I have quite a few half started posts that I have not had the chance to finish. With finals beating down my door and late nights at the paper, I have not been giving as much time to my blog as I would like. The good news? Finals will be over soon (relatively) and the paper is finished for the quarter. This means that my blog will be getting more love from me. 


Things I am planning (and excited about):
– Sustainable Holidays
– What is a GMO and why are people so concerned about them
– Holiday Recipes (cookies, warm drinks, and other delicious items thoroughly tested by myself : ) )
– and quite a few more


In the meantime, you can see my other work that has torn me away from my blog at The Santa Clara! Check out my recent article about our community garden, the Forge:

The hot sun beat down on the three volunteers as they struggled to pull the dry, dead plants from the soil in order to plant for the next season. The garden was empty, except for the three volunteers and the plants swaying in the wind.

At the start of its third year, the Santa Clara Forge Community Garden, located on the corner of Benton and Sherman streets, is in a time of transition. The garden’s previous director, Patrick Archie, left over the summer and a new team has taken his place. New Director Joanna Johnson, Program Coordinator Natalie Yoder and Education and Outreach Coordinator — and Santa Clara alumna — Cara Uy (’11) have been doing their best to make the transition as smooth as possible, especially finding ways to attract more student volunteers.

“(The transition) has been really rough, but we’re getting a lot of support, and nobody’s really pressuring us one way or another,” said Uy. “We get to kind of make the Forge our own.”

One of the biggest challenges for the team is the lack of student volunteers. Volunteer workdays have been moved to Mondays and Thursdays from 2-5p.m. to make the times as convenient for students as possible.

However, many students have no idea that the university has a community garden, let alone where it is located or when they can help.

“We have this feeling that campus doesn’t really quite know about the Forge,” said Leslie Gray, executive director of the Environmental Studies Institute.

To keep reading go to The Santa Clara or pick up a copy on campus!

My roommates are often baffled at all of the things I tell them about sustainability. I honestly think they are under the impression that I am crazy, but I have been slowly seeing changes in their behaviors (which makes me incredibly happy). For something as complicated as living sustainably, even the smallest behavioral changes can make an impact.


Things my roommates have started doing:
1. They ditched the bottled water habit! I haven’t seen bottled water in our apartment since the first week of school. A major part of this was that our fridge came with a built in water filter. As the filter has slowly stopped working as well, they have gotten used to the taste of the tap water. 


2. They turn off the lights when they leave the room (for the most part). 


3. They pack the dishwasher as full as they can before turning it on to save water and energy. 


4. They take really fast showers. Way faster than me (in my defense they are athletes so they take a few really fast showers a day).


5. They dress in layers instead of turning on the heater.


6. One of my roommates hangs her laundry up to dry.


7. Open windows instead of turning on the air conditioning. They have also worked out which windows and blinds to open during certain parts of the day depending on if we want to cool the apartment down or warm it up. 


8. They indulge in coffee and hot chocolate to warm up on cold mornings and nights.


9. We go to bed early which means we use less energy than if we stayed up late and got up late (in the mornings we only need the daylight and our lights are not on for long at night). 


10. When they do not have enough laundry to fill the washing machine, they ask around for who else needs to do laundry, which saves water and energy.


11. Instead of just throwing things away they ask me if it can be recycled.


What small things are you doing to be more sustainable?

At the beginning of this week it was in the high 70’s and I was seriously over dressed in a sweater dress (I really don’t know what I was thinking on that one). Yesterday and today are now at least 20 degrees colder, and I am struggling to stay warm just thinking about going outside. 


As the winter weather settles in to stay, we need to beat the temptation to just turn on the heat and keep wearing our shorts and flip flops. Instead of pretending it’s spring or summer year round, bundle up and enjoy the weather. Warming yourself up without turning on the heater will save energy and money.


1. Dress in layers. This way you can take things off or put things on depending on the inside/outside temperature. 


2. Don’t touch that dial! Resist the temptation to notch up the thermostat. See if you can leave it at 67 or 68. If you are really brave, see if you can live without it for most of the day (obviously if you live where it snows this isn’t brilliant).


3. Put on another sweater and a blanket when you are at home. 


4. Eat and drink warm things. Soup and tea keep me toasty.


5. Invite friends over. People can warm up a room in no time. 

I was shocked last year when I heard that SCU had a goal of being carbon neutral by 2015. I knew Santa Clara was starting many initiatives to decrease our carbon emissions, but I had no idea we had the ultimate goal of carbon neutral. The more I talked to people around campus, the clearer it became that students didn’t know about our goal either. 


