Day Three

                I have been a solar panel for over 72 hours now and I am  beginning to get the hang of it.  I am finding that It is not too difficult to make most adjustments to the low energy alternatives in daily life. Stairs are not too much of a hassle to deal with ,seeing as, the most I have to climb at any given time is four flights or less. The main difficulty with stairs is dealing with the psychological effect of forgetting something that you needed back in your dorm room. My frustration  seemed disproportionate to the actual amount of energy I needed to expend to get back to my room.

                I remember getting all the way down stairs just to have that mind sputtering thought of " Did I lock my door? I'm sure I did. Ugh. you know what to do." four flights later and I was back at my door confirming that I had locked it in the first place. I was mad at myself and gravity at first, but then I realized It was not actually that difficult to double check and in the future with more access to electricity it would be even easier. So if nothing else I believe this experiment has made me more calm about forgetting something that is easily corrected and that there is no reason to waste sunlight on that kind of frustration.

                Eating vegan also presented some new interesting challenges. I have decided that the only way I could possible live within my energy means is to eat only vegan. The dining room on campus (TDR) is very vegan friendly and I am enjoying trying foods I would not normally eat, however I have been hungrier than I usually am. Once I found myself daydreaming about the things I used to eat and before I realized it I had doodled an entire roast turkey in my calculus notebook ( please don't tell professor Vandyke).   When meal times come however I am actually pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy it and there are many veggie substitutes to my typical foods that I am becoming accustomed to.  

                The only other issues I have with maintaining my energy level are accidental slip ups on my part. It is easier to manage one thing that you want to change in your life however when you need to consider the electrical implications of everything you do you are bound to make mistakes. While talking to a friend who lives on my floor I accidently followed her to the elevator and before I knew what  I had done I burned an estimated half an hour of electricity. While sitting in my dorm room in the dark I absentmindedly grabbed at a piece of leftover and stale Halloween chocolate and that undoubtedly cost me some sun. Similarly while enjoying a warm shower the thought of wasted watts leaped into my head and I spun the shower handle the coldest possible setting (frostbite).

                 After I had thawed out a little I went back to my dorm room where my roommate, who quite reasonably does not understand the experiment fully, asked "hey since its night do you just have to stop?"

I said through chattering teeth "No I stored some energy during the day."

"ok, but  what exactly is this teaching you?" He said.

"lots" I said and I really did mean that. Between thinking about each action I did and my reflective bike rides I had discovered that if one made the conscious effort to act, acting  was all the more possible and if I knew how I impacted things around me I was more careful in how I consciously acted. That is going to be my new end goal simply to be more conscious and careful and hopefully that is what I will gain from this project.