MERDE.

SHIT.
This week has been a fiasco sprinkled with little moments of greatness. Classes started this week. They posted our class schedules like, Friday afternoon, so the past few days have been a flurry of trying to mash together three different kinds of class schedules in order to get all of the complementary courses I need in.

I had to resort to taking pictures of the posted classes, because in one location two of the kinds of classes are posted one with : day, time, classroom, the other only with a course code. Then you have to treck to another building to look up the course code and copy the information, still without a description of the class. Basically I've just shown up to these unknown classes mostly because they happened to fit my schedule, and hope for the best. I've been lucky. I've found a really interesting Algerian Police Novel class, and a comparison class between Renaissance Art and Literature.

Those are the high moments. Then I hit a rut like today, where I walk to school, only to find the class has been moved (to a time and date that eliminates yet another potential complimentary class) - though they still havn't told us the classroom, and then had to walk home again. I popped into yet another university building to try and sign myself up for a Intro. German class, and find out that they started almost a month ago, continue until June, and ask for 125euros for the course (basically that I'd be behind indefinitely). So depressing. At first I just got angry. Now it's just a kind of resigned lethargy. I don't want to do anything, because anything always requires so much energy (aka comparing photos snapped of courses, comparing the schedules, actually finding the classrooms since there's usually no building indicated...), and usually lead to disapointment: classes cancelled, moved, or non-existant.

Then I got my marks back today. It was like a slap in the face. Somehow I went from getting a 17 in comprehension orale to an 11,5 (average of 13,7), and a 14,5 in comprehension ecrite to a 9 (average of 11,75)???? How could I possibly be regressing so badly? The worst part is I have no idea who to talk to about this, because the teacher's know just about as much as us, and the secretaries are all crocodiles ready to tear the heart and gull bladder out of any student who so much as dares step into their office.

AND the IIEF is trying to offer us complementary courses that they offered last semester to the french group four levels below ours. At first that really bothered me (that's like the difference between being able to hold a conversation or being able to make a full, grammatically correct sentence), but after seeing my marks ... who knows, maybe it's what I should be taking.

I seem to recall our supervisor telling us we need at least a 14 to get the credits. The thought of going back to Canada with anything less but the full slew of credits I was supposed to get here makes me want to break things (especially IIEF things). If I can't get these credits I will have to honestly rethink my entire degree, I'm staying five years as it is.

My self confidence is entirely shattered. How can I pass these courses when last semester's marks were rat shit???

I don't know how to do this.

#3. No Plastic Bottles.

I am defiant. I refuse to purchase plastic bottles, whether they be for water, juice or milk (sounds weird, but milk does come in plastic bottles here). Unfortunately I can't cut out all plastic per se, since most toiletries and condiments come in plastic. However I can cut my usage of drinking bottles right out - from now on I will only be allowed to buy things that come in glass bottles or cartons.

Here's a kind of depressing reality (I promise to blog something a little more uplifting soon):

"Sometimes known as the horse latitudes, it is a Texas-sized span of ocean between Hawaii and California rarely plied by sailors because of a perennial, slowly rotating high-pressure vortex of hot equatorial air that inhales wind and never gives it back. Beneath it, the water describes lazy, clockwise whorls toward a depression at the center.
Its correct name is the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, though Moore soon learned that oceanographers had another label for it: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch...For a week, Moore and his crew found themselves crossing a sea the size of a small continent, covered with floating refuse. It was not unlike an Arctic vessel pushing through chunks of brash ice, except what was bobbing around them was a fright of cups, bottle caps, tangles of fish netting and monofilament









line, bits of polystyrene packaging, six-pack (Image taken from this site: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512424/Rubbish-dump-floating-Pacific-Ocean-twice-size-America.html) rings, spent balloons, filmy scraps of sandwich wrap, and limp plastic bags that defied counting....
By 2005, Moore was referring to the gyrating Pacific dump as 10 million square miles - nearly the size of Africa. It wasn't the only one: the planet has six other major tropical ocean gyres, all of them swirling with ugly debris." [emphasis added]
(Weisman, Alan. The World Without Us. Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2007)

Iiiiin other words, buy a Sigg bottle if you like having a water bottle with you wherever you go.
Exhibit A:

#2. No plastic exfoliants.

That last blog had a ranting quality that I kind of find distasteful. I think my frustration with the french scholastic system is affecting my general chill-ness. In an attempt to be more positive, here is my second New Years Eco Project resolution (I have to give Signe credit for this idea, it was her blog that made me want to do a New Years thing).

