the Ancient Eqgyptian caske unless you like being yelled at.

My favorite assignment was on Sunday for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We studied anatomy and human form one part of the assignment. It’s interesting to see how certain things were really tiny in Greek and Roman times and then are more than generous in modern sculpture. As Mia noted, for guys chasing nymphs, they sure don’t look very excited. Moving right along…

The Storm by Pierre-Auguste Cot hit me just like Automedon. The contrasting facial expressions of the young lovers is so openly narrative.

The museums were nifty but I most enjoyed the opportunity to bond with my honors peers. Meaghan and I no longer live in the same dorm and I greatly missed our long exestential conversations. Kalel, Mia, and Jonathan were totally awesome travel and assignment partners.

The hostel was the only bad part of the trip. The rooms reeked and the bathrooms were insanely gross. especially if you didn’t bring shower sandals. especially when you and your buddies buy a child’s poncho and rubberbands to cover your feet when you’re in the shower. We may not have brought innovation to communication or the arts, but we brought it somewhere.

I hope to actually make it to ground zero, FOX News Channel’s studios, and Apple Store SOHO during my trip to NYC over Christmas break.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 14th, 2004 at 20:59 and is tagged life.