Aiden Perry

Fresh air and movement are good for our entire being and can help us think more clearly and creatively. How does taking a walk each day affect yourself and/or your work?
I feel like a shell of myself when I find a pocket of being uninspired. I think a major contributing factor to that happening in when I miss the opportunity to do something so small, yet impactful. I found myself at the peak of my bodily-kinesthetics my freshman year. This led to me writing some of the best poetry I have ever written. Unfortunately since then I have noticed that I do not maintain the same physical regimen and I have noticed that my spoken word writing took a bit of a hit. With that being said, I believe that taking a weak each day directly impacts clarity and creativity. I think that the two really cannot operate without each other. 
In North America, up to 65% of food waste happens at the consumer level. Chef Steven Satterfield advocates for using every part of a vegetable. How can you incorporate using an entire vegetable (including the skins, tops, stalks, etc.) during your next meal prep?
To be completely honest, I eat the whole vegetable because I more or less have no idea what else to do with it. I have a lot to learn about cooking. I am very much so a novice. So, I pretty much just do my best to make it taste good. I think one way I eat all my food is by sticking to what I know. I know that I adore every part of the broccoli. So, I frequently will make broccoli something that I frequently get while grocery shopping. Then from there I pretty much just chop it up and throw all of that into some boiling water.
Half of all trips made in the US are three miles or less; 72% of them are driven. Does this statistic describe your own transportation habits? If so, how might you incorporate more muscle-powered transportation in your daily life?
The more I think about my transportation habits at Bucknell, I come to think that this may accurately describe my habits. Outside of work I really do know drive much while I am at school, especially during the pandemic. But the times I did drive were places on Rt. 15. There really isn't much skating that can be done on the highway. However, everything I really need is within three miles or less. I think that I could maybe familiarize myself with the less popular roads and looking into where the rail trail leads out of. I am just relatively new to skating. Once I get some more time under my belt I'll be more confident and be more willing to travel farther distances. 

I think that one challenge I actually did well was the transportation challenge. Reflecting back on the challenge I feel a little oxymoronic. The job that I worked throughout the first semester was a delivery driver. I worked roughly 20 hours each week. This was roughly 200 miles driving each week. I got this job after I first selected the driving challenge. But How successfully can I do this challenge when I am doing the antithesis of what the challenge entails? I had to come to terms with this. I knew that I needed to provide for myself while I was at school and frankly this was the only job I applied to that I heard back from with good news. Looking back I now realize that I should have picked different challenge, as it was instructed to do, but I unfortunately cannot change that now. So, I reflect. 
Whenever I had a short drive, I almost always elected to skate or to walk. I am very happy that I found an interest in skating. I think that was the main catalyst to whatever 'success' I found with this challenge. I have been snowboarding for a little over ten years now so it was a easy transition for me. Thankfully, I was not discouraged by wipe out after wipe out. This positive connotation that I had formed with this specific mode of transportation made this challenge not only easily completable but enjoyable. I looked forward to having to run errands or taking a trip to a local business on market street. Even the times that it got cold I still tried to avoid driving when I could. 
This challenge definitely helped me lower my ecological footprint the most. I never ended up throwing away that much food, which was another challenge that I worked on. I think that when looking at successes and failures of this specific challenge I can look back and say that the amount I avoided driving, hopefully balanced out the driving I had to do for work. I know that I was driving a lot for work so to be able to get some time out from behind the wheel was actually quite nice. It was definitely more of a challenge when the weather started to get colder. Knowing that my car was either in the lot behind my dorm or down the street, made it a little more difficult to keep skating and walking around places. But I did really want to be able to complete this to the best of my ability. Also, my ecological footprint from driving for work absolutely needed something to offset it. I felt that I was able to find a happy medium with skating. I do wish that I could find another job so that I could continue to reduce my ecological foot print. I think that I have formed a good habit with skating. I do not think that would falter if I did find a job that I didn't have to drive around so much.  

At this point in the eco challenge I felt that that one thing that was challenging me was making sure that I was cooking no-waste meals. I have never really had to cook for myself in the past. The occasional midnight snack, or romantic evening, was really the only time I found myself cooking. And unfortunately the latter did not last very long. My mother, for better or worse, made most of the meals in my life. So, when it came to be my responsibility I felt rather unprepared. My roommates offered help with there limited experiences, but it ultimately was a huge learning curve. Through this point there were a couple of nights where my eyes were indeed bigger than my stomach and I totally over estimated. I think one thing I failed to really consider was heating up left-overs. This would still be considered a no-waste meal because I didn't actually throw it out. Looking back on it the only time I ever really did eat left-overs was when it was food that I ordered.  I was always excited to keep working on this challenge. I felt that as a young adult it was a skill that I deemed necessary. It is not a financially responsible decision to order food every night, so I must learn how to properly prepare food for myself. It was something that I was always cognizant of. I hated throwing away unfinished food or food that I let go bad because I bought too much. I wish the experience came at a lower price; but it allowed space for me to grow. I also think that if more people were cognizant of the amount of food they were making then there would be a great ecological impact being made. The issue of over-indulgence is pressing especially in America. I think the hyper-capitalistic mentality this country has recently fostered has only aided in this  glutinous way of living.  
At this point I was having a hard time taking time to just go for a walk, or even skate, to just get outside. I frequently, and especially this semester, found taking proper care of myself dropped lower and lower on my priority list. It was actually draining to do something as simple and beneficial for myself. What made this even more problematic was I chose this challenge as an easy goal for me to accomplish. I knew that if I picked this I could look back on each day and say that I at least accomplished that. It was rather disappointing to know that I really couldn't even do that. Taking a walk everyday should be something that isn't exhausting. However, not everything is as it seems. I was able to get outside of myself occasionally and take a nice stroll or just skate around aimlessly. I do wish that I was more inclined to take these simple walks for myself, and I hope that it is something that I can make something like that a simple addition to my daily routine.