Reflection

To say I changed the world? .. Well that would be an understatement.

Okay so no, my actions may not have dramatically altered the earth, however I'm a firm believer that anything helps if you're working towards a good cause. Although, the small actions I did throughout this whole experience probably didn't make a whole lot of difference in the long run, it has definitely inspired me to think more about my actions and not to just 'talk the talk' about being environmentally friendly, but that I should actually do it. I strongly believe that my family will continue with the lessons we learned throughout this project and hopefully, if someone else happens along this blog one day, they will maybe be inspired too.

I believe that all the areas that I attempted to reduce in did actually make an impact, less electricity plugged in and turned on diminished the amount of energy in our household dramatically. In my belief the composting wasn't as helpful for the environment for it didn't dramatically decrease the amount of waste output from our house. However, if only everyone were to take this small step, a dramatic decrease would be observed. Resulting in less garbage in our overloaded landfills and more helpful plant products being returned to the ground they came from.

A ton of my friends throughout this project didn't think twice of the commitment it involved however I believe I have strongly influenced my parents. They definitely have stuck through with me throughout this entire experience and are more than willing to continue not only composting but unplugging all appliances after use. They also have spread my actions to a couple of their friends, and although no one has jumped on the band wagon yet, I believe some will see how easy these helpful actions are and (hopefully) decide to make small changes of their own. Everyone seemed extremely supportive of the act and only a few made a few jokes on it's expense. However, I think the majority of people nowadays understand the threats upon us and realize that small changes to improve the environment are much needed and are not a topic to be mocked about.

All in all, this was a good experience in which I do plan to continue on with in some aspects. However due to the movies we have watched in class, I believe the next environmentally conscious step I am next to take on is more trips to the local farmer's market. Due to my extreme love of animals and my dedication to defending their ethical treatment, I will definitely make these trips more of a priority. Also this move will then help hopefully my health, not to mention the diminishing of harm to the planet. An all over win if you ask me.

Anywho, that's all from me, thanks for reading!

Day 20 - May 29th

Last blog post? Wow well all I can say is I actually made it, and not just skimmed through it but I actually added to my goals every week! I have to say I'm impressed with myself and anyone else in the class who actually carried through with their commitments. So, update my favourite candle ran out, that kind of is a measurable sign that shows just how much I've been using the candlelight and representitive of the energy I've saved. It was kind of a landmark of this whole experience for it was this candle that stood by me all through it, and now it's gone as this time ends. Well not much else from me, I took some time today to read some of the other blogs and see how my fellow class mates are doing and very impressed with some of their blogs (Rachel's is amazing)! My next blog will be the reflection of the whole experience so I'll talk more in depth about this time then. :)

Day 17 - May 26th

The days of this project are winding down and I've been thinking that I will ease up on the no electricity thing but not completely abolish this new system I've found, the rents on the other hand are estatic that this is ending! Anywho, ever since watching some of the films such as Food Inc. we watched in class I've been trying to get my mother to take me to the Farmer's market to see what it's like and maybe we can start eating more organically and not having as much packaging to throw away to help with my goal of diminishing waste and increasing composting. I've been begging my parents for a while to start buying local meat because I. for about two years now, have been totally against the treatment of animals in these large industry farms and adapted a total vegetarian near vegan lifestyle for nearly 3 years now. The pluses of buying locally is the freedom of being able to visit these farms and see yourself the animal's living conditions. So we did end up going and even bought a few items, I can't promise and say we'll do this every week but I definitely feel as though making it more of priority to eat locally and healthier. Hopefully we'll see my composting goal of diminishing garbage carry through! Below: Byward Market

Day 14 - May 23rd

As I quickly mentioned in the last post, I have recently decided to go all out for this summative and have recently attempted to use no electricity whenever possible. I have found that with no electriticy on in the house I can concentrate so much better and actually get to do more. Instead of watching TV for an hour I find myself just taking my dog out for a walk and enjoying the summer air. And I've gotten so obsessed with doing stuff by the candlelight and leaving everything including my cell phone which I'm addicted to (mainly because I have a full data plan, meaning unlimited internet access on it as well) and just sitting in the peaceful quiet reading or studying. My parents have not gone as full out as I have but they are continuing to turn off their lights for a minimum of a half and hour a night and are enjoying the down time as well. We also as a family have grown accustomed to unplugging everything after we are finished and even the familiar "Bell Signal not found" sign that appears on our TV after being unplugged every time doesn't bother us anymore. Well after that brief little intro I will talk about what happened this evening, my family and I spent the day at my brothers house and unlike usual company I can't really control I had no fear in instilling the usual rules at his place, so while spending the day there I unplugged his appliances and lights when not in use, and lets just say, he wasn't all for it. He threatened to kick me out of his place if I kept this up (what a loving brother right?) so I unfortunately had to halt my ways, but not without ticking off the bro in the proccess, a success if you ask me. :)

Day 13 - May 22nd

Before you watch these, I should probably tell you that I've sort of altered my 30 mins a day no energy thing into pretty much not using electricity whenever possible. It's influenced me to focus harder on school work and not sit down in front of the TV as much as I do, so yes with that in mind enjoy these 'Vlogs' which were alot of fun to make. Hope you don't mind my mindless ranting.

Recap of the experience so far:

(Sorry for all the clanking, I was playing around with the candle while filming.)

Talking about Day 13 and a mini rant:

Day 11 - May 20th

I have spent the ENTIRE night attempting to write an essay for English, now the only problem with essay writing is that it involves the computer and I really didn't want to get off my writing flow tonight sooo I cheated. I forego my commitment to turn off all electricity for the half and hour and kept my laptop plugged in. Now although I did make sure that all lights were off and unplugged and wrote my essay by candle light (I'm running out of my favourite candle scent from Yankee Candle with all this candle use!) I did leave my laptop plugged in. Now the only reason I cheated and kept it plugged in was for fear of me not noticing the battery low signal at the bottom of the screen and my computer would shut off and the essay lost. Even though I did technically cheat I think that having only one plug in use in the entire house (didn't have to worry about the rents this time for they were out at a friends) is not too bad. And as always I loved working by the candle light and kept it that way well in to the night as I slaved over my least favourite course.. don't tell Ms Bigham I said that.

Day 10 - May 19th

Half way there! Man I seriously underestimated the difficulty of giving up electricity for half hour a night (which now commonly turns into 45mins - 1 hour) since time seems to go so much faster when I spend this time doing homework that is due the next day and I'm running out of time to do it. School work is piling up for the end of the year is fast approaching and it is prime summative time. Yesterday night I actually went over to a friends house after school as we were working on the Advanced Functions summative (9 questions that take an hour per question.. not fun) and for most of the night we actually spent in the park working on math outdoors in an attempt to make it more enjoyable which I counted as a my no energy use time for we actually weren't using any electricity and our light was powered by the sun itself. However, I came home later to find that my parents took advantage of me being gone all night and hadn't turned off electricity at all, and although it wasn't my own actions, I was a tad bit dissapointed and sad that they didn't support this cause as much as I do. However, in order to 'punish' them lights are off for 2 hours tomorrow. That's quite a while, but thanks to the later sunsets alot of what we do can be done in the sunlight now at a reasonable hour so hopefully it wont be too tough to give up electricity for that long, and hopefully it'll not rip my family apart in the process.