Food: A Series of Reflections Pt.1

I have always considered myself to be an educated foodie; one of those diminishing few who knows where their food comes from. Alternatively it seems as though I know a lot less than I thought. Perhaps the truly disturbing fact is that I am not the only one.

I grew up on a farm. This in of itself is a rare thing. My family always had some or all of the following at any given time: sheep, cows, chickens, goats, a garden, fruit trees,nut trees, and rabbits. The common denominator that links all of these elements is that fact that they provide food for humans. Meat was rarely purchased at the store in my house. Eggs came from chickens that lived happy lives out doors and pesticides where never used on our garden. Regardless, I always have taken these food sources for granted until I went to college.

Living in an apartment severely limits the amount of resident animals and the ability for one to grow their own garden. So I was bound to relying on the good ole' grocery store for my food supply. Not such a bad thing. I am pretty adapt at cooking and eating well. So life was good.

Until I had a rather interesting wake up call a few days ago. I picked up Michael Pollan's The Ominivore's Dilemma, interested in finding out what this rather controversial book had to say. The more I read the more I realized how corrupt something as simple as providing food has become. To add insult to injury I watched Food Inc., a film that nearly echos Mr. Pollan's words without meaning to, and read few chapters of the classic The Jungle by Upton Sinclair which attacked the meat packing industry. The more I uncover the more I see the painful flaws in our food system but am unsure how to change them. Most would just say the answer would be to change our diets and how we spend our money. That's a start. But is it the fix? I doubt it.

In the next few posts I doubt I will come up with any original ideas or means of solving this problem. In fact I will probably do no more than echo the sentiments of Mr. Pollan and numerous others who rally for this fix. But I do hope to educate those who are unaware of the food industries shortcomings and ad a simpler means of viewing the problem as I see it. 

Until next time,

Happy Thrusday.
-C

Yoga

I have always been a fan of attempting yoga.

I try really hard, I do. But it seems that the idea of it can be more enticing that then end results. This spring I went through a bad breakup and a very stressful term. I bought a beginner dvd and worked every morning on a 15 minute routine. It was wonderful. I gained so much peace and energy from it. I am sure those months might have been more difficult without it.

But then, I lost my motivation. Unsure how to bring it back I have read Yoga Journal and continued to eat healthy. I do a sun salute every now and again but it is not the same. I seem to lack the dedication. This makes me sad. I want to be like those peaceful yogis are, twisted into lovely poses, radiating love and calm.

Winter time is tough for me. I tend to become sad because of the lack of sunshine. I dislike medicating myself in order to combat this problem and so I feel the need to seek alternate methods. This new year I want to take up yoga again. Maybe I will be less hard on myself. Only practice three times a week instead of everyday. Patience is something that I often lack. I think taking up yoga again will help me attain more of this.

A not so starving artist.

I wish I could keep and up to date and riveting blog like so many other bloggers in the wonderful land of the world wide web. But alas, I do not.

I am a proud patron of the "Happy Money Saver" Yes, that is the name. I kid you not. It used to be blog but now it is more a website. But if you ever want to see some extreme money saving, coupon wielding ladies than this is the place to go.

Now as a general rule it is not often that you see a student with with a hand full of coupons, a sale flier and a shopping list. This is usually a common sight for a woman with two kids stuffed into those plastic trucks on the ends of shopping carts. She is out for the best deals because her family relies on it. Plus she manages to squeeze the time out of her day to scour the weekly ads for the best deals. But this fall I have become much more thrifty in my grocery shopping thanks to the inspiration of this website. 

I live in a little town. We have four grocery stores. One is a discount outlet and the other three are major retailers. My system is as thus: get the ads for the major stores and look for the best deals. Make a list of things that I need. Compare prices with the discount grocery and see which is better. It is usually a safe bet to go there every trip. In the end, I probably scrape off about $5-$10 per trip.

Now honestly, this is not that much not compared to these crazy Money Saver women who go to the store and manage to pay $1.50 for $40 worth of stuff. ( I am not joking).  However, I am lucky enough to have been born with a very thrifty mentality and so I can do the math. This kind of savings over the course of the year adds up to be between $210 and $420. Not bad for a student. To extend this even more I cook at home and rarely eat out. When I eat out it is for lunch which is the cheaper alternative. To top that all off I often can get organic food at my discount grocery for the same price as the regular stuff at say Safeway. Unbelievable right? Yet very few students ever shop at this place.

