Garrett Ku

For me this week’s set of challenges was more difficult for me to select.  Transportation in particular presented quite a few different problems. To begin with as a college student who doesn’t own a car I felt like that most of the challenges in transportation didn’t apply to me. At the beginning of this challenge I said that I would actively try to avoid choosing things that I already do. So for instance I wouldn’t choose to not run the sink while brushing my teeth because I don’t do that anyways. This is where the problem arose. Because I don’t have a car on campus I never drive anywhere anyways so most of my options were extremely limited. I ended up choosing the action which involved walking everywhere. The problem is since I do this all of the time anyway should I really count it as a challenge? I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with something that would be a good addition to the challenge to actually make it more meaningful to me. I’ve decided that I’m going to encourage myself and my friends to take less trips to the store. This would most likely entail buying more stuff to last through the whole week or month etc. I think this ties in nicely with the next challenge that I chose which was to use less or no disposable one time use bags. In my room I’ve got probably four or five tote bags that are just lying around. It would be the easiest thing to just grab them when I go out shopping to save two or three disposable bags. In fact if I go grocery shopping with my friends I could give them some of those bags to use for themselves. I suppose I could even let them borrow them if I don’t go with them. Other than that my only other concern for this week were my one time challenges. This week we had to pick two and wanted to pick one from transportation and one from trash. However, once again I found difficulties in finding picking something from transportation. A lot of them have to do with car sharing or planes which again I have to reiterate I don’t have a car and I don’t see myself flying soon. So this week I choose to learn about the landfills in the area and what to do with the recyclables that I can’t recycle. I assume this means things like plastic bags. Other than that I think my other actions are still going well. Five minute showers are a breeze now and I’m pretty sure at this point I’m well under the mark. Something I’ve been meaning to try is walking meditation, I don’t know if I’m quite there yet but it is on my to do list at some point before the challenge ends. The thermostat has remained at 68 degrees and I still feel the need to open my window to let in cold air, so I’ve had no trouble on that front.

The Ecochallenge is still going pretty well. The biggest problem with the first two challenges I’ve selected is now that sometimes it’s really cold outside when I go to take my walks and I don’t really want to go. However, this problem is diminishing and will continue to diminish as spring comes closer and closer. At this point the meditation has become second nature to me and it’s really nice just sitting on my bed after each class taking a few minutes to gather my thoughts and refocus my attention to something else. I think that reading that article on mindfulness and meditation last week has really help me to enjoy this challenge in particular and I do feel less stressed than before though it might also just be a placebo type effect, I’m honestly not too sure. The two new challenges I picked for this week are reducing the thermostat by 2 degrees and taking five-minute showers. To begin with the thermostat change has been pretty easy. For whatever reason in the wintertime Bucknell only lets you have heat on and they use an excessive amount in my opinion. As someone who’s always liked the room to be colder reducing the heat out put by two degrees has been really easy. However, when springtime rolls around and temperatures start to get up I anticipate that reducing the air conditioning by two degrees may be something I’m more hesitant to do. Especially since I live on the top floor I’m much closer to direct sunlight than other people and my room will probably get substantially hotter. Taking five minute showers has been a much more significant deviation from what I’m used to when compared to every other challenge I’ve selected thus far. When I first started, I just wanted to gauge how long a quick shower would take me. When I took it I thought I took about five minutes but it turned out to actually be around seven and a half. That meant for an already quick shower I had to reduce the time by two and a half minutes. Now as soon as I hit the water, I don’t enjoy the warmth or anything I just get straight to washing off. Now I’m right around five minutes for my showers, sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less. I think this challenge is the hardest in the winter just because I really like to enjoy the warm water when it’s cold out, but again when spring comes by I think I’ll have an easier time doing it. For my one-time action I decided to choose the online energy audit. I think that I do my best to save energy, but I’m still interested in how much power I’m using and what possible ways there are to possibly save it. I’m pretty curious how this will work honestly. I’d like to imagine it somehow can calculate how much power you’re using based off of a serious of questions, but I’m honestly unsure of how that actually works.

So far, I think the eco-challenge is going quite well. The two challenges I picked were to go on a walk everyday and to meditate every day. My one-time challenge is to determine my core values and what means a lot to me. Although the two daily challenges I selected aren’t very difficult I figured that since they are going to be present throughout the entirety of the challenge it’s probably better to start easy and slowly make my way up towards challenges that are more difficult. My end goal is hopefully in the last week I’ll pick some daily challenges that are difficult and hopefully change the way I live my life. Something like the whole week meat free is what I’d like to work towards. The daily walks have been a nice little exercise. The thing about them is that although technically walking to and from class could count, I tend to listen to music while I do. For the challenge I’ve been walking at night without listening to music. I’ve been enjoying these walks as there’s less, people, less distractions, and more time to just observe and listen to the environment around me. I do use my phone to time myself, but that’s the only time I use technology on my walks. Meditation has been a bit weird for me. I don’t exactly know what I’m supposed to be doing or thinking about, so it has been a relaxing time, but I’m not sure I’m doing it in the optimum way. I know it sounds weird to talk about the best way to meditate and it’s even somewhat counterintuitive, but it’s how I felt. Reading through the website listed under learn more it’s nice to see I’m doing some things right and some things wrong. Funnily enough they talk about how the mindset is important and thinking that you’re doing it wrong and beating yourself up about it is apparently quite common. Another thing they mention is how easy it is for your mind to wander to other subjects and how it’s important to note them, but to try to regain focus on your breathing, emotions etc. I picked 15 minutes to meditate which in hindsight, for someone with no experience like myself, might be a long time. However, the way I’ve been using it is taking 5-10 minutes after each class I have to recompose myself and mentally get ready for whatever it is that comes next. Something helpful that they recommend is guided meditation and a quick Google and YouTube search shows thousands of results, so I may just need to try that if I still find my mind elsewhere. Finally, I think that the core values one time action is a good one to establish exactly what I want to get out of this challenge. For example, if one my values is community, maybe I’ll volunteer at the Bucknell farm this springtime. It’s almost another way of meditating and focusing on what matters most to me. In summary, I think the challenges are going well so far, but I only have two daily challenges. I guess check back with me in four weeks.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/guides/well/how-to-meditate