Belated Earth Day :D

Guess what!? I just finished my last exam of the year XD I'm officially free now until the next school year starts and then... we will see what happens after undergrad.

*I apologize beforehand if I sound a little harsh but some things  in this world make me really mad.

Let me tell you about the growth of bacteria. First there's an abundance of food so they start growing at first slowly and then exponentially. Then the resources begin to deplete and the growth slows down. The bacteria start to compete for food and produce waste. Eventually the environment becomes toxic and there's a lack of food so the bacteria die. It happened to my chondrosarcoma cells (ok they're not bacteria, but it's the same point) all the time if they'd overcrowd. They literally would send signals to commit suicide (aka apoptosis). Why can't humans apprehend what they're doing? We are producing so much garbage that soon we're going to end up living in our filth. Have you ever watch WALL-E? Do it! It's eye opening...

As everyone already knows it was Earth Day this weekend. YaY! It just makes me think of how little I care about the Earth while in school. I mean... I spend about 4 days in bed staring at my laptop studying for about 12 hours a day. Didn't go outside any of those days... The sad thing is that this doesn't only happen during exams but also during the general school year, especially the midterm time. Whenever it is nice outside I do go out for walks in this massive park/forest by my student home but often times I just live in the library. This brings me to my goal number one for this summer: Go running at least 2 times a week outside while it's still warm. It's so much more fun than being on the treadmill plus you get to meet cool people. I kind of got a friend to agree to do a half-marathon with me and he loves running outside so hopefully he'll push me more into outside running :D

The other thing is processed food. I don't really recall eating processed or packaged food back in Ukraine (with exception of like yogurt containers but I'd be kind of hard to put it in a bag). I mean for milk, we'd used to have a truck come right by our house and you'd go with your own jars/bottles and get it filled up. For produce you'd go to the bazaar (kind of like a farmers market) and get local food. For fish, we'd have trucks filled with live fish come by our house and you'd buy the fish live (delish!). Frozen dinners? I had no clue what that was until coming to Canada. Let me tell yea, our garbage bin used to be tiny and the leftovers were given to the local dogs/cats/birds. In the present day my family's garbage bin has doubled in size.

My dad loves his cereal and when I mean loves, I mean he eats it every single day and has about 7-8 boxes... The thing is that it's really wasteful as those cardboard boxes are massive! That was one of the reasons why I stopped eating cereal in university, it'd take up too much space in my grocery bag making it harder for me to carry other stuff. I know it sounds silly but when you don't have a car, a massive cereal box is a nuisance. So I switched to my oats/ slash a gazillion of other delicious grains <3 Therefore, my second goal is: Learn to make home made cereal (for example: muesli) that can be personalized and saves tree/ energy for processing the food. Ahh! Those frozen meals **** the **** out of me because first of all it takes energy to process that food (plus it tastes too salty, greasy, fake, and the portions are tiny), then there's the cardboard, then there's that plastic tray, then you have to heat the food forever. Honestly... cooking yourself will probably take as much effort. 

In terms of organic food... I don't know. I did a whole project on it in first year university and there's actually very little peer-reviewed literature on it. The evidence was also conflicting and there was little support for organic food to be healthier. Also, being a student and having student loans as your only income source meant I couldn't afford organic food. However, what I believe is that even though organic food might not actually be healthier (because all the "shit" used to grow regular food has already contaminated the soil and spread to other areas) by buying it you are changing the agricultural industry. Simple supply and demand, if people start buying organic food then the conventional farmers will either go out of business or switch to organic food. Hence, this will prevent further "shitting" of the earth. So honestly my third goal is if money wise possible, choose organic over conventional. Also by local food because it wastes so much gas to drive the food so many km from California. It's actually kind of gross if you think about it. My grandma always used to say, if you find a fruit tree don't eat its fruits if it grows close to the road. Well... just think of how much "crap" goes into our food while being on the highway. 

I know people say, oh but I'm just one person and it's the corporations that control everything. Honestly, I used to think that way too. However, technically we are the ones who shape the market and the economy. If we stop buying something that all powerful company is going to down. So yeah, technically you do make a huge change when you choose more green products. At least much more than you'd think.

Our society just makes me so frustrated sometimes. I mean really, are we really as smart as bacteria? Do we want to live in our own filth?

That's my cynical little spiel. How do you guys feel about our society in terms of environment? Are you guys making any goals/changes in honour of Earth Day?