"Especially troubling was that Hardy's plankton recorder had trapped all this plastic 10 meters below the surface, suspended in the water. Since plastic mostly floats, that meant they were seeing just a fraction of what was actually there. Not only was the amount of plastic in the ocean increasing, but ever smaller bits of it were appearing - small enough to ride global sea currents. Thompson's team realized that slow mechanical action - waves and tides that grind against shorelines, turning rocks into beaches - were now doing the same to plastics... At the same time, there was no sign that any of the plastic was biodegrading, even when reduced to tiny fragments." (Weisman, Alan. The World Without Us. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007. 144-145)
Weisman then goes on to talk about all the animals we hear about that die from plastic in the ocean, otters choking on the plastic six pack rings, birds strangled by nets, and other big sea animals found dead with chunks of plastic in their stomachs. He goes on to talk about the smaller animals in the ocean now ingesting these smaller particles, and how for many of them if the plastic bits are too big, it gets lodged in their intestines. Weisman refers to an experiment done by Richard Thompson on lugworms (some kind of bottom feeder), wherein on ingesting plastic, "... the particles lodged in their intestines, the resulting constipation was terminal." (Weisman, 145)

So here's where we get to exfoliants:
When we shower, and use our exfoliants, with their "micro-fine polyethylene granules," or "polyethylene micro-spheres," or "polyethylene beads," we're washing teensy little pieces of plastic right down the drain. Into the rivers and ocean, and into aqua-life bellies.

It's not hard to check the ingrediants list on the next bottle of exfoliant that you buy, and to get the bottle that's a buck fifty more expensive that uses natural exfoliants (which are apparently things like ground up seeds and crushed walnut shells).

So I vow never to use an exfoliant with plastic, not just for this year, but for the rest of my life.
Huzzah!

Meat.

This blog will probably offend a few people, and for that I'm sorry.

Yesterday I wrote a blog about being more environmentally friendly and eating less meat in order to limit the strain that animal farming puts on our land and water resources. I never realized meat was such a touchy subject: within a day I had a slew of comments. I love getting comments, all comments, even if they're controversial. The only thing I can say really, is that I would ask people not to take what I have written, and twist it to fit their political agenda.

This website, http://meat.org (please don't visit it unless you're really curious, if you've ever watched PETA videos it's basically the same brutality and sensationalism* except with John Travolta CORRECTION ALEC BALDWIN, SORRY JOHN as the narrator) was suggested to me in following with my blog about eating less meat. Though I am somewhat resentful that this kind of propaganda* has been put forward and basically politicizing and shifting the agenda from my eat-less-meat-to-be-greener to don't-eat-meat-because-they-torture-baby-cows, I've got to thank you for writing this comment, because it has opened up a passionate subject of debate that I think interests a lot of people.

*I use the word sensationalism and propaganda very tentatively here, so please don't just close this screen if you're a PETA or meat.org advocate. I will explain why, though they fight for a very good cause (the rights of farm animals and decency as well as the implementation of merciful and painless slaughter) I think their videos are sensationalist.

I don't care what side you support, all I ask is that if you do comment on this blog, that you remain respectful to other people and their arguments (and call me out on it if I'm not being fair or respectful!).

Hear me out:
I resent those PETA videos on farming. Not because I don't agree with their cause, I totally do. Except I make a difference my way: I eat eggs from free range chickens, when I can I buy chicken breasts from farms where the chickens are also free range. I have made an effort to eat as little veal and lamb as possible. I don't cut out meat, but I'm not a mindless-meat-consuming machine.
But here's what really pisses me off: while much of what they document rings of truth, there is a whole lot of bullshit in their videos. They don't give you any numbers, like, how many farms they visited where farmers were abusing their livestock - or showing farms that treated their animals well, read: standards that should be applied. They throw out things like, farmers are sadistic bastards who painfully de-beak their chickens because they've driven the chickens crazy and its the only way to keep them from killing each other. I had the misfortune of spewing this one day at a friend's house (oh yes, I was a PETA girl once), and her dad turned to me and shut me down. I had forgotten he had been a farmer once. He told me that everyone has to de-beak the chickens because they are aggressive by nature and will actually kill one another. Of course he admitted that some farmers might abuse their animals, just like some people abuse their pets, but many farmers love (is love too strong a word? Even I don't think you could bear killing an animal you love) their animals, or maybe, care about them anyway.
It was then that the seed of doubt was implanted in my mind. If PETA was sensationalizing de-beaking, what else were they telling us that wasn't necessarily true?

