This is why I Occupy

I know this might sound over the top, but I am passionate about this right now. So here it goes...

Seeing the hopeful smiles on people's faces does it. Being joyously thanked (by sober and drunk alike) for standing up for American rights does it. Seeing the profound impact we all are having on society does it. Being confident while standing up for something that I believe wholeheartedly in and seeing others with the equivalent amount or even more passion does it for me. All of this does it; it allows me to hurtle over all of the cynicism, hopelessness, and harassment I have received from many people over the past few days.

When I speak here, I speak for myself and maybe for many others in the movement. I am not against capitalism. I am not against corporations. I am not against the government nor am I against paying taxes. I am not against banks or credit unions. I am not against the media, or the police, any political party, religion, class, or democracy. As a matter of fact, I am very much for all of those things. We are against corporations stepping into the government and crushing the class system...the American dream. What are our demands? For local businesses to thrive. For the environment to not be trashed for corporate profit. We demand that every American have an equal chance to climb the socio-economic ladder that America prides itself so much on and has done so for the past several hundred years. 

I have never been into political activism. This is mostly because I had yet to find something that I passionaltely believed in before the occupy movement. I passionately believe in this. I consider myself a part of it. In the past, the citizens of this country has succeeded in stepping up to the plate when needed in activism. For the past several decades, however, the citizens of this country has gotten so used to being passive in politics. Could you ever imagine anything like this happening in the 90's? It was been a long time since we have seen anything close to this. Generations can no longer close their eyes and hold their tongues. This is a movement that is waking up the globe. It is now the citizen's chance to speak for their American rights. I have never been more proud to be a citizen this country.

Thank you for support!

Check it out:

http://www.occupycolumbiasc.org/

Not Your Average Hippie

It happens to all of us. You're walking down the street and you come across some hippie kid with second hand clothes that hasn't been washed in weeks and hair that looks like a wasps nest that hasn't been washed since the turn of the century. Alright, so that might be an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. They are the young adults (and maybe not so young adults as well) who make their statement by openly not participating in socially acceptable personal hygiene.

Those crazy hippie kids, well, they might not have the wrong idea. I wrote a blog telling you about chemicals to which we expose ourselves. Well, we expose our hair, skin, and teeth to just as many, if not more potentially harmful chemicals every day! Just take a look at your shampoo and conditioner bottles and you will see what I mean. Some chemicals in particular to look for JUST IN SHAMPOO are: 


MIT (methylisothiazolinone)
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
DEA (diethanolamine
Iodopropynyl butylcarbamate
Parabens
Propylene Glycol
Tocopheryl Acetate


If you think this is a lot, check out the chemicals to look out for in conditioners, soaps, and even toothpaste! If you want to know why to look out for those chemicals, read more: http://www.brighthub.com/environment/green- living/articles/16554.aspx#ixzz1br84q4dy


So, I must tell you something about myself that not many people know. I haven't washed my hair in over a week. I actually told that to one of my friends the other day and he didn't believe me. He looked at my hair and said that it looked like I had washed my hair recently. He said it looks "normal". The truth is, people do not even need to wash their hair every day, or even every week. All you need to do in the shower is rinse the oils out of your hair and you are good! 


That may sound weird or disgusting, but it is true. But don't throw out your shampoo bottles just yet. If you are like most Americans and have been using store bought shampoo for most of your life, your scalp is used to having to compensate for the oils that are being stripped out. Start out small. Go a day or two with only rinsing your hair. Then after a few weeks, go a few more days...and then a week...and then two weeks. Eventually, you will get to the point where all you will need to do is wash (using natural soaps) only once or twice a month. That is not only much healthier for your scalp, but it will make you feel like a young hippie...without actually having to look like a hippie. 


Well, I am going to leave you guys with a song by one of my favorite artists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R5IQoIYvTM


Enjoy!

Local Coffee

The sun is rising on this bright and early morning here in Clemson. Yes, I said Clemson. I am here sitting in one of my favorite places, Starbucks! There is nothing like a soy latte, extra shot with few pumps of caramel to start the day right. And with the soft instrumental music and espresso machines buzzing, I feel quite ready for a busy day at the game. It is funny to think that Starbucks only started out as a local coffee shop. 

As much as I love Starbucks, I absolutely adore supporting the local coffee joint. Downtown Columbia has quite a few popular ones. If you are in the financial district, you can venture down Gervais Street to find the new (and quite popular) Peace Love and Rocky Roasters with their own beans roasted daily in house! Behind the State House, if you want a tasty sandwich to go with your fresh in-house brewed coffee, you will find IMAC (short for Immaculate Consumption) which is a hot spot for the State House employees and other financial district workers around lunch time. 

