Companies that do good

As was mentioned in a previous post, Tom's of Maine is one of the top rated companies. Well, upon looking at their website [http://www.tomsofmaine.com/home] I am obsessed. You can donate 5% of your paid time to VOLUNTEER when you are an employee!!!! How awesome is that?! So buy their stuff!!! The products may be a wee bit more spendy, but I figure I'll just give up a few cups of coffee [which is better for me anyways] and won't use all the chemicals and crap that comes in the cheap stuff. Give a little more, get better results I say.

New Addition to the Miller Family!

This is our new pal that has joined our family! He is a labradoodle, which is such a funny word to me. I haven't met him yet. His name is Cooper. I am looking forward to meeting him as I have greatly missed having a dog!

My Thoughts on...The Emmys [because you're dying to know I'm sure]

ROBBED!

This past evening I sat and watched the Emmys with two friends in its entirety. Although I was torn that it was Pop Culture Trivia Night on campus and we all know I would have cleaned up because of my wide array of useless facts [but would have felt bad about stealing the $500 prize from a college student], I was very satisfied with my decision to sit with said friends and share cupcakes and sparkling apple cider. I'll admit I had mixed feelings about the outcome of the Emmys in spite of having looked forward to them ever since I'd heard Glee had received a whopping nineteen noms [that's short for "nominations" in case you didn't catch that. I think that's how they say it in the biz]. I had renamed the Emmys the "Glee-mmys" because Glee was so overly represented, which I did think was incredibly clever of me if I may bang my own drum or toot my own horn, whichever you prefer. This alone should gain me admission to grad school--pure, unadulturated BRILLIANCE [the stuff PhD's are made of]. Unfortunately, my renaming of the Emmys turned out to be completely inaccurate, useless and unnecessary, as they decided to SNUB Glee and they only won a few awards and they were robbed, ROBBED I SAY! I may be a little biased though, because, along with every other award show I watch, I've only seen about 5 percent of the things that are up for awards, so of course my allegiance always lies with those that I've seen which is completely unfair. But in this case, I don't care, because Glee kicks a$$.

However, there were some top moments:

1. The opener to the show. And I found Jimmy Fallon to be completely hilarious.

2. My three favorite women were in one room: Tina Fey, Mariska Hargitay and Lea Michele.

3. Tai texting me, "Is Al Pacino drunk and wearing a bump it?" I asked myself that same question.

4. Sharing cupcakes with Rachel and Beth! Yippee!!!!

The downsides:

1. The aforementioned snubs of Glee

2. Was it just me or did the freaking Movie/Mini Series section take up like the WHOLE SHOW?! Argh! I was def b-o-r-e-d by like the second award.

3. On top of Glee getting snubbed, so did Mariska! Good thing I bought that "Good Housekeeping" magazine with her on the cover. You're my gal Mariska. And according to that article, a good Christian woman too. Reason #534 why I love you.

4. Do you know how incredibly upsetting it is to see Matthew Morrison [Mr. Schuester on Glee] walk down the carpet DATELESS and know that you could be on his arm? And in "you" I mean ME. It hurts! He could have cried on my shoulder when he didn't win. Let it out Matt. I don't know why I'm shocked as Matt certainly falls in category #3 for men I'm interested in: "Not in the West Hartford vicinity." I mean, I know I would totally have a shot if I lived in L.A...right?

Two things that have greatly enhanced my life

So, I've been reading a lot of books lately about food--you know, how my food makes its way to my dinner plate, how it's processed, where it comes from, all that good stuff. The journey has been fascinating and I've been trying to eat less processed sh!& and more wholesome "real" food, and, believe it or not I'm ACTUALLY considering becoming a vegan [yeah, never thought THAT would happen], although with that said there are two things holding me back: 1) Pizza 2) Cupcakes. I realize you could find vegan versions of both of these, but please! Gimme the real deal. Anywho, I was watching a show and they featured Alicia Silverstone who is apparently a vegan and she suggested these delightful little Rice Dream treats as a dairy free option. My goodness. I nearly lost my mind when I consumed said goody. They are an oatmeal cookie sandwich with rice ice cream [sounds weird but you really can't tell the diff] covered in chocolate and they come in four flavors and AHHHHH. I want one now! AND they're nutritionally not horrible for you--I mean a lot of calories, but the food itself is wholesome and good. Anywho, as you can tell from my previous blog posts, I have really been working on being socially conscious in my life like a good hippie should be, and my friend Callie sent me this AWESOME book.
I'm super obsessed with it. Basically, you could look up something like "condiments" and it will tell you all the "good" companies to buy from [they rate them on a variety of factors--everything from human rights to environmental impact, to community involvement], and they get a grade of A-F. Well, it turns out I consume things from a lot of companies that fail...oops. NO MORE. Or, at least, I'm trying not to anymore. Every little bit helps, eh? Oh, and fair warning to the world: these are the top 10 horrible "corporate villains"--don't give your money to them! Boo! Bleh!

