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April 17, 2020April 18, 2020

Verbal and Visual Ideas

When I began planning this story, I first had to decide where to actually start it and whose storyline I was going to highlight. Bernice Bobs Her Hair seems to start from the perspective of Warren who laments about his unrequited love of Marjorie and the humdrum of her cousin Bernice. I toyed with starting with that scene (as seen in the rough sketch on the left) and including the dancing scenes along with the rather mean ones of the men laughing at Bernice. However, I decided to nix that idea because I didn’t really want to tell it from Warren’s perspective. I also thought that the later scenes were more important to show than this one. Also, I couldn’t draw dancing people. For those reasons, I decided to start the story from Bernice’s perspective—in 3rd person—and the scene where she overhears her cousin and aunt talking about her.

After I decided where to start the story, I then had to decide more on how to draw the characters—apart from my beautiful scribble people as seen above. I wasn’t quite sure how to draw the style of the characters because all I really know about 1920’s style is flapper style, and its made clear in the book—through the characters horror of bobbed hair and their own comments of how women should present themselves—that they are not flappers. All images I could find of 1920s women had bobbed hair too. From there, I decided to look up women’s fashion in the 1910s and simplify it from there—and I mean really simplified. I’m no Picasso—actually, of all the artists he probably the one closest to what I’m capable of. I’m no Mary Cassat.

I attempted to draw some sort of hat, like the inspiration image above, but it quickly became clear to me that hats were weird and difficult to draw. So, I decided to go with a very loose version of the outfits.

After I did away with hats, I decided that my characters were going to be a little wanton for the times and have their hair down. One of the story’s central themes was hair so I really wanted to emphasize those long locks and the drastic change later between Bernice’s long hair and her bobbed haircut later.

As you can see from the image on the right, facial features and expressions were simplified both because of the size of the paper I was working with too small to put in much detail and because of Scott Mcleods advice to not make the characters too specific. My one worry with this was that I don’t have the skill to differentiate between the characters if their faces were too similar, but I tried to reply on face shape, hair colour and dress colour to do so.

When it came to choosing what medium to draw/colour my comic in, I was stuck with what was available to me which was: 1. mechanical pencils for the outline; 2. fine liner sharpies and black gel pens; and 3. pencil crayons. I would have liked to use more vibrant colours or paints for the theme and background which I will explain later.

I didn’t colour in the characters’ faces—except for a bit of blush on Bernice’s cheeks because other characters described her as having “high colour”.

When it came to backgrounds, I knew that I wouldn’t want to add any real images, even masked, but I also didn’t want to leave it white or fill it in with a single colour. This is where I might have bitten off more than I could chew… Taking inspiration from the colours and design on the right, I tried to apply the 20s Art Deco style background. Sometimes it worked, other times it id not.

I kept it really simple for the narrative and dialogue. I used a standard speech ballon for most of the dialogue—with the exception of sound effects like laughter or snoring— and put the narrative on the empty space on top. I also simplified the language just to get the point across without relying too heavily on it.

I had some debate on where and how to end the story. I wanted to highlight the play on Majorie ignorantly speculating on Bernice’s ethnicity in the beginning and end with Bernice cutting off Majorie’s braids but I was uneasy about the language. In the end, I decided to cut the dialogue and leave it more ambiguous.

You can find my comic here. Please ignore the shaky lines, manky bits where used too much white-out, how I never learned to colour within the lines and the lack of consistency in the art deco backdrop.

April 17, 2020April 17, 2020

Glossary of Terms

Bleeding: When the panel–usually depicting action–runs off the panel to the edge of the page so we can see beyond that snippet in time.

Closure: Observing the parts but perceiving the whole. When we are only given a snippet of something we recognize, we often unconsciously piece together the image. There is a common test that does this with a sentence with each word misspelled but our brains automatically understand what is being said.

Comics: Mcleod defines comics as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.” However, he mentions that there is a lot missing from this definition as it leaves out many genres.

Gutter (The): The space between panels. This resembles physical space, time, perspective and motion throughout a comic and signals the transition to the next action or scene.

Icon: any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea.