After 6pm and after the yuppies head home for the evening, the coffee house crowd comes out. Good late night company and delicious coffee can be found at Cool Beans, who has a stoop that is the ideal social spot for the college student on break from hours of studying. Getting ready for a long night of drinking and table dancing? Drip in 5 Points has probably the strongest coffee in Columbia with probably the best all around atmosphere. 

There are several other really good local coffee places other than what I mention here. Supporting local businesses is good for the local economy and in some cases, better for your pocket! And hey, not to mention the coffee is often MUCH tastier (no offense) than Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. Well, I am going to finish enjoying this latte. Have a dandy day! 

Loving Life

You know you might enjoy life too much when you hike 2.5 miles to the top of a mountain only to cook bacon on an iron skillet over a fire and to enjoy nutella spread thick atop a lovely slab of local seeded sour dough bread.  By the way, in case you were wondering, I did hike this train with my vibram's. As a matter of fact, two of the other people I hiked with were also wearing Vibram Fivefingers. They went on to hike the 20 mile rocky trail. I got to do some trail running on the way back. Not only is trail running fun (your running down a mountain, what is not fun about that?) but it makes the hike go by much faster. I would have rather done the 20 mile hike, but one of my good friends struggled on the trail so I drove back to Columbia with her. I still had much fun and given the bacon, nutella, and a beautiful view of a seemingly endless mountain range, the trip went very well. The picture is of us trying to start the fire.


Now, I am not avoiding the subject of fasting with you. I have just been extremely busy lately and a lot has happened so I have not been able to tell you about my experiment. For those of you who don't know, I went 6 days without eating food. Instead, I drank a concoction of lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. I did that for 6.5 days before getting bored and eating a cliff bar (holy CRAP those things are super good!). I will tell you now that I feel like I did gain some mental strength from this. If you want to practice self control, get rid of nasty food eating habits, and get rid of controlling food cravings, then this fast is good for you. If you want to lose weight, then DO NOT go on this diet. I got some major cravings on the  third day but managed to get past that and by the sixth day, I just wanted any real food in general. And really, it isn't that bad as long as you drink the lemon juice mix as often as you need to. I drank 7-9 servings a day and only got random cravings of junk food. I knew when I was really hungry because any food sounded good, even food that I normally wouldn't want to eat (that could just be a side effect of starving yourself though). In the end, I am not going to say it is a miracle diet. It did help me and I might do it again in the future, but you can get similar results from eating natural, whole foods all the time.




Speaking of good food, here is a picture of what a well balanced grocery store visit looks like. I call this, the backpack diet since I bike or walk to the grocery store and have to fit everything I get into a backpack. This time, I had an extra bag to store stuff in. Here I have several different types of squash including paddy pan, spaghetti, butternut, and acorn. I have apples, sweet potatoes, corn, and cucumbers for the rest of my produce. For grains, I have granola, pita bread, and corn bread mix. I have Greek yogurt for protein, probiotics, and just because I love Greek yogurt and cliff bars for snacks between classes. Finally, you will see that I have a jar of creamy, delicious nutella. From the farmers market, I also got a watermelon, the paddy pan squash you see above, and some seeded sour dough bread from Heather's Artisan Bakery. Oh how I love good food!


And here is a picture of the new kitten. His name is Rajah. Do you get the reference?

Well I am heading out for now. I plan on posting another informational blog soon, so keep posted and let me know if there is anything you want to hear about! Do you want to hear about global warming or alternative energy? Or maybe you want to know a little more about food. What about chemicals in beauty products that could be dangerous for your skin! I will definitely keep you updated on the Occupy Wall Street movement. 


For now, I will leave you with a song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvbCV6E0Wro&feature=BFa&list=PLAD6D08DC4A5364AA&lf=mh_lolz

Occupy Space

You may have heard of Occupy Wall Street.  If you have not, never fear! I am here to quickly inform you of what is going on in the world. The richest 1% of the U.S. population controls roughly 46% of the money in the U.S.  This makes it ever more difficult for lower and middle income citizens to move up the socio-economic scale. Professional economists agree that not only did the big corporations on Wall Street cause a financial crisis in the United States, but they did nothing to build the economy back up. The 99% symbolizes the rest of the American population who struggles financially with loans, mortgages, job security, unemployment, homelessness, and many other negative financial issues.  The 1% resembles corporate greed and financial inequality. Hundreds of thousands of people around the globe are peacefully assembling and “occupying” cities in protest creating one of the largest global protests in at least the past decade.

