Day 18

Three more days. But that's just a number. A LYING number. You see I could go back to my usual ways once Tuesday hits, however it doesn't work like that. I still have summatives to reluctantly hand in, and exams to study for. So if on Tuesday I catch up on the stuff I missed during the experiment I'll just be digging myself a bigger hole. I won't have any other time to do anything I'd love to do besides school work, because who doesn't love their soul being crushed. However I'll probably do a reflection on what I learn, and on what the world of green technologies has to offer, and how living a greener lifestyles has different benefits. But I can reflect on one thing: spell check sucks compared to using Google. Seriously if you type horridly (like asf;h) it can still tell what you're looking for. Which is great if you can't figure a way to spell the word close enough (that you don't know)  for spell-check to find the word you want. Well at least there is the summer to be  catch up my entertainment, oh no wait. That time is reserved for a job, getting in shape, and hanging out with friends. Maybe I should just remove some YouTube subscriptions.Yeah when the equator freezes over.

Day 17

Yet another post date entry. This time do to frivolously working to try to see if I can do the green Saturday (Spoiler alert: it ain't happening) and as a result it was already to late to post. Now that I found the SD card for my phone, I'll be able to post pictures, when I'm not drowning in work, and if I create the right conditions where the camera doesn't mistake objects as fuzzballs. I've been using my laptop more in classes, that's green right? I mean as long as it's not drawing power from an outlet. And I'm walking to school, just like always since I started high school. And I walked to middle school as well. That's green. I eat more fruits, and yes I throw out the remainder, but that will eventually rot in a landfill somewhere. (At this point I think my parents are doing better then me. They took the broken TV to a recycle plant. Normally my guess is that they would opt for the curb seeing as it's marginally closer. But that probably wouldn't have happened if it weren't for my initiative, so point for me?)

Day 15

I'm planning on ending this experiment on Monday, however before I do end this I will try to go one day, one measly day without electronics. I hope to do that this Saturday, so instead of getting 3 hours of leniency, I will use 2. However knowing my luck so far, that may happen, in fact I might even manage to make this somehow backfire worse then an explosive boomerang. Well as long as most of my work gets finished before then this plan should work just fine. Also I realize I mentioned that the plan was to do this for three and half weeks, however I still kind of doing that. I started this days before making it official, however those don't officially count seeing I messed those up by not having a structured set of rules.

Day 14

Well this it. I just can not possibly do this. I leterally cannot go 2 weeks without music parodies. What? you thought I couldn't go three mere weeks without video-games or YouTube videos. That's hilarious, and I know I'm close to the edge of failure seeing as I am using YouTube to play the music. But guess what; I am not watching the video that goes with the movie, meaning I'm not breaking any of my rules. But seeing as that is kinda of a (as the kids call it) dick move, this means I'm adding a rule: No going over to a friends place, unless it involves no electronic entertainment. The thing is I did not put in this in my initial rules, seeing as two or more people sharing the same electronic activities, in the same room, is only slightly more harmful then a single person compared to multiple people. But then I would also be causing some emissions, which I want to reduce immensely.

Also this will add a few notches of difficulty seeing as I can't physically watch any new music on YouTube, and I get to see how many videos I did not watch. As for the photos, well there turns out if there is camera in my house it is well hidden, and for my cell phone, well the SD card is nowhere to be found. And with my room getting cleaner and cleaner, I am running out of places where it can possibly be.
Before I go here is a real rule I'm adding for the last 10 days: no web articles that are not needed for school . The reason for me having to listen to music: I'm far behind schedule and this is the only for me to catch up.

Day 13

It's the end of day 13 and after not missing video games and videos for nearly two weeks, I'm now missing them. And caring for the environment is going smoothly seeing as I'm only going to be doing three loads of laundry this week (clothes, summer clothes, sheets) compared to one. But its on cold water (like it always is.) Uhm okay this is actually looking pretty bad. However I can fix this seeing as the main environment aspect is really from stopping my use of plastic bottles. Tomorrow I'll take some pictures to represent that amount of plastic I saved from trashing the planet by taking pictures of the ones that I never got rid of............. and therefore will after the experiment. Dammit. Well I'm eating fruit, mainly oranges...from Florida. Well I guess that can count seeing as doing the 100 mile diet in Canada can be a minor inconvenience, with the fact that its nearly impossible. Also still no video-games.

