Personal Comsumptions for 24 hours

Date:07/09/2010
Today being 07/10/2010 I recorded all the things I used yesterday to make this journal on my consumption. When I woke up I have a frozen egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast so that had the plastic wrapping. Then on my way to ECHO i bought a Gatorade, once again plastic. Then for lunch I went to Publix on my way back from ECHO and got sushi and Arizona green tea, which both had plastic containers, and then finally for dinner I had Jet's Pizza which probably had a recycled cardboard box which is probably not too bad. And I used gas to get around town and water when I took a shower... and yeah I cranked the AC in my car and house because it was really hot outside...sorry.

My lifestyle

Date:07/10/2009
I believe that I dont have the most sustainable lifestyle. I remember the test that we did for one of the weekly discussions and I did not do too well at all. I think its really hard to have a really sustainable life because this program would ask if I bought plastic bagged products and that something that is almost inevitable. Obviously the sustainable part of recycling can be accomplished with a little effort but things as driving a car and buying plastic good and things like that are really hard not to do. I do plan to try and make my lifestyle as sustainable as I can because I do want to do my part in making a difference.

Reflection on health and well-being

Date:07/10/2010
Being from Costa Rica I have learned that plants and nature have a lot of medicinal benefits for humans. Im not an expert in medicine but im pretty sure that almost all medicines come from plants and sometime I start to think that as the live link to where deforestation is growing; later in the Earth life where are we going to get all our medicines from? Because if we keep up this rate of deforestation sooner or later mostly all of the forest will be gone. Not only will the medicinal benefits disappear but also the fauna that needs this flora as well. An example of a medicinal tree that I learned about during my trip to ECHO was Moringa and all the benefits from the leaves were really suprising.

Service Learning

Date: 07/03/2010
For my service learning project I decided to go to Koreshan State Park. When we first got there they decided that we were going to do some weeding, which really didnt sound too exciting. But in the end I actually ended up having a good time because some other students from Colloquium where there and we had fun trying to see who could pull the longest vines and find the most weeds to I actually enjoyed my time at the park. I also learned a lot about how many invasive species are in the lands of Florida and what the effects they have on the native plants and I was more then amazed to see there was so many different types of exotic species and how large they were in numbers.

Walking down the wood pathway on Campus

Date: 07/08/2010
The other day when I was walking back from class I had parked in the news parking garage and I was coming from AB7 so I had to take the wooden walkway to my car. When I was walking in the pathway and through the mini swamp I was bashed at how the entire time I was looking for any sign of exotic species that we had been pulling during my service learning hours a the Koreshan State Park. I was also looking for any sign of poison ibis because they had told us to be very careful we didnt start pulling one of those by mistake.

My effort to become more sustainable

Date: 06/23/2010
Ever since I started taking this class I have honestly thought a lot more about sustainability them I ever have. I remember in one of the discussions that we had about how can we make a difference, and I realize that as a college student right now my duty when it comes to sustainability really is easy. I should make sure to recycle, carpool, close the doors so the AC doesn't overwork, and overall just think more about sustainability and teach others about it. I was really kind of proud of myself when I went to get the recycling bins because I honestly feel like I had never really made an extra effort to be sustainable and I did. I feel like this class has definitely made a difference on my view of sustainability.

A Land Remembered

Date:06/29/2010
I really enjoyed reading the book A Land Remembered by Patrick Smith. What interested me the most was the journey that the McIvey Family went through. Whenever there was a challenge that they had to encounter the would always fight and figure out a way to solve this problem. Like when they first started chasing cows to when they have the marshtackie and were able to hunt them down easier. I was just really into the book the entire time and thought it was a really good choice for the class as it really makes you put yourself in the McIvey's shoes and really appreciate the land more and wish it would still be the way it was back then.