Mask: When a character or object is done in a different stylistic effect than the background imagery. It’s often used to emphasize either the main character or something in the background.

Panel: An individual frame showing one action or idea of the comic.

Panel-to-Panel Transitions:

Moment-to-Moment: requires very little closure
Action-to-Action: single subject showing them/it in action from one panel to the next.
Subject-to-Subject: shift between one subject to another but stays within the scene.
Scene-to-Scene: transport us across distances of time and space.
Aspect-to-Aspect: “bypasses” time with a place, idea or mood
Non-Sequitur: no logical relationship between one panel the next

Pictures: Images designed to actually resemble their subjects. Meaning is fluid and variable.

Scripting: the narrative and dialogue of the comic — the story being told through words

Show and Tell:

Word Specific: when the narrative or dialogue moves the story along more than the imagery.
Picture Specific: when words just help the emphasize what the image is telling, often through the sound like the “mmm” to add to a kissing scene or a “zzz” to a sleeping scene.
Duo-Specific: when words and images have equal parts in telling the story.
Additive Combination: words or images elaborate on or amplify each other
Parallel Combination: words and pictures follow different courses without intersecting
Montage: words are integral parts of the picture
Interdependent: go hand in hand to represent an idea that neither could convey alone

Synaesthetic: the viewer can experience sensations in one part of the body produced by the stimulus in another as an image that can evoke an emotional or sensual response in the viewer.

Treachery of Images: is a painting by surrealist painter René Magritte. It presents the notion of iconography or that an image for something is not that something, but rather the representation of something.

Viewer-identification: or “Application through Simplification” which is the idea that readers identify with characters that aren’t too specific or detailed. Without defining features, readers are able to picture themselves as the character and find similarities. Mcleod also mentions the vanity we as the human race have as we want to see ourselves in everything.

Word Balloon: the most widely-used, complex ways artists attempt to depict sound and even the non-verbal. Usually dialogue, not narrative.

December 13, 2019December 13, 2019

“This is America”

Download

Childish Gambino’s “This is America” has a very different feel when you purely listen to it. Despite knowing what is happening throughout the video, my heart beats through the video. Relying on only hearing, I’m held hostage to each tonal change, genre change, and diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The result is the song feels more immediate but the message surrounding the duality is missing without Gambino’s very strategic use of his body.

December 2, 2019

Self-Submission

For this last tutorial, I wanted to have a deeper understanding of why astrology is still appealing to the modern person. Belief in astrology is not a new trend, it is ancient and yet it has stayed prevalent and relevant despite advances in technology and medicine. For my grad-project next semester, I am writing a series of new myths in the form of micro-fictions and I wanted to tie in this research with that project. I conducted a series of five interviews with folk of varying beliefs in an attempt to understand what it is about astrology that makes it still so universally appealing. My expectation was that I could use this research to aid me in writing new myths that would be just as relevant today as the old ones were when they were written.

The first thing I discovered when conducting the interviews was that astrology hasn’t stayed prevalent despite the advances in technology—rather technology has helped in creating interest and spreading it. All my interviewees mentioned at some level in using the internet to discover, learn more and/or find a community of people also practicing astrology. The internet has become a tool of information, both the cultivation and spread of it. The flow of information available allowed astrology to be a bit of a self-discovery whilst providing communities of people to connect with and share that information. Despite the stigmatization that surrounds astrology and those who believe in it, the internet can provide a safe pace for people to learn and grow their knowledge. When writing micro-fictions, I can use that self-discovery and sense of community that can be found online into my myths. Issues today—such of gender, class, race, the environment—can be found circulating the internet: where people go to learn more by themselves or from others and where others can find safe communities of like-minded people. However, one thing to keep in mind both when dealing with astrology and myths is the prevalence of misinformation. Most of my interviewees questioned who they can trust online with being credible. With the torrent of information found online, they noted the need to be careful and selective of what they were reading. The internet can be a dangerous place and that is also relevant to keep in mind when writing myths. It simply isn’t possible to take the internet out of mythology in this day in age and traditional myths often delved into the perilous side of life.

