6.27.22 The Previous Week - Summer and Illness

Summertime in Florida is truly here - sweltering heat and inescapable humidity render outside activity nearly impossible. Swarms of no-see-em's (gnats for non-Floridians) and mosquitos crowd the air. Disease is always around the corner. I don't get sick often, but when I do it's during the summer. Late last week I was slammed with the typical flu symptoms - fever, soar throat, fatigue. Fortunately I tested negative for COVID. Writing simple emails was taking over half an hour, so I decided to put off this blog post until I was feeling decent enough to write something. Today I feel slightly better than terrible, so I'll give an update on my internship and discuss some Floridian history. Terrible weather conditions, relentless swarms of bugs, and old-fashioned disease remain problems for us Floridians today, but imagine dealing with these hazards two hundred years ago as a settler, soldier or runaway slave? More on that later. First, I'd like to discuss some progress I've made in the internship.

Last week was very fruitful for my summer internship. The technical and administrative difficulties that slowed us down the first few weeks have been overcome. As a student I only have limited interaction in that area, but it seems that many of my fellow students do not appreciate the complications of academic bureaucracy and how difficult it is to navigate. Appreciate your professors and academic administrators - they put in a lot of hard work behind the scenes! Anyways, my fellow History Lab tutor and I can now more directly engage both the students and course. This is the most exciting aspect of the internship. Providing advice, giving examples, and encouraging academic growth may yield impactful results in the students' study behavior and writing, and eventually their grades. We can help students improve themselves and reach higher academic goals, though the impetus to improve is still on the student. A student has to desire self-improvement to achieve it. I learned that the hard way in my freshmen and sophomore years (my GPA still hasn't forgiven me!). Interaction with students on the discussion forums and posts will hopefully encourage them to seek assistance and improvement.

Onto a bit of history. I took the opportunity to read James G. Cusick's The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War and the American Invasion of Spanish East Florida while sick the past few days. It's a book I've wanted to read since I picked it up months ago, but haven't had the opportunity to do so. The history of Florida has become a major interest of mine ever since I took the Frontier Florida course with Dr. Snyder (a class I highly recommend). The Patriot War was a hot, bitter mess that ended poorly for everyone involved. A particularly notable aspect of the war (although not limited to Florida) was the hostile environment. Cusick details the drudgery of camp life in Florida: constant swarms of mosquitoes, stinging gnats, chiggers (mites), dreadful summer heat, and the ever-present threat of disease (194, 210-12). The environment left hundreds incapacitated. Florida's environment is living history. One can step outside into the Florida summer and experience the same abhorrent conditions the Seminoles, Spanish, Patriots and Americans would have felt two hundred years ago. We can still place ourselves in the shoes of those settlers that first confronted this treacherous, hostile swamp we call home. Next time you brave the Florida summer remember those settlers, soldiers, and runaway slaves that faced these same conditions, without air conditioning!

Reference

Cusick, James G. The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War and The American Invasion of Spanish East Florida. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2007. 194, 210-12.