Now being the anthropologist that I am, I love seeing this kind of stuff. I mean, hey! Who wouldn’t get excited to see such a diverse crowd cooperate on a community level?  The city I live in, Columbia, South Carolina, started an occupy movement on the 15^th of October.  Between 250 and 400 people showed up for the first day and at least 30 plus people stayed the night on the statehouse grounds.  The effort and cooperation is phenomenal.  Copious amounts of food and blankets have been donated. This is probably one of the best things that I have seen here in Columbia since I have moved here 4 years ago. I recommend learning more about the occupy movement.  It really is inspiring. I think we are going to be seeing some major changes here in the U.S. and in the world very soon. 

So, since the main theme of the protest is advocating for the 99%, I will tell you my story:

I am a full time undergraduate student at a public state university. I have what I would consider decent grades, I work a part time job and I hold an unpaid internship.  I work to pay for rent, food, a very basic cellular phone, and health insurance.  I will be graduating soon with $30,000 in student loans.  I do not come with a financially strong family background, but I have always been a hard worker and have always done my best to stay financially stable.  I have gotten charged with many miscellaneous fees from my bank. Tuition and extra fees at my school has gone up by $1400 since I started studying at this university.  I have been denied extra grant money because of the declining economy.  I recently got into an accident where I had to go to the emergency room to get 6 stitches in my face, 7 in my arm, and 3 in my leg. The total amount of medical bills I had was over $4000. The medical insurance that I have paid an average of $600 per semester for the past 7 semesters through the university covered an almost negligible amount of that bill. I plan on working hard to pay off my debt for as long as I need to.  Because of my loans, because of the medical bills, and because of my drive, I am part of the 99%.

What is your story? How do you feel about the occupy protests? Let me know, and please, learn more about the cause. Here are a few cool videos that will tell you more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dtD8RnGaRQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhrwmJcsfT0

Your Trash!

Hello all and welcome to educational Monday. What am I going to educate you about today? Garbage!  Uh…what is there to know about garbage that we don’t already know? I mean, what is important about it really? We go to the grocery store and buy our meats, snacks, and other items that are conveniently wrapped in plastic. We do whatever it is that we need to with the product only to have an inconvenience on our hands. We have garbage that once we throw into that little plastic bag lined bin it disappears forever and our problems are solved.

But to where does that garbage go? It goes to a land that is far, far away from us.  It goes to a place that some people somewhere will trustingly take care of that garbage.  Bacteria will decompose the garbage causing a smell that most people will never have to endure. It goes to a landfill.

People don’t usually like to think about landfills. All we really know about them is that they are basically large piles of trash that will decompose at some unknown rate.  Here are a few statistics I found to give you an idea of how long certain things take to decompose:

·         Banana peels, 2-10 days

·         Cotton rags, 1-5 months

·         Paper, 2-5 months

·         Rope (natural fiber), 3-14 months

·         Orange peels, 6 months

·         Wool socks, 1-5 years

·         Cigarette filters, 3-12 years

·         Milk cartons, 5 years

·         Plastic bags, 10-20 years

·         Leather shoes, 25-40 years

·         Nylon fabric, 30-40 years

·         Styrofoam cup, 100 years

·         Plastic 6-pack holder rings, 450 years

·         Plastic Beverage Bottle – unknown, possibly 500+ years

·         Glass bottle – 1 million years

And the breakdown process isn’t very pretty.  Even landfills that are closely regulated tend to have leaks and cracks that allow garbage juice (the really smelly, nasty kind) to drip through the soil and get into underground waterways.

Here are some pictures of landfill pollution:

Hey! Don’t think I’m done trying to make you feel bad about throwing away your plastic wrappers! One more thing I want to mention to my readers is something that not many people (including people in my field of study) know about. The Pacific Trash Vortex (aka The Great Pacific Garbage Patch) is a landfill in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

 

Researchers have estimated it to be between 700,000 square kilometers (the size of Texas) to 15,000,000 square kilometers (almost twice the size of the US). This giant ocean landfill is wreaking insane levels of havoc on ocean ecosystems and killing billions of marine organisms. Here is more info about the vortex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

What is the solution to this problem? There is none! Not yet at least. Once a landfill becomes hazardous to the environment, it is almost impossible to reverse the damage. And pollution can only be easily controlled at local levels. When looking at larger scales of trash production, the best way to control pollution is to educate people about the impact they have and about what they can do to prevent such impacts.  

So what can you do to reduce your impact?  “Reduce, reuse, and recycle” is the new phrase of century. Take extra steps to reduce the amount of waste you produce.  Start using products that have been recycled. And if you don’t already recycle, start doing so. Recycling and composting can cut the amount of garbage you produce by at least half. And my final piece of advice is to tell people about what you know about reducing your impact.

