Christmas Lights

Hey what do you guys think about Christmas lights? Do you think that they are energy "well spent" so to speak. Is the happiness (or mood) that they inspire greater than the amount of energy it takes to light them? That's just something I was thinking about today. I hope everyone has a really fun (and sustainable) winter break!

Final Post

At the beginning of this course I wasn't sure what sustainability meant, but I thought that it would have to do with limiting the amount we use. I still believe that it has to do with limiting what we use, but I definitely think it has to do with more than that.
Sustainability is more than just making sure to recycle, or to build houses or buildings that use renewable energy sources. To me, it's more important to realize that the building needs to stop. Yes, your brand new house may use solar energy...but did you need to build a brand new house? What about all the other, older houses in the neighborhood over that are vacant? I think it's a common in societies like ours that we gauge the level of advancement or the wealth of a country or place by the amount of development. This is so backwards! By development we mean destruction and then creation. Destruction of the environment, of ecosystems, of life and creation and construction of non-living material buildings, or parking lots, or whatever. Our economy and our lives are both viewed in linear manners.
I think that this has something to do with the difficulties we have in discovering what it means to be sustainable, and in attempting to be sustainable. For most of us, we see life as being born, growing up, and dying. We don't seem to be sustainable as human beings so what do we know about sustainability? But I think that we are sustainable. I think that our bodies are sustainable. When we die, the line we live on does not end. It loops around and becomes a circle. Our bodies decompose and nourish the earth. Our minds go on and do whatever you believe they do (perhaps they are reused as the cycle of births and rebirths continues), but our lives are not lines, they are cycles. I think that once we de-mechanical-ize our lives and focus more on just being passionate and creative the connection with nature will be effortless to acknowledge. This also seems to relate to the idea of quality, not quantity. If we limit the amount we use, the amount we buy, we will automatically limit the amount we throw out and the amount we disrupt the environment.
One of the main ideas of sustainability to me still seems to be networks, circles of life, relationships. Once we realize that we are intertwined with everyone around us and with nature, we can being to see that what we do has an impact. We can take ideas from nature and use these ideas to come up with more sustainable ways of living. Nature demonstrates that sustainable systems are possible, so we should be taking ideas about how to live from nature (for example, structure of things that we build can be built in more "natural" ways). I guess I still don't really know what sustainability is. But I think that it begins with education. I think that education should begin from the very beginning, from pre-k. All throughout our young childhood we spend so much time outdoors, and I think, many of us feel a real connection to nature. Then we get put into school for seven hours a day, a school filled with artificial lighting and we learn theories and formulas but not about our connection to nature. We should integrate sustainability, in whatever way we see fit, into classrooms starting at the beginning and moving way on up to engineering school (for example). In addition, I think that sustainability has to do not only with limiting, but with not doing. Deciding whether we actually need something before we build it, or buy it, or use it. I think sustainability also has so much to do with relationships. Relationships with nature and the environment, but also relationships between people. We need to work together, across academic fields, across occupational areas, across fences and yards as we work in a community and strive for a sustainable future.

Sustainability.

The lifestyle project really influenced me to just try harder for the little things in my life that can impact the larger sense of life. It was not always easy and required me to concentrate on what I was doing in my life. It seemed not only me that this project affected though, numerous people were infected with sustainable knowledge. I think the idea of a sustainable world seems endless, but also the knowledge and education is in constant pursuit. Sustainability to me means to put forth effort and dedication, to putting the world as a whole before your self. I gained a lot from the film king corn. It educated me own some of the current problems in sustainable technology. Over the course of this class my idea of sustainability has changed into a more attainable goal that we are constantly struggling towards.

sustain imagination

At the beginning of this semester I had what I now feel is a very cold philosophical definition of what sustainability means to me. I held that sustainability is the appreciation that we ourselves cannot be separated from our environment. I felt that we have to realize that we ourselves are part of an intricate web that has the capability of drastically harming other links within the web. This definition leaves me asking wheres the room for the trash art or sustainable fashion sense within my philosophical premise. I missed something which I now believe is integral to my notion of a balanced web and that is the role that I as a human being play within this web. It is not my job as a human being to simply keep the balance within the web I can add so much more. We as humans have the ability to use our imagination to enrich our environment in unlimited ways. For instance Natalia's refitting of her clothes, she could have chosen to simply maintain them so that they didn't go to waste but she chose to make them more aesthetically appealing. This is it! This is huge letting the human imagination enrich life without disrupting the critical balance between ourselves and our environment.
I believe this is essential we must reign in our imaginations and gear our imaginations to improving the lot of not only ourselves but the entire environment. When we can do this we will not only be able to live in harmony with the environment but each other as well. Patrick with his can crushing recycling bin proved that the human imagination can artistically create solutions for improving our relationship with the external world. I think we all found ourselves having to use our imaginations to comply with our lifestyles project I know i did. This is why I am going to add my new tentative definition to the Mix.
Sustainability is the artistic practice of applying our imaginations to improving our relationship with the ourselves and our environment.

Back to the question...

Sustainability has definitely become more meaningful to me from the beginning of the semester to now. I still retain a lot of the initial inferences I made about sustainability at the beginning of this class, like our responsibility to the earth and how we should not take the things we have for granted. Along with this, I want to add that not only is sustainability a very real and impacting run of give and take, but it is a mission on all of our parts to create the ideal way of life that benefits both us and the world we live in. From the readings I found the magnitude of the "green" movement and all the ways people have already come up with to help the earth. It was encouraging to see how many people already feel passionate about and work towards this cause. From class discussions, I realized that there are people of all ages (even --- ESPECIALLY --- my age!) that are already very driven in this endeavor, which is inspiring as well. And from the Lifestyle Project (oh, the Lifestyle Project...) I discovered that even though making your life sustainable (or MORE sustainable) does take some work, it really is easier than it seems. Already I find myself automatically doing things like not getting a tray in the Commons, turning the extra lights off whenever possible, being conscious of how long my showers take, and eating more veggies instead of meat. This course made a positive impact on my lifestyle and how I view sustainability, and I'm really glad I took it. :)

Sustainability

Our environment is in quite a mess right now, and if we don’t anything about it, that mess will become a full-blown crisis. Sustainability is the answer. It’s up to us to work together as a community to enlighten others and live as an example.

I’ve learned that living sustainably isn’t easy. It takes dedication and effort. But, sustainability isn’t all about sacrifice; it’s also about creation. It’s about creating beauty and magnificence by restoring nature’s inherent majesty, turning trash into treasure, and creating new innovations that inspire change. I see things like wind turbines, solar panels, compost heaps, gardens, electric and vegetable-oil-powered cars and can’t help but be amazed.

Sustainability offers us hope. We can do this. If we start living sustainably, generations after generations will be able to live in harmony with this earth.

Sustainable water usage

When the option for an activist project was initially mentioned, the first thought I had was of the awful sprinklers that seem to be watering everywhere, all the time. I felt this would be an opportunity to bring justice to this situation, an element of sustainability I have been thinking about over the course of this class. I started with high hopes to fix the complete sprinkler system but did not quite realize that I had no plan of action.
After meeting with Dr. Van Horn, he gave me the name and number of the school landscape manager, Mr. Bessent. I set up a meeting with him and we were able to talk for a long time.
As my Dad would say, "get to know your enemy before you attack". This is not a war of any sort, but I did realize that before I make any outward claims or accusations, I must first educate myself on what it is I am really dealing with. This will strengthen my understanding and give me more options for my plan of action. Here are some things I learned: the sprinkler system is computerized, it comes on nightly, but it is sensitive to weather so it will not run if it is/has recently rained. If there is a sprinkler that I see shooting off onto something that won't benefit from the water, I should turn in a work order for that sprinkler head.
More interesting than sprinkler facts, I learned about the hierarchy within this educational institution. It is desirous for the landscaping to look "institutional" so they plant green foliage that will achieve this, but is not necessarily the best choice of plant for our climate region, weather or soil. There are so many beautiful Texas plants that could be planted around Southwestern, but instead, "they" have chose Asian Jasmine.
Mr. Bessent did say however that there was potential for more native plant beds around campus, one of which I see between the DLC and Lord Center. I plan to continue dialouge throughout next semester and beyond to show that Southwestern students care how their tuition money is being allocated. Sustainable (and consequentially efficient) methods should be most practiced. This project has helped me learn and exercise two parts of sustainability that I believe are crucial: education of the subject and a call for justice. I am excited to learn more about the system and see the different ways that a student voice can make a difference.

Sparing some Change

In comparison to my original thoughts about sustainability, not too much has changed. Sustainability seems to be our way of trying to fix all the wrongs we have incurred on our Earth. The unfortunate part about this new sustainable action is that the market has turned sustainability into a new marketing campaign, using it to its own advantage, twisting the cure into the cause. This "band-aid" approach of thinking the world will just "work itself out" is, on some level, true; the hard truth is that the earth will continue on... it will just be without us.