The second—and perhaps most important—note I found to be most appealing to my interviewees was how astrology helps them understand themselves and how they relate to others. For them, astrology starts by understanding their inherited personality traits. Once they got a firm grasp on who they were, they can look at others’ star-signs to better understand their relationships with those around them. Both by reading their own charts to see what signs they were compatible with and by reading others’ charts to better understand the personality of those they were dealing with. Some of my interviewees even planned relationships—romantic and platonic—around who their signs said they were compatible with and forgive behaviour from others because it was their “nature”. Being an active member of the world means you will face the joys and perils of relationships—be it familial, friendship, romantic, professional or other. Understanding each other, and how or why we get along with some people and not others can be daunting, but astrology is a guide for some on how to navigate these relationships. This need and outsourcing for understanding each other can be used in my writing to show how far we will go to try to understand the people in our lives and the basis of how we categorize them.

The final thing I learned was that people weren’t generally interested in forecasting the future. It was the aspect of astrology that my interviewees found the most unbelievable and they didn’t often search for ways to be convinced by it. They didn’t care so much what their horoscope told them what was going to happen next month. Rather, it was about being-in-the-world and finding their place among other people.

June 20, 2019

Weather Report

Megan Amato
LBST 391-04
Cheryl Schreader
May 30^th, 2019

Weather Synopsis of the North East of Scotland

If I am to study a text of traditional myths in attempt pull out climate and weather patterns from the stories, I first need to understand the climate records of the region. Hugh Miller’s book titled “Scenes and Legends of the North of the Scotland” is a collection of folk tales and myths based in Cromarty. The small town is on the coast in the northeast of Scotland and sits between the Cromarty Firth and the Moray Firth (See fig. 4). Due to the towns small size—both in geography and in population—detailed climate reports are few and far between. Therefor, I will divide this synopsis into three parts: general climate history of Scotland; recent weather and climate patterns of Cromarty; and climate and weather history of the regions surrounding the Cromarty and Moray firths. The first part will give a general ideal of the weather patterns in Scotland and the second and third parts will provide a more detailed idea of the regional climate around Cromarty.

Fig 1. Glasgow Climate Graph from: “Running in Glasgow.” By Great Runs,
http://greatruns.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/glasgow-climate-graph.gif

**Figure 2**. Aberdeen Climate Graph from: “Solar PV, Aberdeen and Me.” By Nordintown,
https://nordintown.com/blog/content/public/upload/aberdeen-climate-graph_0_o.gif

Scotland

Scotland is the northernmost country on the island of Great Britain. It is generally located in a low-pressure system and has a temperate climate with wet, winters and mild summers partly in thanks to the North Atlantic Drift (environment.gov.scot/media/1185/climate-climate.pdf) which flows from Jamaica and keeps it warmer despite it being located at a higher latitude. However, due to the varied nature of its topography (lowlands, highlands, mountains, valleys, lochs, western/eastern coasts, islands etc.) the typical climate can also differ from region to region. The west coast of Scotland tends to experience more precipitation than the east (see Fig. 1 and Fig. 2) due to orographic rainfall as warm condensed air rises over the mountains in the Highlands and condenses (Dawson 29-30) much of the eastern Highlands lies in its rain shadow (see fig. 3). A climate report for Scotland reports that the western Highlands averages at 3000 mm of rain per year compared to 800 mm in the east. The highlands tend to be colder in the winter with higher altitudes but have longer hours of daylight. Temperature averages range from 5°C in the winter to 19°C in the summer. The wind tends to blow towards the southwest and average at 11kmh (esru.strath.ac.uk). Scotland provides 25% of wind power to the EU (rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.2290).

Cromarty

The town of Cromarty sits on headland that lies at the mouth of the Cromarty Firth which is a finger of the Moray Firth which leads to the North Sea. Average temperatures range from 2°C in January and February to 18°C in July and August. On average, it rains 18 days out of the month with slightly more rainy days in the winter and an average of 3.8 days of snow in the winter. The average amount of total precipitation is estimated at 700 mm per year (metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/regional-climates/ns). Due to its coastal location it is in danger of wave and wind erosion with Arctic winds averaging 14 kmh (myweather2.com). A recorded history of storms ranging from the 17^th to 19^th the century accounts to an altering of the landscape due to rising sea levels, high winds, and wave erosion (Dawson, 133). The sky is often overcast with an average of five hours of sunshine per day with as little as three days during the late fall and winter, and as high as seven days in the June and July. On average, Cromarty see’s two days of fog during the high summer and early fall, and one day of fog during the other months (myweather2.com/City-Town/United-Kingdom/Highland/Cromarty).