Just in case you don't buy the whole farmers-HAVE-to-de-beak-their-chickens bit (I had my doubts too, so I found an article from a scientific magazine) here's some info:

"The practice of beak trimming in the poultry industry occurs to prevent excessive body pecking, cannibalism, and to avoid feed wastage. To assess the welfare implications of the procedure, an emphasis of this paper has been placed on the anatomical structures that comprise the beak and mouth parts and a representation of the structures removed following beak trimming. Five animal welfare concerns regarding the procedure have been addressed, including the following: loss of normal beak function, short-term pain and temporary debilitation, tongue and nostril damage, neuromas and scar tissue, and long-term and phantom limb pain. Because all of the concerns involve the nervous system, the current knowledge of the avian somatosensory system was summarized. The critical components include touch, pain, and thermal receptors in the buccal cavity and bill, the trigeminal system, and neural projections mapped to the pallium (cortical-like tissue in the avian forebrain). At the present time, a need remains to continue the practice of beak trimming in the poultry industry to prevent head, feather, and vent pecking in some lines of birds. The procedure, however, should involve conservative trimming and be limited to young birds. Importantly, data show that removing 50% or less of the beak of chicks can prevent the formation of neuromas and allow regeneration of keratinized tissue to prevent deformed beaks and therefore positively affect the quality of life of birds during their lifetime."
(Kuenzel, W.J. "Neurobiological Basis of Sensory Perception: Welfare Implications of Beak Trimming", Poultry Science Association, 2007 http://ps.fass.org/cgi/content/full/86/6/1273 Accessed Jan.20, 2009)

There are negative effects to beak trimming, all I'm saying is that its not some kind of needless abusive procedure. The scientist acknowledges that though there are health implications, it is necessary until a better solution can be found. This is a far cry from the horrific and needless procedure that PETA makes it out to be (in my opinion).

I don't like being fed propaganda, no matter what the source is. I acknowledge that the slaughtering standards should be improved (they should make all slaughter houses kosher, in my opinion), but that doesn't mean you should use scare tactics. Plus, because PETA videos advocate vegetarianism and the complete elimination of meat consumption, that ostrasizes a large population that want to still eat meat but don't want the animals to suffer for it. If someone came out with a video that gave credible facts, gave an unbiased (or at least radically less biased) account of what is going on in the livestock industry, I think a lot more changes would be implemented (and faster) than a few people being put off meat because they watched that whole video (I'm glad today was a no meat day for project New Years Eco, gross).
ANNND if this hypothetical video of livestock rights added a little segment on how livestock farming strains the environment, and encourages reduced meat consumption, everything would be just peachy as far as I'm concerned.
Sometimes I just don't know what to think though, you know? There are articles that praise animal rights groups like PETA, and there are many that condemn them. We just have to find a medium between both extremes I guess.

#1: Eat less meat.

I like meat. A sandwich just doesn't seem like a sandwich without meat in it. I'm the last person that wants to become a vegetarian. People have been eating meat for hundreds of thousands of years. Our teeth are set up the same as many omnivorous animals. Humans were MEANT to eat meat... but that doesn't mean we have to all the time.

Considering how much waste is produced and resources that are used for our meat consumption, it's a small sacrifice to go meat-free once to twice a week.

Here's some more info on the environmental impact of our meat production (its remarkably hard to find unbiased articles on the net about this subject... lots of gung-ho vegan articles, of which I doubt the credibility of their facts, no offense to all you extreme vegans out there):

"Most of the world’s water is used for agriculture. However, production and processing of meat requires a disproportionate amount of water compared to any other form of food production. Industrial-scale feedlots can house hundreds of animals, thereby creating enormous pressure on local water supplies. According to our calculations, water used for meat production and processing accounts for 14% of the environmental impacts the average Canadian household has on aquatic habitat. (See The Science of the Challenge for these calculations.) In arid regions, livestock competes against humans for water... The second greatest impact of meat production is on land. Meat production is the world’s largest user of land, for pastures and through the use of arable land for fodder crops. In Canada, livestock numbers have increased over the last five years for cattle (4.4%), pigs (26.4%), chickens (23.4%) and sheep (46%). This astonishing growth in livestock means that the production of cereal crops raised for feed must increase. This only increases the burden on land and water. "

(Pazderka, Catherine et al., The Green Guide to David Suzuki's Nature Challenge, 2008)

Here's a fun blog that you might want to check out sometime, kind of reminds me of a book I read recently (My Year of Living Biblically, by A.J Jacobs). The site seems to be about some guy that has been trying to completely eliminate his environmental impact: http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/
(Apparently they're making it into a book AND a movie!)

Here are his "facts" (I only put "facts" in quotation marks because I can't seem to access his sources, but I am ready to believe what he has put down) about eating meat:

18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock (more than from transportation).

