Lex Lazo

Eco Challenge #6 Transportation: My car is in California, so I rely on public transportation to get around the city. Today, I decided I should walk! I was headed home from a shift I picked up by Powell's. The streetcar goes directly to and from campus to Powell's, but I decided to walk instead since it's not that far from campus. Usually, I take the streetcar or the MAX because it is convenient, but mostly because I don't feel like walking or it's too cold. Walking was nice and the weather was good today. I actually ran into a few of my customers from my usual store and stopped to talk to them on my way back from my shift. It was nice to run into people and have a conversation - something that doesn't often happen to me on public transit. After this week's challenge, I am inspired to potentially take up biking. While walking is always an option, it adds a lot of time and the weather does not always make it easy. Perhaps, as we are moving into the warmer season, I will start biking rather than taking transit!

Eco Challenge #5 Community: For this eco challenge, I focused on connecting with some of my neighbors. I live here on campus, and am familiar with the people who live on my floor, but I don't often talk to them. For this task, though it was a little out of my comfort zone, I started talking to people around the building. While doing laundry, I stopped an talked to another resident who was doing their laundry at the same time. Luckily, they were very talkative and seemed like the right person to approach. I also decided that for this challenge, I would talk to people in the elevators too. I know a lot of people, especially students are not usually willing to have small talk, but it was nice to learn people's names for once. Finally, I stopped to talk to my RA for a bit and we just shared how the term was going for both of us.

Eco Challenge #4 Water: For this challenge, I wanted to focus on taking shorter showers. I used to be pretty great at this, as I have always been pretty water conscious, but as of late, I have been taking lengthier showers. I don't set a timer, but I queue two songs to play (about 5-6 minutes) and the goal is to be done by the time those songs are over. I have always turned off water while applying products, only having it on to rinse off, so I am keeping this habit. Since I started working early shifts, I started showering once after a my shift, and once again at the end of the day. I have decided to limit this, only showering twice when I feel I absolutely need to - otherwise limiting myself to one shower at the end of the day.

Eco Challenge #3 Food: For this challenge, I decided to go to farmer's market to buy a few things. I was able to go this past weekend and bought lunch, as well as a bunch of produce. I used some in salads and got some to snack on here and there. I was pretty good at going to the farmer's market here at PSU each Saturday for a while, but this school year, my work schedule has me for the whole duration of the market - so I haven't been able to go as much. I was off at 1pm this past weekend, leaving me just the last hour to attend. In the past, I have found that it is better to attend in the early morning, because the best products are still available and not as many people are in attendance. I recently updated my work availability (for other reasons) but it will permit me to attend the farmers market early, since my Saturday shifts will now start later. I have a bad habit of putting off grocery shopping because without a car, it's difficult for me to walk to and from the grocery store and being able to carry all that I need, especially when it is always raining. I appreciate that the farmer's market is accessible, even more so since I live on campus.

Energy: For this ecochallenge, I focused on the "Turn It Off" goal. I have a bad habit of always leaving things plugged in, not turning off lights, and leaving things charging over night. In my dorm, I especially had no excuse because most of my electronics and appliances are connected to power strips - which are simple to turn off. For this challenge, rather than turning off power strips, I completely unplugged them, as that saves more power than just turning them off, especially since each power strip has 3-4 devices/appliances connected. One issue I ran into while unplugging my appliances was that the time on the Keurig would reset. I initially found this annoying, but then realized that if my goal was to only have it plugged in when I needed it, why did I need it to display the time? I don't even look at it if i'm not making coffee or tea. I also have to awkwardly crawl under my desk, and move a few things around to get to the power strip that my game consoles, TV, and computer charger are plugged into. This was an issue when I was rushing out the door - remembering last minute that I needed to squeeze under my desk to get to the power strip. I encouraged my roommate to also start unplugging or at the very least, turning off her power strip before heading out for the day.