Bella

Chiaravallotti Musselman Project 2 3/13/13 Word Count: 1628 Source Formatting: MLA

Experience, Pain and Interconnectedness

1.2: Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carped and reaching for the light switch.
As I crawl into my bed tonight, I do not, for the first time in seven days, have to check my sheets for insects (spiders, scorpions, tarantulas, ants- critters of that persuasion). This is due to the fact that I have spent the last week living in the rain forests of Puerto Rico. When it comes to rainforests, those in Puerto Rico are relatively docile. However, there are some insects and arachnids hiding under the leaves (or worse, in the creases of your bed sheets) that can administer a pretty nasty bite. I was lucky enough to avoid any overly unpleasant encounters with my six- or eight-legged friends (unless you would consider being two feet away from a tarantula in its natural habitat unpleasant). Despite my relative safety in the forest, I was adequately informed about the potential dangers of the forest inhabitants around me. Norman, the man overseeing my groups trip to the forest, seemed to have a builtin lexicon regarding everything in the forest. He could classify any frog, and walk with ease over the rough terrain while pointing out unique plants and swiftly catching lizards in his hands. This guy had spent some serious time in the forest. There isnt too much to worry about here. The forests here are pretty tame. There arent many mosquitoes. Mostly just gnats. But those little guys will bite you. As a firsttime rainforest inhabitant, I was relieved. Nothing that I couldnt handle.

Bella Chiaravallotti Musselman Project 2 3/13/13 There arent really any big species here. The biggest animal youll see is that guy over there, Norman explained as he pointed to the homesteads goofy pup Nogal. But we do have tarantulas. Theres also the occasional scorpion or centipede. Mind you, these arent the little centipedes scurrying through your garden in Massachusetts. These things are the width of your thumb, and are a few inches long. They arent lethal but if they bit you, itll hurt. I got stung by a scorpion once. It got me right here, he recounted as he pointed to his knuckle, and I felt the pain all the way up my arm. The pain went away pretty quickly but I had that tingly pins-and-needles feeling in my arm for days. The best way to avoid them is to be careful during night hikes, and to shake out your bedding before you go to sleep. Slightly unsettled. During my work on the forestry site, I was clearing out some weeds surrounding the Sun Nursery that we were tidying up to house young trees and plants. I was greeted by a colony of fire ants as I moved a piece of wood. I had no intention of allowing my ankles to become a playground for a family of fire ants. Walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch was not on my to-do list for the day (Gonzalez). Let me take care of that for you, Norman advised. One of my teammates chimed in. Arent fire ants just a one out of four on the insect pain scale? All right, hold on. How have I gone this long in the forest better yet, as a nature lover how have I gone this far in life- without hearing about the insect pain scale? (After reading The Pain Scale by Eula Biss, these words really caught my attention and I

Bella Chiaravallotti Musselman Project 2 3/13/13 learned a bit about the scale as I listened carefully to the banter of my teammates that ensued around me). This scale does, in fact, measure the pain of insect stings on a scale of zero to four, with zero being defined as the sensation of being stung by an insect that cannot penetrate human skin to two, a familiar intermediate pain (honey bee), to 4, an intensely painful sting (Berenbaum). It includes insects in the order hymenoptera, which consists of wasps, bees and ants (Grabianowski). So those ants ranked pretty low on the scale, while other insects in the forest such as the blue wasp would be closer to the four end of the scale. The scale is named after its inventor, Justin Schmidt. He is an etymologist so he had, like many others sharing his profession, been stung a few times by various insects. He ended up cataloguing the pain of the sting of 78 different species (Grabianowski). In addition to assigning numbers to various stings, he added vibrant descriptions to his scale. For example, a two on the scale inflicted by a bald-faced hornet is rich, hearty, slightly crunchy; similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door, while a two inflicted by a yellow jacket is described by Schmidt as hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue (Gonzalez).

2.0: Honey Bee and European Hornet: Like a match head that flips off and burns your skin.
If a gymnast has a bad fall off of the beam, the beams leather covering

usually burns her skin. Seeing someone fall off of the beam is one thing. Seeing a

Bella Chiaravallotti Musselman Project 2 3/13/13 teammate with a red burn on the inside of her leg helps you understand the pain a little bit better. But when you are four feet in the air above the beam and realize you are not in line with the four inches of leather-covered wood below you, the prospect of a beam burn becomes very, very real. As you land with your foot on the edge of the beam and the rough leather scrapes away at your skin as you fall onto the unforgiving ground beneath you, you truly understand what it is like to fall on beam. When I was playing outside as a child, a honeybee stung me; the alarm of being stung stands out to me more than the pain itself. I can picture what it would feel like to have a match head burn my skin but that doesnt really compare to the memory of being an alarmed child stung by a bee for the first time. I could picture the pain of the beam burns of my teammates, but I didnt know what it really meant to endure a bad fall on beam until it actually happened to me. A better understanding of the world could be reached if people went out and experienced it on their own (even if it required a few stings or burns here and there) instead of relying of the quantifications established by others. My time in the rainforest did far more than just introduce me to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. Through my own experiences, I learned more about sustainability and the way of life on the forestry site than I could have through reading or hearing about the experiences of others.

