Julius Caesar once
said, “No one is so brave that he is not
disturbed by something unexpected.(Brainyquote.com).
In
my first year of MarinSEL, I have encountered many things I wouldn’t have anticipated.
Everything from the difficulty and intense labor we would have to put into
project week to how close I got to everyone in my class, or the fact that we
actually had finals! Unexpected things
can be uplifting or they can be disappointing, but most of the time they teach us
something or give us a new perspective. Either way, they happen all the time
and we have to learn to make use of them.
Right now
in MarinSEL, we are learning about food. We kicked off the unit by going on a
field trip to Devil’s Gulch Ranch in Nicasio. When we arrived there it was a
lot colder than we had planned and we started to question if we would rather be
bored in a warm classroom or stand in the rain listening to Mark Pasternak, the
owner, talk about his farm and organic farming (during that conversation, we
learned that not all Genetically Modified Organisms are harmful. Some of them
can actually help countries with deficiencies by altering their main food
staples with the right vitamins. Who knew?). These thoughts completely changed
when we went into the bunny barn. I felt like a five year old walking into a
room filled with adorable, incredibly innocent creatures. Or so I thought. As
we were all busy taking pictures of the little fluff balls, all of a sudden I overheard
someone talking about bunny eating another bunny.
What.
We all rushed over to the cage and sure
enough, an albino mother rabbit (Patrick Shami can now confirm his theory of
albino bunnies being evil) was eating her dead rabbit child, swinging and
flaying it around like a carnivorous monster. We were petrified, but our
teenage reflexes told us to whip out our phones and take videos, so we remained
somewhat productive. Later, Mark explained that it was part of the rabbit’s
nature to eat her dead children to not leave any evidence behind for predators
to sniff out. So, even though it had an explanation, we still thought it was
pretty weird. Thankfully, we distracted our minds a little bit by saying hello
to the horses and the goats (the gentle herbivores). Then came the pigs. The
pigs were an amazing part of the farm besides the fact that they smelled horrid
and looked really dirty. We learned that pigs eat almost anything, including
wasted milk. We learned that over 6,000 gallons of milk are wasted everyday
from stores like Walmart because no one buys them. So, the Devil’s Gulch Ranch
takes them in and can keep them for the pigs as long as the milk is kept in the
open (so that it doesn’t rot). Unfortunately, because they do this instead of
importing expensive organic feed from Portugal, they cannot label their pigs as
organic. This was something that I found surprising; wouldn’t it make sense
that being organic is the more sustainable choice? Shouldn’t organic mean that
it is the natural option? American pigs don’t originally eat Portuguese food,
do they? Anyways, right after we saw the pigs we realized that we didn’t have
anything else to do and we weren’t supposed to go back home for a few hours.
So, we decided to go to the cheese tasting factory. I felt sorry for the lady
working there. Imagine thirty teenagers crammed into a tiny room fighting for
some cheese. Oh dear.
On this trip, we learned and experienced
a lot of unexpected lessons. Like I mentioned before, GMO’s (Genetically
Modified Organisms) can actually be really useful. For example, scientists have
recently come up with genetically modified rice that has Vitamin A in it
because in some developing countries where rice is their main food staple, they
have deficiencies of Vitamin A. From what we’ve been learning, GMO’s seems like
the worst possible thing to have happened to food. When you think about it,
though, they must have invented them for a reason. That changed my view on
scientists and food engineers or anything for that matter. It isn’t that we
have to stop making GMO’s or coming up with new technology; we just have to
learn how to use it correctly and for the right reasons, not like Monsanto and
their invasive, toxic soybeans just for the sake of profit.
I was also surprised that in order to
make the ranch’s pigs organic, they had to import food all the way from
Portugal. Not only does it cost a lot of money but it emits fossil fuels in the
shipping process. So is organic really all that great after all? Maybe just
buying local food is better, organic or not.
The strange events we saw and unusual
information we heard at the farm can represent unexpected experiences we had in
our first semester of MSEL. The not-so-bad GMO’s can symbolize to how close
we’ve gotten with each other. I learned that once you take a deeper look at
someone you may find how similar you are or how well you get along, like how we
learned that GMO’s can actually be very helpful. The sustainable-not-organic
pigs reminded me of project week and how difficult it was. Sometimes it isn’t
about having a huge goal and depending on important people and figures, but
just getting things done. We need to learn how to use what we have around us. Just
like organic feed imported from Portugal isn’t necessary, the pigs just need to
be fed healthily. Finally, the bunny situation. This reminded me of finals. Yes
we were shocked and slightly disturbed but it didn’t really hurt any of us and
we now know there is a reason for both. Unexpected things come at us
everywhere; in a classroom, on a farm, at home, on the street, anywhere you can
think of. MSEL is not an ordinary school, so unforeseen things are bound to
happen and we need to learn how to work with it.
By Julietta Saccardi
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