I’m in my final month at Otago, and I can’t believe that my time here is coming to a close so soon. It’s been a little over 3 months, which felt like such a long time to be away from home, but also so short in the grand scheme of things. This is the first time I’ve been away from home for so long, and at such a far away place. Last summer, I spent 8 weeks across the country in Washington state, and yet that pales in comparison to this semester. The Dunedin Botanic Gardens is a very special place for me, especially when it was still warm outside. In the whirlwind of time that was February to now May, I am incredibly grateful for my sit spot, as it was place that I could practice grounding myself. When I was in my sit spot, the magnitude of a semester abroad always especially hit me. While I never forgot per se, sitting in my sit spot reminded me of the privilege of being able to complete a part of my education in a new country. The moments of sitting in the sun, hearing the birds chirp and water rushing near me, also made me incredibly grateful to be in a country like New Zealand, where I get easier access to the outdoors. I’ve been to so many incredibly beautiful places this semester, and in the end, it really puts into perspective how people are insignificant in comparison to the world. 

I’ve learned a lot about myself through the course of this semester: one, I really like camping and tramping; two, I want to preserve the beauty of this world for future generations; and three, I want to spur change that will bring about climate change mitigation. Funnily enough, lesson one was something I was scared to learn about myself before the start of the semester: being from the city, I was worried that I would not be able to pick up camping easily, and that I would be forever relegated to being a day hiker. This, I felt, was a problem, considering one of the main things to do in New Zealand is go camping. However, what I learned after my first camping trip is that perhaps I wasn’t afraid of the camping itself, but of my ability to be able to go camping in the first place. While camping also doesn’t seem like the hardest thing in the world to do, it definitely gave me the confidence to pursue things that, before this semester, I would have thought I couldn’t achieve. For example, my first backpacking trip ever was 4-days long, and I felt proud of myself for being able to do this, despite being a “city girl”; the technical skills I learned were perhaps less important than the lessons I learned in having confidence in my body. Two classes I’ve been taking this semester are Environmental Philosophy and Māori Society, and the content from these courses really inspired lessons two and three. My classes focus heavily on preserving nature and what Māori culture says about the relationship between humans and nature; learning about this indigenous perspective towards New Zealand wilderness was something that really highlighted some of the deficiencies in the American view towards wilderness, particularly, the inclusion of Native voices in policy-making and the sovereignty of nature. In the context of both New Zealand and the U.S. being founded on Indigenous land, it is incredibly important that Indigenous voices be included in the fight to protect their land from climate change. I learned on a recent camping trip that if all the ice in the Antarctic melted, global sea levels would rise 58 meters, which is incredibly alarming to me. I am also alarmed by how many people around me, particularly American politicians, have such little alarm to a fact like that. I plan to contact my senators and representatives to push for climate change mitigation legislation, especially in the face of the current administration. I also want to practice better conscientious consumption in my daily life, particularly when it comes to things like plastic use.

My final project is a work of poetry dedicated to the time I spent in the New Zealand outdoors and learning about the sorts of environmental issues this country faces. For example, some issues include the fight against predators reducing the native species numbers, and preserving biodiversity without interfering too extensively. These projects are very different from those undertaken in the United States, yet also very similar; even oceans apart, the same categorical environmental issues plague the landscape. These similarities didn’t stop at the environmental preservation movements. When I went tramping, my head knew that we weren’t in the States anymore, but my heart said otherwise, which I realize to some, may seem like a crazy statement. However, seeing the towering mountains and coastlines brought me back to my travels within the U.S., and waves of homesickness hit me on these trips. My friends and I were talking about traveling one time, and I divulged that sometimes, travelling makes me depressed. It’s nothing like experiencing Paris syndrome or anything, but travelling makes me feel insignificant in the grand scheme of time: standing in front of, say, a mountain that has existed for hundreds of years and will exist for hundreds more makes me appreciate the gravity of nature. However, it isn’t this facet that makes me depressed, but rather, this coupled with the weight of the climate crisis. Despite the insignificance of my life compared to the natural landscape, humans collectively have managed to endanger the very nature that sustains our lives. Sometimes, the guilt of travelling also weighs on my mind: should I be contributing to carbon dioxide emissions for the sake of my own enjoyment? On the other hand, travelling enriches my world view, and gives me motivation to pursue a career in environmental protection. My Paulson final project will be a collection of these thoughts in the form of poetry, as well as an ode to the beauty of New Zealand.