Okay, yeah, I know I am weird. Most people that are under 25 do not think like me. But really, it is not that hard to do this kind of thing. I wish more people would do the same. We would be healthier, have more money in our bank account and feel that sense of homemaker accomplishment that comes from getting dinner on the table for under $10. That sentiment died in the 1950's. Too bad.

C+

I am disappointed. Majorly. Most of the time when grades drop I get pleasant surprises but not this time. This time I recieved a C in my Buddhism class. I was so upset I burst into tears. Now before you start judging and saying to yourself, "This girl is clueless, there a 99 million things for her to be upset about and getting a C in a class should not be one of them". Yes, I realize this. But I worked my butt off in this class. This term I did not party, procrastinate on my homework or anything that would lead to poor grades in a typical way. My spare time was spent working on intellectual pursuits and stimulating films, (from which I can pick out Buddhist themes by the way).

But honestly the thing that upset me most was that I calculated my grade beforehand, I had a B, an 83%. So I e-mailed my prof a very polite letter asking if there had been a mistake. I got an automated e-mail response, he is out of his office until next Monday. So much I can do about that.

A C has more implications than just being a C. I was mentally prepared to get an A, two B's and two S's or passing grades this term. S's do not count on your GPA and so my overall GPA would be a low 3.0. Not to worry. And of course this whole thing completely derails me. Yes, just like a train. Chugging along, feeling that life is good and then WHAM! derailed. Cars topple off, the engine rolls over, I am not sure if you have ever seen a derailment before but it is not pretty. Everything is just tangled and twisted medal. It takes weeks to clean up.

So to carry the metaphor further my derailment has upset cars full of my self-esteem, plans, hopes and general feelings about life.

Now here is where the pity party starts. (P.s.Your invited!)

Many of my close friends and relatives have left the country. My best friend is currently in Spain and travels around Europe on a regular basis. My cousin works in the Peace Corp in Zambia. Her and her sister are very excited to travel to Paris for Christmas. I am happy for these people. But its like working all summer at some horrible job when you know that other people are somewhere tropical doing everything they want to do.

I view life as a chess board; one strategic move at a time with a eye on what is to come, anticipating moves. I say to myself, "What should I do to get from where I am to where I want to go?" and I then lay the best foundation I can. But it often makes it so I a) work to hard b) don't always enjoy what is in front of me or c) am not as spontaneous as I should be. Right now I am working on not one but two Bachelors degrees to be completed spring of 2012. This has not been particularly easy. I busted my ass in high school for this. I laid the foundation for it years ago. That is just how I am.

I don't know where I was going with this post. Just rambling I suppose. Maybe the essence of this story is no matter how much you plan you cannot always anticipate everything. You have to roll with the punches. I think I will just take that advice and move on.

-C

Snow...

So much snow the last couple of weeks. It is crazy! Christmas is almost year and my finals are almost done! This makes me happy!

First Day...

We had our first day of filming for The Glass Menagerie yesterday. At my college I have had the fortune of landing a part of Laura in this wonderful and collaborative film project. It has been an incrediable experience so far. Yesterday we shot two scenes. One was particularly intense emotionally speaking. It was a very successful day. I am very excited for more shooting.

"Those who know don't talk.
Those who talk don't know."

-Tao Te Ching, Stanza 56

Mt. Adams

This past summer I got this wild and crazy idea that I really want to climb Mt. Adams. It is very prominent mountain in valley near where I grew up. It is a rather beautiful mountain. The best time to climb it is in August. The snow pack is the lightest then and hopefully by that time I will have trained enough to do it. The elevation of the mountain is 12,281 feet. Not huge but nothing to scoff at. In my dream world I would be up in the Wallowa Moutains every weekend hiking around to train for it. Unfortunately, my school work prevents me from doing that. Lucky enough for me though, my parents own a regular wilderness complete with steep hills and impossible rocks. The only thing that currently stands in my way from doing this however is the fact that the person I would like to go with has not contacted me. I hope that will change. Overall I just spend time dreaming about summer already. I know, its only November. Ulg.

Lost

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Better

Sometimes I feel like the world is passing me by. It is kind of a lonely thought. Sometimes I don't like school. The classes that I had been excited about are difficult and not worth it. The people are either lazy or cruel. Sometimes I am unsure as to what I am accomplishing here. It is disheartening.

Sometimes I listen to a band called Sigur Ros and they make it better. Today is icy and gray here. It is hollow.

Things will get better.