Through this course, I have found, in a more complete way, what it means to have a sustainable lifestyle, which is what sustainability is: a lifestyle. A choice. But this does not mean that recycling and composting will save the earth, although I know a lot of us would like to hope that is all it takes. It involves intense planning, reworking of ideals, and a community agreement. The last one seems to be the most difficult since there are still people, even on the SU campus, that believe global warming and the environmental crises do not exist.

This ignorance is the first place to begin. It was what Ishmael called us to do, and it's the only way things can change. We cannot force people to recycle without explaining why it is in anyway beneficial. To those who do not understand the benefits and outcomes of this act are certainly not going to go out of their way to sort the trash every day. Why would they? We have to teach, and spread the word. By teaching people, we can change the goals and help to strive for a new and cleaner tomorrow.

Sustainability is...

I remember my first image of sustainability was a farm. You had to live on a farm, grow all your own food, generate all your own electricity, and probably make everything you used too. That’s still the first thing I think of, honestly. But after this class I think that you can take sustainability a few steps further than just trying not to make an impact and define it as actions that positively impact the environment around us. Not only are we reducing our use of and interference with systems, we are actively finding ways to participate in and promote them them.
The first example I always think of is in construction of buildings to live and work in. It seems to be not only about how much you use, but how you use it. The better one can incorporate any sort of construction into natural systems, the more sustainable it might be considered. For example, while LEED building standards are centered on using the right materials in the right way, the next step described in the Less than Zero model is to make buildings that actually participate in natural processes like cleaning their own waste water. This kind of construction not only can be something long lasting and built along ecological standards, but they actively promote the local ecosystem. It also seems like something that can, and probably should, be much more communal than the farm image I described earlier. Not only is it hard to make much change by keeping it too yourself, but a bunch of isolated family farms wouldn’t be much better off than we are now, I wouldn’t think, because it’s the same sort of isolation we have from each other and the natural world now is causing problems. I think we need to be able to interact with each other. We need to help each other, really, because I don't think everyone is going to be capable of producing their own food unless we really revert to an earlier time in history.
There is also an element of how we use nature to structure our technology that is interesting. Again, in the Less than Zero article, buildings are supposed to integrate with the ecosystem that has evolved in that area and that seems totally valid. It creates buildings that are really part of natural systems. And yet, in the biomemetics article they are essentially doing the same thing but using the information they get to perpetuate military and commercial production. It’s like taking the natural out of nature some how.
I still wonder what it would mean to live a sustainable lifestyle and be a traveler. As important as it is to put down roots and really learn about what it means to live in one place and to get to know it well, I think some people wouldn’t be happy living that way. I’m not sure I would be, though that might stem from all the inundation of ideas that to have fun sometimes you have to go halfway around the world. Still, if you think of pre-industrialized societies that had to live within natural systems, not all of them were sedentary agricultural communities. Animals migrate. Surely people can too. It’s hard to get past thinking ‘Well, you’d need a new form of transportation, that’s for sure’ though. It's definitely something I'd like to try and explore more.

What Is Sustainability Part 2

Over the course of this class I have come to see how the idea of sustainability is a very broad and encompassing term. We have discussed reducing our carbon footprint, educating others to the needs of our environment, and alternative methods of human activity that puts less stress on the earth and our environment. We are subject to our environment and without it we would be in a world of hurt. Getting this message out to the general public is the biggest goal of sustainability. The fact that every individual's efforts to reduce waste, consumption, and negative environmental effects can make a difference is in itself the most important thing for people to understand. The term sustainability in itself refers to the ability to be sustained by our environment indefinitely, which is not currently the case. So when people talk about sustainability as a goal the main factor to completing this goal is a unified action towards becoming environmental friendly. The lifestyle project was a true eye opener for me. For the first time I actually realized what I was doing to the environment on a daily basis and i found it quite disturbing. What I learned from the lifestyle project has motivated me to educate others because I feel like it is easy to fall into the cycle of consumption where you dont really think about the environment. My lifestyle project was a huge success for me in educating myself to the problem at hand, and I will take on the goal towards sustainability. I will continue to strive to reduce my consumption and waste and lead by example. After working through my lifestyle project and through the course of this class I would have to say that my final definition of Sustainability is ;the awareness of our actions, the reduction of the impact that we have 0n the environment that we occupy, and the education of others around us toward that goal.

The Big Question

So my first blog about sustainability defined it basically as a lifestyle that does deplete the earth. In my personal view, the most important factors to me were awareness and religious responsibility. Of course, I still believe those to be true; my religious views were especially reinforced by the readings "The Language of Animals" and "Biomimetics." When Lopez wrote about his experience with animals, he had an awe for nature, for wild animals he saw that "seemed to tremble in the aura of their own light," and he expressed a desire to know and become a part of nature. And when I read the Biomimetics article, I began to understand just how incredibly complex and intricate the functions of nature are. I want to experience that. I want to be overwhelmed in my awe and respect for nature, for what I believe God has created. I think that this view of nature, whether it is religious or not, is vital to the idea of sustainability

Also what I learned in this course was that sustainability affects and incorporates many more differenct aspects of life, and I began to see some of them through my lifestyle project, through the King Corn video, and through other readings. For instance, I didn't really consider the quality of life to be a part of sustainability; the word seems to be referring to just existing to me. But why should we try only hard enough for life to continue to exist? Why not try to create a world where life can thrive, can flourish? Sustainability means going beyond what is good enough. Beyond just preserving nature, but letting it be awe-inspiring and beautiful and incredible, how it was meant to be.

What is Sustainability #2

I feel like throughout the course of this class I really have enhanced my understanding and definition of sustainability. For me, one of the most important things that I have learned is that sustainability should be talked about and shared with all of one's friends and families. This is a great way to spread the ways of sustainability and allow people to realize the impact that they can make. This impact, in my own words, would be described as using what the earth and past has given you to make a life that can sustain itself without needing to produce or consume an enormous amount. It is important to use what is available before going out and buying more and more objects. Creativity can play as big or small a role in the process as one chooses for themselves. Such that, you can make your own clothes out of old clothes or you can use those old clothes as a rag or a dog bed or something of the sort. Sustainability allows you to use to mind and expand your belief about what a particular object may be. Sustainability is an open-minded, free thinking idea that, if put to proper use, could truly help our world and everyone around us.

be the change you wish to see in the world.

At the beginning of this class, I wasn't quite sure what sustainability was. I had a vague idea but I think I definitely have a better understanding of sustainability. Although my definition has become less concrete, it has also become broader. As someone else mentioned earlier, sustainability is more than just saving water, using less energy, and producing less waste.

In my original post, I said that sustainability was a lifestyle and I still believe that to be true. Not only do we have to change our actions, but we also have to change the way we think about the things that we consume. For example, instead of just throwing a cardboard box away, we should think about the consequences of our actions. Where is that box going to go? What is going to be done with it after I use it? I think being sustainable involves making our actions meaningful. Why are we using less water? Why are we recycling this piece of paper? Instead of just going through the actions, we are thinking about our choices and the outcomes of those choices.

Throughout the lifestyle project I also began to notice that sustainability does not involve just the individual. It is almost necessary to involve other people like roommates, family members, and friends. When I first posted on this blog, I viewed sustainability more as an individual choice and lifestyle. It is. But it is also more than that. It's not only about motivating yourself to change, but it's also about motivating others. I think that is the most rewarding part of this class. By being sustainable ourselves, we are setting an example for others. Although our class may have included only 20 students or so, many of our friends and family members were also affected by our projects. If even just a small part of what we were doing rubbed off onto someone else, then maybe what they do will rub off onto another person and so on and so forth. Through taking this class I have come to realize that we do have the ability to make a difference and to change the way we and others think about our planet. That's what sustainability is to me.

Sustainability revisited

Before discussing sustainability, my friend's ring tone with a cute little tune singing "reduce, reuse, recycle" came to mind. However sustainability is much more than three little words. Sustainability is living in awareness and developing a state of mind that translates into a lifestyle. In order to be truly aware, people must be educated on issues of energy, water usage, carbon emissions, finite resources, clean energy sources, waste and the overall effects that each and every one of our actions has on the earth. We must understand the sense of interconnectedness that is part of every aspect of life. Since not all of our actions show immediate consequences, it is difficult to know how to act in a justified manner towards the earth. Sustainability is a call to action that is inspired by simply living the right way. Through education, wisdom, action, relationships and community, sustainable growth will occur.

Definition of Sustainability

When I look back to my first post on sustainability I realized that my definition of sustainability hasn't really changed that much. However, I think this class has allowed me to better explain what sustainability is to me. Which was a problem on my first blog. I knew what I wanted to say and yet for some reason I couldn't put it into words. Someone in their first post said that to them sustainability was disappearing and leaving no trace of our carbon footprint. Striving towards that goal of disappear is what I believe is sustainability. That goal may seem unreachable now but as long as we strive toward it hopefully it will soon become a reality. 

