I thought that I should introduce myself a little before I get into the assignments at hand. Some may say it is a form of procrastination, I say I am getting into the mood of writing.

A little about my personal life? Maybe? Ok. Well I am at a big changing point in that area of my life. I am going into uncharted water. I found out a while ago my boyfriend had been cheating on me, he cheated on me almost the whole time. I had to move back in with my mom but I miss living on my own. I know I can live on my own and do just fine at school. I know I will still go to grad school. I know I can do it but every time she doubts me it makes me doubt myself. I’m scared that she might be right and I am forced to live with her again. This is something I truly don’t want. My whole view on love has been flipped upside down and I don't know if I can ever get it right again.

Now for my school/ work area… I am currently a junior majoring in Chemical Engineering. Chemical Engineering (ChemE) is fascinating to me. A ChemE can work just about anywhere. In the clothing industry, with food, with pharmaceuticals, biomedical and power plants just to name a few. Anything with flowing material in a system a ChemE can work there. In addition to the Honors College, I am also in Tau Beta Pi, which is one of the oldest honor societies. Only the top 1/8th of the junior class or 1/5th of the senior class and grad students are eligible to join. I plan on getting my masters in Environmental Engineering. I’m not completely sure what I want to do with that yet but I am thinking either something with water and air because they are the two freest moving substances in the world. Every square inch of the world has been affected by pollution because of air and water.

How about some ideas I have? Give you a small background as where I am coming from. A lot of people think environmentalism and engineering are opposites. An environmentalist wants to take away the technology and force everyone back into horse and buggy ways of living and engineering is, well, progress. I want to find a way to continue progress but in a ‘green’ manner. I use ‘green’ to mean environmentally friendly. I do not support genetically engineered food, especially the ones that have pesticides in them. A low impact system of agriculture (LISA) would be much better for the environment. That is a little more work but so much better for everyone in the process. I think recycling should be mandatory. There are so many things getting tossed into landfills that can be reused. I think logging of forest should stop. “What about all those people? What will they do for a living?” Send them to a recycling plant. I’m not in this for the money, if I happen to make a lot of money, I am going to invest it in my own research. I would rather make less and pay my workers more. But I seem to be one of the few to think that way. I think there should be stricter law about sweatshop labor and environmental polluting in outsourced operations. When the government controls the workers, like in China and other places, it is a race to the bottom. It is a race to see who can pay their workers the least and who can pollute the most to produce the cheapest products thus getting money from America companies. I think most Americans have their head up their ass and don’t understand that people in other parts of the world suffer to make you Nike shoes. It is a very materialistic society and until people place value of what is important (family, health, environment) things are going to get worse before they get better. I don’t think I am perfect, I know I am far from it. I catch myself falling into the norm way to much but the more aware you are of what you as one little person can do the more that will get done. I believe in equality for everyone, regardless of age, color, sexual orientation or anything like that. My sister and most of my friends are gay. I try my best to be nice to every person I meet. As I learned with Sean, you never know who you are going to meet.

Ok, now that I am done with that I will get back to the assignments!