If I had poetic capabilities, I would write one.

I did consider it, actually, but then I looked up how to write an ode and realised there was too much rhyme and metre involved for me. My rhyming capacity goes as far as “cat! bat! dat? that! ea- no, fat! gat? gnat!” You get the idea.

But oh (or “O!”), Save-On-Foods, how I love thee! Ever since you opened on campus, I’ve managed to just hop on the bus, get off in the next two minutes, grab a couple of vegetables, and then hop right onto another bus to go home. No longer do I have to do a week’s worth of groceries on Saturday and slowly watch my fresh fruits and veggies deteriorate by day five. As much as I like Sprouts (located in the SUB basement), sometimes there just isn’t much choice.

I’ve wondered how many people have realised that a new supermarket’s opened on Wesbrook Mall, though — I still see people lugging Safeway bags back from the bus loop. Clearly a lot of folks are still frequenting the Sasamat Safeway. Now, maybe people just like Safeway better, or think it’s cheaper (I think Save-On is cheaper, but no one I know has actually done a price comparison, so I wouldn’t know), or maybe they like the longer trip — sometimes I do go to grocery stores that are further out just because I like the trip there — but just in case you didn’t know about the new store yet, now you do!

Actually, I’m curious: where do you do your shopping (and why)? I’ve friends who will make the weekly trip out to the Canadian Superstore or T&T, without a car and all, because they want the cheapest deals they can find.

I like Save-On-Foods for its mid-week convenience, as I’ve mentioned above, but I also like making the trip to Choices or Capers when I can. It takes longer to get to these places than, say, the nearest Safeway (which isn’t actually that convenient either), but I like the choice of organic food I find there. These were some of the stores I investigated during my initial attempt at the 100-Mile Diet.

Tangent: I adore the idea of the 100-Mile Diet, but despite my valiant efforts to follow it when I moved out of rez (they were valiant efforts, really), stopped when I realised I couldn’t cook at all. Didn’t matter what kind of food you gave me; I promptly destroyed it in a complex series of mixing, stirring and frying. Give me the latest, most local produce and I produced something fit only for composting, if I knew how to do that. Give me ready-mix packages and I still had dubious results. Awful waste. Decided to learn to cook before anything more ambitious. Happy to say am improving slowly but surely. Maybe by spring I’ll be able to start again…?!

We live in an age when awareness about our world increases every year and quizzes regarding our carbon footprints abound.

For example, I did one evaluation that told me that if everyone used up as many resources as I do, we’d need some four or five planets. Talk about a guilt trip.

So I began web-crawling for ways within my power to reduce my carbon footprint. Ways like changing my diet, my clothing, the things I buy and not ways like how to build my house. I have no money for that.

It started off really sensibly, I thought. I discovered alternative diets besides the already known ones of organic food, vegetarianism and veganism: local eating, slow food and raw food to name a few. I also discovered that it’s time-consuming, that some diets may have a few negative effects unless watched carefully, and that maybe local eating doesn’t consume less energy than food produced on the other side of the world. One example given is that meat produced in New Zealand and then transported to the UK is still more energy-efficient than meat produced in the UK, so local eating would have to be on the grounds of a healthier lifestyle, fresher food, or supporting the local community. Reasons like those. (more…)

After straining my little head (actually it’s out of proportion, I think, and I just can’t decide if it’s bigger or smaller than usual) for a week, I have managed to complete the major parts of my homework due in this week. I can breathe now! For a few hours, anyway.

And yes, I like stars and sunshine very much. I am madly happy whenever it’s sunny. One of my disappointments is that I don’t know how to recognise any constellations. There were never enough stars in HK — or more like the lights were always too bright to see many — for me to know them. I was more excited about the stars during the lunar eclipse than seeing a red moon, the skies were so clear. I don’t even know where the North Star is, which is (according to literature) The Star Everyone Should Know. I’m plotting to amend that some day.

Right now I am more taken up by food and gardening. I’ve been madly obsessed with the 100-Mile Diet ever since I heard the talk and went off on a research-binge for ways to live this, so now I have many more resources under my bookmarks page. On the gardening side, herbs are my new interest. I’m cautious about how successful I’ll be when I get around to planting them — speaking of which, must find somewhere to plant them, and also find the seeds or whatever to actually plant with — because I tend to forget to water my plants. My current pot plant, whose name is Celestia, was made up of bright orange blossoms, but she’s currently withering away. Maybe the ability to eat my plants will motivate me to water them… Or I could always leave them to the Vancouver rains.

I will have a chat with my mother about this. I’m going over to stay with my mother for the weekend, so this may be toodles. Of course, with the Great Internet being what it is, I might be online anyway, in which case –

Pseudo-toodles!