A technique I believe will become important in attaining the goal of disappearing are the living buildings. Since, the earth can not afford for us to fail to replenish the natural resources that are rapidly disappearing. Of course in some ways replacing every building with a living one would be very expensive and take a very long time to complete and would also be unsustainable. However, I hope that living buildings will become more popular in the coming years.

Sustainability 2

Through this class my definition of sustainability has gone from having a good idea of what sustainability encompases to not even being able to list all the things I know it includes. Everything around us involves sustainability. I never thought about how things from not wasting water to making your own clothes can make people more sustainable. Before beginning this class when i thought about sustainability I just thought about saving water and energy. I never would have thought eating meat could be bad for the environment. I really don't know all that sustainability encompasses and I am aware of that now. I realize now that sustainability takes sacrifice, and cannot be done without thinking about what you are doing. One thing also that I had never thought about was in one of the readings it said the best thing you can do for the environment is stay home. I had thought about like the cost of gas and stuff like that but  i had not taken into consideration some of the other things that going out does to the environment. So all in all I really don't know exactly what sustainability is, but I think by using the knowledge that I do have I can work at being more sustainable. 

Sustainability V.2

My definition for sustainability has changed from my original posting to encompass a lot more things in society. At first, I just sustainability as only covering certain things like energy and water consumption, but through this class I saw it have to do with not producing any trash and recycling everything like clothes. It now seems to me that sustainability is the ability, in many contexts, to live without using all products to their full advantage and ability.

What's Sustainability Version 2.0

What I realized from this class is that everyone has a varying degree to which they view sustainability. Just as Uexküll talked about our umwelts, we all see things in a different light. Some see sustainability with great attention and find that it is a pertinent for us to act now so that what we have is actually sustainable, or long lasting. Some see those people as tree huggers and are focused on what society has deemed important such as money and one's reputation. Then there are people, such as myself, who see the entire spectrum, at the completion of this course. I realize that there is no way we can just drop everything and turn to sources that are completely renewable and have zero waste. However I have become more aware of the impact that we have on our world with even the smallest of things. Such as the water waste that is affecting us more than ever, and how turning the water off to brush my teeth can help in the long run. It is these small steps and actions that we take to sustain our future. To sustain, I believe, is to take action so that we can maintain healthy productive lives, with minimal cost to the environment we live in. When I think of this I am reminded of a saying my father used to always say when we went camping with regard to our waste, "You pack it in, you pack it out, leave it nicer than you found it." I feel like that sums up sustainability rather nicely. We must all account for our waste and we must all leave our environment nicer than when we came into it.

Got Sustainability?

I'll be honest. When Dr. Van Horn and Jason said most people at the end of the semester are usually not capable of defining sustainability, I was skeptical. How could we not leave this course without a clearer understanding of what sustainability is, I wondered. And here I am... asking myself what sustainability means to me now, and I guess you guys were right.

It's just as impossible to come up with some defintion now, just like it was that one time in class. I mean really. Where do you start? I guess there is no easy answer, but judging from what I got out of the class overall, I would say it's everything I thought it was before (i.e., recycling, not being wasteful, etc.), and then some.

For starters, if I've gotten anything out of this class, it's at least a clearer understanding of what this whole sustainability thing entails. Probably the biggest lesson is that sustainability takes sacrifice. It means not doing what you want to do all the time. It means staying at home versus going out. It means staying local. It means taking shorter showers. It means not eating or consuming less meat. Basically, it means a change in lifestyle, which is definitley not an easy thing to do, but it's something that in the long run can benefit those that will be here years from now. It's about our future.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, maybe there just isn't an answer. I think the more important question is what is it that we could be doing to be more sustainable? What is it that we can sacrifice for the the greater good of our future? I believe this question is fundamental in shaping the defintion of sustainability for each individual person. Do this, challenge yourself, get out of your comfort zone, and soon enough you'll find what sustainabilty is.

Sustain a what?

I now realize why it was so hard for me to come up with a definition for sustainability. The word encapsulates many different ways of living sustainably. Some factors that come into play when defining sustainability, which make it hard to incorporate all meanings of sustainability, are personal values, cultural values, religious beliefs, political differences, social classes, etc. These factors play a huge role in forming and molding sustainability into many meanings. Due to these many different views of sustainability, how then do we get everyone on the same page and in the right direction OR is everyone actually on the same track, some are just further along than others? I hope it's the latter but how can we ever really know until we start seeing progression towards a cleaner earth on a large scale? At this point I would like to leave sustainability undefined because I think the meaning changes everyday with every person. We all have our own environment (Uexküll's umwelt) and we all have our own realities. So I guess the thing to do is to make sure that we begin to value others even though they may share completely different values than we do because in the end this is a group effort and for sustainability to be achieved, in any form, we must do our best to strive for the betterment of our ecological and social environment through this illusive idea called sustainability.

What is Sustainability...again

Just as Dr. Van Horn and Jason predicted, I find it harder now to define sustainability than I did before this class began. While my previous definition, “the process of making sure every natural resource offered on this planet stays accessible and stays plentiful for as long as possible,” has merit, there’s more to it. After all, corn is a natural resource, and it will definitely stay accessible and plentiful for a long time. As we saw from the documentary “King Corn,” we’re growing more and more of it every year and it looks very unlikely that that crop will disappear any time soon. In addition, corn is keeping other things “sustainable” as well. We can use corn as a cost-effective way to feed livestock, another natural resource that we are continuing to preserve. One could even make the case that, by using corn to create an ethanol fuel, we could potentially keep oil and natural gas more sustainable by using less of it. By my first definition, our management of corn seems extremely sustainable, but we all know it isn’t. The corn we are creating is not edible, and the crop is taking up space that we could be using for something that everyone can eat. The livestock that are eating corn are not nearly as nutritious or able to transmit energy as efficiently. The corn we use as products for other food, such as corn syrup and oil is extremely unhealthy and causing more cases of diabetes all the time. It is for examples like corn that I realize my previous definition is not perfect.

For my new definition, I am reminded of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who, when asked how to define obscenity simply said, “I know it when I see it.” This might have to be the extent of my sustainability definition. While my first definition is a good indicator, sustainability ultimately boils down to just recognizing it, understanding the environment and what helps it and its inhabitants. Sustainability includes short showers, education, eating less corn and corn-fed animals, turning lights off, supporting green energy, eating locally as John Ikerd talks about, retrofitting buildings as Ann Rappaport mentioned, and even staying still, as Rebecca Solnit wrote. Sustainability covers so many different things that there’s no way to write a sentence or two that defines it.

However you define sustainability, the most important thing I learned about it this year is that it is completely attainable. In the readings and the ted.com video, we’ve seen amazing things already being done to make the world more sustainable, such as water pumps that act as merry-go-rounds and fog catchers. But even more important is the knowledge of how easy it is for each person to help out: Shorter showers, reusable containers and water bottles, no longer using trays. All of these things are fairly easy and can be done by almost everyone. This information definitely makes me more hopeful. Will our country and our world eventually become more sustainable with this kind of knowledge? I’m not sure, but I’ll know it when I see it.

Sustainability: Version 2

The more that the semester has progressed, the more I began to realize how difficult it is to find a definition that addresses all aspects of sustainability. However, in my opinion, the most significant component of sustainability is rooted in education. If we want to change the way in which people live their lives so that sustainability is an option, we must first educate society about sustainability and everything that it entails.


In Rappaport’s Campus Greening, campus greening is described as something meant to “[reduce] environmental footprints, [save] money with increased efficiency, and [to show] skeptics that progress is possible” (Rappaport 10). I think all three of these goals are valuable and worth pursuing, but I feel like the last one possesses a bit more significance largely because it attempts to educate those who don’t believe that change is a possibility. I wouldn’t say that I was a skeptic prior to enrolling in this class, but I do know that I wasn’t educated about the numerous sustainable practices one can do to encourage change. The lifestyle project gave me a richer understanding of how little things can make a big difference in the long run. For instance, I used to spend at least 12-15 minutes in the shower everyday. After the lifestyle project, I try to spend as little time as I can in the shower. 6-8 minutes is my new shower time. I know this still may seem like a long shower to many, but compared to where I was, it seems like a significantly shorter time to spend in a shower. I believe that my decision to lower my shower time will help in the long run, and it is essentially a small change meant to promote something on a much larger scale. After we collected our baseline data, we received an estimate of how much water was wasted in showers. It was after I saw the outrageous amount of water that I was wasting that I resolved to change my showering ways. It may seem like what I am saying here is immaterial, but it really isn’t because my experience is similar to the vast majority of the population. It was only through education that I was able to see that the way that I was living was detrimental to the earth, and I think this is clear proof that education plays a significant role in promoting change towards adopting sustainable practices.


