Monday, June 27, 2005

Well I have finally well and truly succumbed to the heat, and I am now sitting in my room with the air conditioner going at full blast. I feel so guilty, like I am literally sucking the energy out of the earth . . . but I thought I was going to go crazy with the heat.

I have been reading so much about biomass energy lately! I never realised that biomass energy was so popular in Brazil. In Brazil, most cars run on ethanol that is made from sugar cane. I think this is such a great idea. It sounds like a good way to break our dependence on oil.

Anyway, that's my two cents for today . . . I have to go and enjoy my air conditioning!

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

good comment from another teacher

Hey guys, I got a really good comment from another teacher on my blog. He was talking about the issues or recycling right here on campus. Last school year, there used to be a group of students that used to go around collecting paper for recycling, but I guess they all graduated, and now there is no one left to recycle our paper. As I am moving back to Canada, this issue really worried me because I have soooo much paper that I don't need anymore, and I don't know what to do with it. I guess I will have to take it myself somewhere for recycling. It's too bad that there isn't a "save the environment" club on campus here at Kansai Gaidai like there are at universities in Canada / the US, etc. You'd think the university itself would be concerned with this issue. I wonder how we could get paper to be recycled here on campus.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Is 20 really the smoking age in Japan?

I was just chatting with a friend, when we realised that it seems like the convienience store on campus is selling cigarettes to underaged people. Isn't the smoking age 20 in Japan? It seems to me like a lot of people are under the age of 20, and they are smoking here at Kansai Gaidai. Does the university condone this? Isn't it illegal to sell cigarettes to people under the age of 20? I guess money is more important than health,legal issues, or even people's lives.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

I was just preparing for tomorrow's class about energy sources, and I found this really cool blog all about alternative energy: http://alt-e.blogspot.com/

There is really a lot of cool information about alternative energy sources such as wind power - check it out!

Thursday, June 09, 2005

This is really a global issue, but I have been really trying hard to find an easy way to post pictures in my blogs, and I think I have found it! www.flickr.com seems to be really easy. You just have to create an account and upload your pictures, and then you can either directly blog in flickr (and it will show up in your blogger blog), or you can copy and past the information into blogger. Anyway, this is an experiment using a picture that my Mum just sent me:

baby llama

Aren't they cute? My parents live on a small farm in central Alberta, and they have llamas and minature horses. The llamas are so great. They are kind of like camels with no humps, but you can raise them for their wool. Their wool makes great sweaters and socks! My parents also have tons of cats on their farm, and three dogs. I can't wait to see all the animals again soon. I miss having lots of animals around me all the time.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

That's it, I have finally broken down and turned on the air conditioning in my office. I have been feeling very self-righteous lately because I wasn't using the air conditioning in my office, because I wanted to try and do something to help the environment, but just now I had a huge hissy fit because of the heat, and now I am relaxing in the air conditioned paradise that is my office. s i g h. I feel like such a big hypocrite. First the disaster with my milk cartons (I forgot to wash them out, and they got all moldy and stinky so that I couldn't recyle them), and now I am using the air conditioning. However, I am still going to try and not use it at home. There I have more windows so I can get a bit of a cross breeze in my apartment.