Fort William or Bust

So I just booked my travel to Glasgow for the 14th. I will arrive there on the 15th and then leave for either Fort William or Invernesse on the 16th. I can meet you all in Fort William on the 16th if you will be there. or i can go to Invernesse and meet you half way.

Quaker Oats...

Happy Trails

Happy Trails you all...

QuakerOats (Justin)

woohoo!

Well, we're getting ready to shove off and I must say, i'm a little nervous. It's a positive kind of nervous though, not the "afraid of heights" nervous. This time tomarrow we'll be in Glasgow!!!!!
Wow, so i read the itenerary in full the other day, and it's going to be iNtEnSe....we're all going to look like body~builders after this is over with! woo hoo!!! There's a lot of hard work ahead, but i'm sure it will be rewarded double~fold with the amazing experience we're all about to embark on =). See you in Scotland!!!!!!
~*BeeJay*~

a lotta firsts

in 24 hours, ill be on a plane, overseas. my first time overseas, my first time backpacking, my first summer class. a lot of firsts. im totally stoked and cannot wait! although i know ill miss a lot here, ill be learning tons and im going to be so busy, and so stinky, that the times gonna fly and the good times will be over before i even know they began (sad eh?).

oh goodness, cant wait!

Ready to be there

Once again i'm waiting till the night before to accomplish my first assignment. What else is new. I have my pack packed...to the brim. Weighs about 5 lbs more than i had hoped, but thats not going to put a damper on my trip. I say that now, but the 1st mile might be a different story. I am excited for the unplanned. The things i am not going to be expecting, will be the things that will truly make this trip unique. Thanks to Dr. Reddick for his paintence in replying to my worry-wort of a mother who has recycled the same questions in a new email to ask him daily :) because she didn't believe mine were legit. See you in BWI.
Alan

So Excited

So excite can wait to meet up with everyone in BWI and then head over to Scotland. So ready to to continue hiking this summer. Have for a long time wanted to backpack Across Europe, so now I am o most about to be one step closser. I feel Like I am coming addicted to backpacking hiking and so ready to get this journey on its way and start hiking. It is going to be so much fun.
~Leprechaun

Totally stoked

I cant wait to get this started. Im so excited to be going over there, especially during the World Cup. Every chance I get Im stopping in a pub to check on whats going on with it. Gonna be an awesome experience, see everyone in BWI or over there at Glasgow. Pat

This is going to be intense.

Well here we are only a day-and-a-half away from our big adventure. I don't know what to say. I'm both nervous and excited. I worked so much that this just sort of crept up on me. Mentally and emotionaly I am expecting alot of everything.

I really look foward to meeting Scottish people; I hope that they are loud and boisterous. So when does the World Cup start? We better be careful...

Frederick Blackburn

IM THE FIRST PILGRIM TO WRITE IN THE BLOG!!! See everyone in scotland, or bwi. Alan

Embodied Experience

Reflect on the following prior to our departure:
From Landscapes of the Sacred
Lane, in writing of “giving voice to place,” outlines the phenomenological perspective, noting the interaction between landscape and those who perceive it. He writes, “Our embodied presence demands that we cannot know the world without also being actively engaged in it” (53). We are first and foremost embodied beings. We interact with the landscape as bodies encountering an environment that is also embodied. We are not Cartesian minds separated from extended bodies, able to know the world independent of an embodied experience. This affects our knowing so that objective distance is an imaginative exercise, but can never give us a complete understanding. Lane continues, “To relate most fully to any given terrain, according to David Abram, is to respect its role as ‘sentient subject’ as well as our own role as ‘sensible object’” (53). Here the empirical object has been identified as a “sentient subject,” a being who is aware of its own being. How can this be? This is not was so much of our schooling has taught us to believe. It will be helpful to have read some of Martin Buber here. He notes two basic relations, I and It as well as I and You. The first relation is between the sentient subject I, and the object it. The second is between the sentient subject I and the sentient subject You. I recognize You as being aware of yourself as I am aware of myself. I also recognize myself as a sensible object for you. Lane is pointing to an experience of the particularities of landscape where it is transformed into a You and I am its sensible object. How has this happened in your own experience of some significant place? Lane continues, “One’s actual embodied experience in encountering a place perceived as sacred is crucial, then, to the sense of magic or awe that one finally attributes to it. The place is ‘known’ only to the extent that we participate in the various affordances it offers, responding to the striking geographical features it projects, adjusting to its changing visual, auditory, olfactory, and kinesthetic qualities” (53).