Another important thing to note about education is that it can help change the system as a whole. As Rappaport suggests, “the enthusiasm of students, [and their] ability to engage in discussions of difficult society issues, [their] capacity to innovate, and talent for inspiring future decisionmakers” all are major strengths within the education system (Rappaport 10). It is the best place to begin change towards sustainable practices.


I know that I have not offered a precise definition of what sustainability is, but I think that it is virtually impossible to define a term that has so many different things that can be included in that definition. Instead, I will offer a piece of what sustainability is. Sustainability is education. Once we make sustainability a part of the curriculum of schools and a priority, we just might make our footprints invisible.

Sustainability: v2.0

Alright, so this time around it was a lot easier realizing that sustainability is not just about understanding what's good for Mama Earth and what's harmful for her, but the term requires us to get rid of some stubbornness and habits in order to make some lifestyle changes and really put words and thoughts into action. It's difficult to start walking the walk, but once it gets going it's like a full-force train headed directly to the end result. My journey of becoming more sustainable will be enhanced for me soon as my roommates and I begin moving from an apartment into a house over the break. I'm so ready for us to have our own garden and compost pile especially, and as soon as we move in I will be a serious homebody. Since this has been my goal for quite some time, reading Rebecca Solnit's "The Most Radical Thing You Can Do" really set my goal in stone for me. If more people would stay at home more often and consume less now, our future would be easier for us since it's looking like we will eventually be forced to stay close to home. I know most of humanity might not be ready for that change, but for those who want to, starting now would be a great step toward becoming a sustainable society.

What is Sustainability?

There is no doubt that the world today faces an immense problem. Our human expansionist tendencies that hold little to no regard for the environment are finally taking a toll on the earth, and no one around the globe is exempt. That is where the idea of sustainability comes in. While it is true sustainability is a global responsibility, looking it from such an impersonal perspective can ironically downplay the significance it should have for each and every one of us. The diffusion of responsibility that tends to happen in a group of individuals is greatly magnified in a worldwide scale; one can only expect for the effect to be of much greater magnitude in that sense. That said, reconsideration for the meaning of sustainability is necessary. Sustainability is not just a global responsiblity shared by all - it is a personal responsibility the world has in common.

Week 3

So this is a little late but my third week was actually very good. I had a great response to my recycling contraption. By the end of the week (Sunday) I had collected 251 cans. That is so awesome, because I was afraid of how people would respond to my idea. They responded with a lot of enthusiasm as you can tell. The real catch is the can crusher, it allows the guys and girls the opportunity of crushing something weaker than they. Which feels pretty damn cool. I know this may sound simple and silly, but getting people involved with recycling actually works when you make them involve themselves in the activity. The process of having to crush cans brings people into the process, and they find that it's not so difficult to do!

Week Away

I spent my thanksgiving break at my ranch which provided a nice change of setting in with which to assess hole I have been living at Southwestern. The most startling difference I noticed was how much energy my family was unconsciously wasting. Here in Georgetown me and my friends because of our lack of funds we have to remain conscientious of how much energy we consume. With my parents this is just not the case and I don't believe it is because they care any more or less about the environment they simply equate energy with money and are fortunate enough that they aren't nearly as frugal as college students. I believe this is somewhat indicative of the current energy situation in America. I think that there are is a portion of our society which uses an astronomical amount of energy not because they necessarily intend to but appear to simply overlook such waste.

The third week of fun.

My third week was just as much fun and eventful as the two prior. My project overlapped into the wednesday of Thanksgiving break, and I was happy for this because I had a lot of cool projects that I like to include as a part of my sustainable life. My compost bin needed a lot of rebuilding, it was pretty dry and old I guess. It provided a good boost to try and keep my garden alive for alittle longer before winter got to cold. Other than that I had some trouble on keeping the heat off upstairs because I had to live up there with my sister. I convinced her to let me though because I told her I had to to pass my class. My eating habits with less meat is the biggest most upsetting part of the project. I have really enjoyed this project, and have realized that I use a lot more resources than I probably should.

Sustainability at the barn!

So I have not remarked on my composting lifestyle as much, so I did some reflecting. I tried to find some common ground to composting in this area. Living in a city area it is more groundbreaking to compost in a huge city, that is fast paced and so little the voice of the environment is taken into consideration, and that is why it has permeated my brain in such a way. I mentioned in my first post that to me sustainability is living off the map or "disappearing". I wanted to bring to light a place that has kept itself hidden pretty well. I ride at a barn with some Warmblood breeders who were long listed for the Olympics. Living on a farm and owning so many horses is very expensive, so as many barns in the area, they try to find other alternative to save and reuse resources. One way that they do so is by using their manure from cleaning stalls to fertilize the fields in which they grow hay. Every weekend morning that I am there I take the manure from cleaning a few stalls and dump it in a manure spreader. To replace shaving in the stalls, a truck comes from a logging company;s mill to bring in the scraps off the workroom floor. This nation is known for building most of its houses from wood, and owners here pay a cheap price for gas to get the shavings in. The owners here also compost their food from their own seasonal garden. It is small but provides a lot of food, so much that this summer, Carol had to get give me several heads of lettuce because she could never eat that many salads!!! and it was delicious! Richard has a creative fly trap in the barn invented by himself, and uses the flies for composting too. He says they are an excellent source of nitrogen. Carol has a lot of land, which means a lot of fencing to keep those young baby horses safe. Carol has a solar panel that provides electricity for the electrical fencing on the property. There are few hiccups in the road to sustainability for this farm, however impressive it may be. Water is a huge issue. You cant have horses without water. Even now, shavings are scares too, so the barn is constantly being savvy about water and other resources. Electricity is not an issue since they only need power for fencing, and the arena is a covered one with sky lighting and open sides to let light in, and most of the work is done during the day anyway. Only in case of a late night emergency will light be needed, in which case anyone can flip the switch. Even on gray, or darker days, riding can be done, and mucking will just have to be done in the dark for a while. Not a lot of people hear about these small happenings in communities because they arnt really loud anyway. This farm isn't fancy or overpriced or falsely advertised as an Olympic barn. It is as down to earth as it can be.

Week Three + Thanksgiving

Week three was just about the same as week 1 and 2. My initial goals have been reached and my lifestyle has changed to an extent. Recently I have noticed that in my apartment and everywhere I go really, cultural norms encourage us to consume more, think less and care less; even when we are being conscious of our consumption. These cultural norms have also made it hard to become more sustainable because of the nature of the appliances we invent, the cars we make, the kind of energy we burn, etc. This is all pretty disheartening but luckily this thanksgiving I was able to start a compost pile for my parents. For as much as my parents cook I thought it was more than appropriate to start collecting scraps and leftover newspapers for composting. My mom was totally into it and wanted to learn more, so I made a composting bin and began the initial process in producing compost. By the end of thanksgiving my whole family had composted around 1-2 pounds of scraps. Now that they are conscious of there food scraps hopefully they will continue to compost and maybe even apply some of those changes to other aspects of their lives. With the family it is interesting because it is so easy to make little comments about wasteful consumption and the amount of energy we use etc. but one cannot fully understand the reality of wasteful consumption and the benefits of reusing, reducing and recycling until they see and experience it for themselves.

Week Three and Thanksgiving

The third week of the project was probably my worst week. I guess I thought I did a pretty good job with week two and forgot to think about it as much on week three. I did well with the not-eating-meat part of the project as well as the water and electricity parts (including turning off my roommate's room lights and the tv when she wasn't there!) but I did terribly with the trash part. I guess I was discouraged after feeling sick and throwing away so many tissues and other trash. Thanksgiving was also difficult. I did eat the free range turkey my family made, but I made an effort not to use the paper plates my family used throughout the week in efforts to limit the amount of dishes they had to wash. So I used other plates and washed them which made me think: is it better to use paper plates and throw them out or use water to wash plates? I decided water to wash plates because I could limit the amount of water I used whereas the whole paper plate would go to a landfill or wherever. It was also difficult to watch the amount of electricity that I used and that my family used. We had twelve people staying at our house and I know we used so much electricity it's scary. Overall I think that I have decreased the amount of electricity, water, and garbage that I have used. I haven't had a bad day yet, but I can imagine the one thing that I will probably fall back on is the water usage for my stressful-day shower. Also, I would like to continue eating a mostly meat-free diet but I think that I will be up for eating the occasional free range chicken or beef product. I think now I'll always take recognition of the amount of garbage, meat, water, and electricity that I'm using. The difficult part will be permanently changing my actions to permanently use less.

The Last Week... which was last week.

