Entry 3

google images/consumer pics

After taking the sustainability test on consumer consequences I came to realize that I consume a lot more than I thought I did in certain areas and not so much in other areas. My home impact score was 2, the impact of the electricity use in my home is 6, the impact of the waste generated in my home is 13, the impact of personal or public transportation is 90, the impact of food consumed is 9 and the impact of use of services and goods is 6. It would take 28.1 Planet Earth's. I was aware that I am constantly on the road but I did not ever think that I impacted so much of the use. How much food consumed is probably in large part due to the amount of food prepared for me outside of the home and how much time I spend in my car. Just to think of the amount of trash genreated in my home with only 4 adults is a bit worrysome to me. I believe that my family as a whole has gotten a lot better with our lifesyles and how we preserve the planet but I also think that a lot of has to do with how the economy is now and how most of us are just trying to save as much money as possible for our personal benefits.  I feel that for me personally however, there are many changes that should be made in my lifestyle since I am constantly spending so much time outside of my home. I feel like there are many changes that can me made in my life, the first one being the amount of time I spend in the car and not with other passengers, car pooling seems like a much better way to get around seeing that it is more effiicient, however it is a lot easier to try and get things that one personally has to get done on a daily basis without relying or having someone else rely on you. I also feel that I should try and recycle more in my house as well as encourage my family to do so because sometimes we just simply get lazy; instead of taking out certain products to the recycle bins, we will place them in the garbage bag.

Personally in my home I do not use much the energy source since I am hardly around. However, I work at an answering service, I have my own desk with my own lanp and computer in which I use during the entire day as well as other resources such as the kitchen refridgerator, toilet, microwave, etc. I use an excessively high amount of fuel during the day, which has much to do with the anount of time I spend out of house in my car to go to work, school, or running errands. During the time that I am in school each semester I really do not eat as much as I would during the holiday's and breaks siunce I am usually so focused on the things I have to do for my classes that I don't think I even have the time to sit down and eat a meal and I don't even try to make the time. So during the day I am usually munching on things and when I get home is when I have a decent meal. I use a lot of water during the day, I usually take about two 25 minute showers a day which almost adds up to an hour. Also, I sometimes forget to turn off the faucet when I am brushing my teeth, doing my hair or washing the dishes and I tend to use the bathroom more frequently than usual since I drink a lot water while I am work which means I am flushing the toilet a lot. Within the answering service that I work in, there is also a warhouse division for direct mail in which they have the telephone representatives assist in getting some of the jobs completed. Not only looking at the essentials products that I use in my every day life that is packaged, a lot of the direct mail I completeld in one day made up most of the items packaged that I used.

Entry 2

On the first day of class I was not expecting to have gone on a field trip so quickly. As we walked around campus and our tour guide explained to us many of the different aspects about how our school built to help the environment such as the stones set around the buildings for when it rains, the boardwalk wood and our air-conditioning system, I came to realize that after being at this university for so many years I really did not know much about the legistics. It really made me think about how much thought and preparation was put into building the university and that it was not all about money. I also found interesting how they tried different containers for recycling and how the students tend to recycle more on the containers with the clear bags on the bottom of them. It really made me think about my actions around campus and made me want to do more on my part to help. Before taking the course, I was completely oblivious to many of the things I learned through just the first day of class. One thing I did not enjoy so much since I am so use to being in air-conditioning was the heat we were exposed to, although since it was still in the morning time, it wasn't as bad as I thought it might have been.


google images/fgcu campus pictures

When finding out that we were going to a swamp walk on campus, I honestly did not know what to expect. I had not really heard much about it from any other students so I was completely blind going into it. As we were walking to the entrance of our destination, I didn't even know where we were being taken which was exciting in a way, kind of like an adventure. At first I thought it was going be a breeze since we were walking through dry ground but as soon as I saw the mud, I knew I was in trouble. It completely caught me off guard and I was entirely thrown out of my comfort zone. I remember that everytime we would come to a place that was full of mud I kept thinking about how badly I just wanted to get through the orther side, without falling. When we were in water, it was not that bad although I almost tripped several times since you cannot see what lies beneath. When finally reaching our last point on the trail I was not only relieved but I was shocked that I never knew this place existed and I had driven by it so many times before. It made me want to come back and just spend some time byself just sitting down in one of the benches and relaxing in the same manner I do when I go to the beach at night. Prior to the course, if I had heard that the trail existed I would have most likely never gone on my own accord but now that I do know about it, I will visit the area more often and try to avoid the mud sections as much as possible.


google images/fgcu swamp pics

Entry 1

googleimages/environmental pics
I did not know what to expect of the Colloquium course when first coming into it. I had heard many negative feedbacks from other students about how it is a dreadful class since it is a requirement for graduation and that it entailed a lot of writing. Since I had heard negative comments about other courses in the past and I ended up having a good experience myself, my feelings of the course was a positive one in the hopes that I will feel the same way throughout the entire semester. I enjoy going to the beach a lot but mostly at night. I feel like its a place I can go to and clear my head and relax. When I was living in Connecticut, I use to go camping a lot with my family and I use to love going around the campsite by myself and just exploring difference scenery. My relationship with the natural world unfortunately I must say has been limited to specific events at different times. I had always been invloved in extra curricular activities growing up and spend a lot of my time indoors. Anxieties that I have about the class is really just not doing well, whether its out on the field trips, on my papers or any other requirements. My main personal goal is to do well on the course but also learn things that will help me make better decisions about my future and be able to pass on that knowledge to my daughter and future children. I feel that this class will help me in the decisions I am to make about how I would like to live my life in terms of not only worrying about the present but little things I can do to help preserve the environment for future generations.