A New Friend for Mankind

Kay Fedewa and her Russian domesticated fox, Anya

Kay Fedewa and her Russian domesticated fox, Anya

At what point does an animal depend on a human rather than his wild, natural instincts? When should an animal live undisturbed in his natural habitat and when should humans keep animals as their personal companions? What distinguishes a wild, dangerous beast from a tame, domesticated pet? “Hey, Anya! Hey, Anya!” exclaims Kay Fedewa in a high-pitched voice, expressing maternal adoration to her beloved pet like any dog-owner would. In response, Fedewa’s fluffy friend rolls over on her back and excitedly wags her tail while panting heavily and whining for attention (Fedewa). The symbiotic relationship between the two is clear as they both feed off of the other’s energy, increasing each other’s happiness. Anya, like most dogs, seeks human contact and is happiest when with her owner, though Anya isn’t a dog; she’s a fox. Anya, a Russian domesticated fox, is just one of the victims of the ongoing domesticated pet controversy.

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Skyrim Landscapes

My favorite video game of all time right now is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for the PC, Xbox360, and Playstation 3. Skyrim is an open-world role-playing fantasy game, which hits many of my favorite things about video games.

Skyrim Cover

  • Open-World: I love when games are open-world because there’s more freedom to them. You can go where you want and do what you like. You’re not constricted to platform jumping or limited to levels. The whole world is open for you to explore. This makes the world, itself, a character for you to explore, discover, and get to know. Open-world games have much more replay value and are much easier for me to get lost in and spend hours with. They are my absolute favorite.
  • Role-Playing: Now role-playing is like an open-world, but for your character. Role-playing allows you to customize your character how you want and often allows you to level up and progress through the game how you want. You can make decisions, choose options, and sometimes even change the gameplay or your character’s fate. Role-playing adds that bit of customization and also allows for more re-playability.
  • Fantasy: One of my favorite genres is fantasy because I love mythical beasts, medieval times, and a little bit of magic. My favorite part of fantasy is the bestiary, and Skyrim has the best fantastical creatures: dragons. Not only does Skyrim have dragons, but it also has mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers, werewolves, horkers (fantasy walruses,) and other strange creatures. Skyrim is set in the right style for me.

Now, as I mentioned, the open-world aspect of Skyrim is probably my absolute favorite thing about the game. I can spend hours just exploring the landscape and viewing the wildlife. What makes Skyrim so special is the land, itself. Skyrim, the home of the nords, is a masterpiece and is a joy to roam.

All of the pictures within the post are in-game footage of the world you can explore, meaning that none of these photos are artwork or were touched-up in any way. These photos are straight out of the game, what you could see by simply venturing Skyrim.

Not only does Skyrim offer a beautiful landscape, it also offers a variety of landscapes. There are many natural features in Skyrim making it interesting to explore as the land changes from hold to hold.

Mountains

Mountains

Of course, the most common features in Skyrim are the mountains. Skyrim is the northern province of Tamriel, home to the rugged and hardy nords. Nords are strong people who are used to cold, rugged, snowy climates, so it makes sense that most of Skyrim is frigid, rocky, and white. Skyrim is incredibly mountainous, offering thousands of stunning views. At just about any moment, one can climb upon a hill or cliff and look out upon the beauty that is Skyrim.

Cliffs

Cliffs

Not as mighty as majestic as mountains, cliffs are still incredibly common in Skyrim. These steep angles can create a challenge when battling animals, creatures, and monsters, or when trying to traverse the land. They can create quite the beautiful view, though.

Valleys

Valleys

Wherever there are mountains and cliffs, there are bound to be valleys. Most of the valleys within Skyrim have rivers and streams flowing through them, adding even more to the beauty of the landscape. Surrounded by the tall, towering mountains, one feels even smaller in the already vast land of Skyrim and can even spot dragons flying overhead at times.

Tundra

Tundra

Skyrim is incredibly well-known for being a cold climate filled with snow and ice. These lands can be rugged and challenging to travel through as snowstorms rage on continuously. These storms can blind travelers as they struggle to follow the few paths.

