The Raw Deal

I just read this article on Glamour.com (I won't apologize for love glamour and visiting their website every day) and I just thought it was interesting. Enjoy.

Good Morning, Starshine, Good Day, Sunshine, Good Night, Moon

I just wanted to say that I just watched the documentary "No Impact Man" which you can all watch instantly on netflix, if you happen to have netflix, otherwise, please rent it and watch it, because it really is just so good. I can't say I love documentary's in general, but I have nothing against them existing. Sometimes I have an issue with the philosophy of the documentary, or the message, or if it's being to preachy, or if I feel they approached the object in the wrong way, but I had no such feelings about No Impact Man. It's about a family in New York City (mother, father, small daughter) trying to make no net impact on the environment for a year, and the steps they take, and the phases of the process they go through. The wife is kind of whiny sometimes, which can get a little annoying, but I appreciate so much how passionate the man, Colin Beavan, is about the project (it was his idea) and his enthusiasm to understand what he and others are doing to the planet, and what it's like to change, or adapt to different ways where there might not be such a negative effect on the planet.

What I like so much about about it is that it's not saying all of these shocking facts that are supposed to terrify you into be eco conscious, I believe watching this family's eco routine motivates and encourages me personally enough to do what I know I should be doing, or even showing me the alternatives that I may not have thought about before. He pinpoints classic cases of people being eco-light, and that would be thinking that recycling is the answer to everything, when it really is not. People feel okay about using plastic if they recycle it, but what many people don't know is that it degrades in quality after recycling it so many times, so really, it's better than throwing it away, but there are so many other alternatives, such as glass, which can be recycled forever without losing it's quality (and would also take 4000 years to break down in the environment if not recycled, so that's even more incentive to do it!) Many people recycle the wrong way, too, but that's a battle for another blog post. I also also appreciate about this movie is that it addresses the social stigma of being an "eco-nazi" and how it can negatively affect you socially, and how people view you. I consider myself to be mid-range eco friendly, which I would say means that I do better than some people, but really not as well as I should, or would even like to. I say this because, even with the way I live now, I feel pretty embarrassed sometimes about my efforts, or feel completely judged because of them. My roommate in particular has a special talent of making me feel stupid because I want to turn off the T.V. when we leave the room for two minutes, but it's important to me, and for that reason, I don't feel like I should have to feel bad about it. It's a negative attitude that discourages me because I do something that I know is the right thing to do. A friend of mine threw out a plastic bottle that still had liquid in it, and I felt like a complete ass fishing it out of the garbage and yelling at her for not dumping out the liquid and recycling it.

One last thing I will say, is that I know that I'm "liberal", and therefore tend to think differently than most "conservatives" about the merits of eco living, and I appreciate that people have different views on the subject, and I know there's a whole thing about recycling and whether it actually does make a difference, but could you give me a good reason to have every single light on in the house while you're sitting there, or even out for the evening? Or generating more garbage than is humanly necessary? Or taking the worlds longest shower? (I am so so guilty of this one, because I've always loved showers, and I'm cutting back on my time, but I'm still not perfect at all, let's be honest) Would you feed your body a high fat diet every single day, and justify it by saying that you eat a salad every once and awhile? (minimal earth friendly effort would be the "salad" in this scenario) I should hope not, and so don't do the same to the planet.

I'll get off of my soapbox now.

Alison, I know this world is killing you

I registered for housing next year today, and I'm really excited about it. I'm rooming with the aforementioned friend from drawing class, Maddi. What's even more exciting is that we registered for the building which will be newly remodeled for next fall, and it's connected to the new dining/fitness center/convenience store. It's on north campus so it's farther away from all of the buildings that I'll actually have class in (a.k.a. the only building I'll have classes in, Applied Arts, which is also the farthest away from north campus.) But it's really close to the co-op, which will be nice, because as it is now, it's a five minute walk up the hill. It's also much closer to Penco. And it's literally right next door to subway. The subway that I haven't gone to at all this year. This doesn't mean I'm going to spend a ton of money next year because it'll be a lot more convenient, I'm just saying it'll be more convenient than it is this year to do the shopping that I already do.

By the way, I understand that this isn't terribly interesting, but I've been having a bit of writers block lately on what to blog about, and I legit like to blog, so any suggestions would be nice.

Also, I've been craving sweets a ton lately. I usually have like literally no sweet tooth, but lately I've been craving dessert after every meal. Not breakfast, obvs, because that would be silly. I still like a really bland breakfast. I am not a huge fan of sugary cereals, as evidenced by the box of apple jacks that is still sitting in my food crate that I bought in, I believe, november. It was a fleeting craving, and I've been trying to pawn them off on someone for a while now, but nobody wants an old box of apple jacks. I just finally found someone to take all of my ramen, because once upon a time I thought it would be a good idea to buy 12 packets when I already had 5 in my room. But the point is...sweets. I like the occasional dessert, but even now, I really want to go get a snickers ice cream bar right this very second. I think it's because I've been eating so healthy, it makes me want dessert every single day. When I was staying with my host family in france, I remember loving how they had dessert every night, and made me have some too, even if it was just a treat like a fancy yogurt thing. And they also bought me the snickers ice cream bars, and made me eat them and a glass of diet coke in the afternoon. They had my best interest at heart. So it's stuff like that, sometimes I'm like "I should really be eating super healthy right now, but at the same time, I feel like I should just enjoy myself, so long as I stay within reason" I feel the two are not mutually exclusive. And sometimes it's hard to care.