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3.0: Paper Wasp: Caustic and Burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
For a hardworking and focused student, a 3.0 is not particularly desirable. He or she would probably prefer to be closer to a 4.0. For a student with different goals who does not place school at the top of the priority list, however, a 3.0 is something to be proud of. On the GPA scale from zero to 4.0, it can be said that a zero is bad and a 4.0 is good, but for the numbers in between the scale is relatively subjective. On Schmidts scale, a one is bad, and a four is, well, also bad. Students have to choice but to end up somewhere on the scale. It seems, however, that most people would rather be off of the Schmidt scale completely. It doesnt rank from bad to good, it ranks from bad to worse. Chemistry class requires a lab. Every time I go to lab and fiddle around with a dropper of hydrochloric acid, there is a small chance that I might end up spilling the corrosive substance on myself. If Im very unlucky, I might end up spilling it on a paper cut and suffering the pain of a paper wasp sting. However, this is a risk that I, and many other students, mindlessly take in order to fulfill a requirement and get as close to a 4.0 as we can. Students risk experiencing a form of pain on the Schmidt scale to end up in good standing on the GPA scale. Students suffer through unpleasantness to reach the end goal of receiving a good grade, or fulfilling a requirement. Schmidt, too, risked suffering pain in order to complete his work as an etymologist.

Bella Chiaravallotti Musselman Project 2 3/13/13

4.0 + : Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.
The intensity of the pulse is graded on a scale of 0 to 4 +: 0 indicating no palpable pulse; 1 + indicating a faint, but detectable pulse; 2 + suggesting a slightly more diminished pulse than normal; 3 + is a normal pulse; and 4 + indicating a bounding pulse (Hill). If I were in close proximity with a 4.0 + insect like a bullet ant, Im sure that my pulse would be up near a 4+. If you need to make sure that someone is alive, the first thing youll do is check his or her pulse. The beating of the heart to push blood through the veins is the quintessential sign of vitality. Recognizing and quantifying the power that a tiny insect can have to inflict pain establishes a certain reverence for nature. However, this quantification separates us from the natural world. We are all alive and each of us has a pulse. It is constant reminder of our connectedness to the world around us.

Bella Chiaravallotti Musselman Project 2 3/13/13 Appendix 1.0: Sweat bee: light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm. 1.2: Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carped and reaching for the light switch. 1.8: Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek. 2.0: Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand smashed in a revolving door. 2.0: Yellow jacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue. 2.0: Honey Bee and European Hornet: Like a match head that flips off and burns your skin. 3.0: Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail. 3.0: Paper Wasp: Caustic and Burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut. 4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath. 4.0 + : Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel. (Gonzalez).

Bella Chiaravallotti Musselman Project 2 3/13/13 Berenabaum, Mary. "A Stinging Commentary." American Entomologist 2003: 68-69. Web. 10 Mar. 2013. <http://www.entsoc.org/PDF/Pubs/Periodicals/AE/AE2003/summer/Buzzwords.pdf>. Gonzalez, Robert T. "10 Painful Insect Stings, As Measured By Science." Io9. N.p., 21 May 2012. Web. 10 Mar. 2013. < http://io9.com/5912008/the-ten-most-painfulinsect-stings-as-measured-by-science>. Grabiaowski, Ed. AFTER 150 DIFFERENT INSECT STINGS, THIS ENTOMOLOGIST BECAME A CONNOISSEUR OF PAIN. States News Service [Tucson, AZ] 31 August 2011: n. pag. Print. Hill, R. Dean. "Definition." Examination of the Extremities: Pulses, Bruits, and Phlebitis. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 17 Jan. 0090. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. Works Cited

Acknowldgements I would like to recognize Eula Biss and her work The Pain Scale for inspiring this piece of writing. I would also like to thank Tropic Ventures: Eyes on the Rainforest for allowing me to spend time in the forest that served as inspiration for this paper as well. Additionally I would like to recognize and thank Cecelia Musselman and Pankhuri Singhal fore their input and feedback.