Auf Wiedersehen Blogger!

Hey Blog,

So, I just wanted to say, it's been real, it's been fun, it's been stressful. But overall, a great learning experience.

I have to admit, you served a similar purpose as a cool new shirt. At first, I was really excited to write in you and was so sure I would write in you often, even more than the prescribed three times per week. But then, as I started to "wear" you, per say, I got a little tired of you and was not as encouraged to write in you as often...much like how the "newness" of a new shirt wears off sort of quickly.

But, you were a very important part of my growth during this project. Though I may not have the funniest or quirkiest blog personality, I still felt like I developed one through you, which I didn't know I could do. Also, in years to come, I can look back and read through all of entires and see my whole thought process shift. If I'm building my own earthship someday (which I hope to do), then I can also look back here for some information!

I hope, when I give my presentation, that I plant some sort of a bug in people. Get em' hooked on the aspect of sustainable living and encourage them to think more consciously about how they live and maybe just take more notice of those sustainable communities here in Ithaca.

I hope that when I attend Ithaca College next year, I can join some sort of a club pioneering sustainability at the school and stay active in this issue (I will primarily be studying piano performance and psychology).

I'm glad to say that even though I quickly got tired of the architecture/designing part, I never grew tired on learning about sustainable living, and I hope to make it a big part of my life from here on out.

So long, fare well, auf wiedersehen adieu.

Love,
Katie

More Presentation Ideas

After I gave my tiny presentation on Sunday, Ms. Z said she had a lot of new ideas for me and how I could organize my presentation. I got very excited when I heard this (maybe not outwardly at the time, because I was exhausted...) because I can always count on her for her creativity and her well thought out, well-meaning plans. So when she sent me an email earlier this morning, I was so excited to see how long it was! So many ideas are flowing and I love that she took the time to write an extensive email explaining them, so thank you Ms. Z :)

Here are a few thoughts from the email!
- Give a hook-get the audience excited about what you're going to talk about.
- Explain why you were inspired to dive into this project. This adds a personal element. 
- Basic overview of Earthships. Don't dive into a lot of the specifics because it can sound wordy. 
- Other examples of "uniquely sustainable living" (talk about EcoVillage, Carrie and Mike's house, etc.)
- Your WISE experience: timeline, challenges, changing focus, etc.
- What you learned about sustainable living, yourself, etc.
- What you hope is next for yourself in terms of sustainable living, as well as your hopes for Ithaca, larger communities, etc. 

I wanted to use the timeline aspect of April's presentation, but maybe that won't necessarily work. Maybe I can talk about briefly how my project changed at the beginning, then go with this sort of a plan.  

Also, Ms. Z suggested that I really focus on the title of presentation. I originally thought to change my title, but number one, it might be too late for that...and two, it might actually still work. 
The designing part might not actually be designing the home, but designing a lifestyle. The Unique part is all about making one's home and lifestyle unique to their needs, while keeping those of the environment in mind. And the home part is very distinct from the house, as Ms. Zsryski talked about. It's not just a structure, but a friendly environment that sits at the core of one's character. 

I've also heard numerous times that circling back to my own passions for sustainable living is key. Always making sure this presentation is personal and not to factual will definitely help.

Eeee geting excited!!

Earthship Interview/Tour!

So guess what folks...we got ourselves an earthship in Freeville!! Yes we actually have one 30 minutes away!! I'm so excited about this because while earthships are very revolutionary in design, they are not very common to build, and we have one! Also, after talking to Chad Devoe, one of the inhabiters of this earthship (along with his wife and new baby!), there's ANOTHER one being built in  Brooktendale, which I had no clue was happening...and as he said, these two are the only earthships he knows of in New York State. I did a bit of research and I found one currently being built in Adams, NY, and there are plans to build an earthship in NYC (sounds crazy, but here's the link explaining how it will work. http://ecobrooklyn.com/earthship-project-york/), but other than that, we have 2/3 of the earthships in NY state right on the outskirts of Ithaca. That says A LOT about how progressive this town really is and makes me ever more grateful that I live here. Thank you parents for letting me grow up here! 

A little prerequisite information: 

-Chad has wanted to build some sort of sustainable home since college. He and his wife were originally going to build a strawbale house, but then, when he found out about earthships in 2008, they just had to build one. They mainly researched earthships online, because the books were outdated at that point, and still are. 

-The ultra-cool thing, in my opinion, was that Michael Reynolds and a building crew of about 10 people actually came out here 3 years ago to help build this earthship!! He was actually here!! I wish I knew about these earlier so I could've met him when he was in central New York. Chad got the blueprints from Reynolds (they built the global model, but with a few tweeks), and after Chad and Courtney started building some of the easier stuff, Reynolds and the crew came out and helped deal with a lot of the technical stuff, like the catch water system, the solar panels, etc. 

-850 tires, 3000 glass bottles, and 15,000 cans were used to build this house. They got the tires from a car shop in Dryden, which they didn't have to pay for. However, they did have to pay for the cans that they got from the dump. I mean I guess that makes sense, if they were planning to make money by getting rid of the cans, they can't give several thousand away for free. The Devoes are off grid, different from Carrie & Mike. 

