Jenn Han

My boyfriend recently bought potted plants such as basil, rosemary, strawberries, and sunflowers. I helped him pick them out, but unfortunately, whether they would survive or not was entirely up to him and how much he watered them.… I say unfortunately because judging from the photos, they actually need to be watered immediately! Every time I go over, I’ll be making it a point to water them. Plants require care and proper sunlight, and if there’s anything tending to this garden has taught me, it’s that if you don’t care for your plants, they won’t care for you.

However, tending to this garden has also been incredibly enjoyable. The other day, we made baked potatoes and seasoned them with the rosemary from the garden. It was really nice to tell our friends that the rosemary was homegrown rather than store-bought, and to taste a clear distinction between the two. In addition, the strawberry plant actually did produce a few strawberries, which we enjoyed and hope to see more of. We hope to expand the garden to encompass more vegetables and herbs. 

One of our friends grows peppers in their front yard, and they brought those over for us to try. There is something incredible about growing your own produce and sharing it with others, incorporating it in your food, and watching your plants grow and provide for you as you water them regularly and provide for them regularly. I find it interesting that certain plants require specific water needs, while other plants are simply once a week. It reminds me that plants are incredibly versatile, and I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have an entire field of such diverse plants that need such differing needs. However, just from our mini garden, I know the results are invaluable, and watching plants grow as you care for them feels rewarding. 

I have noticed on social media that people are taking up plants like pets, and it’s popular now to be a “plant mom/dad,” and show them off in your room as more of an aesthetic statement than anything else. However, I hope this new appreciation for plants isn’t just a trend that becomes outdated in a few years, but that more people take it up and see the value in it. Plants have so much to offer us, from beautiful flowers to ripe fruit to colorful vegetables. I am at least glad that this aesthetic

of having plans in your home has started, and hope that it becomes something more in the future

Recently, my family and I decided to replace our old bowls. They were chipped and scratched from many years of use, so we wanted to upgrade. We ended up buying bowls of varying sizes, something we actually never had done before. All of our old bowls were one size, and often way too large. I noticed that ever since we bought these new ones, I’ve been able to portion my food significantly better. I have attached a photo of the bowls we bought, at least two sizes of them. I personally find that I'll use the small bowl most frequently, And this will allow me to portion myself while I eat. If I want more, I can always get a second serving. But, back when we had the old bowls, I didn’t do that. would simply fill it up and not consider portion sizing, But these new bowls have definitely made me more conscious of my portion size, and how much I am eating. It’s actually incredibly nice to be able to quantify it! 

Using smaller portions not only allows for less food waste, but it also allows for personal gain in that we can ensure we don’t overeat. Whenever I go out to a restaurant, I always ensure that I can bring it home with me and it’ll still last. I stopped ordering fries a while ago, just because I realized that if I wanted to make the most out of my meal, I would need to eat the fries first before getting to the main course of my meal because fries wouldn’t last long the next morning. I would always find myself throwing them out in leftovers and only eating the burger, or the sandwich. So now, I always order a side salad instead of fries. This also, obviously, proves beneficial for my own health. Other foods that I’ve found aren’t very good the next morning are bread/carbs. Hamburger bread just doesn’t taste the same. Potatoes don’t quite taste the same. Leftover salads drenched in dressing do not taste the same either, so it’s important to be aware of what’s in your salad. In the last few months, I’ve definitely been a lot more aware of my portion sizing, splitting my meal in half to enjoy at dinner, but also enjoy the next morning. And desserts, as much as we would love to save them, usually don’t last very long either. 

I’m really glad I took a photo of this, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to write about it! Last month, my family and I visited a large market of produce that grows organically in Simi Valley. We actually found this place on accident, when we were visiting a friend and got lost on a dirt road - a wonderful find. They allowed visitors to hand pick their own fruit if desired, or shop from a wide selection of fruits grown organically on their fields. It was actually really exciting to be able to walk through the fields themselves and see miles upon miles of green. I saw peach trees, strawberries, lemons, and all sorts of vegetables. I also saw goats and horses, but I was more distracted by plucking fruit of trees and being able to eat them. Although the day it was hot, I enjoyed the time with my family because it was our first time experiencing some thing like this together. There was a truck full of carrots, and I wish I had captured a picture of it! 