Cromarty Firth

The Cromarty Firth average temperatures range from 5°C in the winter to 12°C in the summer (jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/RIS/UK13009.pdf) and an estimate of 634 mm of annual rainfall (jncc.defra.gov.uk) with an average of 10 days of precipitation per month. With the protection of the headlands from the Moray and the North Sea, wind speed average 4kmh (windfinder.com).

Moray Firth

The average temperatures in the Moray Firth range from 3°C in the winter months to 15°C in the summer, and an average of 700 mm of rain with 10 days of precipitation per month. Average wind speed is 20 kmh. The coast sees more average sunshine than other Scottish regions (metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/regional-climates/ns).

Works Cited

“Climate Report.” Environment, www.environment.gov.scot/media/1185/climate-climate.pdf. Accessed May 24^th, 2019.

“Cromarty Climate History.” MyWeather2, www.myweather2.com/City-Town/United-Kingdom/Highland/Cromarty/climate-profile.aspx?month=12. Accessed May 24^th, 2019

“Information Sheet on Ramsar Wetlands.” JNCC. http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/RIS/UK13009.pdf. Accessed May 28^th, 2019.

“Northern Scotland: Climate.” MetOffice, www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/regional-climates/ns. Accessed May 24^th, 2019.

“Scottish Weather and Climate.” Scotland, scotland.com/travel/climate. Accessed May 26^th, 2019.

“Weather Statistics for Moray Firth, Scotland.” YR.NO, www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Moray_Firth/statistics.html. Accessed May 24^th, 2019

“Wind and Weather for Tain/Moray Firth.” WindFinder, www.windfinder.com/windstatistics/tain_moray_firth. Accessed May 26^th, 2019.

Dawson, Alastair. So Foul and Fair a Day. Edinburgh, Birlinn Limited, 2009.

April 28, 2019

Self-Submission

A Transformation in the Study of Robert Burns and Myth

This was my first tutorial for Liberal Studies and I came into it with grand ideas but a unclear understanding of the direction I intended to go in. I knew that I wanted to focus on Scottish folklore and through analytical readings of select myths combined with secondary academic sources, I would thought to try to understand how they are transmitted through time. I’d had the thought to look at the same version of a single folk-tale to compare how they were told in different books, during different periods of time to see if events or moods in history was represented in them. However, as stories of mythology and folklore are usually born out of oral traditions, finding dates for them is a precarious job. Even in the various poetry, ballad and anthology books I had, the dates were often omitted and any history I would have pulled out of them would have been purely conjecture and based of very little evidence. When discussing this with my advisor, I instead proposed that I try studying a single myth and chose to focus on Robert Burns’ famous narrative poem “Tam o’ Shanter.” From there, my advisor suggested was helpful in giving the tutorial a bit more of a structured direction and offered several academic sources that were studies on Burns’ work, romanticism and antiquarianism in Scotland and the British Isles. It would be from there that my focus narrowed and took off into a direction different from where I had intended but remained relevant to the nature of myth and the author himself.

Robert Burns is a poet that many scholars like to postulate on from his creative style and form; his supposed leanings on politics, religion and gender; to the historical relevance of his work Scottish Romanticism; and even Burns’ role on the present day. Due to his popularity, there is a wealth of academic work ready to be sifted through, narrowed down and refined to fit any academic’s subject. After my advisor’s advice to explore academia on Burns and romanticism, I found it much easier to narrow down my own research parameters and my first response was on an article that discussed the role that Burns’ work had on antiquarianism in Scotland, especially Galloway, where his poem “Tam o ’Shanter” is set. The article encouraged me to delve deeper into that theme and from there I was keen to look at the poem from a historical viewpoint so that I could begin to understand what role politics, place and language had on the creation, publication and reception of Robert Burns’ retelling of a local Scottish myth. My second response paper focused largely on expanding these themes with support from secondary sources to that reinforced the idea from the first paper while adding more context in the influences at Burns’ time. Though I’d done a great deal of research and reading, eliminating and selecting secondary text, my adviser suggested that I use the knowledge and themes from my previous work to do a close reading of the poem “Tam o’ Shanter” itself. This final project was the most interesting as it gave me the occasion to look at the poem from new eyes, and with a fresh understanding of just how well written the poem is from a historical context with his careful choice of language and dialect, and its integral ties to place.