Images

We are constantly pursued by popular culture and its influences of want, desire, and perfection. I often think of the magazine racks that accost your intelligence as you wait patiently (or maybe not so much) while in line at the grocery store. Tabloids, fashion magazines, Time, and People all wait to be picked up in read. "Why not?", I say. I am waiting in line, I might as well entertain myself. But within those pages are images of things we "need" and people we "need" to look and live like. Many of us believe it of course because it is not just here that we face it. It is on TV, Newspaper, and the Internet. When you are constantly told something over a long period of time you start to believe it right?

This "flood of images" stems partially from marketing. It appeals to our want of a more satisfying lifestyle or to put it more bluntly our desire for happiness. A recent AP article states that "Children ages 8-12 see the most food ads on TV — an average of 21 a day, or 7,600 a year." Kids love food. To them it is happiness. These ads have been blamed for the rapid increase of childhood obesity. Children see the latest surgery creation on TV and find a way to get it.

It works for adults as well. But there are some of us that want to move past this world of bombardment of negative, and self destructive imagery. This is challenging when we live in a culture that is so image obsessed. Several individuals mentioned the positive images that they see day to day. While everyone has a perception of what is around them it could be said that there are far more positive images then negative ones. We just choose to see the negative. If you were to remove yourself from watching TV, reading news sources, logging on to the internet and even answering your phone you would avoid a lot of these negative images. These venues provide high concentrations of "want and unhappiness".

Now realistically we can't exactly do this. But I would like to think that if we meditated on the positive images and became more aware of them than we would see that there is far more "good" in this world than "bad".

On a side note I am a huge a fan of Ted.com. It is website with very positive ideas and images. I highly recommend it.

-C

Grown Ups

Gender bender?

I just read a moving blog post from a woman who's son wanted to dress up as Daphne from Scooby Doo. Now honestly, this child is five. His desire to dress as a favorite character from a TV show is not only innocent but quite cute. Not to mention the picture of the blog is so adorable! But people are so close minded. This poor boy and his mother where ridiculed for his innocent choice. Read the full post here.

I cannot begin to tell you how angry this makes me. There is evidence everywhere of our society as becoming more accepting of gender and sexuality. The GBSTQ (Gay, Bisexual,Straight, Transgender Queer)community is so supportive and we are becoming more open. The number of women in the work place continues to increase and the number of women in higher education is starting to become larger than men. In fact in fashion magazines men and women are starting to (dare I say it) look like each other. Just look at a few high fashion adverts in Vogue and you will see what I mean. The strong, athletic female body type is idealized. Strong abs are considered hot!

You would think that all of this blurring of lines would create a more open and encouraging environment for our children to grow up in. A world where you are fabulous no matter who you like, no matter how you dress, now matter what you are. Isn't that what we have always wanted? And yet mothers,mothers are bullies, narrow minded, and cruel. We are raising a generation no better than the ones before if this is the behavior we model to our children. Let us instead model acceptance and peace, love and altruism.

Namaste.

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die | Video on TED.com

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die | Video on TED.com

PostSecret

Sometimes our secrets are others peoples secrets too...





See all of the Sunday secrets here.

Learning...outside of class

I would like to start by saying that I am by nature very stickler about my grades. Always labeled the overachiever and the know-it-all my entire life I now have pulled a 3.89 in college. My grades have fed me, payed my rent, and given me something to always work toward. The benefit of being a hardworking student is the scholarships you receive as a result.

But unfortunately one would argue that the scope of the classroom and a GPA is very limited and I agree with this. In class you are learning about a very narrow topic, such as art history or how to master creative writing. I am not even sure if half of the things that I learn in my classes will be useful for much besides cocktail parties and early morning radio trivia.

There is no life GPA. There is no one grading you everyday. "You helped the little old lady cross the street, A+!" I wish. There is no space on a job application or a resume for "street smarts". In fact you could be one of the most intelligent people out there but if you cannot regurgitate in a classroom than you might as well call it quits.

That is the sad reality of our education system. Pay thousands of dollars a year to prove you are capable of following directions and listening. It seems to me that you actually learn more from the professors themselves than their curriculum. You learn more in the dorms than you do in the classroom. You learn more off campus than on.

I love to learn. But my grades slip because I cannot regurgitate information. I can apply it. Frankly I wish that GPA was based on that application rather than on what facts you can put on a test. But I cannot escape the system as it is so I endeavor to learn outside the classroom, teach myself what I need to know. It boils down to making your own way in this world, not simply repeating the actions and facts that have been repeated to you.

