Day 8: Eco-Sabbath

Looking back at this week, I think that the hardest things for me to accomplished were eating no meat, trying to save energy, and worst of all, reducing my use of water. A good thing about weekends in general, specifically this last Sunday, is that I always wake up between 2:oo to 4:00 p.m. I know it is not a very productive thing to do, but I always try to rest the most I can on weekends. This last Sunday, I woke up and turned on my laptop to do homework. So, for the rest of the day I stayed at my room doing homework on my laptop, which means that on Sundays I just use energy to charge my laptop and go to eat at the school's cafeteria. I really enjoy doing this experiment, but honestly, I think I failed on most of it. From the No Impact experiment's guide, I definitely would to permanently adopt the walking as my transportation method, trying to consumpt less, reducing the amount of trash I produce, and the giving back, especially as both a citizen by taking care of my community, and as a college student by being respectful and helpful to other students.

Day 8: Eco-Sabbath

Looking back on this entire week I would say that limiting my trash was the hardest thing to do and it wasn't until I started monitoring it that I realized how much I produce. I don't see myself being able to keep all my trash and return it to the environment and whatnot like Colin Beavan did. Energy was also difficult for me in that my life is so electronically oriented these days. All in all it was a good experiment and hopefully I will be able to keep some of the changes that I implemented this week.

Day 7: Giving Back

I didn't have the opportunity to really give back today, however I think it's a great idea. I think more people would be inclined to limit their environmental impact if they had a greater sense of community and cared about the people and places around them. This step would have been rather easy if I had found the time because it doesn't require you to change any of your habits but rather just allocates your time to something meaningful and productive.

The Last Few Days..

ENERGY- Cutting out my use of electricity was not too hard. Other than lighting in my dorm room and the use of my laptop, all other energy sources were shut off.. I opened the window in my room instead of using the air conditioner, and I unplugged the T.V. and gaming system that my roommates use. (They were not too happy about that at first.) Saving energy where its possible and practical is an important step to living sustainably.

WATER- I do not control my dishes because I eat in the cafeteria, so I could not try to conserve water by soaking. I did, however, only shower once that day instead of twice, and utilized my refillable water bottle instead of using plastic water bottles. That is pretty much all the water I use since I do not have a house or anything where I would run the sprinklers...

GIVING BACK- This was a fun challenge for me. I enjoyed going about my day and trying to help people in ways that I could. Although I dont have the means the donate money at this point in time, I tried to contribute to my sense of community by talking to people and doing favors.

ECO-SABBATH- On this last day, I went for a bike ride and did homeork all day long. I worked hard to get up what I had been doing all week as well. I emptied by trash and noticed that it wernt down considerably from the week before. This was a very challenging, but interesting experience. Living sustainably is manageable, but it ill definitely take effort, cooperation, and a drive to create this planet a sustainable world.

Day 6: Water

Today was water conservation day and it was relatively easy to make some small changes. I didn't let the faucet run and I attempted to take a shorter shower than usual. I already abhor doing laundry so I do excessively large loads at a time, which is actually good for the environment. The world is facing a steady decline in water supply so if we are able to use less water doing things that arn't necessities then maybe that water saved can be someone else's drinking water.

Day 7: Giving Back

I think that as a college student, I am too busy to do volunteer work, even though I'll love too, but at the same time to form Chapman's community, it offers lots of opportunities to do volunteer for different causes, not just environmental. Although I've done several volunteer work back at home at my high school and community, I haven't sign up to volunteer while at Chapman. I think one of the best ways to give back to the Chapman students' community is to be kind and respecful to one another. To treat each other equally. But most importantly, to be open to help and aid others in whatever they need. One of my future plans is to help the people most in need not just in my community, but globally. I would like to form organizations to both help worldwide the communities who are most in need, and to protect and save the environment. To accomplish all that, I will study and work hard to become an influential person and hopefully make an positive impact in the world.

Day 5: Energy

I really tried to minimize the amount of energy I used today. I normally don't watch TV especially here at school, so that was a non-issue. I didn't turn the lights on in my room all day and I unplugged all electronic devices that were plugged into outlets when I wasn't using them. I unfortunately can't cut out all energy use in todays society where we rely so much on computers and cellular devices and I don't think we need to. We just need to change where we get our energy from and how we move it.