So, this is coming more than a little late, but it gives me the chance to tell about this week as well.
The last official week of the sustainability project went well. I hardly drove at all, and continued with my limitations on energy and food consumption. But, this week I spent Thanksgiving with my family in Houston--my first Thanksgiving as a vegetarian. My parents already knew about my recent eating habits, but I hadn't told my grandparents or the rest of my family. I thought I could slide by unnoticed when I didn't take a slice of turkey, but I was wrong. The first thing my mom said when she came through the door was, "Hey, that turkey smells great. Too bad Kate doesn't eat meat anymore." Thanks Mom. My aunts asked me if I had an eating disorder and my grandpa tried to convince me that turkey wasn't really meat. By the end, I think they accepted my reasoning.
I did a little catching up with some old friends in Austin on Friday. We decided to see a movie and I suggested "Fuel" because I heard that it was only showing in 4 theaters in the US and depending on how many people go to see it will determine if it will be shown nation-wide. The movie was eye opening. It was all about America's dependence on oil and the importance of alternate energy, like wind and solar power, but mostly biodiesel. Josh Tickell was the director and "star" of the film and his mom, who had a part in the film, was there to meet everyone after the showing. It was amazing! I was like, "I just saw you on that screen, and now here you are in real life." It was crazy. There wasn't many people in the theater, so we got to have a real conversation. She really stressed getting the movie out there through word of mouth.
So, here I am--Go see Fuel! Seriously.

Last week! (a little late)

Sorry this is coming late but I drove home Monday night passed out and forgot about school.

But now I have remembered now that I have preached sustainability and being environmentally friendly to the entire family all day today. The last week of the project came more natural to me than the previous weeks even though it was for a longer time I found it easier to be responsible and be more sustainable. As far as energy usage was concerned I lived in the dark for most of the four days I worked on the project. Unless I was doing homework I didn't use the computer, and invented ways to get light. Like carpooling you can share stuff like light, I went to my friends room or the common room when I needed to do something. As far as water consumption is concerned my quick showers are pretty much habit and I still reuse a water bottle. I have made sure to minimize my waste in every way possible from snacking less, to reusing everything I could. It was nice to sit back and talk to the family about my classes and I enjoyed telling them what a big difference awareness could make.

In the end after the project has ended I think I will continue the project in my life. Just the fact that I CAN make a noticable difference through simple actions has somewhat inspired me to do my part. In the beginning we talked about the deffinition of sustainability, and after working and thinking about my project I would have to say Sustainability is the awareness of our actions, the reduction of the impact that we have 0n the environment that we occupy, and the education of others around us toward that goal.

third week

This last week went pretty well. I went to Austin and to my surprise i ate NO meat!! I could not believe it and neither could my friends. I did get tempting at time but i was able to survive the whole weekend. My friends and i went to lunch on sunday and i convinced them to take their own boxed for the food they never finish. Throughout the whole week I used much less light than I usually use.

hmmm

Well, as far as my eating habits this past week, I let myself down a few times. My mom threw my dad a surprise party for his birthday and we had a great dinner... with steak and chicken. I guess my carnivore behavior was to prevent my mom from feeling disrespected, plus I knew how great the cooks were. Then another day, I was very hungry and didn't have time to make a meal but I didn't have anything quick to make... except for some Chef Boyardee meat ravioli that turned about to be really disgusting. And lastly, my roommate wanted me to try some of her meat from her Lean Cuisine, and I was pretty impressed I must say. I guess it was kind of a downhill week for my vegetarianism since I started with my dad's party, but those were the only times I had meat so at least I didn't have it every day I guess. So the cold weather has stuck around the past couple of weeks, and our heater has not been as warming as it could be and I am in the process of making a very warm blanket. Aaaand for electricity and water usage, I'd have to say it's about the same as last week, I can't really recall any vast improvements or situations that arose, but there still is some let down in the lack of improvement. Well, I guess if you weigh it out I didn't do so well this past week, but hey, it's a process. Never get discouraged!

Week Three

Week three was actually pretty easy for me I have gotten pretty used to most of the changes I have made. The hardest thing for me this week was just doing all three things at the same time and thinking about all of them. I would be thinking about how I was proud of myself for not eating meat and forget to turn off the water. I think only this can come with doing things over a long period of tme and getting used to thinking about them all the time. Another hard thing for me in the beginning was cutting down my showers because I love to take long showers. Over these three weeks I have been able to consistently take 5-6 minute showers, even if they are really hot when it's cold outside I consider this a big acomplishment for myself. I have learned to try and use light in places where the lights are already on instead of using my own light, and it really hasnt been a big adjustment, and ive tried to keep my driving to a minimum only driving when it's absolutely necesarry.

My Journal Entry, Week 3

And here we are.

Well, for starters, let me say that this week was probably the worst in terms of me being a good vegetarian. The first day there was the turkey dinner in the commons, and although I DID have two very small pieces of turkey, I stopped there. The next day, I ate a little bit of this shrimp thing, and on my third day I ate a bit of a different shrimp thing, but that was it, I promise!

So, all embarrassing vegetarian-related confessions aside, it was a relatively normal week in regards to the electricity part. Nothing much changed from last week.

Finally, the water thing was pretty good too. First day, I took a 7-ish minute shower, the second day was 5 minutes, the third day was 3 minutes, and, actually, the fourth day was phenomenal because I was so exhausted from that day that I completely crashed at 8 o' clock in the evening and forgot to shower completely. So THAT was a record. ;)

All in all, this actually was a good experience for me, even if it was really annoying at points. :) I felt like I really was making a difference and I believe that this project will help me automatically be more environmentally conscious in the future!!

Before and After

I have always known that making clothes was hard, but making clothes from your own, at home, found materials is even harder. I remember last semester going through clothes and donating them to Goodwill, so the truth is, I now have a thinner closet with few items I would like to recreate. At an auction I sold  few dresses that I had made by hand and one vintage dress I fitted for a customer. The past few weeks I have stared into my closet and gone mad in thinking, "I have to create sustainable clothes, but not only that, I have to go into my own creativity to make something sustainable." I think it's fair to day sustainability starts with a thought, then action. But when the resources are limited, how do stay sustainable without using too much or wasting? This is what I had to do, but in a smaller less important sense, in that this was just my closet, not the end of the world. I shook the big question in my head and thought simple. For example, a plain white tee. I must for anyone's wardrobe. But how can I make it different? Simple: Take scissors and experiment. Thankfully, I have a lot of plain white tees. But it only took me a few tries to get what create look I wanted.

P.S. Vegetariansism, not doing too well. Last week had fish, then something in my dressing/dip had chicken. Totally felt sick too...this happened in high school when I was vegetarian, and I came into contact with beef and threw up on my prom dress when on sixth street. It was very classy... The composting however is going well, and I am happy to say that the whole family has joined in it.

Natalie K

Oh, the Sustainability!

as i started this faux-vegetarian lifestyle for a few days a week, i was quite unsure of whether it would stick or not. i didnt eat very much meat before-hand so i figured it wouldn't be too much trouble. as i realized these past few weeks that i was very wrong, and it was difficult, it's finally become habit for me not to eat meat when i don't really want it. i ate very little meat at the turkey fry this past weekend and no meat at our apo (community service organization) thanksgiving potluck. although this week is thanksgiving, i decided to quit meat, cold turkey.

i have come to be in a very good habit of saving water and electricity: i don't turn my lights on until night and even then it's just two lamps, i turn the water off while brushing my teeth, i took 2, two minute showers this week and when doing the dishes, i am turning off the water between dishes. it's quite neat knowing that my small changes are making a difference.

as for the recycling project...i finally contacted the manager of my office about it! i have to submit a "green" proposal to them laying out a plan for the recycling project and how to move forward in the "greening" process from there. i know everyone in the office will be just as excited to recycle...

Week 3-- The End, But Not Really

I can honestly say my lifestyle has changed drastically since the beginning of this project. Not only are my showers shorter (7 minutes), but I also practically never turn on my lights (unless it's to read at night), and YES, I kept myself from creating waste.

I think most importantly these past three weeks have taught me how to be more aware of my consumption habits, which like someone else said, was the whole point to this project. And despite the project being over, I've noticed I still find myself thinking twice before doing anything that does not contribute to sustainability. This goes to show just how much of an impact this project as been for me, and I'm really glad to have learned so much. I hope to from now on always be aware of my consumption habits, and if anything improve further.

Week the Last

Food
-I was planning on going four days in a row without eating meat, but wouldn’t you know it? Day 2 was Thanksgiving turkey dinner. And while I realized at the time that refusing the turkey would have truly shown my devotion to this cause, I couldn’t help giving in. I added on an extra day to the end of the week to make up for it, but I still feel guilty.
-The commons had a tofu stir fry dish on day 3, which I decided to take since I couldn’t find much else. I hadn’t had tofu in a very long time and I was surprised how tasty and satisfying it was. If anything, this experiment is reminding me of all these vegetarian options that I forgot about
-I’ve been learning that if you look hard enough, there’s always something vegetarian and good in the commons. I found in a small container in the salad bar a really good pasta salad with all of these vegetables in it. I know that if I was eating meat and didn’t have space to fill on my plate, I would have passed over it. I’m not sure why they hide all of these good vegetarian choices.
-They had chicken tacos on day 3, which I really wanted, but I resisted. I told the woman behind the counter that I wanted everything except for the tacos and she gave me an incredulous look and said “except the tacos???” I didn’t take it personally, but I found it interesting how she was sort of judging me for not eating the meat. I bet a lot of people have problems with that.