70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon was cleared to pasture cattle.

Two-thirds (64 percent) of anthropogenic ammonia emissions, which contribute significantly to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems, come from cattle.

The livestock sector accounts for over 8 percent of global human water use, while 64 percent of the world’s population will live in water-stressed areas by 2025.

The world’s largest source of water pollution is believed to be the livestock sector.

In the United States, livestock are responsible for a third of the loads of nitrogen and phosphorus into freshwater resources.

Livestock account for about 20 percent of the total terrestrial animal biomass, and the 30 percent of the earth’s land surface that they now pre-empt was once habitat for wildlife, in an era of unprecedented threats to biodiversity.

These problems will only get worse as meat production is expected to double by 2050.

(No Impact Man, 2007, Accessed Jan.19, 2009. http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/why-the-no-impa.html)
Today is Monday, and I already ate some meat with my sandwich. I think tomorrow will be one of my No-Meat days for this week.

New Years's Resolution(s)

I finally figured it out. (Two weeks too late... so unprepared). I've decided that my New Year's Resolution is to try to be a Greener person. The idea first came to me when the David Suzuki Foundation (did you know its a Canadian foundation...??? Maybe I'm seriously out of the loop here, but I had no clue until I googled it in France) sent me an email about messaging the Finance Minister Jim Flaherty about including more eco-friendly strategies in the new budget.

Please visit
http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=94&ea.campaign.id=2264
to send your message, it honestly takes like, 5 mintues, and then you get a cool little email from the Ministry of Finance saying Mr. Flaherty thanks you for blah-blah-blah.
JUST DO IT. NOW. The budget comes out January 27th.

A Green Economy: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/GreenEconomy/
(Interesting article on how a green economy can generally strengthen the Canadian economy despite the economic crisis).

Anyway so I think I'm going to come up with 12 Resolutions on how I can be a greener person, and I can't just pick things I do already, like walk everywhere and use public transit. I'm going to find things that I didn't really know about before, or that I never do, so that I can be a greener person.

New Years Fail

As I read the various blogs I've subscribed myself to, I have come to the conclusion that I'm probably the only person who didn't write a witty little blog about the New Year, or give a list of resolutions that I should follow.

My resolution: TO BE MORE ON TOP OF SHIT DAMN IT.

I will find something cooler in the theme of the New Year to blog about. It will be several days/weeks/blogs late, but at least it's something.
Crap. I can't believe myself sometimes. Bahahha. Now I can't believe I'm chastising myself over a blog....

"Oh Pardon"

Ughhh visited Strasbourg's (and Eastern France's one of two) "Subway" today (you know, the restaurant). It was weird going to a fast food joint where full grown men were working and talking kindly to the children on the other side of the counter rather than surly, pimply teenagers. You could tell that Subway was a fairly new concept though (the little girl asked her mom as they were wrapping up a tortilla, "C'est une crêpe maman?"), and the men behind the counter were taking their sweet time.

And they didn't cook the bacon. (That's me on the right being haunted by the bacon... hahaha but actually: a painting by Francis Bacon)

It looks like pre-cooked bacon. I mean... I really HOPE it's pre-cooked bacon. Because they just popped it into my sandwich rather than cooking it on those dinky little carton trays in the microwave... It was still mushy when I started eating the sub. So now I'm wondering if its half-cooked bacon, whether the mere suggestion to my stomach that I may have food poisoning is making it roil, or if the idea of getting food poisoning the day before we go to Paris (where you have to pay 50 centimes every time you want to use the washroom - if you can find one that is) is stressing me out so much that I'm giving myself indigestion.

Ah well. We'll know by tomorrow won't we? Food poisoning twice in a matter of six months....never had this in my life before coming to France damn it. I THOUGHT THEY INVENTED HAUT CUISINE?!?! Bastards keep poisoning me.

Anyway the title of this blog was actually because I think I might be one of the most apologetic tourists EVER. Even as I was boiling with resigned rage at the thought of being food poisoned, as I imagined myself going back the next day to yell at them, all I pictured in my head was of myself apologizing but telling them that they really should cook the bacon first. It's the same with everything. People rudely bump into me at the super market without saying a word, and I find myself saying sorry, even though I was the one they shouldered aside. Sometimes I cringe when I hear other exchange students talking with french people if they don't apologize for bothering them or thank them profusely, because of this weird sense of overcompensation.

Is it a Canadian thing, that we're too P.C or too polite, that we're apologetic for even being in a country not our own? Or is it France? Are they so haughty on the outside that while you break through to their friendliness you feel unwanted and guilty for making them put up with you?