This lack of awareness led to dig deeper into our goal and how we were planning on getting there. For more information check out my article in The Santa Clara (front page above the fold!!!):

Santa Clara University has reduced carbon emissions for the first time in four years since committing a pledge for higher standards of sustainability on campus.  

The change comes just one year after President Michael Engh, S.J., set the goal for the university to be carbon neutral by 2015.

“Our goal for the end of 2010 was to reduce our emissions 20 percent below to ‘97 levels by the end of 2010 — we got to 11 percent,” said Lindsey Cromwell, director of the Office of Sustainability.  “A little bit disappointing, but we went in the right direction.”

For the rest of the story go to The Santa Clara or pick up a copy on campus!

Anyone who has ever seen a movie or TV show about college knows that on Halloween weekend students go out in full force to party. Whether some students wish to express their creativity through intricate homemade costumes or other feel the need for thousands of other students to see their underwear, dressing up to go out is a must. 


This weekend I saw costumes of all kinds as well as ridiculous amounts of waste and mess. Candy wrappers litter the classrooms from professors or students handing out candy in class, various pieces of costumes are strewn across campus, and the surroundings streets are filled with empty bottles, red cups, and other littler. 

Not only did more students than normal go to parties, they wasted more resources and left them in various places in the neighborhood. The parties spanning Thursday through Monday have left the surrounding area in complete disarray. The carelessness that many college students exude towards waste and littering really frustrates me. It baffles me that students are not bothered by the amount of red cups on the streets around campus. Is it really that difficult to recycle them after you are finished with them, or clean them up the day after the party if you went out or hosted people?

It disappoints me that students waste so many resources year round, not just during Halloween. It makes me wonder why they are so careless — is it because they aren’t paying for the cups, they don’t have to pick them up, they didn’t buy their costume, they don’t pay for the trash, everyone else is doing the same thing, or a mix of these things? Without understanding why students act like this we will never be able to change their behaviors. I guess it’s time for someone to go out on Wednesday and Friday nights and start questioning the students wandering the streets. 


If you do go out, please reuse and recycle your red cups. You can even bring your own reusable cup from home. Encourage your friends and fellow partiers to do the same. 

It seems like there is a large misconception around campus that you have to have long clothes lines to be able to hang out your laundry. It’s disappointing because students have more room to air dry their laundry than they assume. I can fit an entire load of laundry and then some on my clothes rack. You really only need as much floor space as your drying rack takes up. In a pinch I have even placed mine on a desk or on top of my bed (the bed is more of a challenge because you have to balance the weight to keep it from tipping off). However, I am incredibly lucky this year that I have a balcony that fits my drying rack so well.

It is fairly easy to air dry clothes with very little space. Clothes racks come in all shapes and sizes that will fit into even the smallest corners. Hanging clothes on hangers in doorways or off any other surface is another way to increase the amount of clothes you can dry at once.


Hanging my clothes out to dry not only saves energy, but it also makes my clothes last so much longer. Most of my clothes have never been through the dryer, and they look great. All of my athletic fabrics are still holding their shape and stretch, and my jeans are still the same color as when I bought them. Ditching the dryer can save you money, even if you live in the dorms and don’t pay for electiricy. The longer your clothes last the less you have to replace them or repair them. 

This week has been absolutely brutal. Between midterms, group projects, the constant onslaught of interviews and writing for the paper and for class, and trying to find time to sleep, I unfortunately had time for little time for anything else.

But out of this disaster of a week I got a gem — my first byline. What was not only the most fun I had all week, the San Jose Bike Party was also the best research I have ever had to do for school. Check out my story!

San Jose’s Rolling Party

Riders decorated and lit up their bikes, blasted their music on speakers attached to their bikes or on a trailer towed behind them and dressed up as angels and demons in honor of the “Rapture” themed San Jose Bike Party on Friday night.

The San Jose Bike Party is a community bike ride organized and run by volunteers. On the third Friday of every month, people gather to ride their bikes around San Jose in different routes of about 20-30 miles with two stops along the way. The event draws people from all around the Bay Area, including Santa Clara students.

More than 4,000 people, many in costumes, hit the San Jose streets with their bikes in celebration of the ride’s fourth anniversary on Friday night. Their shouts of “Bike Party” and cheering echoed through the neighborhoods along the route.

“I like the energy,” said freshman Karina Soto, a San Jose native who participated in the Bike Party for her eighth time on Friday night. “(The Bike Party) is a lot of fun and everyone is really open and having a good time.”

To continue the story go to The Santa Clara  or pick up the paper on campus.

After the electric car disappeared off the road in 2006, all was silent until recently. “Revenge of the Electric Car” looks into why car companies purposefully destroyed electric cars (as shown in “Who Killed the Electric Car“) only to bring them back in full force in recent years.