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The Semicolon Society
By Amy Shaw
PUBLISHED MAY 1, 2008
Four years ago, my grandmom said to me, “Life is good to you because you give so much to life.” At the time, I wasn’t sure what she meant, but it became clearer when I got to Columbia: everybody here is really good at something.
Sophomore year I lived with a ballerina/physicist who loves techno music and Dorothy Parker quotations. Biochemistry study sessions with my two other premed suitemates veer into debates on politics, education, and global health. One of my friends knows more about literature (and fashion magazines) than I ever could; another balances his lab work with possibly unhealthy amounts of Top Chef.
In high school I wanted to have a crowd, to be part of a big group of friends. But I tend to draw my close friends from different circles—and here, that’s not such a bad thing, nor is it uncommon. The social scene is more complex, and we are linked not just by living together or taking the same classes, but also by caring about the same social issues, having mutual friends, and getting involved in the same clubs.
For me, one of those opportunities was this newspaper. Spectator wound up being more than just an outlet for my bizarre fascination with grammar. Sure, copy editing itself could be entertaining—especially while deciding how best to hyphenate vulgar phrases—but it was in the space around the words that I met some of my favorite people at Columbia, and I doubt Spectator would have held my attention very long without them.
They brought carrots to the office, ate chocolate pudding even when they couldn’t find spoons, debated winter temperatures, and suggested obscure bands for me to listen to. They did neurosurgery on mice, wrote 80-page theses, and actually finished reading Gravity’s Rainbow.
I was grateful for someone to stick around and walk back to my dorm with me at 4 a.m. and for dinner-and-coffee breaks with a certain extreme skier. (Venti iced skim no sugar vanilla soy latte? Did I finally get it right?) When I found myself still at Spec at 6:30 a.m. on the day of a physics exam, it was the head copy editor who told me to go home and stayed until the paper was finished at 8 a.m.
Last week an ex-member of Spectator’s managing board told me that the best time to start writing a paper is 3 a.m. on the day it’s due. I never learned how to put together an essay in one night. Then again, I also never spent 50 hours per week in the Spec office.
I did learn at Spec that newspapers put only one space between sentences, that “United States” is used as a noun and “U.S.” as an adjective, that “website” should be “Web site,” and that even something as concrete as the year of someone’s death can be ambiguous on Google. My classes taught me how to write a research paper and how to diagram the mechanisms of the urea cycle.
But all that is a front, really, for the main point of college: how to be a complete person, not just a student. College is a space for negotiating between what you have to do and what you want to do, and for turning the first into the second. My friends showed me how to do my work without becoming a hermit, and how to make connections between my interests and what I’m studying in class.
They also taught me how to be a better friend and a better person. How to say what I mean, listen to people when they talk, and apologize when I screw up. How not to be a pushover, but also to assume that people don’t intend to be mean—and how to say something if they flip out again.
I still had braces when my first year began. I thought I would magically feel different once they came off, but it took a long time to learn to smile normally in photos. (I try to think of the grandmother of one of my friends from home, who tells photo subjects, “Say ‘safe sex!’”) Over the past four years I learned how to stop thinking so hard and just grin like an idiot. I subdued the self-consciousness.
The most important thing I learned in college? How to be happy.
The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in biology. She was an Associate Copy Editor on the 130th Associate Board and a Deputy Copy Editor on the 131st Deputy Board.
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You have passed your Senior Column, and you can graduate with distinction!
Grade: Ų
(For those who seek knowledge and wisdom, 140 million trillion cubic feet of natural gas is enough to last over three million years at current consumption rates.)
......
For Immediate Release: Aug. 12, 2004
Contact: Beverly Derringer BLM 303-239-3765
Steven Hall BLM 970-244-3052
Vaughn Whatley BLM 303-239-3766
CO BLM August oil and gas lease sale nets over $6.7 million
DENVERî ºThe BLM Colorado State Office today sold 105 parcels totaling 131,832 acres of Federal land at its quarterly oil and gas lease sale. The sale netted $6,729,610 in revenue, making this the second highest revenue producing oil and gas sale that BLM Colorado has held. The highly competitive nature of the bidding at the auction indicates a strong market for natural gas, known for its cleaning-burning properties and efficiency.
