Anyone remember that plastics website Brian posted a while ago? Anyone else remember how it was reminiscent of the pro-lead campaigns of the 1940's?
Well this website advocating "pro-high fructose corn syrup" is eerily similar.
Sweet Surprise: Pro-HFCS
This past week, as we all know, was shocking and tragic but, surprisingly, it turned out to be one of my better sustainability weeks. I was motivated to try twice as hard but, unfortunately, it was not a perfect week.
With my meat goal, I messed up. Again. What I find myself constantly doing is that I eat meat more than once a week; however, this does not mean that when I mess up it means that I'm eating meat five times a week. In fact, whenever I fail it's because I ate meat twice a week. That's still not as good as I would have hoped but I'm glad that my numbers are relatively low. I notice that when the dining halls don't have any good pasta dishes, I tend to go towards the meat. Lately the pasta dishes have been nonexistent or simply lacking (oh joy). I'm trying to find substitutes for when there's no pasta so I don't have to go straight to the meat. Suggestions?
I want to buy a handkerchief or something because I'm ALWAYS forgetting to bring my towel to dry my hands off with! On the bright side, I was better with that this week than before but I'm still rather forgetful. Fun fact of the day? Today I found out that in Japan there are no paper towels provided for you to dry your hands with; you have to bring your own towel! Very interesting and sustainable idea; I love it!
The one area that I drastically improved in this week was my laptop usage. Firstly, since my birthday was Friday (woo!) I spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday and today hanging out with family and friends. I went to spend time with my family yesterday and thought about bringing my laptop but decided against it; definitely the best choice! Another thing that attributed to my lack of laptop usage was Brian's passing. I know it's still a rather difficult subject so I'm going to make this quick. I was hit rather hard by the news, as I'm sure everyone else was, and at first I was glued to my laptop; I'd keep checking the blog or the news for any info. After seeing the effect it had on me, though, I backed off realizing it'd be better if I stayed away for a bit. So, in an odd way, the tragedy helped me jump start getting rid of my excessive laptop usage. Let's hope I can keep this up.
That was pretty much how this week went- oh wait? What's that? Curious about the title of this blog, I see. Well, long story short I went to a concert with my sister and her friends on Thursday and instead of taking four cars there, I convinced everyone that we should take one cab. Not only did we do the planet a little good, but we got to jam to Destiny's Child with a cab driver named Zac from Zimbabwe. Everyone won.
Brian Ellis: Optimistic, owner of cool shoes, person with a lot of bus bad luck but, most importantly, a person with a passion for sustainability and a good heart.
Through this one small class Brian has been able to change my, and I'm sure everyone else's, lives for the better. He was truly dedicated to changing his ways and helping us achieve our goals in order to try to become better people. Brian never judged you by the amount of paper you wasted or plastic you used; he was always there to give you the support you needed to change. He always was able to relate any given subject to a documentary he saw or talk for twenty minutes about the tiniest piece of information. Still, he was a great TA who deeply cared about sustainability and our class-- not as a topic or just students, but as a way of life and actual people. My prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time.
All we can do now is follow the Brian way and be optimistic that he is in a better place now. Whether he's cloud climbing, picking mushrooms or watching a documentary from Europe, wherever he is I'm sure he's happy.
Let's commemorate his life and work through our own goals towards sustainability; remember Brian Ellis through the lessons he taught us.
I'm melting, melting, melting! Or in this case, slipping.
Let's just say this hasn't been the best of sustainable weeks for me.
I was blessed with midterms and projects galore this week; unfortunately, the busyness and stress made me lose sight of my sustainability goals. Granted, though, it's not actually as bad as I'm making it sound. However, I don't want to be comfortable with slipping up a little bit and keep doing it more and more until I'm not even trying to be sustainable anymore.
I ate meat twice this week instead of the allowed one time but, as I said before, I don't want to get used to falling off track! I definitely bought more plastic wrapped snacks than I had last week (my bad...) and the lights in my dorm room were on longer than they should have been. What I need to learn and am hoping I can learn is to be able to sustain my sustainability even while under stress. That's my biggest fear. I'm afraid I'll be able to keep up with my goals fine until I get swamped with work and then I'll just return back to my old ways.
But, do not fear, this week was not just a black hole of unsustainable practices. I remembered to bring my towel to dry my hands off with but it's still something I have to work on; I'm pretty forgetful about that. To my surprise, though, my laptop usage went down this week (only by an hour but, hey, that's a start right?) and I was able to keep up with my "shower early in the day" plan. The mid-day shower helped me relax and there are three things that helped me lower my laptop usage: studying, baking and tribal fusion bellydance. Yup. You just read that. Dancing with the belly in a fusion style that is tribal. But let's break this down one by one.
Studying, obviously, kept me glued to my papers and in study groups instead of glued to my computer screen; I never thought studying could have helped me with my sustainability. Baking is an activity I only do when I'm at my Aunt's home. Speaking of which, I've been limiting my trips there lately in order to lower the amount of driving in my life. However, as we speak, I am with my family but this is probably going to be the last time I see them this school year. Whenever I'm here, though, I always like to bake cakes, brownies or cheesecakes. Now, I know what you're thinking, unhealthy right? Yeah, that's definitely a strike against me. In my defense, the last time I was at my Aunt's I made some organic salsa; Yalda can dig healthy eating!
Back to the subject of baking, I just want to note that I'm surprised at how many vegan/vegetarian ingredients there are. Relatively cheap, too. They may have always existed and I'm just too out of it to notice, but I never thought the cheapest ingredients would have been vegan/vegetarian! Go figure, huh? Aside from baking, the other activity that has kept me occupied is my tribal fusion bellydance class. I take it every Tuesday but find myself practicing a lot in my own spare time. It's a great workout, fun, and keeps my away from my laptop. Even though I'm not the best at it (I suck), it's a nice activity that keeps me away from the electricity guzzling technology.
Bottom line of this week? I need to learn how to manage my sustainability and my stress at the same time. I'm not completely unsustainable when I'm busy but I do face some difficulties. I aim to learn how to deal with it all and I need to learn soon, especially with finals coming up. Eek!
I decided to provide a clip from the show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution since we discussed it a bit in class today. Despite the show being more about eating healthy rather than helping the environment, the two do go hand-in-hand. To sum up this clip, whoever regulates the food in this West Virginian school district counts french fries as a vegetable. Seriously. Are you kidding me? If you listen to what the representative is saying throughout the video, it definitely sounds like serving the students lunch is more about economics rather than actual health. The meal has to be "reimbursable", not healthy. No wonder health is deteriorating!