Day 1.

            It’s only 10:20 am and I am already dreading this experiment. The difficulty of this experiment is much harder than I anticipated. It was only 2 hours into this experiment, and I already made two mistakes; rode the elevator on my way to the Lit class, and bought a Powerade. Both of these actions already made me realize that it was going to be a hard changing my routines and habits, especially the habits. Even though I failed twice within the first two hours of my day, I didn’t do too bad throughout the rest of day one.

1.      Transportation

For this part of the overall experiment I had to make some changes. Instead of walking to Tanley town and not taking the shuttle, I chose to take the stairs instead of taking the elevator. I made a conclusion that I wouldn’t take the Tanley shuttle that much throughout the week anyway, so why not choose something that I would take on daily basis, and the elevator seemed like a perfect idea. This is how it all turned out:

“Oh crap!” I screamed while riding the elevator. It was only one hour into me weeklong experiment and I already forgot to take the stairs; so much for making a change. I hate when you think of things you were not supposed to do until you do them, and this was a perfect case for that. I did not think about it that much at the time, but later I realized that if I don’t take this experiment seriously, than what’s the point. I decided to make sure to remind myself to take the stairs, but yet again, I walked into the same elevator only an hour later. My first day of using alternative ways of getting around was a total failure. At that point I just thought the only thing I could do is try to do a better job staying away from the elevator the following day.

2.      Food

“I want a dam chicken sandwich!” Those were exact words to my father when I was at Arby’s stopping by to get food. Earlier I have told him about my class experiment, and he made sure I followed it. When we walked into the restaurant, he asked me, “What kind of salad do you want?” My response was obviously not good, because Arby’s is not a “salad” place, it was a place for sandwiches and curly fries, and yet here I was eating a house salad with ranch dressing. I hated my life that minute, and I hated my dad for making me own up to my experiment and doing it. The first day was hell, not being able to eat meat was almost like taking away water from a fish; doesn’t work! Even though I had support, I have been doing a great job staying away from meat products, but it is coming at great costs. I am not sure of how much longer I can do this, but I must stay strong and resist the temptation.

3.      Consumerism

“Oh well…” Those were my words when I realized I just bought a bottle of Gatorade which was not necessary, and did not help my experiment of buying less as a consumer. Although it did not cost me that much, it’s yet another bottle that is going to waste. When I thought of it that way, I decided to make sure that bottle goes to a recycling trash can. That made me feel much better inside, but still did not excuse my actions for buying the bottle. I haven’t bought anything since, so I am doing much better job at consuming and spending less.

4.      Technology:

“There!” This was when I unplugged the TV before starting my first day of experiment. I knew that staying away from TV and Facebook was going to be hard, so I found ways of getting rid of ways of accessing them. Unplugging my TV has made such difference in my time consumption in my room. Instead of watching TV, I was doing homework, or listening to music. It was difficult at first, I still remember taking the remote control and trying to turn on the TV, before realizing that there was no way it was going to turn on. I deleted the Facebook app on my phone, making me less likely to keep checking or chatting on Facebook. This actually allowed me to spend more time paying attention to my professors instead of talking to my friends from home. So far, this has made the biggest impact out of all these other categories, making me contemplate on whether I should adapt these choices into my everyday life choices.

5.      Positive Impact/ Political Action:

“Sweet!” I was reading the AU newsletter and I found out there was going to be a screening of “The Descendants” on Friday. I took this part of experiment very lightly, because I generally don’t even include myself in these kinds of things. Reading the newsletter actually turned out to be more of an asset to me than anything else. It feels much better to know what is going around the campus, and I may even include myself in some of these activities.

6.      Health & Happiness:

“Too tired…” I did not get a chance to do any type of dancing my first day because I was too busy playing sports and then doing homework, so unfortunately I did not get my half an hour of dancing. This was going to be the best part of my experiment of changing the way I live, yet I did not even get to do it. I realized that I was going to have to set up a time to do this, that way in the future I would get to dance.