It's mutual.

30-Day Challenge #1: TED Talks
Day 4

So here's the talk for today. Let me warn you first: it's a long one. It's about 20 minutes long, but believe me it's worth it. Mark Bittman (a food writer for the New York Times) talks about what's wrong with our diet. He touches on a lot of good points, reasons why I'm a vegetarian. What I like about it, though, is not that he's saying be a vegetarian (because he's not saying that), but that he's just talking about what is wrong with what we eat and how and why we should change it. Our country's agricultural system has gone to shit, which I mean figuratively of course (although quite literally when you think about livestock being raised while standing in their own feces). As an alumna of the National FFA (Future Farmers of America) Organization, I hope to see our agricultural system improve.

So I hope you watch this video in its entirety. I hope you'll eat organic, eat local, eat sustainable, but most importantly just eat healthy. If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend the movie Food, Inc. It's a great documentary about the food we eat and the agricultural system.




Now onto the word of the day. An important word it is today...
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Agreement. Decision. I think it's time to come to a mutual agreement. I'm not so into this dual blogging thing I've got going on. My blog has agreed it is going in a better direction (clearly I made up a mind for my blog) and I've agreed that I hate building off of this one word thing. Agreed. Decided.
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Well, there you have it. I have decided (and apparently mutually agreed with the mind of my blog) that it's time to remove the one word aspect to the blog. I think that my blog is far better with these 30-day challenges now. So mutual is the last word I'll be using for my blog inspiration. It doesn't mean I'm leaving oneword.com behind. Seriously, give it a try. It really helps your thoughts to just flow. Which ironically, using it for my blog makes my posts not flow... If you're terribly upset by this mutual decision between me and my blog (again I apparently gave it a mind of its own...) feel free to let me know and I may consider giving it another go. Although, who actually reads this anyway? Especially after I just asked you to watch a guy talk for 20 minutes. So I applaud you if you not only read my blog, but made it this far.


On another quick note that goes back to the food thing, if you are a vegan or vegetarian, or just looking to eat healthy there's a few blogs that I think you'd be interested in. I think some of them are on the list of links on the right of my blog, but here they are anyway:
Love and Zest (this one's by a registered dietician so there's some great healthy recipes and isn't specifically vegetarian but does have some v-friendly recipes)
Green Gourmet Giraffe (all vegetarian, some are vegan and some gluten free)
Simply Sugar and Gluten Free (recipes free of refined sugar and gluten, not specifically vegetarian, but some recipes are v-friendly)
Vegan Dad (all vegan, but delicious)

The dull and not so dull.

30-Day Challenge #1: TED Talks
Day 3

As I've mentioned I'm kind of a science nerd. I especially love the oceans and the creatures that inhabit them. So today I came across this TED talk by David Gallo about some of the amazing things those creatures can do. I learned about a lot of this in college and have seen some videos, but it never gets boring. It's always incredible. I hope you find it as amazing as I do.




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Some days my life seems pretty dull lately. I really only go to class and do school work. I mean, obviously I do more than just that. I don't go out much though. I watch a lot of stuff on hulu. I go for walks every day. I read a lot. But it still seems pretty dull. Maybe it's the lack of social interaction outside of class.
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Quite the opposite of the TED talk I've shared today. That talk is anything but dull. As for my life it does seem rather dull at times. I'm seriously looking forward to starting work (Oct 26) so that I have something to do. And I'll get to meet some more people.

While we're on the topic of dull, I'm thinking this whole word a day thing is rather dull. It's hard to connect it to my daily challenge, as well as to my life sometimes. That's why I've moved it to the bottom of my post. It's just making my posts seem very disconnected. I'm trying to decide whether or not I should phase it out. (Once again my blog is evolving...) We'll see. I'm going to keep it for now, probably at the bottom of the post like today. If you noticed (not sure who 'you' is because I don't think anyone reads this...) I also changed the title of the post to not be just the word of the day, but incorporates the word of the day. Seemed to be more fitting.

Warfare

Warfare... warfare. Chemical warfare? Makes me think of chemistry then. I love and hate chemistry. It makes me happy that I'm not in science any more, but there's also parts that I miss. I love learning some awesome chemistry things, but overall I don't think I miss it.

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Honestly when I saw the word warfare I really didn't know where to go with it. I could talk a lot about our country's current state of economic warfare, or the wars we fight overseas, but as I tried to think about what to write, my mind kept landing on chemical warfare. That, in turn, only made me think of chemistry. As I said, I love and hate chemistry. I've learned so much chemistry over the years, and while it was rather difficult at times I enjoyed it overall. I don't necessarily miss it though. I don't miss science all that much either. I mean, I'm a science nerd so just because I gave it up as a profession, doesn't mean it's gone from my life. I love learning science and reading about science every day. I have some of my biology books from undergrad, and I do occasionally open them to just read for fun.

Like I said, science nerd. Take a look to the right where I have a list of some of the blogs I like to read. Some of them are very science-y. Just because I'm not going to have a career in science doesn't mean it's out of my life. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I wondered if I made the right choice in moving away from science. I haven't moved away from science though. In the sense of my career path, yes I left science behind. But there's science all around us; we are science. So I didn't move on from science, and I don't need to move on from science.

