after what seemed like much persuasion, the financial/parental unit agreed to enroll me in a summer class on beaver island. the class was botany. and it was incredible. we spent the first 4 hours of the day in lecture. our lecture room was a cross between a 1970s jungle laboratory and a 13 year old's tree house-pretty freakin' sweet if you ask me. after 4 hours of lecture we had lunch in the great room-which was just that. great. it had a splendid view of lake michigan. after lunch we were allowed to head to our cabins (yup, log cabins with bunk beds and mosquitoes and mice) to change into our 'all weather gear'. the next 4-6 hours was spent trudging around beaver island with a focus on whatever was talked about in lecture that morning. our professors (there were two, together their age totaled 147) were quite a pair, they had been teaching this course for that last two eons and slept through each others portion of the lecture. starks was never allowed to drive the vans b/c they ALWAYS ended up stuck in mud (i successfully pushed a 15 passenger van out of knee deep mud with two other guys-i'm very proud of this). wujek loved wine, and couldn't hear a thing. i remember more from that botany class than any other college course. even if i don't quite remember the facts, i took impeccable notes that summer and i have referenced them on a few occasions since.
i remember watching a movie on an endangered wildflower one morning (i don't remember the flower, but it's probably in my notes somewhere) and the only way the flower could be pollinated was by a certain species of wasp. the wasp had to specifically fly into and land just right on the petals to trigger a piece of the flower to fall down like a hammer onto the wasps head and dust it with pollen. the wasp had to find a new flower to land very precisely on and transfer the pollen on his head. and i believe there were even more specifics on how the pollen transfer had to happen for it to all work out in the end. and i was floored that this flower was able to reproduce at all. you see creatures like the cockroach who ensure their survival by learning to eat anything and everything, you'd think that would be the way everything would end up in the end. and yet, somehow this wildflower (even though it was endangered) still existed. i always think of this story when i see a bumble bee. and i saw one today :)
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