A heart of Soap-Victoria Herrera 303

Friday December 3^rd 2010

Began my morning turning off the alarm on my ipod touch at 7am and then again at 7:30am and thennn a final time at 8am; needless to say it was a wee bit rough getting up that morning. There was no way around the alarm; my internal alarm clock goes off at about 10am which leaves me doomed to make my 9am class.

The ipod is made mostly of plastic but figured it was better then my phone (which I my normal alarm) that has a considerable greater amount of plastic. After I rolled out of bed at 8:30, I hastily threw on jeans, a bra, a long sleeve, a pair of socks, and leather boots. Seeing as how I was running late, I skipped brushing my teeth (tooth brush is made of plastic) but did rinse my mouth with water and washed my face with a heart shaped bar of soap; little did I know that this bar of soap would have a significant impact on me later that day. I quick downed some mango black tea from a ceramic mug that I made the night before, ate a banana, put on a coat, a hat, a scarf, and glovesss, which all to the visible eye did not contain plastic, except my gloves. As much as I wanted to avoid plastic at all costs, I would not sacrifice my hands to the cold haha.

As I would discover that day, everything pretty much comes a side of plastic whether we realize it or not.

After I threw my necessary materials for class in my backpack including a glass snapple water bottle, I was out the door walking briskly to catch a bus to class. On the way, I tested my vocal chords to a few songs to keep me going as a compromise to my usual ipod background music. After the initial few seconds of crackling, my sound wasn’t half bad

In my class I used my plastic binder to follow along with the class powerpoint notes I printed off that has intricate pictures relating to genetics. I of course opted for a pencil the entire day that is out of my norm. Oh how I missed the sweet bold script of my black ballpoint…‘sigh’…moving on haha… the use of a plastic clicker to answer a class question that is required for participation points was unavoidable. My remaining class was easy to avoid plastic. I simply took notes with a pencil and looseleaf.

I then caught the bus back to my dorm when upon arrival I when straight to housing food and got some delicious pre-made food yuck ;/…I am not one for the housing food seeing I have no idea what preservatives were used and how it was prepared but it avoided my using of plastic which is what most of the food in my room is surrounded in. Paying for the food on the other hand, some what required my having to touch my wisc card to pay. It was when I got to the cashier that I realized that my card is plastic and that I lacked the cash to pay. I was temped to ask the cashierto go into my wallet to avoid my touching of the plastic but cowered out not wanting to receive the inevitable awkward glance and confusion.

After eating I went to the Geography Museum with my roommate to check out their holiday sale. I wasn’t interested in buying any rocks though the museum was pretty neat museum overall and was an overall plastic free activity. They dressed up a few of the exhibits for the season…a red nose on the dinosaur XD.

Afterwards I worked in a biochem lab for 2 hours where it is necessary to use plastic. Micropipettes are almost entirely plastic as are the plastic tips and collection capsules. When doing research it is necessary to conduct tests multiple times and using plastic makes this process a lot safer and cheaper.

Lots of Hair!!! à

When I got back to my dorm, I could avoid taking a shower no longer. The idea of taking a shower was dancing in mind periodically through the day. The question of how I would wash my thick wavy hair that reaches my rib cage left me flabbergasted. I would have to use a mere bar of soap?! Using regular shampoo from the bottle already leaves my hair undesirably dry; the use of a heart of soap was an experiment I was curious to test.

When in shower…I sudsed the soap in my hands and then applied it to my hair and repeated this process numerous numerous times. The rest of the shower was pretty simple, I already use a fabric body scrub thinger daily so didn’t have to worry about the use of a loufa that is plastic based.

After letting my hair air-dry as I usually do, I was stunned to find that my hair was still manageable and not dry as wood. This doesn’t mean that I’ll convert into using bar soap for I am sure it would eventually turn my hair brittle but it’s nice to have options when times call for drastic measures.

The rest of my day composed of doing some studying that turned into a nap and helping out at the Hoofers Resale. I came to realization at the resale that plastic makes life fun i.e. snow boards and skis. I’m sure years ago they used wood but I can’t imagine those lasting that long which is not fun. I ended my night watching some of the live concert that was going on at the union that night. This just proves that there is still plenty to do without having to use plastic i.e. ipod.

Things that were hard to live without were my phone and computer to check up on the world. I met quite a few people though that I probably would not have met otherwise if I had my phone/laptop. I was amazed by the amount of plastic that is everywhere and that I could not avoid. Plastic is really a case of the for better or worse. I dislike the idea of it leaching into my food getting into my system and our environment yet I support its use in research and sporting equipment. This was a worth while challenge :)