I think one thing I wanted to touch base on about this class and about the content of nature. Contextually, the books we use to read about nature within class have a objective purpose yet delineates itself subjectively. Many of the authors that were seen within American Earth are kinda up in the clouds, if you will. When I read a majority of the short stories, addresses, and formal papers from that book, sometimes I just wanted to say "what the hell." By no means am I saying that I disagree with some of the messages delivered from American Earth; it was just that some of the messages combined too many facts with their stronger opinions. You see, I believe that Thoreau balanced out facts and opinions well. He is a deserving writer to follow, in my opinion. I enjoy authors who have a subtle opinion backed up by unknown truths. It is hard to hear anything "new" or relevant in this day and age anymore, because I mean- we have technology, nothing is unknown. The next books that this society will make will be about technology and what we discovered through appreciating technology rather than nature. I understand why we read what we read in class, because nature is still prevalent within society and is greatly overlooked especially due to technology. Though, I feel as if what we read became redundant. If some of you hadn't noticed, our class discussions became less and less as the semester went on. It almost became more forcible to get people to talk and state opinions. I feel as if this was the case because the class kept repeating their ideals and opinions. You know, I totally respect your decisions as an American free human being- but some needed to stop preaching about vegan-ism and vegetarianism in relation to every single thing we read or talked about. A life choice is a life choice, just like the decision to eat meat and to litter. Not one person could address another person and exactly tell them what they do in their life is wrong, immoral- yes, wrong- no. I was waiting for the day that somebody asked me why I ate meat and didn't respect meat because it is a part of nature. If that day would have happened, I would have pulled out my invisible book of laws on meat and called it a day. Also, the stories read began to intertwine and almost sounded TOO similar. It was driving me crazy. Something I would consider changing for this class in the future is to have students pick a topic to follow throughout the course (just like in Advanced Comp) and stick to that topic only. This goes along with the presentations. They were too redundant. Standing in front of the classroom lecturing us about something from the book and showing us pictures to me is not an adequate way to go about learning. I think that presenters should have to create something engaging and mix up the norm. Just sayin'.