Plains

Plains

As valleys open up, you’ll come across the wide, open plains of Central Skyrim. Home to herds of mammoths and elk, the plains stretch for as far as one can see, a blanket of wavering yellow foliage. In the center of the plains is the magnificent city of Whiterun, a neutral area during the time of Skyrim’s civil war and home to the great castle, Dragonsreach. While I don’t enjoy the plains as much as some of the other areas, they’re still a sight to see.

Birch Forests

Birch Forests

Forests are scattered all throughout Skyrim, but there are different forests to see. Along the Southern border of Skyrim around the shady city of Riften, the land glows with an Autumn feeling as warm colors invade the eyes. Birch trees with canopies of gold and copper fill the land and shed their leaves upon the forest floor. This area is home to lots of deer and bear, giving them plenty of shade, food, and shelter.

Pine Forests

Pine Forests

Along the Northern reaches of Skyrim reign the pine forests filled with ancient, looming pine trees. These forests can be found all across Skyrim, sometimes dry, sometimes snowy, and sometimes completely snow-covered. I would say that the pine forest is the second most common feature in Skyrim, after the mountains. They are pretty standard and home to a wide variety of wildlife.

Rivers

Rivers

Spread all throughout Skyrim are rivers. I love following the rivers to see where they lead. There are often paths alongside rivers, but occasionally there are smaller, more hidden rivers within the forest. One of my favorite rivers flows through the Hold of Whiterun and is the main staple of the town of Riverwood. Nestled on this river, Riverwood relies on its waters to run its watermill to help with their wood-cutting business.

Waterfalls

Waterfalls

One of the most majestic sights in Skyrim are the many waterfalls. These waters can be quaint, like the tiny waterfall just outside of Riverwood, or can be massive such as the large collection of waterfalls to the east of the Throat of the World. I enjoy listening to their soothing sounds and taking in the view from atop these impressive sights. It can also be enjoyable to chill at the bottom of the falls.

Lakes

Lakes

Also hidden throughout Skyrim, usually in forests, are many lakes and ponds. Water is not uncommon in Skyrim as there are several lakes, streams, and rivers. There are two very large lakes in Skyrim, one centrally located, and another in the Southeast. The lakes in Skyrim are home to a wide variety of fish including salmon, histcarp, and even slaughterfish, a kind of carnivorous fish that resembles an alligator and feeds upon human flesh like a piranha.

Swamps

Swamps

As you draw closer to the Northern coasts of Skyrim, you begin to enter swamp territory filled with marshy ponds and puddles. Often filled with fog and dimly-lit, the swamps are probably my least-favorite natural feature in Skyrim. The swamps surround the city of Morthal and stop right up on the edge of the capitol of Solitude. Many creepy things can be found in Skyrim’s swamps, so I usually like to travel elsewhere.

Coves

Coves

One of my favorite cities in Skyrim is Solitude, a large city sitting on a cliff overlooking a large cove. This cove is home to a trading business that relies on ships to carry goods from hold to hold. Sunsets are particularly beautiful when setting over this body of water.

Oceans

Oceans

Because Skyrim has other regions surrounding its Eastern, Western, and Southern borders, you can only find the ocean on the Northern shores of Skyrim. Filled with glacial masses of land and icebergs, I imagine the waters are extremely frigid. Stretching out until the water meets with the sky, the oceans contain mystery and wonder beneath their deep, blue depths. They’re usually very still, not splashing or creating waves. There was at one time, however, when a massive storm of waves overcame the coastal city of Winterhold and dragged most of it to the ocean floor. Once the most powerful city in Skyrim, Winterhold is now the smallest and most fragile within the region, all because of the powerful ocean.

Beautiful Skryim World

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My Campus Could Give Me Rabies

Photo by Susan Hanson

Photo by Susan Hanson

Here at Texas State University, we have bats. There are bats in the allies, bats in the parking garages, and sometimes bats in the open.

It was about two years ago when I received the first email about bats warning me to stay away from them and to never touch them if I were to see one on the ground, dead or alive. The bats here are known to carry rabies, and I believe two years ago a student was bitten by a bite and came down with the unpleasant disease. At the time, I was concerned, but I hadn’t actually seen the bats. I could hear them when I walked in the Nueces Alleyway or through the Alkek Parking Garage late at night, and I could see their droppings along the walls and floors, but had never actually seen one.

