You know, it’s funny, but I don’t really feel like blogging at all tonight. Every class I tell my students “blog!! You’ve gotta blog!!! Everyone blog, blog, blog!!!!!” However, I do realise that it is almost impossible to pour your soul out onto the computer screen if you are not feeling motivated, or moved, or inspired, or even just plain old awake. This is especially difficult for me. I always think that everything I write needs to be a great masterpiece worthy of posterity, so if I can’t produce something sublime, I almost don’t want to produce anything at all.

Hmmm, what kinds of profound insight can I offer up to the people reading my blog tonight. I guess I could admit to an environmental failure. Remember how I was collecting all my old milk cartons and orange juice cartons under my sink so that I could go and recycle them? Well, I finally couldn’t fit any more milk or juice cartons under my sink, so I decided it was time to cut them up, flatten them out, and take them to the recycling bin at Izumia (big grocery store). I knew it was time because there was also a bit of a funny smell coming from underneath my sink. Anyway, I sat down in front of my sink, armed with a pair of scissors and the self-righteous feeling that can only come to a teacher of global issues when he is about to do something that he tells everyone else they should be doing. I started to cut up my first juice carton. It was a bit stinky. It was also filled with green mold. Eeeeew. That one went into my garbage. Oh well, I figured I could still recycle the rest. They couldn’t all be that bad. I thought I would try a milk carton next. Stinky too. Filled with even more mold. This time the mold was more black than green. I tried again. Mold. Again. Mold. Another carton. More mold!!! Now that I had disturbed all of the cartons that were living under my sink, the smell of mold was almost overpowering! I couldn’t breath. There were now moldy milk and juice cartons all over the floor of my kitchen. All of my cartons I wanted to recycle were moldy! Then I started to remember a show I saw on television about how an entire family had gotten sick from poisonous black mold, and then their baby died! I didn’t know what to do. I ended up wrapping a towel around my face so that I could stand the smell, and I squished all the cartons and stuffed them into a garbage bag. Yes, that’s right . . . four months of attempted recycling were all put into the garbage. I am a recycling failure. I am so depressed. However, I have learned one lesson. Always wash out your cartons before you put them under the sink for recycling.

Sigh.