How big is your footprint?

I'm not asking what size shoes you wear, but how big your ecological footprint is. It's a calculation that determines your use of the world's resources. The smaller the number the better. I have been kinda wondering what my number is and I finally found a quiz! In an ideal world you should have a number near 1.8. Here are my results:


CATEGORY GLOBAL HECTARES

FOOD 1.1
MOBILITY 0.2
SHELTER 1.6
GOODS/SERVICES 1.4

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 4.3

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 8.8

GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 2.4 PLANETS.

I have a lower than average score because I'm a veggie, don't drive and because I live in high-density housing. However, according to this quiz, I still consume too much. I don't think this is the best quiz because it doesn't ask very detailed questions, and some of the multiple choice answers didn't fit me. It only takes 2 mintues to take the quiz.

http://www.earthday.net/footprint/info.asp

So what's you score??

What to do before you turn 30?

Ever wondered what you should be doing now? As I come to the last few weeks of school, random people have been giving me advice on what I should do in my post-university life. Most of the advice reflects them- usually what they did at 27, or what they wished they had done at 27. All good and well if I wanted to be them!

So in an effort to find direction, I looked to the world wide web. What I should be doing really varies according to who you ask. According to http://www.kiplinger.com/, there are 8 things I need to do:
1. Identify your goals
2. Start an emergency fund
3. Pay off credit cards
4. Start investing
5. Establish credit
6. Set up a strategy to pay off student loans
7. Take calculated risks
8. Travel
What? Did I ask a banker or something? All very sensible things to do. Amazingly, I've actually done about half of those things. But not exactly a thrilling life.


I want a second opinion. So according to http://www.bankrate.com/ I should:
1. Drive a wickedly cool car, even if you have to rent it
2. Date against type
3. See the world
4. live in a cool place
5. If you're going to drink a lot, do it when you're young
6. Take risks with your job
7. do something physically adventurous
8. take your parents out for dinner
9. Do volunteer work
10. use this decade to go to extremes

Ugh, I don't like this list either. why?
1. I don't drive because I'm anti-car
2. that implies that I have a type and that I am aware of it
3. ok, that one's ok
4. New Foundland and Ontario where cool in the winter...
5. I don't really drink
6. you mean like not triple checking that I am giving someone the correct meds?
7. ok, that one's ok too
8. whatever!
9. sure
10. I think I'm over going to extremes

So, in some ways the web has failed me. But with all the advice I've been getting lately I have a rather impressive list of things I do NOT want to do. Most people have been telling me to apply for grad school- let's not. Or sell everything I own and travel- but let's be honest no one is going to buy my crap. One of my co-worker thinks that I need to go to India before I can do anything. I decided the flights are too expensive, so I watched a couple Bollywood movies instead. Didn't really change my life.

What the heck is that thing in the sky?

What happened to all the fluffy clouds? Blue sky??? I haven't seen that in MONTHS. An hour spent at the SFU fish pond and I am a french fry. I hope everyone else sucked up some much needed Vitamin D today. I am going to pack my wool socks and scarves away for the third time this year. Hopefully summer is here to stay.

Garden pics

There isn't much colour going on in my garden at the moment. But I do have a few pics:



I didn't mean to plant these flowers. I thought I bought a white trailing flower, but instead I got three colours. I think that they are very pretty, and definately not what I bought. Someone must have switched the tags

Music

Some people are forever losing things, and others rarely do. I'm the second type. I had only lost 1 set of keys, 1 ring, 2 earrings and some socks in the course of my life. A few weeks ago I went to Choices and bought too many groceries to walk home. I called a cab and put all my stuff on a table as I was waiting. When the cab came, I gathered my stuff and left. About an hour later I started to wonder where my MP3 player was (and the brand new headphones I bought 3 days before). By the time I realized, it was too late and my stuff was gone.

I was really angry at myself for about a week and a half. I don't lose things. Since then, the world has been pretty quiet. My 45 minute commute to and from school is really long and walking to Safeway isn't tons of fun anymore. I don't like that I have no option but to overhear other peoples conversations on the bus. I like being able to drown stupid people out. Working out, again, is fairly boring. Ever tried to work out to the music in your head? What am I supposed to do if I'm not listening to music? Whitney suggested thinking or daydreaming about celebrities. I discovered that I don't have enough interesting thoughts to fill the time. I don't think it's very surprising, I was raised in the age of video games.

Even though I was angry at myself for my absent mindedness, I was a little excited at the idea of buying a new MP3 player. I found "the one." But it was full price, and I decided to punish myself further and live in a boring world until it went on sale. After 3 weeks it has finally gone on sale, and I bought it today! Isn't it pretty? It doesn't have any buttons, it has a touch screen, and it can hold pictures and do a slideshow as I listen to music! I chose to have it shipped to my house instead of going and picking it up in store. I like new toys, so I opted to have it arrive after I'm done midterms, so I can focus. No more trying to entertain myself by thinking!

Admittedly, this is a fairly strange post.

Actually, it's for the birds.
On a message board I frequent, someone was asking about a bird call that was driving them crazy. Amazingly enough, someone actually knew the bird, and posted a link. I spent a few minutes cruising around the site and found my favorite bird. I call it the camping bird because I only hear it when I'm camping, and it's always the first thing I wake up to. Click on play to hear the camping bird. http://birdweb.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=352

This is a different camping bird. http://birdweb.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=279

Whiskey jacks are good camping birds too because they are so friendly, and they force you to keep your campsite clean. But they don't sing pretty songs, so I don't have a link.

End of an era

This just in:

A Thank You Note
We wanted to let you know that the time has come for a change. As of Sunday at midnight, Z95-3 is no longer.
We can't thank you enough for your support of Z over the years. We really appreciate it.
On Tuesday, you will hear a new radio station on your radio at 95-3 FM.
We hope you like it. We think you will.
Best Regards,
The Team at Z95-3

OMG! Good thing I didn't waste my time collecting Z-points. Remember when z-95.3 first started, and how it was big competition for LG-73? Remember when you made the switch to FM? Remember how important it was to get your Z-sticker? Z-95.3 will always remind me of Ace of Base, "Sex, Lies and Audiotape" with Rhona Raskin and 90's techno.
Truly the end of an era

Pamela Martin and Bill Good

Apparently, I should have posted these pics from the parade too:

Perry, and Bill Good's back. A horrible picture

And here's Pamela Martin. She's really tiny in real life.

Back to Earth Day

Avid blog readers may remember my Earth Day resolution/rant to cut my use of plastics. I have been looking for the following product:


waxed paper bags, that you can use instead of plastic ziploc bags. I have been searching, but can only find them in the states. Normally, I would just buy online, but the shipping fees are too high to make it worth while. So if any of you are out and about and stumble along some waxed paper bags, let me know!

Movies etc

It's been a while since the last post. I went to the drive in movie for the first time, it was pretty good, but I wish it didn't go so late. Pirates of the Carribean was too long (3 hours long), and I was falling asleep. But it is a decent eye-candy movie. Driving home at 3:30 in the morning made me a little nervous because we passed a really bad accident on the #1. It was a flipped SUV that ran into an overpass, I avoided the news the next day because I didn't want to hear how many people died. There is no way anyone lived through that crash. Anyways, Ocean's 13 is opening soon, any one want to go? I have a movie pass which is about to expire, so I gotta go and see the movies instead of downloading them.

Catching up on the camera pics, more kitty cuteness. But don't worry that's the last of the cat pictures for a long while.

And last weekend was the Hyack parade, I saw celebrities. Bill Good and Pamela Martin and Mee Jung Lee.... oh my!