Making Breakthroughs and Breaking the Color Barriers in the Great Outdoors

The Breakthrough.

I’m busy, busy, busy like a bee. I have been busy writing. Writing is a necessary part of science. I know my dissertation meter has moved in a while. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. It’s just that I am reluctant to count a word until I feel that what I have written is perfect. Perfectly worded and perfectly placed.

But I’ve been feeling like I need to claim my words, all of them – even the imperfectly worded and placed ones. So my word meter reflects those words. I expect that I will lose many of those words – to revisions, and re-drafts. I also think that my final dissertation word count might actually be less than 40,000 words (10,000 words per chapter).
I now claim 28, 981 words!

I feel gravid – productive, full of promise and excitement.


Breaking the Color Barrier in the Great American Outdoors
My spirits have been quite high lately. I’ve made new online friends and discovered new websites and blogs. I feel excited to be apart of a community, a movement of people who care about increasing diversity in outdoor experiences.



Not long ago I learned about a fantastic upcoming conference - Breaking the Color Barrier in the Great Outdoors. It meets next week - September 23-26 in Atlanta, Georgia, and will feature a host of great speakers including some people I am big fan of: Majora Carter
Dudley Edmundson
Dr. Carolyn Finney

It's a conference of educators, environmental activists, outdoor recreationists, and nature enthusiasts that focuses on how members of diverse communities (people of color) participate in these activities and examines reasons/strategies for getting more people of color outdoors enjoying nature. Isn’t that right up my alley? See the CNN interview with conference organizer, Audrey Peterman: Aiming to add more diversity under America's blue skies - CNN.com

I've met some people online who are also involved in this barrier breaking, too.
Wayne Hubbard, host and producer of Urban American Outdoors (Kansas City, Kansas)
Kellen Marshall-Gillespie, fellow Ecology Ph.D. Student at the University of Illinois-Chicago and owner of Roots and Shoots Organic Gardening
Rue Mapp, founder of Outdoor Afro (Albany, California)

Even though I won’t be attending the conference (and I am so tempted to just go anyway), I really need to stay close to home and finish writing. I’ll catch up with all of those great people sooner or later.

In the meantime, I’ll be sporting my swag (thanks Rue, cause I sport the the Afro outdoors all of the time. hahaha) and breaking down color barriers in the great outdoors my own way….By trying to win this contest to Antarctica!!! So, please continue to support me. Please vote and pelase spread the word.