In 50 years.....

Hello my name is Markisse- Collette Soleta and I'm a freshman attending Cal State Los Angeles studying to become a nurse. I'm a student who is a part of Jennifer Hicks's stretch program. Throughout the three quarters with Jenny, we've covered issues in the environment such as social class, water, environmental injustice, and nature. The class has read many articles, essays and watched films to help us write essays on the topics I mentioned. We are currently writing an essay on how religion relates to the environment. I enjoy having Jenny as a professor because her topics helped me look at our environment in a different way.

During the winter quarter, Jenny assigned the class to read a novel called Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. At first, I thought the novel was going to be boring because it had so many pages, but once I started reading the chapters Jenny assigned, I began to like the book. I would always want to continue reading to see what happens to the main character Lauren Olamina and other characters in the book.

The novel Parable of the Sower became one of my favorite books becuase it made me realize that we should be aware on what's happening to our environment. It also made me realize that we shouldn't take advantage of what we have, because maybe one day everything that we have now will not be there. Like for example, in Lauren Olamina's world, people aren't able to afford water because it's expensive. Our environment could possibly look like Lauren's environment in 50 years if we don't take care of it. People may think that technology in the future is going to be advance as in flying cars or possibly living under water. If you look at what our environment is going through, I believe we are not going to have any of that. As of now, our environment is suffering through pollution, pesticides, trash, and social class problems. If we don't fix these problems, our world is going to end up like Lauren's. In Lauren's world, people are divided into different social classes in a dystopia environment. Living in a dystopia environment, people can end up having trouble living in such a corrupted world where people kill eachother to survive. In terms of water, not many people especially lower and a few of middle class aren't able to afford it. If we don't want to end up living in a dystopia world where people aren't treated equally, we as people should start taking care of our environment and make a difference. We are Earth's only hope and we should make the right decisions to make our world a better place where no one would have to suffer in the future.