Journal

two days to first quarter
june 1, 2006 ~ 5:04 p.m.

I haven't posted in about a year. I guess I've been doing a lot of photoblogging which has led to neglect of this journal. Also, I don't really have a whole lot to say. I guess I'm not the type of person who can just do a personal blog on a regular basis, because I don't really have much to say that's actually interesting and I don't like to write when I have nothing to say.

So a quick update on my life now that I've been out of college for a year: For the first half of the year I did some volunteer work and a lot of job hunting. Over the holidays I worked at the National Cathedral gift shop filling catalog orders, which was tedious and tiring but man I loved working in that building. Then I got a job at a environmental organization in DC as a web intern, which means that these web design/html/etc skills I've been developing on my own for the last six years have actually come to some use, finally. And it's all me, of course; that one stupid web course I took in college was totally useless.

I could easily have this job without my degree in Natural Resources. My formal education is irrelevant. But it did get me in the door, which seems to be the point of a degree. Schools don't exist to actually teach us things; they exist to sort us into neat categories so that everyone isn't competing for the top jobs. But I had to play into that because that's the way the world works.

Anyway, I do really love this job--it's a great office and the work is usually not horribly boring. I'm staying through the summer, and I'm going to try to find something along the same lines (except permanent and higher-paying) for after that. I've definitely gained a lot of experience and skills in this job, and I'm pretty happy with how things are going right now.

In completely unrelated news, I've gone vegan again, which is something I always thought I might try again after college. It's easier in DC than it was in Wisconsin because I have access to many great natural food stores and to restaurants that actually have vegan choices. I'm also being a stricter vegan this time around--no free-range eggs or meat (not entirely convinced it's as humane as it claims, and animal products are just not that healthy anyway), no sustainable fish (don't like fish enough to risk the mercury and all), and no little ingredients like caesin or whey. Oh, and no exception for pizza. Yeah, I was a pretty lax "vegan" before. But hell, being mostly vegan is a helluva lot better than just eating any animal products, right?

I'm still not the strictest vegan, though--I do eat refined sugar, because water is filtered through animal bones too, and I can't really boycott that, and I do eat honey because it doesn't look like they really suffer, and yeah a few are killed in the process but just as many insects are killed growing plants — and other animals, like gophers, as well. It's impossible to not lead to some deaths when you eat. If you really want to eliminate your harm to animals, the only way is kill yourself, and that's just a little too radical for me. I just feel like when it comes to those grey-area issues, each vegan has to decide for themselves where to draw the line.

The people over at Vegan Outreach seem to have a similar philosophy to me, and there are some great articles on these issues.

Right now I'm trying to decide how I feel about eating clams. They don't have central nervous systems, so they probably don't suffer at all, and both the wild and farmed versions are pretty eco-friendly, according to Oceans Alive. I guess the only reason vegans wouldn't eat them is that they're biologically animals, but that's sort of meaningless, really. When it comes to veganism, the real issue isn't arbitrary classification (well, arbitrary for our purposes, anyway), but whether or not it suffers. It doesn't look like they do. Even Peter Singer thinks it's fine to eat clams, and he's practically a vegan god. (Not that I agree with Peter Singer on everything, mind you. I just think it's interesting that he seems to disagree with most vegans on this point.)

I'm only thinking about it because I'm going to Maine this summer, and it would be nice to be able to eat clams. Of course New England Clam Chowder invariably has dairy in it anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter. And clams do have cholesterol in them, which is something I'd rather not eat.

Well, I'll probably post again in another year. See you then.

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