-Here's the list of bills they pay: Mortgage, internet (connected to Clarity Connect), cell phone, propane ($200 a year). That's it. Nothing else. My dad has to pay at least $300 per month for his NYSEG bill, and that's saying something. 

-Chad's daily duties include changing the water filters (monthly), washing out the water filters (weekly), watering the greenhouse plants, and in the winter time, brushing off the solar panels. 

1.  This can+cement fixture mainly just serves as a filler. The cans help to take up space so they don't have to use more cement. 

2. This is the water organizing module, but Chad usually just calls it the water pump. The grey water is filtered twice through the first two pumps. Drinking water is filtered two more times in the last two pumps.

3. This is just some beautiful stone work in the bathroom. All tile is recycled

4. Now THIS is how to repurpose glass bottles. All of those colorful circles are made from glass bottles to provide a stain glass effect. This is in their guest bedroom

5. This is the green house, where a good portion of the plants grow. They have an avocado plant, a lemon tree, lettuce, and many other plants. It also stays fairly warm in this part of the house because this is the front face of the sunlight that hits the house, and since it acts as a greenhouse, it has to stay warm. This never gets below 42 degrees, even in the winter time.

6. Here's an example of what some of the walls look like with the combination of the cement and tires. Chad plans to plaster this over the summer.

7. Just some cool tile artwork on the back patio.

8. Up above, those seemingly green things on the ceiling, can be opened up to let a breeze in, since this greenhouse area gets so hot. 

9. This is the roof. It's more flat than most earthship roofs, but you can see it's metal and slightly slanted so all the water can flow off of it easily. Also, you can tell from this that half of the house is earth bermed.

10. The little pathway leading up to their roof

11. These are where the cooling tubes begin. They have about 5 total, and this is what cools their house in the summer

12. Those two green things are called scuffers, and they catch all of the water and allow it to drain under those two brown things. Since we have a lot of rain here, they often have an excess of rain water (which isn't the case in New Mexico where most earthships are built), so during a thunderstorm, Chad often closes the drains (which they are now) so the water can just drain into the surrounding field. They have two cisterns they can fill up with water, which is plenty

13. That little gray pipe on the right of the gunnel is a glycol heating tube, similar to the one at Carrie's house. This is placed in the gunnel so the rain water has no chance of freezing. This also melts the snow that falls

14. Here's the front view of the house! Notice how the solar panels are positioned at a different angle than the windows. This is so they can get maximum sunlight. The windows don't need to get maximum sunlight all the time, as there would be overheating.

15. This is the inside of the separate greenhouse they have. Another great portion of their plants are grown here, such as rice, lettuce, basil, etc.

 16. Here are some hens!

17. Here are some cute duckies they have in their inside green house!! The ducks are actually used for slug control, not just for pure enjoyment, as one might think.

17=8. This is the view from the front of the house. Pretty incredible, right? Yes. 

Here's the link to the earthship biotecture blog about this earthship's build.
http://earthship.com/blogs/2012/08/ithaca-new-york-build-week-3-day-13/

And here's the link to Mr. Devoe's own blog about his continuous earthship building/touching up experiences
http://freevilleearthship.blogspot.com

Last WISE Class-In Class Journal Entry

Sadly,  I was not able to attend the last WISE class, as I stayed home from school sick yesterday :(

I already wrote an entry about April's sample presentation...but it doesn't hurt to write another one reflecting on her work! Here it goes.

Q: What would you like to borrow from the sample?
A: I would like to borrow the food portion of her presentation...I'm not sure if I will use it as an incentive, but I will definitely have food. I might also include a timeline, like she did. My slideshow probably won't be set up that way, but I'll talk about what I did in chronological order, I think.

Q: What was a particular strength of the sample?
A: April included some statistics in her presentation on how much she exactly had to write in a certain amount of time, and it really let the audience know how much work she had to do, which was a lot!! Including the pros and cons of the different processes was very effective, as well. Also, April's speaking skills, of course, were another strength.

Q: What would you do differently?
A: I'm probably going to give more factual information and share more of my research rather than primarily talk about my process. That's what my project calls for.

Presentation #1: Check!

Welp…I just completed my little mini earthship presentation! Yaaaaay!

So since we planned to do this last week..it was a bit last minute and not on a big scale (which is definitely fine with me), but we made it happen, and I'm just so happy about that.

We ended up having this at the church I go to (St. Paul's United Methodist Church) in a small conference room. Jacqueline (who's husband I interviewed a week ago), created a Facebook event, and we ended up calling it Ecovillage and Earththips: The Future of Sustainable Living.
About 15 people showed up, which was the perfect amount of people. All of them I knew in some way or another, so I didn't feel as bad about how un-perfectly my half of the presentation went. First, I told everyone why I wanted to give this little talk and gave them some context. Then, I briefly described what earthships were, then continued to go through the systems and how they worked. Then talked about where a few of them have been built for relief purposes. Very simple. The Arlene talked about Ecovillage, how it's run, and what it's main goals are. No added pictures or anything, very casual and supportive environment.

However, let me paint a picture of what/how I was doing the day before/the day of.

