Twenty-four hours.

It's probably ironic and ill-timed that I am choosing to write about this topic now, at this moment which is the Monday morning after a completely non-productive weekend spent socializing with friends and avoiding schoolwork or any serious thought whatsoever like the plague. However, it was a wonderful weekend, and I can honestly say I feel refreshed and invigorated. Weekends like that remind me why life is so good. I've also got a photo album full of me and my friends dressed up as members of the Jersey Shore cast, so the weekend was far from a total loss.

Ethan Klapper: "Why do you guys keep talking about Paula Dean?" ... "PAULY D!" On the 1's and 2's.

Yeah. Anyway.

I met with my independent study advisor, Terry Sankar, who is my life-coach/green-guru/inspirational-professor. Previously my Practical Environmentalism professor, Dr. S has agreed to take me on in my journey to learn as much as I can about sustainable food production and draft some sort of paper that will detail how we can make it a reality. A practical reality. Like, one that will make everyone happy (except corporations like Monsanto but I'm actually quite positive they aren't real people. Or at least, they lack souls.) Dr. S actually thinks I will be able to get this paper I write published. I laughed when he said this and he looked me dead on and told me he was being serious.

Then he reminded me of this one class last semester where we had gotten off on a tangent (typical but always enlightening) and he said to us all, "Everyday, you wake up and you've got 24 hours of your own time to spend here on Earth. It's entirely up to you how you are going to spend it." One girl in the class put her face in her hands and then burst out, "That's so depressing!!" (I believe she felt this way, because we have only so many hours on this Earth, and the thought that we end up "wasting" so many of those precious hours is sort of frightening.) "But why?!" he replied. "I find it so liberating!" He told us how the thought that he is in complete control of his life, what he does, how he spends his 24 hours, one day after the next, makes him feel so powerful and free.

So he reminded me of that moment and told me to go into this independent study, to sit down to read and write, knowing that this is something I can eventually contribute to the world. To sit down and write with the intention of having my words read by others. With the intention of enlightening others, and making a difference in some small way. While the idea of this happening makes me feel so giddy and lit up inside, I'm not confident enough to think this is possible. But if Dr. S, (who designed this wind turbine, by the way) thinks that I can, I might just have to as well.

So you've got 24 hours, how are you going to spend it?

This post dedicated to Mr. Martin Luther King Jr., who sure as hell spent his time here on Earth making a difference.