Day 12

"But random person on the internet" you shout "yesterday would have been day 12" Well to that I say I forgot to post before midnight and by that time it would be today anyways or whatever. And besides the um world was ending- not that anyone with sense (common sense no longer common) would believe that for a second. Moving right along, I got to watch my second hour of T.V during this experiment. And to say I haven't faltered would be a lie (damn you pop, your not technically on my list but dammit I tried) and who can forget hearing or seeing *gasp* seconds of video due to being in proximity of such in school or the dinner table. Or you know I could been a total dick and say remove myself from my group of friends if one of them so much as plays a trailer or blatantly stare at a wall like I'm more interested in the school wall colour palette then anything fun. Oh and if you hadn't hear about the world ending don't worry about it. It was just yet another false apocalypse date. By this point I wouldn't be surprised if this became an annual event coinciding with April first. But still worthy of being mentioned in an environment related blog seeing as the end of days may damage the environment, or end all life on Earth.

Day 11

You want to know what I miss most during this experiment? Music. Seriously; I initially thought I would miss the video games or the internet videos, but what I am missing most of all is the music. Well I mean yeah I have a radio but I want to listen to music, not the sound of dying kittens AKA pop music. Where do I get most of my music? YouTube, since I like good music and good parodies of bad music and YouTube has an endless amount of both of those. I mean I'm not going to illegally download my music, my MP3 is busted and as well as something like sporting the artist or they might have to sell their diamond studded mansion or whatever. Well that and the threat of viruses and the possibility of a lawsuit of a billion dollars. This is only a slight exaggeration; the music industry tried to sue Lime Wire for 75 TRILLION dollars. The entire world literally does not have that wealth (http://www.geekosystem.com/limewire-sued-75-trillion/). And all of that for a song that sounds like a cat in a blender. Can somebody remind me why people illegally download music in the first place? Also didn't this experiment used to be about the environment? Must be my imagination.

Day 9

Well these past few days have been quite uninteresting. Today I managed to go on YouTube for a documentary that I missed for school and it was not surprising that I craved for those pointless clips that usually take up hours of my day. Of course  I did not watch any such clips but it makes me wonder: how long will it take for me to be bored beyond endurance? I have unfortunately enough, been wasting time on articles and what not (reading does in fact exist on the internet), though even that just starts feeling tedious, or at least a cause for sore eyes. I'm now going to go read a book, yeah you know a thing with physical pages that you read that doesn't cause your eyes to bleed.

Day 6

Today was a dark, dark day, a day where I lost my sense of self. Oh the day stated off innocently enough, just like any other day, and then after 1:30 it took a sinister turn. Something died inside of me this day: my laziness. I sat down and began doing hours upon hours of schoolwork, and doing it efficiently. And yes today was indeed dark (it was raining) but I feel as though this project has literally helped me more than I could ever hope for, and far sooner then I expected. I thought it would take until day 12 or so for some positive results to show. I mean just earlier today I thought I was simply going to cave in (after 5 days, I know I’m soooooooooooo strong willed) while updating my video-game console to make sure things were all good after hackers attacked the PSN (yes that happened, google it, and yes google is now a verb). Let me reiterate that: I was mere button presses away from simply giving in and enjoying endless amounts of entertainment that was not available to me, or anyone for that matter for the past few weeks but instead I decided to change my password, install an update and simply shut off the console. I haven’t had this much of self-control since grade nine and actually did do things like work ahead, and wake up quickly. Also while I was on my console I realized how many shortcuts to games I have on my computer and how hard it’s going to be to ignore those during week two, or the next few minutes.