Trash
Going wasteless this week was somewhat of a disaster. By day 2 I had a fairly bad cold, and despite my using my cloth napkins, resisting gum, composting leftover food and reusing when I can, I couldn’t help but use lots and lots of tissues and packaging around allergy and cold medication. I went to the Cove to get tea with my own mug, but still had to throw away the wrapper around the tea bag and the receipt they forced me to take. I find it interesting that I seem to be wasting more while trying to go wasteless and being sick than I waste when I’m well and not trying to go wasteless.

Compost
I’m actually doing better every week with composting. My container is brimming with leftover food, banana peels and potato skins as I type this. Even some of my friends who live on my floor are coming by with some food to compost, which makes me feel good.

Epilogue
Doing this lifestyle project was no easy feat. A lot of things I consumed or wasted without thinking about I was forced to take for granted. Yet despite its difficulty, in another light, my life didn’t change significantly at all. Yes, it might have been hard to be conscious of not wasting, but the task was not nearly as daunting after I got used to it. I still had three satisfying meals a day, I still could go wherever my friends went and I could still do almost everything I had done in the past, though perhaps with some slight modifications. Although it wasn’t a piece of cake, ultimately the lifestyle project really didn’t change my lifestyle that much, which I think is a good thing. Being sustainable is not as unattainable or even as irritating as it seems. I think I’m going to stick with some of my strategies even after these three weeks are over. I’m going to continue to use my cloth napkin, I won’t ever use the Styrofoam takeout again and I won’t always eat meat whenever it’s available to me. I will going to go back to chewing gum, I decided, but I’m going to start buying the kind that you pop out from the one package like Dentyne Ice instead of the stick gums from Extra that are each individually wrapped in foil and again in paper. I never thought how wasteful that was before. So yeah, I think this three-week experiment has really shown me some useful tools that I can use for the rest of my college career and even my entire life. In the words of will.i.am, it’s a new day!

The Final Week (dun dun dunnnn!!!)

Overall, what I've found to be difficult about this project is that it is based on the assumption that I was not already environmentally conscious in my daily living. I will definitely admit that I discovered a multitude of ways to live more sustainably that I had never known before, and I will most definitely incorporate those into my lifestyle now that I have been enlightened.

At the beginning, I was very enthusiastic about this project, and did everything in my power to throw absolutely nothing away, to use as little electricity and water as possible, and to abstain from meat. However, it became harder and harder to progress as much as I did the first week because I had to improve in areas I had already improved before this project. I lost enthusiasm pretty quickly.

So this past week, I messed up quite a bit, and in trying to make up for it, all of my days just blended together. I just tried to consume less and dispose of less in general instead of paying attention to specifics.

Living sustainably is hard. Much more than I expected. Honestly, I feel pretty disappointed in myself for how easily I persuaded myself to justify my wasteful actions, but I realize that that is a vital part of revamping my lifestyle. I won't be able to live a "green" lifestyle tomorrow or next week, but I'll change one habit at a time until I get there.

Lifestyle Project Week Three

Looking back before I started the lifestyle project I remember being afraid that I wouldn't be able to successfully complete week three of our project, but this past week instead of completing four days of the lifestyle project I accidently completed five. It wasn't till I finished taking an extremely short shower on friday night that I remembered that had already finished my four required days. This made me realize that being sustainability really revolves around changing our bad habits which are usually the result of laziness.

In these past three weeks eating foods that are sustainable to this area wasn't to hard, but since the only fruits that are sustainable to the Austin area in the fall are melons I encountered a slight problem because I'm allergic to melons. So on my sustainable eating days I usually stuck to eating vegetables instead of fruit. Cutting out highly processed foods wasn't to hard, except that I am used to drinking a diet coke almost everyday.

Over the past three weeks I realized that most of the waste I created stemmed from my school work or snacking. Cutting out highly processed foods eliminated most of the waste I created from snacking. And  to cut back on my paper waste I've tried to save the paper and write my grocery lists on them.

Cutting back on my electricity was hard based on how much I multitask. I usually study in my room at night, so I tried to do most of  study during the day when I didn't need to have the  light on. I also stopped watching tv when I was on the the computer. 

3rd Week

So here we are on the third week and things are looking up. On the food, I have finally decided that the cheese pizza in the commons isn't too bad and the soup is good too. The no meat thing isn't actually that hard I just have to plan ahead for everyday. I just sometimes aren't able to eat the meal I want, but I can still find something to satisfy my hunger. Starting out on this project, I thought it was the end of the world that I had to cut down on eating meat, but it really isn't this bad.

The showering is pretty easy compared to all. My showers have been knocked down to between 5 minutes and 10 minutes. I really am surprised with myself in how I shorten the showers down. The showering allows me to cut down on my time and be more efficient daily. This helps me have more time in between my kickboxing class and my nations and nationalism class, in which in one hour, I have to shower, eat, and get everything ready for class. 

The no waste thing has also been a semi-success for the week, (I ended up cheating when I bought myself icecream) but all in all I have been pretty good at not making trash. The lifestyle project has caused me to create a pattern which will allow me to cut down on the trash and energy I produce long after the class is over.

week 3 of lifestyles project

The third week of the lifestyles project was more successful than I was expecting. I have found myself being extremely more conscious of my actions and I think that is precisely what this project was intended to do. I think that this will help me in the future also because even when the project is not going on,  all the information I have learned about sustainability and sustainable actions have really opened my eyes to all the simple things that I can do to save just a little bit of energy or water. I am going to try to only eat meat a couple times a week and eat much more fruits and vegetables. Also, I am going to encourage my family back at home to shop locally and to also check out the farmer's market sometime soon. For the simple logistics of the week- I was actually successful in my attempt to be vegetarian for 4 days, I really cut down my showers (they were all mostly around 5 minutes), and I didn't drive except when I went to work.

week three

Like the people who've posted so far, I'm trying to evaluate what's going to stick.

I don't think short showers will, honestly. It's something that I'm going to have to work really hard on to keep up with. Electricity will, I think. It's something I pay a lot of attention to now.

Being a vegetarian might, in the long run. I already can figure out what I'm going to eat without much trouble, as opposed to the first week where sometimes I would wander around the Commons for a few minutes trying to figure out what I was going to do. In the first couple of weeks, on no-meat days my mantra was 'It's okay. You can have it another day' and I noticed this week that my attitude was less that I was being deprived and more that I was doing something that would have a positive impact on myself and the world around me.

Except when there was bacon in the vicinity. Then it was sort of hopeless.

So I think that it's going to be off and on for quite a while. But I think the attitude shift is the important thing. That's what really gets anyone to quit doing anything. The past three weeks have gotten me to look at what's important to me, and to follow through on that in my behavior. It's a good feeling.

I'm so proud of my junk art. It's something I always say I'm going to do, and never get around to. But in the past week I've finished two projects and am almost done with a third. One of them is awful, but the other two. So cool.

The third week of the sustainability project was actually the most difficult for me. I didn’t think this would be the case because I felt like everything was going so well, but I guess I didn’t really understand how much change the third week would bring about.


The biggest challenge for me this week was the temperature change. It has been the most difficult thing for me all three weeks, but it was really tough this week. I will put it to you this way; it was so tough that I had to wear a jacket to bed. Anyway, the temperature was set at 63 degrees. I had a lot of restless nights, but I was fighting through it. One of my suitemates, however, was not having an easy time. I had thought everything was going ok, but apparently that wasn’t the case because on Thursday she decided to adjust the temperature. Though I was disappointed that she didn’t talk to me about it first, I could understand why she adjusted the temperature. She apologized, but I insisted that an apology wasn’t necessary because we inhabited the same area and I could understand why it would be hard for her to live in such uncomfortable conditions. Even though she turned the temperature up just three degrees, I could feel the difference and enjoyed it knowing that I failed. Overall, I was disappointed that the temperature adjustment thing didn’t work out over the entire three weeks. But honestly, it is hard for me to be too disappointed because I felt like I did a good job going out of my comfort zone. I am extremely cold-natured, and I am impressed that I was able to tolerate the temperature shift for even two weeks. Truly, it is hard for me to expect others to want to sacrifice their comfort for my project…

Just like the previous weeks, my biggest victory has been found in my short shower times. I actually took a 3.5 minute shower, which is amazing for me. The longest shower I took this week was 6.5 minutes, and the average of the rest was roughly 5.5 minutes. I finally stopped cutting my legs during speed shaving, too! As I have said in my previous journals, I am one of those people that usually take way too long in the shower. In a sense, I feel reformed because I honestly have gotten used to taking shorter showers. I am going to try to make shorter showers a permanent part of my lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean I will never take long showers. I might need to take at least a few… But, I truly believe it is doable to incorporate shorter showers into my lifestyle.

