Friday, April 13, 2012

Day 7, Finally!

            Seven longest days of my life; at least it seemed like it. Half way through the experiment, I realized that I was looking more toward the experiment ending, instead of trying to live the moment and take full advantage of it. I believe maybe that was my problem with the experiment and other times in life; whenever something became difficult or I believed I could not do something, I usually gave up and made an excuse to make myself feel better. I realized that maybe this experiment wasn’t so much about the experiment itself, whether we succeed or failed, whether we commit to our experiment or not, it is about what we take away from it. It is about what we do from learning or experiencing, what we choose to do after the experiment. Maybe that was the point of this experiment or even the class, to be more aware of the way we live our lives and making choices after becoming aware of our actions. I may not have done the best throughout the experiment, but I can say that I tried. Here are my results of my week long experiment:

1.      Transportation

“Can you be any dumber?” Standing in the elevator yet again, asking myself why I cannot remember to take the stairs. Throughout the week, I have been taking the stairs only half the time, and often times it will be my friends reminding me to take stairs, otherwise I would have taken stairs maybe ten times. This was by far not the most successful part of my experiment, but I am still happy that I attempted to do it, and hopefully in the future I can switch my habit from taking elevator to taking the stairs. One of the variables that affected this part of experiment was my friends, because sometimes I took the elevator with them because I felt that it would be weird to do that since a lot of people didn’t know I was even doing some kind of experiment. I do realize though that I need to have more self-control and not be so forgetful. It was a good experiment though and I believe that it was worth trying.

2.      Food

“Too full!” That is me celebrating my weeklong experiment of being a vegetarian by eating practically everything that was categorized as meat. Never have I eaten so much in my life, and even though it completely contradicts what I did for an entire week, I was still proud of myself and felt that I deserved to have meat. I ate only one piece of chicken the entire week, and that was when there was nothing opened but Chick-Fil-A. I do not want to make that an excuse, but I feel like otherwise I accomplished being a vegetarian for a week. It was a very difficult time, and I will most likely never do it again, but it was a great experiment and a great challenge accomplished.

3.      Consumerism

“More money, less garbage.” That’s what I thought when I checked how much I spent throughout the entire week of the experiment. The total cost added up to around $30, which was amazing because my set target was $50. I know I could have spent even less, but I was happy with my results and I may actually seriously considered adopting this way of consumerism in the future; not only was I saving money, I also wasn’t wasting as much material. This part of the experiment was overall success and I was very pleased to see how little I can spend each week if I tried.

4.      Technology:
“I hate you Facebook!” Yes, still cannot keep myself away from Facebook. This social media network has become almost like oxygen for me, I could not survive an entire week without it. Although my hourly rate definitely decreased throughout that week, I still went on and was not very pleased with myself. I learned that I need some more self-discipline that I need to learn how to say no. It feels like we’re talking about staying above the influence, yet to me Facebook seemed to me like an addicting drug which I was not able to quit. I hope in the future I can stop that habit and actually try not to be on it and procrastinating all day. This was one of the hardest parts of the experiment and I knew it.

5.      Positive Impact/ Political Action:
“Am I opened that weekend?” I was reading the AU daily news and found out that UC kids could volunteer to have upcoming students interested in UC to come and stay overnight. I found this a very interesting way to get involved with AU, and I believe I involved myself with AU far more than I expected. It was a great way to introduce me to AU daily and other e-mails we got that I don’t usually check, allowing me to be more aware about what’s going around this university.

6.      Health & Happiness:
“Water…” Dancing is not as easy as it seems, especially if it’s not just doing little side step back and forth. It has been a lot of fun dancing every night, and I will definitely make sure I open time for it, because I enjoyed it so much and forgot how much fun it was to dance. I haven’t danced in so long, I am glad that we had the experiment because I don’t think I would have started to dance again, at least not for a while. I guess I have professor J to thank. Haha

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