Close to every summer of my childhood, I traveled with my
grandparents to Tioga, North Dakota for a couple of weeks. My grandparents grew
up in a small town nearby and still go back to visit their families and friends.
Despite not having lived there for 50+ years, they still refer to North Dakota
as “home.” This town is a place that epitomizes summer for me, and seems to
exist only within that season. However, the older I got the less I connected
with it and I didn’t travel there as much. Now the town of Tioga almost makes
me appreciate my hometown more and respect the differences between my extended
family and my immediate family. Especially over the past few years, North
Dakota has been plagued by various political hardships with an emphasis on oil.
There are several people in my family who deal with these controversies on a
daily basis, and so I believe I will have lots of material to easily research.
I look forward to exploring what this place means to me personally as well as
the social aspects that effect the land and inhabitants.
Lauren Thomas
ReplyDelete2/17/14
WRTG 1150
Biography of Place: DRAFT
• Place: Laguna Beach
• “Story”: Focus on Laguna beach landslide devastation, and touch on previous natural disasters that have happened here as well as their impact.
• Event date: Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
• How theme echoes within my own personal life story: I was about to board a 5 hour plane ride with my family, when my dad received a phone call saying that our dream home (that was just finished building and we were planning to move into in a couple days) had just been destroyed by a horrible landslide. My dad had put countless hours of effort in order to develop his dream home, and I can remember the look of terror and disbelief on his face when he received the news 2 minutes before take off. Landslides are an extremely rare natural disaster that occurs in Laguna Beach, and therefore none of the homeowners affected by this had insurance to cover their homes. Leaving many people in the area homeless and devastated as they watched their homes slide down the hill, loosing everything they had.
• Connection to my life story: I have had many instances in my life that I feel as though there’s no hope, and am increasingly sliding down a hill farther and father. But I have realized that even when I feel completely hopeless and that everything I have worked so hard for has been erased, as time goes on you can rebuild yourself and begin to progress uphill.
o This also reflects my personal life because the landslide directly affected my family and the devastation associated with it. So I will include my own personal story about the impact it had on my family. This was such a huge event that although I was only about 11 years old I can clearly remember everything that happened.
• Effect that the external landscape had on my internal landscape: This event had a HUGE impact on both my external and internal perspective of the landscape.
o External Landscape: The place that I dreamed of living in and viewed as an extremely beautiful location changed to a place that was completely destroyed, absolute mess, and in dire need of help.
o Internal Landscape: Before the event I was excited to finally move into this home my family had been working on for years. Associating it with excitement, love, family, and beauty. After the disaster, It drastically changed to me associating the area with loss, sadness, and disappointment.
• How humans are impacted by spaces and environments: will discuss the amount of homes destroyed, the community coming together in emotional situations to support each other, and the complete impact that the environment had on humans.
• “Biography” Definition:
• Two Texts I will critically discuss:
1. Landscape and Narrative, Barry Lopez
2. Walking, Thoreau
3. An Ethic of the Earth, N. Scott Momaday
• Research Sources:
1. http://www.californiarealestatecenter.com/blog/2005/06/laguna-beach-real-estate-impact-of.html
2. http://www.usgs.gov/homepage/landslide_laguna.asp
3. http://www.consrv.ca.gov/cgs/geologic_hazards/landslides/Pages/Laguna_Beach.aspx
4. http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/laguna-landslide/
• This is my actual home in this image