30-day Challenge #1: TED Talks
Day 2

Here's an interesting TED talk for today. It's a bit different. Mostly it's just pictures of icebergs. It doesn't really instill an knowledge in you, but it has significance. Looking at the pictures of icebergs presented in this talk by Camille Seaman makes you realize a few things about life and nature. It makes you realize how magnificent these icebergs are. They're just frozen water, but they're beautiful. It also makes you realize how small we are on this earth, and yet we make such a large impact on the world. I really like this one, even though it's quite simple. I especially love the video at the end, it's pretty amazing. Enjoy.

Advice

We always look to other people for advice. Never to ourselves. We give advice to others. Never to ourselves. I think there are times when we don't trust ourselves to make the right decisions. We need others to justify our decisions for us. I think it's time to start trusting ourselves.


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It's true. I give advice, and I ask for advice. Sometimes I just need to take my own advice. But it's not always that easy is it? For me, it's easier to trust in other people than it is to trust in myself. I often doubt myself, second guess my actions and decisions. Coming to UWF for example. I'm constantly questioning whether I should have done this or not. I need to stop doubting myself though because I'm here and that's not changing anytime soon. So I'm going to start taking my own advice of living in the now and enjoying life as it comes along. Part of that life will be challenging myself... so here's the start of my 30-day challenges.

30-Day Challenge #1: TED Talks
Day 1.

I've decided that my first 30-day challenge is to watch and share one TED talk each day. For those of you unfamiliar with TED talks, I encourage you to become familiar with them. TED is a non-profit organization with the tagline of "Ideas Worth Spreading". It started out with a conference to bring people together about Technology, Education, and Design. TED talks are videos of ideas presented at TED conferences, all of which are ideas worth spreading. The talks are entertaining, educational, empowering, inspirational, and a lot of other wonderful adjectives.

My idea for doing 30-day challenges came from a TED talk I watched by Matt Cutts. I thought of using it as my Day 1 TED talk for this challenge, but that seemed too easy. I've already watched it anyway, so why not start with a different one. However, if you're interested in watching the talk by Matt Cutts you can do so here. This idea for my 30-day challenge was also a result of me coming across the TED iPhone app. I don't think this will be a very difficult challenge. They shouldn't be huge, difficult challenges. I hope to learn a lot from these TED talks so I think this will be a very good challenge.

So for Day 1 I've decided to go with a TED talk I came across today called "We can recycle plastic" by Mike Biddle. If you know me, then you know I love the environment. I truly believe it is a privilege to live on this earth, and therefore we must do our part to protect the environment. Recycling is one way that we can protect the planet. Too much waste goes into dumps, into the ocean, and just gets scattered across the ground. I recycle. It's not a difficult thing to do, especially if you have curbside recycling pickup. I live in an apartment complex, and don't have curbside pickup. So there's a pile of broken down cardboard boxes in my living room and a box of plastics and metals in my kitchen. A few times a month I gather up these recyclables and drive down the road to the fire station and toss these things into the proper recycling dumpsters. It's a little more effort than curbside pickup, but to me it's worth it. This talk shows us that plastics can be recycled, and it can have positive economic and environmental effects.

Mike Biddle: We can recycle plastic.



Plastics are a big problem on our planet. I could get up on a soapbox and tell you many reasons why. I'll spare you of that though. If you are interested in it though, I recommend watching the documentary Tapped, which is all about the bottled water industry.

Scout.

Scout makes me think of boy scouts and girl scouts. Brings me back to childhood. I did Girl Scouts starting from Brownies in Kindergarten and kept going through fourth grade. Then we had no one to be a troop mom so we all had no option but to quit. I wish I had the chance to make it all the way through, but oh well. Sadly, I think I spent more time in Boy Scout events than GS ones. My brothers and my dad were (and my dad still is) involved with Boy Scouts so I attended plenty of pancake breakfasts, Blue and Gold Dinners, Eagle Scout Court of Honors, picnics, and whatever else. Perhaps that's why I always socialized better with guys...

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Not sure how I can go off of that into anything relevant to my life right now. So I think I'll just change course a little bit. I haven't been keeping up with this lately and I'm not going to say that I'm starting now (because anytime I say that it never happens.) I often get ideas that make me very ambitious but then I never have the time to carry them out. Now that I have more free time in my life maybe I'll turn that around.

Life in Pensacola is going well so far. This semester is flying by and I have a feeling that grad school in general will be like that. I'm extra broke, but starting work at the end of this month at Panera Bread. I'm pretty excited about it actually. As far as all else goes, life is fairly boring. There was a bit of excitement the last two weekends which I spent in Melbourne, first for Red Dress Gala, and second for Brice and Emily's wedding. Both great weekends.

Couch.

I wish I had a couch. I'm currently sitting on my futon. It's comfortable, but only so much. I wish I had furniture period. This whole grad school + no money thing is not working out for me. I wish I had either a desk or a dining table. One or the other would be nice. I'm getting tired of either sitting on my futon or the floor and doing my homework.

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Seriously, need to get a job and make some money so I can get necessary furniture. And then I'll have something to do too. That would be much appreciated. Okay bye.

Etiquette

It's always good to have proper etiquette. It's all about manners. Always have them. No matter where you are or who you are with, never leave them behind. It does you good in the long run.

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Not even wanting to talk about it. Life.