June 6th: 
Noon-4 pm. This day finally came, it was PROM day! My mom and I were running around getting nails done, getting last minute accessories, a corsage and boutineer, all that good stuff. Then it came time for me to go get ready at a friend's house.
4 pm-11pm: Getting ready (which surprisingly didn't take too long), then going to take pictures at the plantations, then going back to the house I was at and taking more pictures (readers out there who already went to prom, any flashbacks yet?). Then the actual prom at the Farmer's Market, which was just lovely. It felt very at home/Ithaca-esque, and the Blind Spots played (they're an AWESOME local band, check them out!!) and it was a fabulous evening.
June 6th-7th
11 pm-4 am: We had a sleepover back at my friend's house and stayed up verrryy late.
June 7th: 
4 am-7 am: sleep in a tent outside
7 am-11:30 am: went home and did as much work as I could for this presentation. I had very little time the week before to prep for it, as I had other priorities that came first. So that was rough.

Basically what I'm trying to say in as interesting of a format as possible is that I was very tired and unprepared for this mini presentation. While I was talking (thank goodness I got to sit and only use my computer to show a few pictures), I had a hard time coming up with the right words to say and was very sluggish in my thinking. I was stutter-y and not boisterous enough, I thought.

I can be sure, though, when I give my actual WISE presentation, that I get a good night's sleep the night before, I prepare all week, and I fully rehearse what I'm going to say. I'm glad I got the jitters out of the way and now feel more ready for the big presentation next week.

We're gettin' there!

Interview with Carrie

On Tuesday afternoon, after all the rain and gloomy clouds disappeared, I drove out to Carrie's "green" house and got the full tour! I was mistaken and thought that her house was more of a tiny house, but it turns out that while originally their house was minimal, they added onto it later when they moved. Yes they actually transported their house to a new area, it was was so tiny. So now their total square footage is 1800 sq. ft. I'll go through a step-by-step process of how their house is all set up!

1. The solar panel canopy. Their whole roof is covered with 72 solar panels. They used to all be hooked up to a battery system in the lower level of their house. This meant that they had 72 humongous box-like figures in their house. This allowed them to live off the grid. After a while, they started to be fussy and overheat, so they got rid of them and went back on the grid, meaning they're connected to NYSEG and they erected the solar credits system (which I explained in my second to most recent blog post). 

I got to go up on their roof! That's how I took the next couple of pictures!

2. The evaculated glass/metal solar tubes (what the finger is pointing to in the picture below). This is the primary way their house is heated. At first, I thought, "How the heck do these things work??" I've never heard of them before! What happens is that there's a glycol tank in their utility room just outside of their house. The glycol is pumped up to these 48 tubes on the roof, gets heated by the sun, then flows back to the house into three smaller tubes. These three tubes then travel to concrete slabs in different areas of the house and the heat rises up through them. While the tubes emit no CO2 or any other harmful substances, they were at least as costly, if not more, then your average water heater/furnace. Each tube cost $125, and there are 48 of them, so the total for the tubes was $6,000, not to mention the added metal glycol holding storage tank. 

Below are pictured the three different tubes the glycol gets transferred to 

3. The area surrounded by the circular metal mesh if their ho

me garden. They grow and eat virtually all of their vegetables in here from May until October, including lettuce, carrots, potatoes (not a vegetable, but a staple food), tomatoes (also not a veggie, but a staple), asparagus, and more. They also have a few fruit trees surrounding the garden, and some cranberry bushes! 

4. This is the invertor, where the electrical current produced by the solar panels gets inverted from D.C. to A.C. Again, this whole process was explained in my second most recent entry.

5. You may be thinking, "Why would they ever store food, especially a pineapple and an orange, in a drawer?" Well the fancy thing about this drawer is that it has air conditioning! Meaning it's a fridge... This way of storing non-perishable food items is actually much more efficient because when you open the door, not all of the cold air immediately comes rushing out, keeping the food not as cold as it should be kept. Since cold air sinks, the air naturally stays within the drawers. 

6. The little sun-room dining type room shown here is significant because if you look at the accordion-folded doors on the left, this room can be closed off during the winter months, meaning it doesn't take as much heat to heat the house as it would if this room was open. 

7. The circular piece of wood you see here is actually the primary form of insulation for this house. They're called SIPs (Structural Insulating Panels) and made out of old tree bark. What makes these so efficient is one, they're made from recycled tree bark, and two, when stacked together to form a wall, there are no gaps. The only con about these is that they cost $12,800 to install.

8. This blue foamy looking stuff here is the other type of insulation they use, which is 100% cotton and made out of recycled blue jeans! Don't worry, we were NOT dealing with fiber glass insulation. They cost nothing to install. 

9. This is the other main way Carrie and Mike heat their house, with this Masonry stove. It's located in the lower level of their house (which I forgot to mention was earth bermed). The stove basically goes crazy for a couple of hours while they fill it with food to burn, then the heat radiates out of it without them having to put a lot of wood in for a while. They also use the top oven to heat their food in the winter time. 

10. Below is the tile job of their upstairs shower, which was completed by Carrie and her son, Sam. I just thought this was so beautiful I had to post a picture of it :)

11. The sink counter-top is a slab of stone they just found on their property, so Mike carved out a space for the sink. Maybe I'll learn how to use some serious power tools and do this myself someday!