The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 and the 1987 Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act authorize leasing of Federal oil and gas resources. The 1987 law, which amended the Mineral Leasing Act, requires each BLM state office to conduct oil and gas lease sales on at least a quarterly basis. This sale was consistent with the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and with the BLM’s existing land-use plans, which guide management of all activities on BLM public lands.
“We want to protect wildlife and landscapes while working to develop our badly needed domestic sources of energy,” said BLM State Director Ron Wenker. “Our focus is on smart upfront planning and solid implementation of best practices to reduce environmental impacts on public and private lands and resources.”
Of the 132 parcels offered for oil and gas leasing, 91 parcels (120,688 acres) contain special wildlife protection stipulations. Also, all leases contain a stipulation for the protection of threatened and endangered species habitat.
Protections are in place to minimize potential impacts from oil and gas exploration, development and production. “It is important to remember that energy development and protection of natural resources are not mutually exclusive on public lands,” said Wenker. “BLM ensures that development of energy resources is done in an environmentally sound manner on all lands we manage.
BLM lease sales are competitive and conducted by oral bidding. For most Federal oil and gas leases, 50 percent of the revenues collected are returned to the states where the oil and gas activity occurs. In 2003, 36 states received a total of $1.1 billion as part of their share of Federal mineral revenues collected by the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service. The total revenue shared with the states last year, which was nearly 46 percent more than the amount distributed to them in 2002, represents the states’ share of revenues collected from mineral production on Federal lands located within their borders, along with, in the case of certain states, any revenues from Federal offshore oil and gas tracts adjacent to their shores.
Less than one percent of the acreage managed by the BLM experiences surface disturbance from oil and gas activity. To minimize such impacts (the “footprint”) on the land, the Bureau analyzes the potential environmental effects from exploration and development before offering any leases for sale. All leases come with stipulations (general requirements) on oil and gas activities to protect the environment; stipulations also can include specific restrictions, such as limits on seasons when drilling can occur and restrictions on surface occupancy by oil and gas operators.
Once an operator proposes exploration or development on a BLM-issued lease, the Bureau carries out further environmental analysis under the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and determines the site-specific need for various types of impact-limiting or "mitigation" measures. These measures include revegetation, which controls soil erosion and helps curb the spread of weeds; the strategic placement of above-ground structures and machinery, with colors that blend in with the landscape, so as to reduce visual impacts; the establishment of any necessary buffer zones so that oil and gas activity does not adversely affect certain types of wildlife habitat; and the burying of powerlines or pipelines under or adjacent to access roads to protect wildlife and minimize visual impacts. In addition, many operators routinely use Best Management Practices -- such as remote sensing to monitor well production, which minimizes surface impacts – in conducting their oil and gas activities.
The BLM carries out its land-management mission under the authority of the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which directs the agency to manage the public lands for multiple uses while protecting the natural, historical, and other resources of these lands. Environmentally sound production of domestic energy from fossil and renewable resources is an important part of the BLM’s multiple-use mission, and energy from Federally managed sources accounts for more than 30 percent of America’s energy production.
Government estimates indicate that Federal lands contain about 68 percent of all undiscovered U.S. oil and 74 percent of undiscovered natural gas. A detailed oil and gas inventory by the Interior and Energy Departments found that Federal lands in five key Western geologic basins – located in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico – contain nearly 140 million trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That is enough natural gas to supply the 56 million homes now using natural gas for the next 30 years.
The BLM, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, manages more land – 261 million surface acres – than any other Federal agency. Most of this public land is located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The Bureau, with a budget of about $1.8 billion, also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation.
- BLM -
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