Here is a concept: Skip Graduate School, Save $32,000, Do This Instead

Neil Pasricha "The 3 A's of Awesome"

Fall

It's fall time again and I am back in my old stomping grounds for another nine months of school. But not like this is a bad thing by any means. I love school or rather, I love to learn. I enjoy teaching and being taught things. I love new classes and new books and new crayon and pencils.

Today was a lovely day. The air was so cold and crisp. The sunshine was so clean and warm. Everything is beautiful on days like today. Sometimes living here makes me feel trapped. It is tough when we are bound to the everyday routine. But I love to leave Sundays open. That way I can feel like I am not too bound to anything.

I cannot believe how quick the weeks have past. Summer was just yesterday.

Peace.

La Grande Life

For the those who read my blog that are from the La Grande area I would like to enlighten you. There is this magical website known as La Grande Life which has all of the latest goings on, music, film fests, art shows, and other sweet events. So, if you are ever bored please go here.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programing.

Summer again...

After a several month hiatus, I return to the blogging world! To be honest I have not had much to say over the past couple of months. I spent the majority of my time in the theater this winter and spring. I was in four different shows which gave me no time to go anywhere else. But summer has given me some sweet relief. I am so sad to see myself fall into the vicious cycle of constant endeavor. But without it I would not have been able to conquer what I so desperately had to. I became single again in January. It left me strangely bitter and alone as many break-ups do. However, it gave me an opportunity to really see want I want and need in my life and as I celebrate the 6th month anniversary of that split I find a strange peace in the fact that I could conquer what I did. What I have now in my life is richer, more wholesome, and what is more, completely mine.

I have spent my time going on short road trips and savoring the smallest of moments. If the past nine months taught me anything it is that I have to savor this time that I have. I returned to Camp Meadowood this year to work. I have met some wonderful people from all over the country that I would not have met ordinarily. My old roommate and I have been teaching Arts & Crafts. It is here in this beautiful wilderness that I can celebrate the love and freedom that exists in my life. I am so blessed, blessed beyond worlds. I try to recognize that every day.

In short most of my adventures over the past few months have been that of a personal and emotional journey rather than a physical one. But that is soon to change, for I am getting restless and need to get away. And with that I leave you in hopes that I will be writing again soon.

Namaste,
C

New York...among other things.

I am sad to say that I have completely neglected blogging over the past two months. Time to play catch up again.

New York. I miss it even now. I still have little bits of it inside me. The first day was terrifying. But we spent those first two days in the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art so you feel safe in those huge buildings. My legs have never hurt so bad in my entire life. Everything is crazy, always. The subways are crazy and smelly. Everyone pushes their way in and their way out. You don't say "Excuse me", you just go. You sit down next to someone who you have no idea who they are and two minutes later you are in Times Square where it never is night. All there are is lights, everywhere. It is wonderful. Macy's was insane. I have never been in a store like that. There is an entire monstrous section for ties. I wanted to buy one for every man I knew. I would have if I would have had the money. Everyone wears black except for tourists. They are always wearing white shoes. They are a dead give-away. We made a point of not looking like tourists because they get treated badly. Everywhere you go you have to be loud and you have to demand what you want. Little Italy is wonderful. There are hosts on the streets that yell as you pass by "Table for four, step right in this way...Okay maybe next time!" And in Chinatown if you look at something like you might possibly like it they are right there saying, "You like? You like? For you five dollar, I have in purple, just five dollar." It is wonderful.

Everywhere in New York you go fast. The Subways go fast, the taxis go fast, the people go fast. They run up escalators. There is no such thing as a fat New Yorker. I don't think they exist. In the west we are slugs. We drive slow. We mosey down the street. We ride the escalator. People in the western towns can be complete slobs. New Yorkers are well dressed. You get better service if you are. I wore slacks everyday. It was worth it. Tourists came up to us to ask for directions.

We saw four shows. The Rockettes Christmas Show, The 39 Steps, A Little Night Music, and Avenue Q. All of the shows were wonderful in their own ways.

I want to go back to New York City. I want to go to graduate school near there someday. I would have to toughen up some, New Yorkers are tough and Jersey people are horribly rude but I think that after a week there I was able to handle it. You just dish it right back out. You have to. There is no other way. Maybe Rutgers is the place for me to go. All I know is that someday I will go back.

I <3 NYC

Happy Wandering,

CCosner