Nonetheless, this prompted the conversation between myself and my mother, who has been looking into growing her own produce at home. As I mentioned in my other posts, we are in the middle of creating our own garden at home. She began to talk about her father, or my grandfather, who worked the fields plucking fruits, cotton, and vegetables for a living. This brought her back to her childhood, and she told us stories of the hours she personally spent picking fruits for a few dollars an hour, if that. Farming can be brutal work, but it can also be beautiful and restorative if handled correctly. Driving along the dirt road, I was pleasantly surprised to see lush green, opposed to brown sand and desert that stretched along for miles. I always get incredibly excited when I get to pick my own fruit, or I’m surrounded by organically grown produce. I feel like I want to eat it all. Everything suddenly becomes a lot more exciting, and an apple grown on the farm is suddenly much more enticing than one you’d see at the store. Sweets that are made with organic products are suddenly more tasty than your bag of cookies at Ralph’s. I will admit, I do get overly excited at that, but it’s such a great feeling walking through the market where you know everything is cared for and grown naturally. 

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I feel like I do this so regularly that I don’t even really take notice. However, recently, I’ve started to document places that I visit for the sake of remembering where they are, remembering how I was able to connect with nature, and what that place offered. From beaches, to hikes, to lakes, I never realized the plethora of natural areas around me that I could enjoy.

My family and I recently went on a hike during sunset, and this was a time to really connect with nature, the mountains, and the flowers around me. I didn’t go on hikes too often before, but now I’m taking a liking to them. Some people think that in order to go on a really good hike, you need to go far. This is absolutely far from the truth. I have since discovered many great hiking spots near my home, some of them just a short drive away, others a little longer, but definitely still worth checking out because they’re local! I have attached a few photos of the various places I have visited locally — or within an hour’s drive. 

Outside of hiking, I have obviously visited beaches, gone kayaking, and visited lakes. This really just showed me that you don’t need to go far to have a mini vacation—or a staycation. 

In fact, just last week, my friends and I went to a lake that is about 20 minutes from my house. My family and I used to go there all the time and feed the ducks, and people also frequently boat out on the lake or hang out on the grass. Whenever I go to this lake, I always feel like I’ve taken a step away from the city and into nature. Despite this lake being smack dab in the middle of the city, ironically, it feels a bit removed. I actually really enjoy coming here because it feels like I can breathe easier and relax, while not dealing with the hassle of needing to book a hotel or drive long distances to do so. This isn’t to say that you can’t or shouldn’t travel long distances, because we certainly have. Places like Lake Tahoe, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite,, and so forth are absolutely worth visiting, but when you just want a day to feel the same way you would when visiting these places, local areas are definitely where to go

So my family and I actually recycle regularly! When we first started, it was simple and small: plain plastic water bottles. However, when I moved off to college, that’s when I seriously started to recycle. Just a small anecdote here: I used to drink bottled tea a lot during my first two years of college. I had a mini fridge where I would constantly keep plastic bottles of drinks, whether that was cold-brew Starbucks coffee, fruit juices, tea, or water bottles, I went through plastic bottles pretty quickly. I always made an effort to recycle, so I would put those bottles in plastic bags and I would visit home every two weeks. Every time I went home, I would pack those plastic bottles into a large suitcase… And yes, it was always full. My sister would then recycle those bottles, plus the ones we had from home, and she would sort through them in our backyard: plastic, glass, non-recyclable, and so on. I remember one time she had so many bottles that my mom and I had to help her sort through them because there were just way too many. We filled at least three very large black trash bags full of them! 

Recycling is a natural part of how we run things at home. We have a trash bin specifically for food/other, and a trash bin specifically for recycling. I would ideally like to have one for composting only, 

During senior year, my roommates weren’t exactly conscientious about recycling, so I always set a bag aside and made it clear that they were to toss any and all recyclable material in this designated bag. And just like I did all of college, I brought those things back home for my family and I to actively recycle. 