So my challenge for the week is to take initiative! Get creative with it. Find a way to recycle and/or compost. If you are like me and have extreme difficulty finding ways to recycle (because apartment complexes can be difficult to work with sometimes), then learn more about the impacts our trash has on the environment and reach out to others.  It is very easy to ignore garbage because getting rid of it has become so easy for us. Take the initiative to NOT ignore your impact. 

No Food? No Problem!

You might be thinking right now (based off of the title of this post) that I will be talking about homeless people. Well, if you are thinking that then you are wrong. As I mentioned in last week's blog, I decided to take on the master cleanse detox diet (aka "that L.A. lemonade diet"). Since I will be on the topic of detoxing, I figured I might as well give you the "down low" on what chemicals we ingest daily and how to minimize those chemicals.

 Chemicals make up everything. The air we breath, the food we eat, every living and non-living item is made up of chemicals. So before I say anything else, I must emphasize that not all chemicals are bad for you. I also must emphasize that not every chemical compound found in nature is good for you. A lot of times you may hear someone say "well, it's natural therefore it must be good for you". Well ignore that because it is bogus. There are over 70,000+ synthetic chemicals that are produced and used in the U.S. today with only a very small percentage of those chemicals having been scientifically tested in a lab for levels of toxicity to humans. This means that on a day to day basis, humans expose themselves to at least 40,000 potentially harmful chemicals daily.  The main sources of taking in these chemicals are through the water we use and the food we eat.  

But this blog isn't meant to scare you, so I am not going to continue with the facts. All I will tell you is that it is very wise to use a water filter both on your kitchen faucet and in your shower. Also, avoid bottled water if you can. There is literally almost no difference between bottled water and your faucet water. 

Sometimes, the bottled water may even contain more toxins (http://www.healthkicker.com/705277869/still-shelling-out-money-for-bottled-water-why/). I want to remind you that this advise is coming from a student who studies water resources so what I say here is legitimate! Toxins taken in from food is a different story altogether and I plan on devoting a blog to that. Generally, the least amount of process the food has gone through, the better it is for your body. 

Now that I have lightly educated you on how we expose ourselves to toxins, I will tell you about an experiment that I am doing right now. I came across the master cleanse diet a few years ago and was attracted to it because it claimed to "remove your body of toxins" and help you to eliminate those toxic cravings. Basically, what you do is fast for 10-40 days and drink only filtered water with fresh lemon juice, pure maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. Sounds pretty terrible, right? I have been on the fence about the diet until I came to a recent realization. I personally know six people who tried the diet. Of those six people, three managed to complete the entire process and three didn't make it past the third day. The three people who did not complete the diet say the diet is terrible for your body and extremely unhealthy. The three people did complete the detox (as well as the countless blogs online from people of all ages who completed the detox) all say it was one of the best things they have ever done for themselves, mentally and physically. After realizing that, I decided to try it myself and see if there really is a beneficial outcome. 

So, I am ending my fourth day on the detox and I have to say that I have been getting pretty interesting results. I have come to understand that a lot of times when we crave to eat we aren't even hungry. We may be craving a certain nutrient or toxin that our body is lacking. This causes us to over eat so often. And we all know what over eating does to us if we don't get an appropriate amount of exercise (we gain wait... in case you didn't know). I realized that if you do the diet correctly, you shouldn't experience major hu nger pains after the first day or so. You are simply removing your food cravings and I feel like mine are almost gone. Normally, I crave chocolate, coffee, and sweet foods on a day to day basis. After the first day, I stopped craving sweets, and after the third day, I stopped craving both chocolate and coffee.  I had an insane craving for Domino's pizza on the third night. The funny thing is the fact that I didn't desire any other food including other types of pizza! Weird, right? It was very difficult, but I didn't give into the craving. Today, I feel better than before and feel entirely ready to continue with this diet (and finish it!). I wonder if I am actually losing toxins.

If the idea of fasting is too intimidating, there are plenty of other detox diets that are supposed to work. If you are interested in a detox diet, you can check out the different juice detoxes, raw vegetable detox, and I believe there is even a melon diet where you only eat melon for however long as a form of detoxifying your body. What are some concerns you have about detox diets? I personally believe that people should normally just eat natural healthy foods (include the occasional cookie or slice(s) of cake) and get a normal amount of exercise to stay healthy rather than try to follow a strict calorie and carb counting diet. So, for this week's challenge, see if you can go with out any food that has been processed for the entire week. This includes chips, crackers, and beef jerky. Next week, I will tell you about my final result. 

So for now, I must wish you a wonderfully healthy and productive week! This week's song is one I recently came across: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVQfredKnFE&feature=related.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!