I also had to wash clothes this week, so that wasn’t too good. I washed two loads of laundry but instead of wasting energy by using the dryer, I just had them air dry in my room. It actually was pretty nice because we set it up to where half of our common room could be used to dry clothes, and I also saved money by not using the dryer. Win-win situation honestly…I unplug my computer anytime it isn’t in use now, which I never used to do prior to week two. I probably have wasted a significant amount of energy simply by not unplugging my computer. I feel a bit repetitive, but I used sunlight rather than room lights to during the day. I like sitting by the window while doing my homework. It is nice. I didn’t use the microwave this week at all as well.

I did well in the food aspect of the project as well. I survived being a vegetarian for four days, but it wasn’t really that enjoyable for me. Don’t get me wrong though, I enjoy vegetables a lot. I just enjoy eating meat as well. I don’t think there is anything wrong eating meat as long as you balance it out by eating other healthy things such as vegetables and grains. It is all about balancing out your diet. Like I have said before, I wish I could say something dramatic about food. I just really haven’t had issues. I am thinking that is a good thing!

third time's a charm

Week 3 has definitely been easier than I thought it would be. I think Week 1 was probably the most challenging but by the time I started planning ahead and thinking of more sustainable ways I could do something, it was a lot easier. Week 3 almost felt like a breeze. I guess I didn't realize how easy it is to change a few things about my life in order to become more sustainable. Taking a shorter shower, turning the water off when I brush my teeth, lowering the heat, composting...those are all really simple things that I can do. I think the biggest thing was just changing the way I thought about things. It is really easy to get in a routine and it's a lot harder to break that routine. However, now that I have gotten used to using less water and energy and producing less waste, it has become my new routine. Yes, I did have a few slip ups this week but I have begun to learn from them so that I am better prepared the next time. I really hope that I can keep up this project for the rest of my life and I think that I will. If just a few minor changes in my life can make a difference, think about what we all can do if we just work together.

week 2.

After completing my second week of bettering my lifestyle for the environment, I have gained even more respect for the idea of sustainability. The changes implemented were not as hectic as the first week, but the duration of three days seemed to last much longer than an additional day. The only real obstacle that seemed to be troublesome was not eating meat. I never noticed how much meat I actually consume. Like I saw in an earlier post the film on corn was really eye opening. It helped me become more aware of what I was actually eating and has also effected people around me just by casual conversation with them about it. Lowering my energy consumption has been more of a fun lifestyle than a hassle. Over all this project has been a fun combination of learning and using concepts that I learn in class in my life. 

Week 2

So far my project is going smoothly Week 2 was spent constructing my recycle bin. The actual cost to purchase all the materials was actually a little bit cheaper than I had anticipated. I have actually modified my design. I maintained the can crusher idea which I feel is a great way to save some space. All I did was cut a long oval shaped hole in a piece of plywood. Then I spray painted it the typical blue recycle bin color and fastened some clamps onto the back side of it. This means I can attach the relatively small recycling receptacle on any ledge. On the bottom of the bin, I have attached hooks which allow for a bag to be hooked from the underside of the plywood. I have thought about an alternative to a typical plastic bag, but as of now I don't have the money to purchase any more materials, but I'm thinking about a washable bag that could be reused over and over. So for now I track the progress that we make as a group effort. People here seem to be excited about the notion of a recycling program in our house which is exciting!

Semana Dos

Week 2 was a success. With little trouble I've been able to keep the air off, eat the tiniest amount of meat and refrain from driving. One reason I haven't noticed myself wanting to change the way I've been performing these tasks is partly due to the busyness of school. I guess with my mind being elsewhere, I have been living more sustainable (weird, I know). Another likely possibility is that before I consume items like water, food, groceries, etc. I've been more and more mindful of the origin of these items. This has really helped reduce any resistance to becoming more sustainable. Also, watching King Corn last week was a shot of reality. I had no idea that the majority of corn grown in the U.S. can't be eaten off the cob and that the corn is purely grown to be processed. wow

Week 2

This week my three days of cutting down on water/electricity use and waste production was relatively successful. I have learned that its pretty easy for me to reduce my electricity consumption by just spending more of my time being outside and active, in the gym, playing soccer, or taking a nap. When im outside being active I spend less time sitting on the computer with the lights on in our room and have less of an urge to snack. So in the end being active encourages less energy usage, and we are healthier for it in the process. Another thing that I learned this week is that everything comes in a wrapper and I love snacking. Managing my waste production has been and still is my toughest area of the lifestyle project. Alot of cutting back on waste is about planning ahead. So when im not on my lifestyle project and i go buy all these snacks and they sit on my shelf its quite tempting to eat them and then u get nothing other than a bunch of trash. So my snacking habbit has frustrated me a bit this week but my roommate had a good theory and that was that I eat because im bored. So I figure I need to find something productive to do with all this freetime I have nowadays. Other than trash I have continued to find it easy to use less water, I can walk in and out of the shower and 2-3 minutes and not run the sink untill i need to rinse. I use the water fountain alot more now to fill up a water bottle instead of bying the 28 packs of ozarka water bottles that I used to use. As far as energy consumption goes this week while I was turning things off I thought why do we have two AC units on full blast all the time, so i turned them off and opened up the window and just like that it was cold. This computer is the only thing that I really use now that consumes electicity, besides my alarm clock and my phone charger. So overall I am pretty happy about this week. I feel that I have continued to lessin my impact on the environment and it will be hard to improve upon next week. I welcome the challenge though.

Wasteful Week 2

So here is what I've discovered. Saving electricity and water is relatively easy. All I have to do is turn things off when I don't need them. No problem. And individually, it's not that hard to avoid meat and to not throw anything away for 3 days. The problem here is doing them at the same time.
I am willing to try foods other than meat, but the problem is that when I'm in the commons deciding what looks edible or not, it's usually the vegetarian dish that freaks me out the most. So when I bravely choose to get the squash instead of the chicken nuggets, I convince myself that it's okay because it will be healthier for me. But when I try it and I feel the need to spit it back out onto my plate before I barf, it wouldn't matter if I lost 5 pounds from eating the squash. I just couldn't do it; I had to throw it away.
One of my favorite snacks are my Special K bars. And I always think "Hey, I can have a granola bar because it's not meat!" But then I remember that I'd have to throw away the wrapper, so I don't eat it. This is especially hard in the morning when I want to bring one to class for breakfast, but I can't. I actually gave up halfway through the 2nd day and decided to try not to throw anything away for another half-day.
So I didn't do very well this week; I didn't have a lot of willpower to resist a few luxuries. However, I was really excited because my suitemates have started to use less electricity. They used to leave lights on and sometimes even the TV for an hour or two when they weren't even in the room, so I finally just started going into their room and turning off their lights. When they discovered what I was doing, they laughed and began to turn off their lights and TV more. :)

Week 2

So, I didn't do so hot in the transportation area. I drove myself to Austin on Friday to get my hair cut. Also, I haven't been saving as much water as I used to, seeing as I've gone back to showering everyday. But, that will soon change. I might buy this water-free shampoo stuff that my quadmate was telling me about. We'll see how that goes.
Although I failed in transportation and water usage, I've gotten better at knowing my personal portions of food. Many-a-time have I been President of the Clean Plate Club. Mom and Dad would be so proud. On the subject of food, I have also gotten my whole quad contributing to the compost. I started a compost bucket for everyone to thrown in their peels, rinds, etc. Which reminds me--I should probably take that to the compost sometime soon...

Week 2

This weekend I went to Austin again. Though someone from Austin came all the way to Georgetown to pick me up and take to Austin, so I failed in energy use. My vicotry this week is that i accomplished reducing the amount of meat i ate. Watching how the cows were being treated when watching King Corn really affected me, so it was not really heard hard to reduce my intake of meat. Also I also do not blow dry my hair as much. I used to shower everyday in the morning to dry my hair. I now shower early in the night so my hair drys naturally and i wont have to sleep with my hair wet cause i get really cold.

not so weak 2!

You know, I think I did pretty well this week. With some help from my roommate, we made a great impact on cutting down to minimal light usage and unplugging appliances we don't need plugged in all day. Also, I actually cut down my shower time by an average of two minutes, which I thought was a pretty good step since I really enjoy my once-every-couple-days showers. My eating habits are doing just fine I am happy to say, though I did splurge on some Whataburger and the divine McAlister's club sandwich, but those were my only meats for the week! And as we all felt this past week, it got a lot colder. And my heater was not on as high of a temp as I wanted to put it on, and believe it or not I am alive. But yeah, I'm looking forward to keeping the heating down since I'm pretty sure my apartment doesn't circulate air well anyway and I could definitely save some money. Way to go week 2!

