Reflection: Weeks 1-7

Blogging

When we first started blogging this semester I hated the fact that we would be blogging all of our assignments.  I'm not someone that catches on quickly to stuff like this, so I felt like all the assignments would take me an extra long time, just to figure out how to make the blog look the way I wanted it to.  Now, after 7 weeks of class, I am slowly becoming comfortable with blogging.  I am enjoying figuring out how to use blogger, rather than getting frustrated and angry that I have to do this.  I have also started looking around at other people's blogs, discovering that a lot of friends from high school keep them, and that there are many blogs out there that feed into my interests.

The environment
Before starting this semester I thought that I was pretty environmentally friendly.  I recycle, I don't litter, and I didn't drive more than I thought I had to.  After doing the Eye Openers and watching documentaries in class I realize that I am not doing half as much for the environment as I would like to.  The two documentaries that we have watched that I found the most interesting are "Fresh" and "Tapped".  It is hard to hear about all of the antibiotics and how the animals that we are eating are being treated.  The example of the man who accidentally stuck himself with the needle and his leg got infected, and the antibiotics that he was being given weren't making him better because he was immune to them, really hit me hard.  Knowing that there are that many chemicals in the foods we are eating is just so mind-bogeling.  When watching "Tapped" I was so frustrated that companies believe that they have the right to this water they are taking off land that they do not own.  How do we stop it?  How do these people not understand that they are doing so much harm to other people by pumping this water then selling it?  I just wish there was something I could do right now to stop it, but I know there isn't much I can do at this point in my life besides not buying the water bottles they are selling, and spreading the word to my friends and family to do the same.

At the beginning of the semester when we were learning about our ecological footprints, I felt really bad about all the things that I do that harm the environment.  I used to drive back and forth from the cities a lot, I live in a big drafty house, and I take long showers.  My footprint calculations were higher than I wanted them to be, mostly because I didn't realize the effects of what I was doing had on the environment.  Making little changes, like carpooling when going to the cities, cuts down on the CO2 emissions I contribute to, helping the environment.  If everyone did things like this we would all be making a little bit of an impact, equalling huge changes and ending in a cleaner earth.

Myself
I feel like these past weeks I have had a lot of struggles with myself trying to figure out the way that I want to live my life.  I want to eat all organically, shop locally, and do whatever I can that is best for the environment.  The reality of it is where do you draw the line?  I have made some changes in my life, such as switching to organic meats, buying a re-useable water bottle, using less electricity, and using my car as little as possible.  There are still so many changes that I would like to make in the way that I live my life, but I feel like these steps are small steps in the right direction.  Since our last Eye Opener, "Junk on the Brain", I have been looking at things around my house differently, and wondering how I can use things again instead of throwing them in the garbage or recycling bin.  Some things that I have come up with are using empty coffee containers as flower pots, empty toilet paper rolls for crafts with the girls I nanny for, and an empty milk container to save my change.  Even though the things that I am doing may seem little I know that they are making impacts on the environment by not adding to landfills and not contributing to the sale of disposable water bottles and meats containing large amounts of antibiotics.