If we didn’t recycle, I’m pretty sure I would feel incredibly strange about it. I’ve gotten so used to sorting through plastic bottles and ensuring that they go in the recycling but not doing this feels unnatural. I know a lot of my friends aren’t as picky about it, but this is basically how I grew up doing it, and recycling has pretty much been a core practice in our home. I’m not exactly pleased to say that we always had a lot to recycle — that’s gotten me to really consider our plastic use, and buying products that use plastic. I plan to look further into how to minimize the plastic products that we buy. 

Something that also came to mind was when I was younger, I was pretty cognizant of the fact that using one plastic water bottle and tossing it out was pretty wasteful. So, in an effort to conserve plastic, and rather naïvely, I reused a plastic water bottle for a very long time. I would drink the water in the bottle, and then refill it with water from home and take that to school every day. This probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but I think I had the right idea in mind. Of course, this was way before I knew about Hydroflasks and reusable water bottles! Now, I obviously take my Hydroflask everywhere I go, one way to reduce plastic bottle usage. Now, my family and I solely rely on reusable water bottles. We have at least 8 of them — not that we need that many, but oftentimes we will fill them up with water to be able to turn off our water filter for the day and simply pour water from the flasks themselves. 

After reading on family planning and watching the TEDtalk, “How empowering women and girls can help stop global warming,” I had a lot to say about this particular topic. Sorry this is long, but… 

I once took a class that talked about how our population and our ecosystem are closely correlated. We read an article about the link between access to contraceptives and overpopulation, and how this in turn impacted the rest of the community when faced with diseases and resource shortages like food and water. This study was conducted in rural India, where a vast majority of the population do not have access to appropriate medical care and intervention. A lot of them rely on small clinics run by doctors who can’t possibly care for everyone needing attention. I remember the paper distinctly discussing the lack of education in women regarding contraceptive use, a problem resulting in a large percentage of unplanned pregnancies. Unfortunately, because of this, women find themselves caring for families much larger than ever planned. I wish I could find the article, but even just looking on places like Google scholar, you can find countless studies that detail this same exact problem.

As someone who wants to work in the medical field, this particular issue is one of deep interest to me. I am incredibly interested in going to low income rural areas in underdeveloped countries, and helping mitigate problems like these. In Katherine Wilkinson’s TEDTalk, she discussed how women are often overlooked, and the link between us and global warming is ignored— but the connection is so clear to anyone who chooses to look! It’s so evident that it’s surprising that minimal attention has been placed on this issue. When we think of ways to stop climate change, we often consider renewable energy, stopping fuel emissions, increasing forests — the easiest things to point out. But no one considers our ever-growing population and how to combat this— or at least, they consider wrong solutions. So simply put, it’s education. A large percentage of pregnancies here in the U.S. are also unplanned, and a lot of them could easily be preventable through education, particularly in low income areas of our country. In addition, contraceptives are incredibly expensive for some, while others simply aren’t aware, or shamed into not using them (an opinion shaped by cultural beliefs). This problem of lack of education isn’t just a distant issue overseas. It’s here, right in our own country. It also doesn’t help that there is much divide surrounding contraceptive use, promoting a stigma around women who do actively pursue them. Although this is getting better, the lack of accessibility proves a barrier. 

I decided to do some further reading about family planning and how this is linked to global warming. It is obvious that the larger families get, the more our population will increase, and the more resources we use up/greater emissions we emit. But something I can’t quite get over is how overlooked this issue truly is. We hear all the time in the news that space agencies are looking for ways to colonize new planets in order to solve our population crisis, always looking to expand, explore, and find new life elsewhere. Admittedly, “ we launched a rocket into space and colonized this planet” sounds a lot cooler than “We sent teams to Haiti to educate women on fertility and provide access to contraceptives,” but if I had the choice, I’d pour all the resources into the latter. Because then, at least, we are investing in the people on our planet here and now, and instead of looking for ways to escape the inevitable, we are actively creating solutions now. This theme of always looking beyond what we have is actually very relevant to a book I recently read, called, “Love After The End” by Joshua Whitehead. It’s a collection of stories revolving around the aftermath of climate change/human exploration and the intersectionality with sexuality and indigenous identity. I know that sounds really complex, but in reality, it highlights stories of indigenous  individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ detailing their experiences through climate disasters, a changing world where technology rules, and the consequences of climate change. There’s also touches back to a point that the TEDTalk discussed: women are more likely to be harmed when faced with climate change. We are ultimately the most impacted, and yet, we could fix so much of the current problem at hand if the right attention and education is pushed for (not that we’ll fix everything!). Ultimately, the needs of different people in different places comes down to the same solutions of requiring further education, access, and equity.

