Speaking of the Spoken Word

One of my favorite blogs, SuperForest, posted an awesome TED talk by spoken word poet Sarah Kay. She was inspired by spoken word poetry in high school and now travels throughout the country sharing her passion and teaching/empowering kids how to express themselves through the medium. Project V.O.I.C.E sounds like an awesome project. Maybe I can invite them to do a workshop with my students when I'm teaching in Jacksonville. Not a bad ideaaa!

Making a Damn Difference

My dad posted this video and it got me totally pumped about teaching. I also forgot how much I love slam poetry. This guy is awesome check it out.

Sweet Summer

This summer I spent the majority of my time being present to how extraordinary life is. It definitely wasn't a mistake I ended up working for Sunrise Day Camp, a magical place that has changed me forever. It's a rainy Monday morning and there's no where I'd rather be than playing board games with my campers in the tree house. Not that I wasn't already a complete silly doofus, but my campers reminded me everyday how important it is to have fun and laugh and play. I am eternally grateful for and proud to be part of the Sunrise family.

Love, Smiles and Banana Grams,

Alex

Australia Nostalgia

I've really been missing my home in the Southern hemisphere. Sadly, I didn't blog in Aussie-land as I chose to fill up a good 'ole journal that occupied much of my free time. Three months separated from the beautiful beaches, red rocks and awesome people, I decided a photo montage was in order.

flow with the universe

"A Stroke of Insight"- Jil Bolte

Reinventing Fuel, Reinventing Life

When I envision my future I see myself living in a house powered by solar and wind energy, driving an electric or algae fueled car, and growing my own fruits and vegetables in my backyard garden. And I don't think I will be alone.

So many clean and sustainable energy innovations have been showing up in my space recently-- its so exciting! Its incredibly easy to get sucked into the we've-already-trashed-the-planet-there's-nothing-we-can-do-about-it-now-why-change-our-habbits-let's-just-keep-doing-what-we're-doing-syndrome, a.k.a complaining and seeing no possibility for the future. But there is an abundance of extraordinary research, innovations and ideas that can free us from our dependence on fossil fuels NOW. Many clean-energy sources are already in use. The next steps are to produce infinite, accessible and cheap clean-energy.

Below is a film, article and television show that get me PUMPED about the reinvention of fuel and reinvention of life as we know it. I think this is such an exciting time to be alive and to experience this tremendous and necessary shift in the way we use energy. My generation will be the first who will have the choice to move forward and choose reinvented fuel and a totally reinvented life. Let's choose it.

The Fuel Film is an awesome documentary about how to transform our relationship with oil. It's worth watching from start to finish.

I was flipping though TV guide the other night and stumbled upon a new channel, Planet Green and a new show called Powering the Future. CHECK IT OUT. I learned so much about what's possible for energy on the planet in just a 30 minute episode. DO IT!

A few days ago my mom was talking about getting a new car when our Honda Civic's lease is up this year. She wants to get a Mercedes. I suggested getting a hybrid. These are even better!

Water we going to do?

While checking out at the grocery store today, I was both amused and disturbed by a man shouting numbers as he tossed one plastic water bottle after the other into the recycling bin. 56 plastic water bottles. He announced it to the entire store and informed James the number was 56 (I think James was the manager or person who deals with recycling-- clearly loud-water-bottle-guy does this on the regular). I had two immediate reactions. Well, initially I was just laughing because loud-water-bottle-guy was intensely dripping sweat and causing a commotion in Foodtown, but after I registered what he was doing, I was excited to see someone recycling. My second reaction was, damn that's a lot of plastic!

I've been reading and researching and thinking a lot lately about consuming. How can we not take a step back and reflect on our habits after watching oil spew into the ocean for the past 3 months. The plastic water bottle industry is one of many that persuades and scares consumers into thinking we need their product. Annie Leonard explains in her video, The Story of Bottled Water, how buying and drinking from plastic water bottles is a vicious cycle that destroys what we need most...clean, natural water.

For the past year, I have become inseparable from my klean kanteen watter bottle. I used to go through 5 or 6 Poland Spring water bottles a day, but now I just refill my canteen! I sadly left my supercool red one on a bus in New Zealand (maybe a nice Kiwi found it and is spreading the Klean Kanteen love in Queenstown), but thankfully replaced it with simple aluminum a few weeks ago. I never leave home with out it.

Invest in a reusable canteen! Say no to plastic. Stay hydrated. Protect the earth's most valuable resource.