12. Lastly, here is a picture of their house from the front/side view. 

I asked Carrie afterwards why she and Mike went through all of this research, physical labor, and money to put this house together. Her answer was very well thought out and compassionate. She felt like there was more she could be doing to reduce her impact on this earth. We all contribute to climate in some way, and we need to be mindful of those other species who are doing all they can reduce climate change. We need to do the same. 

Also, they were planning to retire when they got this house, which was in 2008. Mike and Carrie thought it would be fun and adventurous to undergo this big of a project. They ended up moving here earlier than they thought, which was 2010, while they still had both of their jobs, but it was still fun. 

They also weren't that afraid to make a huge leap like this, because they weren't afraid of the country, not being close to their neighbors. This house also served them as the new family "dog" when their kids went off to college. 

Sadly, they will be moving out of this house in the fall of 2016 because of a new job opportunity. I wish I could make enough money by then to rent it out, because I would love to live out here. 

While this isn't a perfect solution (it took a lot of energy to make the solar panels and the evaculated solar tubes), it's a big step in the right direction. 

Also, here's a chart of all the features of the house, including the costs, notes, manufacturers, and the location of each one in the house. 

April's Fabulouso WISE Presentation!

Wow. Just wow. I don't know how any of us are going to live up to April's WISE presentation she gave yesterday..
What I'm most impressed with, and what I am always astounded by whenever I hear her present or talk to a large group of people, is how radiant, genuine, and "easy" of a talker she is. Her words and ideas just kept flowing out with no pause. She obviously put a lot of time and effort into her presentation and summed up her overall experience of writing and filming Living with White Rice really well.

I got a few ideas from her presentation. Here they are!
-Encourage discussion among audience members, either with the presenter  or amongst themselves
-Include food! Potentially use it as an incentive
-Include a timeline of sorts, whether it be visual or verbal
-Include numbers in the presentation. April added up how many hours of filming and script writing she went through and that really impacted how I thought about her work throughout the four months.
-Talk about your emotions, but mostly the type of work that you did
-Use excerpt(s) from your journal

And, while I'm sad for April that this question I'm about to state was presented to her "on the spot" and she didn't have time to think about it...I will definitely think about this for my presentation: What changed in me as being a WISE student?

Such a broad, expansive question that can be hard to pin point. April answered beautifully, as she always does. I have quite the amount of pondering to do...

I would also like to add that April and I have been really good friends throughout the past six or seven years and it has been so enlightening to see how she's grown, how she takes charge of everything she commits to, how big she thinks, how truly she speaks, how creative she is, and of course how she remains a great friend throughout the good and bad times in her life. I can't wait to see her final product!!

Mini Meeting for a Mini Presentation

My earthship presentation is being set in motion!
I had a meeting after church yesterday with Ms. Zaryski and Arlene and we figured out that if we were to present anything together, it will have to be next week, June 7th. This will be very tough for me since it's the day after senior prom...but it will have to do!

We also figured out that our combined Ecovillage/earthship presentation would be directed toward Jeff Shepardson's sustainable living small group at our church (and any other church members who want to attend).

The presentation will last about 30 minutes, 15 minutes of Arlene speaking and 15 minutes of me speaking. This will be GREAT practice for my upcoming WISE presentation.

Interview with Don McKechnie!

Today, I got to go over to Don McKechnie's house, who my family and I have known for quite some time, and talk to him about his recent solar panel installation! The interview lasted about 20 minutes, and afterwards he showed me how he does the readings, the inverter, the panels themselves, and all that jazz (which I'll explain in a sec).

The solar panels were installed the last weekend in February. Remember when Ithaca got SUPER SUPER cold? Well that was the end of February, and the construction workers from Renovus (the local solar panel company from which they bought their panels) came and cleared off the roof and installed the panels. Pretty incredible eh? However, while the panels were installed in February, the electricity wasn't installed until early April, so they've had working panels since April 6th, 2015.

Jacqueline and Don decided to get solar panels in July when the Solar Tompkins Initiative offered a "deal" of sorts. Their house wasn't actually inspected until October to see if they were eligible to have solar panels.

One main reason they decided to get solar panels was because of financial reasons. While the total cost for installing solar panels was somewhere around $28, 000, they got a lot of money back. Firstly, since more than 300 people signed up as part of the Solar Tompkins Initiative to have solar panels installed, they got $2600 back from Solar Tompkins. Also, MYSERTA gave them a grant of $7,000 right off the bat just for installing solar panels. They also receive $4,000 in state tax rebates and $5,000 in federal tax rebates. This means their total bill was about $10,000.
If these panels are actually saving them money, we don't know yet. They haven't had them long enough to calculate their total savings.

Jacqueline and Don also wanted to be more energy efficient. While they have been doing small things around the house to conserve energy, like replace the windows, doors, insulation, and eliminate the dampness in their basement, this was a bigger step they felt like they had to take.

