Finals are Exhausting..

Two nights in a row I'm tuckered out by 12. What's happening today? Not a whole lot. Today (Monday), is a wonderful test to my ability to focus and be studious. I have no finals on Monday but I have one late Tuesday and 3 on Wednesday. This means I should really study hard Monday and work on assignments due for my online class. This will be an interesting test. 


Come back for more in a bit. ;)


Always,
H.Eilene

Happy Sunday

Well, yesterday's plan was to study like crazy for the impending doom this week brings, but around 6pm I was down for the count feeling sick. Laid in bed/ went to bed early and am feeling much better today. Today's plans are nothing too crazy. I'm gonna drive out to Nebagamon, bake 2 cakes, and then come back and study more.

Today's Environmental Fact:
We each (the average American) uses about 12 thousand (yeah 12,000) gallons of water EVERY year.

What does that mean?
Well, there are 3,193,239,727,500,000 gallons in Lake Superior. If you were to block off all tributaries leading into the lake and cut off all water added by precipitation and have the US only use water from the 3rd largest lake in the world (by volume)... it would take how long to drain the lake?

Let's start the math here..

According to the US Census Bureau there are 313,494,747 people in the US as of right now.
In one year those people will use 3,761,936,964,000 gallons of water.

Divide the volume of water in Lake Superior by the volume of water the people in the US will use in one year and you get 848 years until the lake is drained.
BUT...
Population is growing every day. After five minutes, I have refreshed the population clock for the US, and it's already up another 20 people. IF this continues (which it will) there's no way it would take that long to drain the lake.

Freshwater is the most scarce and difficult to reach natural resource and yet, we rely so heavily on it that if it were to disappear.. our entire world would come to a halt. People would starve, and people would die of dehydration.

Moral lesson of the day?
Reduce your water consumption.

Always,
H.Eilene

3,193,239,727,500,000


We each use about 12,000 gallons of water every year

7 Days...

Hey Folks!! 

Happy Friday. Happy cold dreary windy Friday. 

Today, I went to my final classes of the semester.. how do you think that made me feel?  

a) Happy? 

b) Sad? 

c) Excited? 

d) Sentimental?

e) None of the above. 

You'd be most correct either answering c or e. It's not that those other feelings weren't somewhere in my day.. but not necessarily because of the end of classes. I was A. Happy because I had a wonderful early-afternoon with my amazing boyfriend. I was B. Sad, because my father hung up on me, and he never called back. I was C. excited because that means summer is almost ere. I was D. sentimental because I realized that I'm going to have to say goodbye to my two new best friends very soon, and I know I won't see them for a while. E. is only semi correct because my excitement was quickly drowned out by the swallowing stress of finals coming. 

Today's environmental fact has to do with Hershey's Kisses. Yum right? 

Did you know.. 

Over 20 million (yeah 20,000,000) Hershey's Kisses are wrapped in a day. Did you know that's about 133 square miles of tinfoil?

How is this an environmental fun fact? 

Tinfoil is recyclable. Most people don't recycle their wrappers. 

Here's a question for ya... 

Have you ever recycled a Hershey's Kiss wrapper?

Here's a new answer... 

You should. 

Always,

H.Eilene

Happy 5K!!

Hey Readers and Friends!!

You've all just made my life sooo happy. I set out this blog journey with a goal to hit 5k by the time I ended my year. I've officially reached 5k with 8 days to spare. :) Thank you so much for reading. Don't quit now, because I'm not. I've got adventures to come, and I want you all to join me on it. 


This calls for celebration, and I'm starting by cranking up the Jimmy Buffet Pandora and finishing homework (yeahhhh... I can't do much celebrating while I've got this pesky list of homework.) 


Environmental Fun Fact of the day: 
About 1% of landfill space in the US is taken up by disposable diapers. 
Less fun environmental fact:
Disposable diapers take about 500 years to decompose. 


Here's a question for you...


Would switching to reusable diapers really make less of an impact? 


Think of the different things that go into re-using them:  
Water
Soap


They seem like small things.. but how many diapers do babies and toddlers go through in a day? How many times would you have to be washing them? How much water and soap would that consume? Don't forget that water is one of the most important natural resources the earth has to offer us. 


Diapers. Who knew? 

Happy 5K =] 
Always Yours,

H.Eilene 


Pictures:
http://www.untiredwithloving.org/palm_tree_2.jpg
http://myfrugaladventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/huggies-box-diapers.jpg

Thirsty Thursday!!

Don't worry!!! Of course I mean coffee...  :)

Today's plan is to get as much of my weekend homework done, so that allllll next week I can focus ONLY on finals. I know that sounds silly... why would there be homework assignments into finals week? But.. it happens.

I'm getting pretty stoked for finals.. and by finals.. I mean the end of finals. 8 days until I move home. 8 days and a couple hours. May 11th, my final final is at 10:00 and ends roughly around 11:55. My dad will be here sometime after I finish to load up the truck (because I plan to be packed by the time he comes) and then off we'll go. Home at last.

Happy Thursday to everyone! Back home they're getting nailed with some storms, couldn't be more jealous. Duluth got a couple rumbles yesterday but nothing more.
The picture is totally irrelevant except that I love the island we were approaching on the ferry. Catalina Island. Someday, I'm gonna go back.
Always,
H.Eilene

Geo of Religions: The Final Class

Tonight we watch "The Way" to end our class experience. So far, in the first hour of class, we have done course evaluations, gone over the ridiculous study guide, and pigged out. Yes.. that's right.. pigged out. Dr. Kulhke brought pop, tea, popcorn and pizza for the class. He's a great professor, and I can assure you, I want to take more classes with him. Not because he brought food, because he was actually a great teacher. 


Technically, I should be watching the movie, but it's easy to multitask :) 


Charlie Sheen's brother is in the movie.. brother or son? Martin Sheen. I'm pretty sure his character died just now. Sad day. Dead people are depressing. 


Good day to you!
Always,
H.Eilene

GOOD DAY #2

hELLO fRIENDS! 


Today is good day number 2. Do you know what I'm holding in this picture? It's the beautiful, wonderful, red, leather smelling wallet that contains my entire life. What??! It came??! Yes. 


I came to the sudden terrifying realization that to pick up packages, one must first show their ID to the mail-room person... My ID was in my wallet. Along with everything else pertinent to survival. Luckily for me.. my god mother's son (god brother?) was working in the mail-room and didn't make me jump through hoops to get it. 


Do you want to know what the first thing I want to do is? Buy coffee. I'm an addict. I'm an addict who hasn't had any caffeine in three days. Do you know what that does to a person? It makes them do crazy things.. like go to bed at 11, and gives crazy painful headaches.. 


Anyways, Wallet back, and I AM OFFICIALLY AND ENGLISH LLC (LITERATURE LANGUAGE AND CULUTRE) MAJOR!!!! EEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppp!!! 


Happy music time! (Yeah it's TSwift, but I'm a girl.. so it happens) 

Always Yours,
H.Eilene


Audrey Hepburn, my favorite female actress ever to have walked the face of the earth once said, "I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles"