Isabel Mersky

Journal 4:
These challenges have taught me a lot about myself and my personal goals. The biggest difference I’ve added this week was increasing my vegetarianism. We eat mostly vegetarian at home and my sister is fully vegetarian. I always hear about her meals since she always cooks and is always inspired by them. I also always feel healthier when I eat vegetarian, so I figured this was the perfect way to try it out. I have been trying to make at least dinner or lunch every day vegetarian. So far this has been very successful. It has been slightly challenging on meals I eat at the dining hall or are pre-workout when I want higher levels of protein, but I am making it work. I have also switched to encouraging myself to eat vegetarian snacks like tofu thins and cheese options to make myself like those options. I am trying to rework what I know as ‘healthy’. I thought Mcgrath’s comments on organic food were interesting. I often call my mom in the grocery store to see which vegetables and such I should get as organic. Through my research of food access and ‘health,’ I learned more about different definitions of this. I think industrial organic is beneficial and harmful in their own ways and having a conversation about that was very interesting.

Journal 3
I think it was surprisingly easy to adjust my life to include these new tasks. I chose tasks that I felt would be a positive change to my life and not impossible to do which helped me. I was worried about choosing something too out of my comfort zone and challenging because it wouldn’t be sustainable for my lifestyle then. The first one I chose was walking more often when I could drive. On campus and in my daily schedule the walk from my apartment to practice is a perfect 10-15 minute walk that I could drive. Pushing myself to walk at least one of the ways either there or back has encouraged me to spend more time outside as well as get a little exercise in. I try to not be on my phone during this walk too just to embrace the world around me. I think this could be challenging to sustain permanently depending on how my schedule and life changes post graduation. Even this semester as I get busier and need to go places right after practice or am running late, driving down saves me some time. I am going to work very hard to continue to find this time in my everyday life in some format even if it's a little shorter or taking an alternate route home to add some time. My second task was to put my phone down during meals. This I have found to be easier than I thought as long as I am forgiving myself. I created my own guidelines that I can check the notifications or the time, but I try to not click into them and/or scroll through endlessly. I have told my friends about doing this and they have also helped hold me accountable for it and have even joined me sometimes. I try to encourage eating meals with people that I enjoy spending time with which has also helped me. I think I will continue to be aware of this challenge, however I am not sure it is always possible. My goal is to continue to be aware of my endless strolling and try and stop myself from doing that. Some barriers to always doing this are when I am eating alone I get bored or sometimes my meal time is my only downtime, so I struggle to not check on things and update myself through my phone. My one-time challenge was reflecting upon my core values. I somewhat struggle to see how this connects to an environmental challenge, but I do think it was an interesting exercise. I brainstormed a few of my values of things I try to hold myself to and began writing them down throughout the week. When I had some more free time I sat down and narrowed them down to a few of the most important ones. I think this is not an everyday or weekly thing, I do think taking more time to reflect in my life would be very beneficial. I am excited to see where next week's challenges take me. I think it will be challenging to balance a few more tasks, so I am going to continue to pick tasks that are realistic, but will also help me be more aware of my surroundings.

1. I think this challenge excites me because it is so far out of my comfort zone. I have always been aware of small ways I can be responsible for my actions to the planet such as recycling, carpooling and even eating less red meat. It is rewarding looking through all the options and realizing I do a lot of these already! The most exciting ones to me are the ones that will benefit my own personal life in ways I have always meant to do while also benefiting the environment. This will allow me to continue this long-term since it enhances my life. These activities include going for daily walks, watching the sunset, eating healthier, and exercising daily. I also am intrigued by the reflective challenges such as reflecting on core values, what makes you happy, and how often you drive. I am not sure which specifically makes me nervous but more seems challenging for me to complete in my everyday life. Calling representatives for policy change is very outside my comfort zone and not something I could see myself doing.
2. The idea of personal changes was a very interesting and new idea to me from week 2 readings. I never thought about my effects as a consumer compared to a citizen (“Does Personal Action Matter?”). Some of the challenges such as purchasing LED lightbulbs, changing your energy source, or purchasing a reusable water bottle all encourage the industry to continue making these. If nobody buys plastic water bottles then why keep making them? Some of the challenges that I think will impact my footprint the most are some I am already doing. These include reusable water bottles, purchasing almost only second-hand clothing, and going paperless. I have noticed great effects from all of these challenges. Some I think aren’t super helpful to changing your ecological footprint would be trying to reflect, going for walks, or eating mindlessly. In my mind, these will help better your life, but I am unsure how they truly help the environment in indirect or direct ways. Based on the article from Solnit, none of these small changes are important if the major companies make these changes (Solnit). I am curious if we could combine these ideas to make changes as a consumer or advocate as a citizen to convince major companies to make these changes. Going back to the water bottle idea, why would a company make a change and stop producing water bottles if they are still making a major profit?
3. I think some of the challenges can address each of those individual issues. For a political change, the challenges such as calling representatives advocating for an increase in green spaces or expressing support publically for politicians who advocate for environmental support. Social changes are much simpler in my head. Volunteering in your community is a great way to create new relationships, just like meeting new neighbors. Economic challenges are more like the above response, buying LED lightbulbs or purchasing vegetables from a farm. All ways you can be more conscious of where you are choosing to give your money. I think economics was what the article from Climate Science mainly referred to as far as making big changes. I guess politics could have a large influence as well (“Does Personal Action Matter?”).