I invited my best friend over to hang out, and we calculated our carbon footprints. We come from very different households, but very similar lifestyles. My family and I actively recycle, hers doesn’t. I don’t own any pets, but she has 3 cats. She buys and eats what she wants when she wants, and my family and I often cook in bulk to ensure we finish off what we first made during the week. When we calculated our carbon footprint, mine was 5.2 and hers was 9.9. I often take public transportation, while she owns her own car and drives around. In fact, driving around is almost a hobby of hers. It helps her clear her head, despite wasting a bunch of gas and releasing emissions. I know there is a lot I need to do in order to decrease my carbon footprint, and so we had a discussion about this when we calculated ours.

She actively stays away from certain water bottle  brands, certain clothing brands, and buys specific foods — she is the one who actually introduced me to the vegetarian sausages. After having a discussion, I realized there is plenty we can do to reduce our carbon footprints. She will be moving off to Scotland for a year or two to pursue her masters, and her original plan was to take a boat there. She absolutely despises planes, and would rather drive/take a boat to some destination than fly, so at least there’s that. However, due to the pandemic, cruises and passenger ships are currently stalled. So now she must fly, which is incredibly unfortunate. 

Instead of buying water bottles and waste in plastic, she could buy her own Hydro flask and store water there. And, she could also pick up recycling. Some thing that I could do is continue recycling, continue using my Hydro flask to store water, continue my current practices of reducing water/electric waste, and also resort to healthier meals, expand my garden, and start composting. I’ve been looking a little bit into how to compost recently, because I do notice that despite our best efforts, my family and I sometimes encounter ourselves wasting food. Whether that’s something expired in the fridge, or a meal too large to finish, composting would be incredibly useful. 

For the longest time, the shower faucet in our bathroom would leak. It got so wasteful that we began using a large bucket to catch the water and use it for something else. In addition, our water takes forever to heat up, so we use that same bucket to ensure water — despite being cold — isn’t wasted either. Before this, I would just turn on the faucet and wait for the water to heat up, which takes about a minute, and let all that cold water go down the drain. I didn’t really stop to think about the gallons of water I was wasting, but now I do. 

So with our leaky faucet, we replaced this through a YouTube video. I’d say we did a decent job, except the handle doesn’t turn as far as our old one, and our water doesn’t heat up to nearly as hot as it used to… So, we’ll need to fix it, or replace it again to get our very-hot water back, rather than moderately-warm.  Another thing I noticed is our water now fluctuates in temperature, which actually really sucks. So, despite the fact that I was able to install this new faucet on my own, I think I might’ve seriously  messed something up. Nonetheless, after this whole ordeal, I definitely learned about how to conserve water. In my house, we’ve made it an active effort to conserve power and electricity; unplug things that aren’t being actively used, turn off power strips not in use, store water in hydroflasks to avoid turning on our water filter so much. In addition, we’ve bought lamps so we no longer use our ceiling lights at all; When the TV isn’t being used, it’s unplugged, too. 

We are hoping all of this will decrease our power and electricity bill, at least by a little bit. Another project we have yet to take on is to replace our other bathtub faucet; when it pulls up to allow for a shower, it doesn’t go all the way, resulting in a lot of water not being redirected. This not only wastes a lot of water, but also allows for less in a shower. I hope we’re able to get this done soon because that shower is the only one that allows for stable, hot water — and I think we’ll have it professionally fixed because I’d hate to  mess that one up too!