How the panels work:
Don and Jacqueline have an account online where they can see how much their panels produce (pictures 1 and 2). The energy that's produced by the panels gets shuttled to the inverter in their garage (picture 3). The first number that comes up on the reader is how many watts are being produced and being directed into the inverter to be used at that moment (picture 4). The second number that pops up is how many watts are being pushed back into NYSEG's electrical system (picture 5). The more energy is pushed back into NYSEG's system, the more credits they receive from NYSEG, which allows them to use energy for less money when there are cloudy days, rainy days, or wintery days.
Picture 6 shows what the panels look like on top of their house!

It was a real treat to interview Don, especially since I don't get to talk to him as much as Jacqueline.
I'm hoping to interview Carrie tomorrow! We finally found a time that works for both of us.

WISE Presentation Planning

We got a sheet in class a couple weeks talking about the preparation for our presentation. It talks about what materials we need to turn in, how they need to be distributed, and how they all overlap each other. We have three methods of documentation: the journal, the narrative, and the presentation. Examine the diagram below:

So in my actual presentation, I think it will be best to talk primarily about my hands on experiences. I haven't shown that too much in my journal, and in my narrative I'm going to reflect on my reflections in my journal, most likely. 

Mentor Meeting 5/22

Some awesome brainstorming transpired during our meeting! We talked about presentation ideas and what all I can do in the next few days. Here are a couple brief lists of what we talked about.

Presentation ideas:

-New location for WISE presentation. Outside? Space mimicking an earthship?

-Start off with hook for both (we came up with a cool one, but I'm not going to share it on here for the sake of surprise :) )

Things to do:

-Make a list of directions I can go in for earthship presentation.

-After I do above task, come up with new title for project

-Find Joe Fischer on Facebook and message him, since I have no other way of contacting him.

-Contact Jeff Shepardson

-Contact Dick Tenny

How to be Perfect

Last week, Ms. Lord gave us an excerpt from "How to be Perfect", but Ron Padgett.
I found this poem intriguing. While all of the advice on here is valid, and would probably benefit anyone who reads, I feel an urge to follow none of it.

For example, the poem starts out like this:
"Get some sleep.
Eat and orange every morning.
Be friendly. it will help make you happy.
Hope for everything. Expect nothing..."

Pretty "ordinary" advice.

Then, as the poem continues, some more questionable pieces of advice are given.
For example,
"Imagine what you would like to see happen, and then don't do anything to make it impossible"

What I think is happening in the poem is that the obvious idea actions are places at the beginning of the poem. As the poem goes on, "perfect" takes on a new definition. In the previous line, "perfect" is being in the ideal emotional state of not feeling obligated to do anything.

The above quote especially relates to my project. I talked about the masochist defense in one of my previous entries. Refresher: the masochist defense is all about wanting to say "no" to authority figures, even if that means putting your own well-being in danger. It is also associated with "wanting" yourself to fail deep down, to put it bluntly. This one line emulates this perfectly!
In a way, you're so afraid of failing at making what you want happen, that you fail yourself in another way by doing nothing at all.

This is what I've been feeling.

I worry that I'm not going to get the answer I want when emailing someone or not finding the information I want when researching, so sometimes I do nothing, and it causes me an even greater failure.

Any who, so that's obviously not the whole poem, but I just wanted to share how I was able to connect with part of it.

Plan for the rest of the week (5/20-5/27)

So Carrie and I are hoping to meet on Friday (still waiting to confirm) potentially at her tiny house!! I haven't heard back from Jacqueline yet, so I'll email another person in my contact list.
Here is my plan for the rest of the week

-Interview Carrie
-Read the poem we got in class ("How to be Perfect" by Ron Padgett) and reflect on it
-Explore more parts of the Earthship Biotecture website and write a research entry
-Contact another person on my contacts list if Jacqueline doesn't respond by this evening-
-Start to envision my presentation. Think about the best way to break it up (3x 10 minutes or 6x5 minutes).
-Contact Arlene about possibly putting together a joint presentation about Ecovillage and Earthships

Personal Contacts

I am putting a list together of all of the potential people I can contact about their personal experience with living sustainably. I'm leaving out emails and addresses for the sake of privacy. Here is what I have so far:

-Carrie Koplinka-Loehr-tiny house

-Jacqueline Bonner-solar panels

-Dick Tenney-geothermal

-Jeff Sheperdson

-Joe Fischer

-Guy on South hill back road. 405,000 LEED Silver certified house

-Can talk to the town is Ithaca about sustainability goals

-Sustainably Conscious Living at IC. 

-Gatehouse cottages

I contacted both Jaqueline and Carrie and am awaiting for their responses!

Goin' 'Round in Circles, But Not Anymore!

So believe it or not, I am choosing yet a DIFFERENT direction to take me project in.
I have been pretty confused for about two weeks now about what to do with all of the information I've accumulated about earthships (and other types of green housing).

I talked to Ms. Lord on Friday and she suggested that I give a separate presentation to a group of people (I'm thinking my church congregation) about earthships! I'm also thinking I can partner with Arlene Hewitt (she gave me a tour of Ecovillage) and we can do a joint informative presentation about earthhships and Ecovillage. Food of course will be included.