Oh, what a second week

As I continue my quest to cut out meat for three days this week, I hit an interesting "bump in the road." Due to some scheduling conflicts, my mom's side of the family had our Thanksgiving get-together this past Saturday. Not planning ahead too well, that fell together with my last no-meat day. I am not a huge fan of Thanksgiving turkey, but it was quite a struggle to not pick at the turkey while waiting to eat dinner together. Since there were two other vegetarians at the gathering, we had some vegetarian options to substitute for the turkey stuffing and gravy and such. I gobbled these right up as they were quite delicious and soon after eating way too much of all the sides, I didn't miss the turkey at all. Other than this interesting habit change, cutting meat out has become a nice habit I have come into.

I took a four minute shower this week and I'm pretty proud of that. Still going for the solid two minutes, but I still have another week. My electricity usage has been cut way down because i dont leave my laptop charger plugged in all the time. Instead, I plugged it into a power strip and turn the strip on when I need it and off when I'm through.

Still working with the office manager to start the recycling program because I'm determined to be successful here. The employees here throw away way too many recyclable items and it can easily be changed.

My Journal Entry, Week 2

Electricity:

Throughout these three days, I did pretty much the same things as last week; I tried to stay in public places as much as possible, taking advantage of the lights that would be on whether I was there or not as opposed to being in my room where I'd be using more electricity for just myself, I challenged myself to only have one light in the room at a given point in time, and I'd rush over to turn the bathroom lights off whenever one of my suitemates would leave it on (AGAIN) like my ever-loving life depended on it (jk ;)...just the usual. hehe...

Food:

I was a bit better than last week at being a vegetarian, probably since I didn't see a whole lot during the past three days that was meat-related that I particularly wanted. I DID get awfully sick of eating pretty much only cheese pizza and salad for three days straight, though...only one slip-up for the week --- and it was kinda deliberate...there were Caesar chicken wraps today and I was so tired of the same old pizza and salad routine that I went ahead and got one. It wasn't that much chicken though, and I avoided the "Cuban Rubbed Chicken" (that looked pretty good to me) like the plague at dinner. :)

Water:

This is the change that definitely annoyed me the most this week.

The first day, I got a four-minute shower in, and the second day I took a three-minute one. The third day I took a five-minute shower to wash my hair twice because I had a special event to go to the next day.

Looking at those sentences I just typed, I feel like I'm living like a monk or something.
It's just that I want to relax, not simply get clean. Showers USED to be therapeutic....grrmff.

That was my Week 2. :P

Week the Second

Day 1

Food
-Not much has changed since last week, really. Yeah there are certain meat dishes I sometimes looked longingly at today, but each vegetarian meal has ultimately been very satisfying

Trash
-The cloth napkins I brought from home work like a charm. I can just stuff them in my pockets when I walk to the commons and it saves me the trouble of reaching across the table whenever I need a new napkin
-I really wanted coffee this morning after getting very little sleep the night before, but I need my coffee to be sweet and the only sugar I can use are the prepackaged squares, so no coffee for me. I guess I’ll have to find other ways to stay awake
-I also can’t have the awesome Texas-shaped waffles since it requires pouring the pre-made batter into the iron from a plastic cup and throwing the cup away. Oh well.

Day 2

Food
-Well, unfortunately for me, today was chicken fried steak day. It was hard to pass that up, but I prevailed. It can only get easier from here

Trash
-I had bad allergies today and had to bend the rules a bit to use some tissues. I felt guilty throwing those away, but I would have felt guiltier with snot all over my face.
-I’ve been noticing how abstaining from throwing anything away is revealing all of the dumb little things I’ve grown accustomed to. For instance I used to get a straw every meal for my soda/tea/water, and now I find myself getting bothered by the ice blocking the flow of the drink into my mouth. This is followed directly by me being bothered that I’m bothered by something as negligible and stupid as the efficiency of the flow of soda into my mouth. It’s an interesting range of emotions.
-The gum thing is still bothering me, but it’s getting a little bit more manageable. I’ve been thinking about switching to the kind of gum packaging where you just pop the little square from that plastic bubble sheet like Dentyne Ice instead of the individually wrapped stick gum I have now.

Day 3

Food
-Still no huge change or epiphany. I’ve actually noticed that I’ve been complaining less about the commons food than my meat-eating friends.
-They had shrimp etouffe today and I was debating whether shrimp and seafood counted for me under the category of meat. I decided that while fish might not be fed grain, overfishing is still an issue and I turned it down

Trash
-I decided to take the food out today and was able to do it without wasting anything. Instead of using the Styrofoam boxes and cups and plasticware, I used my newly purchased Tupperware container and a used glass Snapple bottle. I might have also stolen some silverware.

Compost
-I asked my friend if I could take her watermelon rinds for the compost after she ate like 5 slices. She thought it was a weird question, but after I explained she had no problem giving them to me.
-I’m doing better with recycling everything possible, but I’m doing a bad job of regularly visiting the compost. My room doesn’t smell yet, surprisingly, but I have a lot of gross moldy fruit above my refrigerator. I’m surprised my roommate hasn’t complained yet.

Week Two

Well, to start off with, I found this week definitley more of a challenge. Not creating waste is still my biggest problem. And if anything, I think it's my only problem. I've pretty much gotten used to using only one light in my room when necessary, and have cut my shower down to 8 minutes (when I don't wash my hair). As far as driving goes, I only ever really drive to Austin once a week, and rarely if ever, use my car any other time. But this not creating garbage thing... it's hard. For example, this weekend I broke this mirror I had on my wall. And on top of that, I had a bunch of cardboard packaging material left over from this painting I bought a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't help much either that I'm also guilty of wasting food (especially in the commons). I always try to get only what I know I'll eat, but sometimes I get crappy food without realizing it, and end up refusing to eat it. There have been a couple of improvements, such as I'll use paper over again if I can, or even use glass jars as drinking cups, but it's still all very much a working progress. Some other good news is that I'm no longer using any of the to-go boxes or cups anymore, I've quit drinking bottled water, and even cut down my laundry this week from 3 loads to two!

Week Two

Week Two has definitely been a challenge. 

The hardest part was not producing trash on Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, when I went home for the weekend and went to two high school football games. I didn't eat any of the food at the concessions stand and took all of my drink bottles back to my house to recycle. The only difficulty was being aware of what I was doing and preparing for it. On Friday and Saturday, I ate before I left for the game and didn't eat again until I got home. I was still able to enjoy the game without the usual football food. The not producing trash has actually become somewhat of a contest with myself.

Now to the shortened showers and only one a day. The shortened showers has actually help me be on time for some of my classes in the morning that I am usually late to. The shortened showers is probably the easiest thing on my list.

Not eating meat for these three days was really difficult, because of what I saw as limited food choices. Now of course my food choices aren't limited. I saw myself eating a salad and cheese pizza for lunch on Wednesday and Friday. And for dinner I usually went out and chose something that would help me not eat meat. The hardest part was not eating meat on Saturday and being at home. Luckily, my Dad understood and provided an alternative.

The "Lifestyle Project" has become somewhat of a test with myself for me to see how I can handle these changes and so far I have been really proud with myself. 

week two

I hate short showers.

There.

I think it's because showers aren't really just about getting clean. Honestly, how dirty can I be spending all day in class? What showers are really about for me is relaxing. It's a ritual for me to get through classes, finish all my homework, deal with anything else that needs doing, and then go take a shower. It's my signal that I don't have anything else to worry about, at least till tomorrow. It's not about dirt, it's washing off all the stress from the day. All those worries down the drain. So trying to cut down on that time has been hard. Much harder than not eating meat. Partly because of my bath time associations and partly because I don't have some sort of factory farm equivalent for water use to make me turn the faucet off.

That said, I'm down from twenty-ish minutes to ten.

I noticed that I was having trouble with the electricity portion of the assignment because I tend to rely on my television for background noise. So I ended up unplugging the cable connector so I can't use it unless I'm watching a movie. The first day I could barely concentrate on anything. I kept grabbing the remote and turning on the TV without even thinking about it. But it got better. I also started unplugging my microwave. I only use it a few times a week and the clock is always wrong anyway.

I have my junk collection sitting on my desk now. There are little groups of things that work well together forming. I even started one of my junk art...things. I don't really know if I should call this one art. It's mostly just decorative. And pink. I found so much pink ribbon. It's incredible to me that anyone would leave that laying on the ground. It's not even dirty. Anyway, I think I'm aspiring to make it into one of those Things You Hang on Your Porch.