Overall, I enjoyed the investigation element of this first tutorial, and the connections I made from the reading the secondary source materials when examining the poem. I am looking forwards to connecting it with my next tutorial which will be looking at what influences weather and climate had in the past on Scottish folklore.

March 6, 2019March 8, 2019

Workplace Recycling

I’m sad to say that due to me being out of the country, this was the goal that had the least amount of traction. At my workplace we have a rubbish bin, we have a cardboard bin and we have a compost. Sadly, like many retail businesses we use plenty of paper (signage, paperwork, notes etc) and yet there is no bin available to recycle. This seemed like a small and easy fix that could make a large impact in the long run. However, our shop is a part of large a building that houses other shops and offices, so any changes to recycling systems would have to be directed to our building manager.

The results of these efforts are very anti-climatic. When I got back from Edinburgh, I researched the options businesses had for recycling on property and even on city property, and forwarded them to my own manager. Considering there are offices in the building, I reckon there may be some sort of system in place but we are still waiting to hear back from the building manager. I will update when I have a conclusion.

Recycling systems, including composting, are one of the easiest things one can do at home or at work to change how we impact the environment. In residential areas, the city will deliver the proper bins and boxes to your home to make it easier and therefor its hard to find excuses not to recycle, reuse or compost.

Update: Our building manager has gotten back to us. She ha assumed the cardboard box was appropriate for paper and had been using it for the buildings recycling. She is now in contact with the city to see what her options are.

March 6, 2019March 8, 2019

Water

Water: we need it, we use it, we take it for granted, and we waste a lot of it. One of the ways I have often noticed myself being wasteful, even before taking this course, was how often I leave the tap running while brushing my teeth. I would catch myself after thinking about the tasks I had for that day or next, and quickly shut them off but only after a full minute or two of wasting water. As with snacking, it would be creating sustainable habits that would eventually become subconscious acts and make a real difference for longer than a month.

For the first week, it was a matter of taking the time to be aware of what I was doing and forming patterns. I would unscrew the cap, squeeze a small pearl sized amount of toothpaste on my brush, turn on the tap for a few seconds and then turn off the tap. One of the things I was unnecessarily was wet my brush before putting the toothpaste on, and then I would leave the tap running while I squeezed the toothpaste on my brush and wet it again. It was a small and yet significant step to cut out of my routine. I would also turn on the tap to rinse the sink out every time I cleared my mouth and had to train myself to leave it until I was done brushing my teeth as a whole. I wont fib and say that I automatically improved and kept up the habit; it took work and it still takes work, but I did improve. I find myself being much more conscious when brushing my teeth.

Thinking critically about how I use water also challenged me to reconsider how I use water in other areas of my life such as washing the dishes, taking showers and doing the laundry. If I was going to change how I used water when I brushed my teeth, it wouldn’t sense to continue to waste water otherwise. I would have to change my water usage completely. Often when I shower I will take a good 15-20 minutes while I leisurely think about my day and witty come-backs I should have used ten years ago. I cut back my time to 6 minutes (1 minute to shampoo and lather, 30 seconds to rinse, 30 seconds for conditioner, 1 minute to thoroughly wash my body and face, and 3 minutes to leisurely wash out the conditioner while I daydream) and set an alarm on my phone so I would know when I had to get out. I could have used a lower temperature of water, but you have to leave a girl some pleasures. When it came to doing the dishes, my habits were different dependent on where I was based. In Edinburgh, I had a dishwasher so it would just involve waiting until it was absolutely full before putting it on and hand washing any dishes I needed immediately. Sadly (for me, not for the environment), I do not have a dishwasher in Vancouver, so it was how I did my hand-washing that had to change. I live with a roommate so I was hesitant to leave unwashed dishes in the sink, and I definitely didn’t want to leave them overnight. However, I communicated with them and starting leaving dishes starting at breakfast through to dinner (in a neat pile) and washed them using a small basin of soapy water at the end of the day. This way I used nearly the same amount of water to clean all my dishes opposed to one bowl at a time. My roommate seems to be on board with this and will often do the same thing. The last item to change was my washing. Instead of doing a small wash every few days, I changed to doing one large wash at the end of the week. To be honest with you, I don’t often separate my colours or dedicates so it wasn’t to hard to change this habit. I used cold water instead of warm or hot. These three changes were relatively simple and effective, and will be easy habits to continue after the month of February.