So that's where I'm headed at the moment. I'm also still planning to reach out into the community and contact individuals and organizations about their sustainability efforts.

Blog Reflection

Sorry I didn't end up having 33 on Monday. I realized over the weekend that this was a very unrealistic goal. I was, in fact, in a place with no wifi over the weekend and got home late Sunday night. This, I'm deciding, is a valid reason for not making up my journal entries. However, they still aren't done and they need to be soon so I am really aiming to get caught up and get back on board. I sincerely will do my best to get back on track. 

 

Can the reader see your 8 hrs/week?

-The reader cannot see my 8hrs/week. I am not good at blogging about my progress. I feel like I have regressed from a month ago. I like my entries to be detailed and it takes me long time to write each one, usually.  But, as I said before, I don't write about my hands-on work that much (because it has been very minimal due to the structure of my project).

What do you document well?

I think I document my thoughts well and am articulate in my reflections. I am most comfortable.

In what areas do you need improvement in communication in your journal?

Once again, hands on work needs more attention. Since I am changing the direction of my project (which might not be viable now. I need to talk to Ms. Lord and my mentor about it), my physical, creation of a product is being halted. However, I am going to focus on public outreach quite a bit and interview people about how they've lived sustainably. So that will improve.

Garbage Warrior

I FINALLY finished Garbage Warrior *thunderous applause*!!!!!!

And man, what a film. I connected with this documentary so much, and it was very powerful and persuasive, while being authentic at the same time. Just wow. 

I took a LOT of notes for this. 3 pages worth, actually, on google docs. Single spaced. Probably didn't need to have done that much..but I wanted to remember all of the details from the movie. So the extra time spend watching it was worth it.

Here's the basic synopsis of the documentary:
Michael Reynolds started designing earthships so they could enhance the quality of life, but since our environment is quickly dissipating, he now designs them with our future survival in mind. After building a few earthships, he went on to build the first earthship community in Taos county, New Mexico, called Reach community. These houses, however, were very experimental. Reynolds and his building crew pointed this out to their earthship clients, but many of the clients sued Reynolds because of things that went wrong in their houses. Since Reach was not a subdivision and the houses were built so radically (meaning they didn't follow the state standards), Reach community was eventually shut down and Reynolds' state architect license was taken away.
It took Reynolds 7 years to make Reach a subdivision, and he had to spend tens of thousands of dollars to do so. **Warning: Subjective opinion**. I personally the building standards in New Mexico and the United States are a load of crap. I know it's blunt, but how are we possibly going to move forward and create a world for our future great grandchildren if we get sued every time we try to build outside the box?? Reynolds pointed this same thing out during the movie, and I was getting really angry at the lawmakers and the "rule book" of housing. Just ridiculous.
ANY way..so Reach community was opened back up, and Reynolds realized that in order to fight the system, he had to become a part of the system. He went on to create a bill allowing certain areas to be designated for sustainable housing testing sites. After a lot of work, the bill wasn't passed due to filibustering during the legislative session.
In April 2005, Reynolds and his crew received an SOS call from the tsunami hit Andaman islands. Reynolds and his crew went on to build and earthship there to help the remaining islanders. As Reynolds pointed out, they were all open to it because a disaster hit, so any solution sounded plausible. This eventually contributed to Reynolds' attempt to pass his bill a second time in the winter of 2006, though it still failed.
Eventually, in March 2007, the bill passed and he was able to legally build experimental earthships.
Also, after learning of his work in the Andaman islands, the Architect Board in Taos, New Mexico offered his state architect's license back.

What a story. Reynolds presented a lot of valid, big picture points about our life here on earth and how our government runs. He is very opinionated and likes to swear a lot...but very persuasive and not afraid to look at the big environmental problems, unlike most of the government(s).

Here are some of my favorite points made in the movie:
-Reynolds compares current human way of living as a bunch of buffalo running towards cliff with 1,000 foot drop-off, and he’s in it.
-Take every aspect of own lives and put it into your own hands. Don’t need to go to store to get what you need.
-”I am free”--The government tests cars, tests airplanes, tests BOMBS for pete’s sake in the interest of national security. So why can’t we have a few hundred acres for test sites to test sustainable living? Something that will, in fact, BENEFIT everyone.
--”We have decades left on this planet, and American politics is a f***ing dinosaur that’s not going to make it”-MR
-”Almost like disaster has to happen in order to make the rest of the world start comparing”-MR
-”We got a lot of people who can’t see beyond the rule book, and beyond the rule book is global warming”-MR


I recommend that everyone watch this documentary. There were some very stylistic aspects to this film, and this provides a reality check to the status of our environment and how the government really runs.

 

New Direction

So this may come as a bit of a shock since I took a bit of an unintentional hiatus from blogging..but I am thinking about taking my project in a new direction,

I have been resistant to drawing, and to be quite frank, drawing precise blueprints is really not my thing. Drawing precisely and focusing on every single detail has never been my thing. Also, at this point, I would really just be happy to live in any earthship. It might even make more sense so I don't have to spend a ton of time and energy building my design later if I wanted to.

Yesterday, Ms. Lord suggested to me and another girl that we could take our projects a new direction if we wanted to. If we were unhappy with the way things are going. I thought originally that I should just stick to what I'm doing. But then, I started to wonder.

