rdigregorio's blog

Living a sustainable life can be important to having a successful future. Being sustainable means being able to live a certain lifestyle or doing a certain thing for an elongated period of time. Being able to have a lifestyle that you can live with for your adult life is important. Not being too aggressive of a consumer can help with that. I am not saying that being a minimalist is the way to go, but not being a large consumer can definitely help you save money. Two important benefits to being less of a consumer are less need to keep up with evolving trends, and greater ability to see through empty claims. These two things are easy ways to save money and maintain your life style. Less needs to keep up with trends are important. Trends are constantly changing and that can dictate a lot of what we spend our money on. This is true for many things but clothing is one of the most common. Style can change greatly and it will always continue to change because that is what makes clothing industry money. People feel the need to keep up with the latest fashions and go buy the newest clothes. Technology follows a similar pattern and can really put a dent in your sustainability because you will be buying very expensive things every now and then. Being able to see though empty claims can save you a lot of money in the long run. Being able to see what you really need and what a product can really do for you can help you make informed decisions on what you need to buy, and what is something you can live without. You can more easily spot things like trends or fads and not take part in them. Having the ability to see through empty claims and being able to avoid trends can help a person live a sustainable lifestyle then can enjoy.

The way society views alcohol is largely based on what we see from ads. The attitude towards drinking has been enhanced tremendously because of the incredible job the alcohol industry does of making drinking look appealing, and making it more socially acceptable. One of the ads I watched showed a famous actor and actress touring through America and talking drinking. They say that drinking is for anyone. The working class deserves time off and deserves a party and that must include bud light. That ads to the cultural attitude that alcohol lets you have a great time and let go of all your problems. This has a positive effect because it says the working class deserves a good time and too party and relax which is true. It is negative because it is not necessarily good to drink especially excessively or often. Another add was the one describing all the things Budweiser is and how it is Americas brand and not imported. Also, it made by hard working people who love the beer

The health behavior change that I am planning to do is to sleep for a minimum of 8 hours a night. I have done my research on how much sleep a person of my age should be getting and that is 7-9 hours a night. I know personally this is not something I am able to accomplish very often and would really like to. The health benefits will be tremendous as well as the mental benefits. Personally I have wanted to get better sleep for a very long time. Ever since I was little I always had trouble getting to sleep. I would just sit and bed a be up for the longest time. Even through high school I would only get six hours of sleep at most. All my morning classes then and now I have a hard time getting through. I want to be more alert in the mornings.

The interspecific relationship that I decided to explore was the relationship between myself and my cat. In particular the effects on what would happen when I play with her more and give her more attention. The idea for this experiment came to me during winter break . I spent a lot of time with my cat because she came home with me. We bonded during that time and would not leave my side. Then when I left to go to the UK for four days. When I got back she was very standoffish. So, for my experiment i decided to try and gain more attention from her by playing with her more and giving her more attention. I wanted to see how that would affect how she felt towards me after the fact. Also, I spent some days completely out of the house and saw how she reacted when I came home.

Fig. 1. Polar Bear's Natural Habitat. A Polar Bear's diet consists of many differnt meats such as whale. Life in the Arctic is hard and meat is scarse so they will take anything they can get.

Photo by Orion available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/79305942@N00/6976721482

The starting materials were reacted using conditions specific to the reaction being performed and the target product was obtained in 35.7% yield. This number is low, so it is not likely that pure cyclohexene was obtained through this experiment. The experimental boiling point was determined to be 70°, which is not what it should be, as the actual boiling point if Cyclohexene was 83°. The GC run showed a reaction time of .207 which is too low to be Cyclohexene.Also, based on the IR abortion, there was a peak for an aromatic ring and for a C-H bond. Based on the bromide test and the potassium permanganate alkanes should be present. The color from the bromide test was brown and there was precipitate on the bottom. The potassium permanganate test showed up purple. So both of the tests ran by the TA expressed that pure cyclohexane was not formed, but the test that were done chemically showed that it was formed. 

            The field of study that interests me most is modern medicine. I am a biology student on the pre-med track and hope to one day attend med school. Ideally, I picture myself as an emergency room physician, so the state of the art technology that can help a person right an away interest me. Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted to be a doctor so that I can help people who need it. I always feel useless when someone gets hurt and there is nothing I can do to make them better, so I’m going to change that. Also, I’m very interested in the human body and how everything works together. So, combining my want to help people and my interest of human anatomy modern medicine is the field that suits me the best.

There are many benefits to fully understanding behavioral and climate ecology. Behavioral ecology helps people to understand the world around them better. Not only will we be better able to understand the interactions and behaviors of animals, but it could also translate to how we handle situations with other humans. After all, we are just large mammals, and we have many of the same behavioral patterns, even though they may be more complex. I feel as though a better understanding of behavioral ecology will allow for a better understanding of social interactions in general. Climate ecology is a trending topic right now. There is a very concerted effort in the world to try and reduce the climate change that’s going on. Having a better understanding of climate ecology will allow more people to understand why it is so important that global warming and climate change be reduced. If more people understand why climates are so important and why they must remain how they have always been, then there will be more people willing to help solve this issue. If more people are helping, then we may get closer to a solution. Overall, I believe that having a good understanding of behavioral and climate ecology will allow for positive impacts on our society as well on the earth itself.

   I believe that substance free dorms are a good idea but unfortunately, they are a bit misguided. In the article about UVM it talks about the students making the judgement on their own is not enough and I disagree with that point. Kids that are going to college are there to learn. Not just academic learning in their classes but also learn how to interact socially and live their lives on their own. If students are told to do something and how to do it in every form of their life, they won’t learn how to conduct themselves without guidance. People need to live and learn. As a person, you learn from good and bad situations in your life. Students need to learn how to drink and stay away from things that will impact their education and lives. If students are controlled like this in college they will not know what to do with themselves when they get into the real world.

            I believe that substance free dorms are a good idea but they are a bit misguided. In the article about UVM it talks about the students making the judgement on their own is not enough and I feel that that is not true. Kids that are going to college are going there to learn. Not just learn in each of their classes but also learn how to interact socially and live their lives on their own. If students are told to do something in every form of their life they won’t learn how to conduct themselves without guidance. People need to live and learn. As a person, you learn from good and bad situations in your life. Students need to learn how to drink and stay away from things that will impact their education and lives. If students are controlled like this in college they will not know what to do with themselves when they get into the real world.