Thinking about how we use water and how we can make changes in our daily lives is just as simple as it sounds. In the West, we often take for granted the clean and accessible water that comes from our taps. Being more mindful as a society can help ensure that that our habits are sustainable. Despite how it may seem, fresh water is not a renewable resource and water scarcity is a problem in different areas around the globe.

March 6, 2019March 8, 2019

A Change in Snacking Habits

Out of the three goals I set myself for the month of February, I knew that changing how and when I snack would be the most challenging. Sugar, and more specifically chocolate, have been my greatest vice and I often indulge myself whenever I am craving. However, buying sweets for home, or when I’m out, creates a lot of unnecessary waste through its wrappings. My plan for the month of February (and beyond) was to create a weekly schedule of snacks that would be prepared ahead of time to prevent the outside purchase of snacks. As I would be outside of the country for three weeks, I needed to choose snacks that I could easily make with common ingredients in most cupboards. For that reason I choose these four recipes: chocolate-chip cookies; Banana bread (both classic and chocolate chip); and ginger snap cookies.

Date:	Location:	Snack
February 1^st – February 9^th	Edinburgh	Chocolate chip cookies
February 10^th – February 16^th	Edinburgh	Chocolate chip cookies and Banana bread
February 17^th – February 21^rd	Edinburgh	Coconut milk chocolate Chip Cookies
February 22nd – March 2nd	Vancouver	Ginger cookies and chocolate chip banana bread

The first week did not get off too a good start. I found myself 30,000 feet above land on a large passenger airplane headed for the U.K. I was already contributing big to my ecological footprint. I did think ahead to bring my own snacks (leftovers from my cupboard) but the flight was nine hours long and I needed the on-board meal. As I unwrapped my tray, and looked at each separately wrapped portion of the meal, I couldn’t help but feel a large dose of guilt. The only highlight (waste-wise) of the meal was that it came with a reusable cup for tea or coffee. When mealtime was finished, I looked around the plane and eyed the amount of rubbish that each person was throwing away, and wondered why no one had come up with a more sustainable system. Had I not had this challenge set for February, I am not sure if I would have thought critically about the amount of waste airplanes create. When I got off the airplane, I decided to do a little research on just how much waste airplanes create. Many news articles had similar numbers but an article written in the Guardian quoted 5.2 million tonnes of waste in 2016 (https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/apr/01/airline-food-waste-landfill-incineration-airports-recycling-iberia-qantas-united-virgin). The most frustrating part is that even if you come prepared and bring your own meal thinking that you aren’t personally contributing to airplane waste, the meal that you have denied will still end up in the trash with all of its wrappings. Therefor, you are contributing to food waste and plastic waste. More needs to be done to hold airlines accountable for the waste they produce.