I JUST, like, one period ago, had a meeting with Ms. Zaryski to talk about possible directions I could take and what other hands on work I can do that's in relation to earthships. And Ms. Z suggested the idea that I could build a garden at my house, then eat only the food that I grow from my garden for one week. Because, in an earthship, there's a green house in front of the large glass windows where you could grow food, and learning how to garden/properly grow my own food would be a good "introduction" to living the life I could in an earthship down the road.

Also, I mentioned in my planning post yesterday that I wanted to reach out in the community more and seek out stories of how people live sustainably. Once I interview enough people, I could make a scrap book of their stories! This way, I can have a (parishable) product by the end. Also scrapbooking is a lot of fun :) And, this would still include the creativity aspect of my project, just a different outlet.

I still have to talk to Ms. Lord about all of this to make sure it's okay and get some more advice about how to go about this change, but I am once again excited for the possibilities!

The goal for this weekend is to finish watching and taking notes on Garbage Warrior. I know this was something I was supposed to accomplish a couple weeks ago...so I will post an entry about it on Sunday night/Monday morning (I have a regatta from Friday afrernoon-Sunday evening and might not be able to access blogger).

Get Out of the Rut!

I went to the Thursday WISE Red-Flag class today because I missed Monday for a Psych AP Test. For you psychology-ers out there, I think I had an internal locus of control and used chunking, mnemonics, and rehearsing enough to get a good grade on it! Here is some mid-week planning to help myself "get out of the rut" that is the 4th quarter of senior year. 

7 things I want to accomplish in the next week (by next Thursday)

-figure out why so resistant to drawing 

-rethink project product(s)

-finally post reflection for garbage warrior

-make list of all resources in ithaca that relate to project/sustainability in ithaca

-use two of them in some form

-contact person who built green house on Troy road. 

-get 33 journal entries by Monday 

3 things to talk to mentor about:

-project final product(s)

-becoming a woman of my word. Not that now, would like to earn that integrity

-ever have "too" many resources to choose from and end up not using any at all?

7 things I need/want to know more about

-always more design tips

-setting up proper work space

-want to know about individual efforts for sustainability in Ithaca

-What constitues a good design portfolio

-Pros and Cons of using handprint blueprints or electronic 3d designs

-Ways of interesting documentation (other than documentaries)

-How other WISE kids with similar WISE projects directed their projects over time

Very In-Depth Mentor Meeting

Long, spontaneous, life chats are the best, aren't they? At least that's what all the upcoming college freshman are saying when they're looking for a room mate..and I TOTALLY agree with them.

Ms. Z and I had a really thorough hour-long discussion on Friday having to do with motivation. 

Just picture it--you're a senior in high school. You've worked pretty hard for all your four years of high school and would really just like to have a relaxing spring for once. This year, you decided to take it a little easy (easy meaning not having every period filled up with a class) and are getting de-energized with all these extracurriculars and just senioritis in general. How do you find the motivation to keep going with a project as long and big as this one??

That is what I've been struggling with. A lot. And that's what I talked to Ms. Z about on Friday. 

There are a couple of reasons why this might be the case. 

Here are my theories:

1. The masochist defense.

"What the heck is this??" you might ask (be prepared not to be led straight to the point...).

In this program called Hidden Treasure that my mom helps teach (read more about it here: ( http://www.lightonthehill.org/hidden-treasure/introduction/ ), the teachers talk about five main defenses of which each person might have. Some may have a bit of all of them, some may have two very strong ones, it's varied. 

-The Oral Defense stems from not having enough of your needs met as a child, so as an adult, you end up seeking something to fill an empty void inside of you (and as the name suggest, you might be very talkative about it).

-The Rigid Defense is basically what it sounds like. You are generally unflexible when it comes to schedule changes and spontaneous events. Things need to be the way they were planned, or else it causes some measure of anxiety within you. 

-The psychopathic defense is when you want to be in the control of your environment, as well as the people/thoughts of those people around you. This is a very common defense. 

-The schizoid defense describes someone who tends to zone out and consume themselves in their own internal world when conflict arises. They don't want to deal with it-so they avoid it. 

-And lastly, the masochist defense usually stems from having very controlling parents as a child, so you are prone to say "no" to authority and those types of demands. However, this also means that you say "no" to things that would benefit you, setting yourself up to fail. 

I don't have very controlling parents, but I want to say "no" to work, which this project has become more of than pleasure. 

So that's one reason. 

Another is a deep-seeded questions I've been pondering since my junior year. Why do  we have to work? Why do we have to do all of this work? For college? To succeed? Why is success so important anyway? Isn't better to just be happy, relaxed, have a well-balanced life?

Because of these reasons, Ms. Z and I decided that I need some external motivators to help me get up and start my work. To do this, I have created a Pintrist account. If you know how pintrist works (which I still don't for the most part...), you follow certain boards that draw your interest, say, braid styles for example. Then, pictures pop up on your newsfeed and you can pin them to your own board, or like them, or whatever you wanna do. 

I am following several earthship design boards and I get a lot of cool pictures of the insides and outsides of custom earthships, which are beautiful to look at. 

