Jessi Vaughan

For food, I decided to watch Cowspiracy with my friend Thea!

She is staying at my house for a bit until campus is able to fill a work order in her dorm, so I figured it would be a good time to watch a food documentary. Honestly the only thing I was surprised about was how little "environmental advocates" knew, or were willing to talk about the impact of our livestock culture. There was only like one guy that would publicly comment on livestock being the root cause of 51% of the depletion on the rain forests, or how much they contributed to greenhouse gas production. A lot of these organizations just want to paint a picture that donors like, which doesn't include criticizing their diet. 

We gotta start being honest with ourselves. Thea liked the documentary!

Okay for Transportation, I have actually been working on this all term. 

OKAY. So my family doesn't have the best luck with cars. This sounds like a bad movie script, but this is all within the last five years. My brother ended up crashing his car, crashing the rental for his car, and crashing my moms car (turns out he had an undiagnosed sleeping disorder). My mom was rear ended in a camry, but no serious damage. She then passed the camry on to me ( I had been in a pt cruiser that absolutely fell apart AND WAS ALSO HIT IN THE PSU PARKING GARAGE, so I took over and made payments on the camry). THEN my mom was hit by someone driving an oil company work truck. Some not great things, and my mom is still waiting to get knee/shoulder surgery. After the camry was in my care, someone once again hit it in the PSU parking garage then drove off. THEN my grandparents got hit by a literal school bus. The driver ran the light and t-boned them (THEY ARE DOING GREAT NOW NO LONG TERM INJURIES). THEN I was in the crash in June (the camry) that I mentioned in class. Then someone hit my new (used) car while it was parked, and ran off. SO I got a rental and they fixed my car, which I got back about a month ago. Out of all of that, the only crashes that weren't the other driver's fault were my brother's.

Anyway now that everyone is caught up, I DON'T LIKE DRIVING. It stresses me out. At the start of the year I was parking my rental on campus, because it was the fastest way to commute. After sitting on it, I realized how big of a waste of money it was to pay for parking, and I started taking the MAX. Last week I switched to the bus so that I could enjoy some morning walks. I like the extra time to think, and I only use my car for work/getting to and from my job. ALSO TRANSIT IS BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND THAT'S RAD. It took me a minute to figure out how everything works, and I have to plan extra time for travel (which I'm kinda bad at), but I'm getting the hang of it :).

For Water, I decided to cut down on the amount of plastic bottles I use. 

I will be the first to admit that I can be really bad about my tea and coffee intake. Tired? Cool let me run and pick up something with caffeine. I hate admitting this, because I know they'e horrible for you, but I drink energy drinks fairly often (Hi-Ball, but still). SO this week I cut back drastically. I made my coffee at home, skipped the oat-milk matcha latte, and drank water when I would normally run and grab a tea. I found that when I have my reusable bottle on me, I am way more likely to be consistently drinking water, so that is a huge plus. It saves money, which was a plus. I was definitely missing the caffeine, but I don't think that is a bad thing. I will definitely try to remember to have my water bottle on hand, and I'll try to continue drinking *less* caffeine,

I've thought about potentially keeping a water heater and tea bags in my instrument locker :). 

For community I decided to pick up litter! 

Where I live it isn't uncommon for houseless people to go through garbage to find bottles. This is fine, except lids tend to be left open and trash blows everywhere. SO this week I actually went and cleaned around our complex. I thought it would be a good idea to put out a separate box for bottles so that they were easier to access. I told my neighbors and it actually seems to be helping! People are able to come pick up bottles without digging through trash. The complex has been cleaner, and the bottles have consistently been cleared out every night :)

For Ecological Principles I decided to spend 20 minutes outside a day!

To incorporate this into my schedule I decided to take the bus instead of the MAX, and walk to bus stops that are a bit further out. Doing this not only got my time in my car cut down (driving to a park and ride), but it got me outside and walking! I actually really enjoyed my morning walks and I have decided to continue them as part of my normal routine. I have had a bit more energy in the mornings, have been able to cut back on caffeine, and it gave me a lot of time to think/prepare for the day.

Sometimes I forget how nice it is to just exist outside.

Well I am a bit late figuring out what this website is and what to do, so please pardon my spamming over the next week! 
For " A Call to Sustainability" I chose to talk to my parents about sustainability. Now keep in mind in the politest way possible, my parents are very old fashioned in their beliefs, as is pretty much my entire family. They aren't the easiest to talk to about these things, and I usually get dismissed fairly quickly. I'm from Texas originally and my family nicknames are "lib***d" and "treehugger", if that gives y'all any insight.

 Well on this particular video chat I did get my mom to at the very least agree that we need to head in a more sustainable direction. She told me that once they are in a more stable housing situation, she would put some effort into starting to recycle at the very least. As far as my other family members, my dad was paying zero attention, and my brother (who previously worked in the west Texas Oil fields) , told me my recycling wouldn't make a difference because of large corporations, which TO BE FAIR he is partially correct-ish. Big companies create a huge majority of our waste, BUT that doesn't mean we as consumers shouldn't do everything in our power to help.  

Long story short, I didn't get very far, but at least my mom is thinking about recycling? Baby steps