After the distressing experience on the airplane, I was doubly determined to make the rest of my month as waste-free as possible. This was hard. I am not sure if you are aware, but British Dairy-milk is so much better than the Canadian equivalent. However, I ignored the rows of purple wrapped confection in the supermarkets and focused on ingredients for my homemade snacks. I had made a list of ingredients already in my husband’s cupboard so I wouldn’t buy unnecessary products. I also paid attention to the actual packaging of the product I was buying. I shopped for products that had recyclable or reusable packaging, or went to the dry ingredient section to get items that I could buy in bulk. The one problem with bulk—at least in regular supermarkets—is that you have to use the plastic bags provided because the scales are not calibrated for your own containers. However, the chocolate chips didn’t come in any recyclable option so I went with the bulk. Luckily, most larger supermarkets in the U.K. will have a plastic bag recycle on the way out so you can dispose of the plastic and transfer you ingredients to a reusable container. I decided to stick mostly to chocolate chip cookies while I was the U.K. as they were fast and easy to make, and could easily be transported in a small container in my purse. I found that my snack and sugar cravings increased when I was inactive or just after an activity, and so I prepared myself for those moments. Overall, baking my own sweet snacks in the U.K. was effective in reducing the amount of waste I created. However, the one thing I didn’t plan for was sugar overload: after eating so much sweets, I would need something savory to balance it. I bought three bags of crisps due to this. The only other setback in the waste department was due to my husband: the man goes through bottles of sparkling water like its air. Hopefully, that’s a problem a SodaStream for his birthday will solve.

After another very wasteful return trip home, I was prepared to work even hard to be waste-free. Luckily, I only had to shop for the perishables such as banana’s and eggs (on a side note: one thing the U.K. supermarkets do better is offering a half-carton of eggs. I often struggle to use up a full one) for my banana bread, the rest of the ingredients would be using up what I already had. Due to being home more regularly, I could bake more often and with more variety so that I wouldn’t get tired of the items I was eating regularly. I could also pack several different kinds of snacks on the go that involved less or no waste like a medley of fruit and vegetables. I found carrots to be an easy and satisfying snack to have and bought full carrots I could cut into sticks therefor forgoing the plastic packaging. It’s probably no surprise to anyone how much easier it was to be waste-free at home versus on holiday, but taking a packed lunch to work or school is much easier than taking one on city-walks or visiting friends Edinburgh.

In conclusion, being mindful and reducing the amount of waste was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. It became more about creating sustainable habits that became more natural as the days went on. The largest challenge I had was impulse control. If left unheeded, I could eat a full plate of cookies in one sitting. I had to limit the amount of sweets I was consuming–I think my health also thanked me for this. If I continue to keep up with this habit, it will be easy to keep up with it outside the month of February and make it something I do organically. I think it is something that others should consider doing as its small act and easily changeable, and can help one think critically about other areas of their life that they are being unnecessarily wasteful. No one is perfect: at the airport I bought a large fruit and nut Dairy Milk bar as a treat for the first day of March and it was great, but I have banana bread made for the first week so that my snacking habits can be satisfied.

January 30, 2019January 30, 2019

Action Project Proposal

Implement a paper recycling bin at my place of employment: I work in a small retail shop that has a bin and a compost but oddly enough, not a recycling bin. Like most businesses, we go through a lot of paper for one thing or another but we do not have any measures for recycling. Recycling seems like such an easy thing we can do to protect our environment and I have been debating taking action for a while. However, the shop is apart of a large building management that has multiple shop and business as tenants and any proposal I have would have to be approved by them.
For this action project I plan to do the following:
– research was options businesses have with the City of Vancouver in terms of recycling bins and determine what if and what the cost would be
– write a proposal to the building manager to implement it
– if the outcome is negative, I will need to research what options we have as an independent shop.
Stop snacking out: I am often proud of myself for not drinking fizzy drinks, therefore contributing less waste to the world and to my body, however, one of my biggest contributes to personal waist is store bought snacks. I often have craving for sweet things like chocolate bars and no will power to prevent myself from buying them–almost every school day I buy something from the vending machine. These snacks almost always come in some form of wrapper that gets wasted. My proposed plan for February is to make my own waste-free snacks at home and bringing them with me in containers for snacks. I will prepare a snack schedule for the month that I have to adhere to using up a lot of the ingredients I already have in my cupboard to also reduce food waste.
Turn off the taps when brushing my teeth: This is a small thing that I am guilty of. Often when I brush my teeth, I get in the habit of daydreaming and forget to turn off the tap which wastes water and energy. For the month of february, I am going to train myself to turn off the water right away and therefor getting myself into a routine that will last well beyond the month.