This, I believe, will get me up and on the road to doing more WISE work. 

We'll see if this works!!

What is Happiness and How Can We Feel It?

We read in article on Monday called "Happiness Revisited" and the author talks about what happiness really is and why so many of us westerners think we achieve it, but really don't. Here are the reflection questions.

1. When do you feel most happy? 

    Well, that's a hard question to answer after reading this article. I'm currently recreating my schema for what happiness really is and what "leads" to it. The author of the book Happiness Revisited defined happiness as a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. It's how we interpret outside events. 

       So, with that said, I feel I am most happy whenever I am with my youth group. I always feel completely at ease whenever I'm around them, in part because I've known a good amount of them for a long time, but because the environment is just happy and well-meaning. It's a state I (usually) naturally enter without having to effort fully change my mindset. 

2. Reaction to article: 

Loved loved loved it. I'm very into Psychology and any state of being is interesting to read about. Sometimes I feel a little resistance to science telling us how we should react to things and what needs to happen to achieve a certain outcome. Sometimes things "should" be left to the unknown, the mystical. But I mainly think it's so cool to having a science dedicated to our brain and how we can live better lives!!! The answers can be so simple! (Simple sounding, that is). I love the distinction between optimal experience and happiness. Because so many of what us Americans' lives are like that s doing everything we can to achieve success and optimal experiences, which we think equate to happiness. 

3. Where are you on the flow chart?

I would currently say I'm in A2 (developing skills and bored) or A4 ( developing skills and good amount of challenges, which is the optimal zone), right now. There are some weeks when I'm doing enough that I feel very productive and not overwhelmed, but excited about what I'm doing. There are others when I feel very motivated to get things done and end up not doing much, anticipating that what I have to do will be boring/feel like work.

4. How has my flow chart zone changed throughout my project?

Whenever I set goals for myself and remind myself that it is imperative that I accomplish them, that's when I'm in the A4 zone. My first real experience with that was about three weeks ago. Whenever I blow things off, thinking I can do extra work later, that's when I enter the A2 zone. Feeling bored and unmotivated (and eventually, I drift into the A3 stage, which is stressed).

5. How can you achieve flow?

Like I said before, setting weekly goals for myself is the key to being and feeling successful and productive, and going with the flow.

Ecovillage

I finally got to tour Ecovillage!!! And let me say it's pretty freakin' awesome up there. I'll say again, that Arlene, a woman who goes to my church, lives up there, and so I contacted her and asked if she could give me a personal tour. It turned out the Thursday, the day I went, was also a community dinner night, so I got to eat some delicious free pesto pasta, root veggies, and salad.
I drove in on the main road and met her by one of the carports near TREE neighborhood  We walked to her house from there and she told me a bit about the history of the village and how it runs. Here is some of the information she gave me.

General:
-Started out as a 30 house neighborhood in 1996 (now, that neighborhood is called FROG, which stands for First Residential Group).
-They now have almost three neighborhoods: FROG, SONG (Second Neighborhood Group), and TREE (Third Residential Ecovillage Experience). TREE is still in the process of being built
-Neighborhood is set up as a cooperative. For example, if you're in New York City and you own share to your apartment building, that's what Ecovillage is like.
-There is a volunteer expectation of 2-4 hours per week. There are multiple teams you can join to meet these expectation, such as the cook team, the dish team, the gardening/landscaping team, the maintenance team, the finance team, and many others.
-All houses are connected to NYSEG still. If there is no solar gain, then they use natural gas for power.
-Two farms present: the West Haven Farm (organic vegetables) and a "you pick" berry farm
-After tree is fully built, there will be approximately 150 adults and 70 kids living in evovillage.
TREE:
-The 25 buildings built so far in TREE are LEED Platinum certified, which is the highest level of LEED certification.
-7 of these houses are Passivhaus certified. There are only about 150 of these in the U.S., and 7 of them are here in Ithaca! The Passivhaus focuses on low energy use, which usually means these houses must have a lot of solar gain from photovoltaics (solar panels). Also, they're all net zero!
-All houses are tightly insulated, but not so tight that mold grows or anything like that.
-There's fresh air ventilation provided by ERVs (Energy Recovery Ventilators).
-No central heating. Instead, there are HRVs (Heating Recovery Ventilators).

I also have a few pictures to show for my endeavors!

This first one is a picture of TREE, the neighborhood that's currently being built. You can see the two different kinds of solar panels that are on these houses. The smaller, darker ones are photovoltaics. The larger ones are solar thermal panels used to heat water.

 The second photo is a picture of part of SONG neighborhood, the second one that was built.

This is a picture of the deck of SONG'S common house. I love the tree ceiling (and without knowing it, they're incorporating TREE neighborhood into theirs!)

Here's a shot featuring all three neighborhoods. The house on the left is part of SONG, the houses in the middle are TREE, and the house on the right is FROG. This shows how close in proximity the neighborhoods really are to each other.

Here's a picture FROG. It's so quaint and fairy tale like, isn't it?!

I would love to live in ecovillage, or a community similar to it. Maybe I'll find myself a little earthship community to reside in in my later years.