Day 5

Well it’s the end of day five. As it was Saturday today, I did watch an hour of television and it did feel almost disorienting seeing visual stimulation as a pure form of entertainment, instead of education in school, for longer than a few micro seconds for the first time in days. However I am no questioning the rechargeable battery clause I put into my starting post after cleaning a small dark corner of my room. I believe I must have found over a dozen empty batteries while cleaning that area. What a noteworthy life lesson: you cannot possibly hope to clean the environment and clean your house. So if you really want to go green keep your room a mess, or become a hoarder. I’ll probably just not throw out the batteries and wait until there’s a proper way for me to dispose of them. Or you know I could just throw them out and the end of the experiment, because that would not do anything such as defeating the main purpose of this entire experiment. (I also really hope that anyone reading these are not oblivious to internet sarcasm)

Day 4

No that is not a typo; it really is the end of day four of this project. (Would have been day five if I had not agreed to some fast food after seeing the dentist on Monday.) I must admit that after four days of doing this I am now incredibly bored. Reading and homework can only do so much to fight the boredom, I mean I must of read over a thousand pages this week alone, okay maybe more like 650, but 650 pages while being incredibly bored. And you know what the funny thing is? This is not even the hard part. The hardest part that I anticipate for this project is dealing without any sort of video entertainment except for one hour every week. Just wait until day 18 or so when I start missing the internet content I’m used to getting. I may make enough holes in the walls with my head to give my house proper circulation. There is a calm nearing in this borestorm of nothingness; tomorrow is Saturday the day I get an hour of television. Maybe I will pass out of boredom as soon as that hour is up while the TV is on. Maybe then my dreams will not be so boring as well

So it begins

I have decided to do a sort of green experiment for the next three and half weeks by giving up some of the things that I do in my daily live that effects the environment in some way. During the experiment I will give up television, video-games, and the internet (with the exception of school work and this blog of course). I will also not be eating any takeout, fast food, or frozen meals. I will also be eating fresh fruits and vegetables, stop using plastic bottles and instead only use an environmentally friendly water bottler. Also I will use rechargeable batteries since batteries do not decompose and are very acidic. I choose to do these things because I feel that by committing to these actions will lead me to living a healthier lifestyle. I hope that my actions will have a small measurable impact on at least the plastic bottle problem. 

According to a 2001 report of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), roughly 1.5 million tons of plastic are expended in the bottling of 89 billion liters of water each year.  Other problems with bottled water includes the facts that bottled water tastes bad, is anywhere from two hundred  forty to ten thousand times more expensive then tap, and that it is also mostly just tap water anyways. Although I do not personally drink bottled I water, I do drink bottled beverages like Gatorade, and the heart of the problem is more the plastic then the water. I do reuse the plastic bottles to a point (they do make decent water bottles when emptied) however the end result is always the same: getting “recycled”. Recycling works to an extent; it is impossible to fully reuse everything that gets placed into the recycling plants so the better solution is to avoided plastic bottles in the first place.  

Another problem is fast food; everything from the packaging to the food itself is horrible. The packaging is designed to be thrown away as soon as you walk through your front door to get to the food as fast as possible.  I am not saying that it would be a good idea to ban fast food altogether, there is a point to it: (unlike bottled water) sometimes people need to eat something fast, cheap, and on the go for a variety of reasons: working late, low on cash, or on a road trip. However there is a problem of how often people eat fast food. I eat fast food once or twice a month but even that can be viewed as excessive. When we eat fast food for no reason it generates waste, environmental and human. Not to mention fast food is plain disgusting, unhealthy, and fattening.

Now I am NOT an environmental activist of any sorts and I certainly do not care if you follow suit (the real reason behind cutting down electricity use:  it helps marks in these precious few weeks left of high school, I am not on board with this whole ‘repent your greenhouse gas causing ways or the Earth will burn’ view point) however there are some rules to this little experiment. I can not use electronic media for entertainment period. No YouTube videos or video-games. Also one hour and one hour only will be used to watch T.V per week. (Damn you BBC for compromising this entire experiment with your ‘Doctor Who’) Also if you look closely this experiment may be for more of my good health and not just the environment. I mean what has the environment done for us besides supporting all forms of known life?