1. Exxon-Mobil (shouldn't be a shocker)

2. Kraft

3. Wal-Mart

4. Chevron-Texaco

5. Pfizer

6. Nestle (ugh! Don't get me started on them! We learned about them in class and UGH--and if they're only sixth on the list we're in trouble)

7. General Electric

8. Archer Daniels Midland

9. General Motors

10. Tyson Foods

But the 10 Best, you ask?!

1. Seventh Generation (yeah! that's totally what my laundry detergent is right now!)

2. Working Assets

3. Eden Foods

4. Organic Valley

5. Clif Bar

6. Honest Tea

7. Patagonia

8. Tom's of Maine

9. Ben and Jerry's (I was REAL happy about this one)

10. Aveda

Look people. I realize I may hit my proverbial drum often about this, but all I'm advocating for is thinking a little more about where we spend our hard earned cash-ola. My opinion is, if you're going to spend it, you might as well make a difference with it. You can look at many of my other posts about how I feel about social consciousness, but like I said, all I ask from the good people of planet earth is to think a little bit more before spending the dough.

A Small Aside

It appears that all men I am interested in fall into one of three categories:

1.Gay

2. Taken

3. Not in the general West Hartford, CT vicinity

Bummer.

"The Education of Shelby Knox"

I watched this documentary yesterday. If you ever have a moment where you think to yourself "I would like to learn something today, or perhaps broaden my perspective," then I urge you to bust out this sucker. The movie is about a 15-year-old high school girl named...Shelby Knox [shocker, I know]. See, she lives in the town of Lubbock, Texas which is highly evangelical and highly conservative where their sex education consists of "abstinence only." Unfortunately for Lubbock, they have extremely high teen pregnancy/STI rates [oh and side note: it turns out the "P.C." term now for "STD" is "STI" or "Sexually Transmitted Infection." I don't care how you sell it, I don't want it]. Anywho, Shelby is fighting for a more comprehensive sex ed program in her school--basically they would teach that abstinence is the only sure fire way to fight unwanted pregnancy/STI's, but they would also teach you things such as *gasp* how to use condoms just in case *gasp* all teenagers have sex, and various other types of birth control. Of course, this throws her conservative town up in arms and the documentary is really about her asking a lot of questions, coming to term with her "liberal" viewpoint, and what that means for her as a Christian. A good part of the movie is devoted to her fighting for the rights of a group of gay kids at her school, and how she reconciles her own beliefs that homosexuals should be treated as equals with a faith that says homosexuality is a sin.

I absolutely loved this movie, probably because I identify with Shelby's character on so many levels--more than what I can even say here. There is this one scene in particular where Shelby is talking to her pastor who explains to her that he cannot believe in a comprehensive sex ed program because if he does it seems like he's condoning having sex outside of marriage when it's immoral and Shelby says to him, "Look. I made a vow to wait until I was married to have sex. But I can recognize that not everyone has the same support systems I do--be that church, family, or whatever that help me along with that decision." I wish I had that good of a sociological imagination at that age. This to me was extremely poignant, I mean we could learn a lot from a 15 year old, that is for sure. She still has her beliefs, she still holds her ground for what was good for her, but recognized that others just don't come from the same background as her, and she fights for it so that they can have better lives because they will have better education. I love that. I think we could take a lot away from that if we could just get past getting freaked out about how America is supposedly going to hell in a hand basket. It just seems so much better this way. I realize I'm walking on a slippery slope for a lot of people, but...so be it I suppose. Well, anyways, go watch the movie and see what you think for yourself.

Things That Happened Today

1. Cute cable guy came to campus. Wife. Damn.

2. Procrastinated on GRE studying. No shock there.

3. Talked with Amy on the phone. Delightful.

4. Organized my apartment. Clean as a whistle.

5. Going to try Starbucks VIA instant coffee tomorrow.

Cafeteria is closed all week where they hold the real coffee.

I almost died from being tired.

We all have to make sacrifices.

6. Rode my bike around town--twice because it was so fun.

7. Found a rock star rubber ducky from an event in my room

that has drumsticks and long hair. This made me smile.

8. Enjoyed two mini cake donuts.

9. I signed this pledge to better biking.

10. I decided I really love life. I already knew this, but today

I really slowed down and savored that thought.