Now, two years later, I’ve seen two bats and have seen a sign warning of another bat sighting.

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Snow

Born and raised in Texas, I didn’t actually see snow until I was 11 years old when my family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I remember my middle school was having a contest to guess the first day it was going to snow, and I raised my hand saying, “Well…I’ve never seen snow, so how am I supposed to guess?” They told me to just give it my best try, so I wrote some random day down. I don’t remember the day I wrote down, but I do remember that it was right.

I remember the first time I saw snow…It was a dark night and it was either a Friday or Saturday. It wasn’t a school night. My family and I had gathered around outside after hearing on the news that there was a possibility of snow. After a while, the first flakes starting falling. They were so tiny and fragile. I was amazed at how quickly they would melt in my hand and how from a distance the snowflakes looked like tiny white cottonballs, but up close they looked like complicated crystals. They were amazing.

I quickly called a close family friend and as soon as she picked up the phone I exclaimed, “It’s snowing!” She had told me to say that and she’d know exactly who it was. I was so excited to see snow.

That Monday when I went to school, I was eager to see what I’d win for getting the right day, but for some reason I didn’t win. The school said something about how it didn’t snow in that area, or it wasn’t enough to count, or something weird like that. I was irked, but whatever. At least I know I guessed the day right. Not like it matters anyways…

Now, nine years later, I live in Texas again and I haven’t seen snow in five years. There are times that I miss it’s magical, mysterious beauty, but then there’s other times when I think of the negative sides of snow. After living in Minnesota for a year, my family moved to North Dakota for four years where I got to spend a lot of time with the snow.

In North Dakota, it’s common for temperatures to go below zero and snow begins falling in October and doesn’t stop until April or May. It’s not a pleasant, peaceful snowfall, though, it’s a harsh, icy experience. In North Dakota, the land is barren and flat, so wind is extremely strong and unstoppable. This can make the temperatures even more frigid than they already are. Each winter night in North Dakota, the temperatures drop so low that it freezes everything from the day previous so that all the snow is turned to ice. This can be great for sledding, but it’s awful for actually living and getting around in.

In a North Dakota winter, people need to wake up extra early in the mornings to clear their driveways, especially before the temperatures freeze the snow on the driveway into a sheet of ice. When my dad would shovel the snow into a pile next to our house, I always got excited about building snow tunnels and burrowing a snow cave, but I was always disappointed when not long afterwards it’d be a giant chunk of unpenetrable ice. Also, whenever the snow plows would come down the streets, they’d push all the snow from the streets into a little pile at the foot of everyone’s driveway. Of course this would also quickly turn to ice so every home on the street would have a frozen, icy speedbump at the base of their driveway until summer.

Another problem with snow is that it’s only pure, white, and beautiful for a limited time. Once people begin walking in it or cars start driving in it, it just starts getting muddy and sloppy. There was always a muddy sloshy mess in all of the streets and on all of the sidewalks in the winters in North Dakota. Parking lots would have a few spaces dedicated to building a giant muddy snow pile that would accumulate throughout the winter. No matter how beautiful and magical a snowy night might be, it’d always be ruined in the morning…

I can still remember the most snowy magical sight I saw, and it was one random night in North Dakota around two or three in the morning. I was downstairs in my bedroom when my dad called for me from the dining room upstairs. I ran up to find him staring out the window. “Look, look!” he said as he opened the curtain for me. Outside was a gigantic white hare, about the size of a large dog. The hare was hopping down our street, teetering from yard to yard. He came across our yard, right in front of the window we were looking out of and continued through our driveway before following down the street. He didn’t stay long, but I treasured each second I saw him. The next morning, the snow had covered up any sight of tracks and the hare was nowhere to be found. Every now and then I would hear a neighbor say they saw the hare, but I never saw him, myself, ever again.

Snow has a special place in my heart. Every Christmas Eve when I was a child in Texas, I would pray for snow so that I could have that “White Christmas,” but it never did snow…But after living a few years in the stuff, I’m glad to be done with it. I wouldn’t mind if it snowed a little here and there, but I don’t want to shovel or pick at the ice or trudge through the slush any more. It’s also nice to be able to walk to a bus stop without the danger of frostbite setting in. In any case, I love snow, but I can love it from afar.

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