This year has brought countless changes and new experiences, and when the world changes around you, you have to change yourself to adapt to the world. Aside from the obvious of leaving home and living in a completely new city in a new room with completely new people, I have tried to take this opportunity to alter my life for the better.
For starters, taking responsibility for my own food and exercise choices has been a rollercoaster. The freshman fifteen hit me like a ton of bricks, thus bringing insecurity over body image to the forefront of my mind. I’ve always had issues with my body — obesity and diabetes run in the family — but I had usually been able to keep those problems on the back burner. I tried to stay healthy by exercising in bursts, but I knew that my behavior was not sustainable. I knew my eating habits were not healthful nor were they making me happy. I knew I wasn’t physically active enough. After watching my body change before my eyes upon coming to college, I visited to Nutrition Counseling. I started to work out on my own, but I quickly lost interest. Eventually, I started attending fitness classes, particularly yoga. Starting at one class last semester and building up to three this semester, yoga has been my saving grace, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.
Unfortunately, when I’m swamped in terms of stress and homework, exercise is the first thing to go. This especially happened when I started working on a show within the Department of Theatre here at OSU. Next semester, I’m hoping to craft a plan/schedule of yoga or working out that allots for exercising at least three times a week while still giving me time to work on another show as well as get my homework and sleep a reasonable amount. Once the show, Marisol, closes, I’d also like to try Wellness Coaching at the RPAC.
From the world around me, I’m taking OSU resources, such as Nutrition Counseling, Counseling and Consultation Services, fitness classes at the RPAC and Women’s Field House, and opportunities within the Department of Theatre. With these, I’m giving back my work and energy in the shows I work on, I’m giving back academic effort, but mostly I’m giving back me. I cannot be a productive and helpful person to others if I’m so hung up on my own problems that my vision is cloudy. If I can make myself better, then I can be there for others as they try to make themselves better.
My Earth Month Action Plan proved unforeseen challenges, particularly concerning how I define my personal ethical codes. For my topic, shark finning, I felt that I was ill-equipped to say that another culture should stop a practice that had been with it for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Upon further research, I learned that even within that culture, there is discourse. For me, that pointed to a further truth: there is a truth. There are certain ideas held universally as true, and while we could always be wrong about them, I can look at something and know in my heart that it is good and right or damaging and wrong. This is not to say that the world is black and white; in fact, almost all situations and experiences are shades of grey — they have aspects of both good and bad within. But this realization does allow me to take a stand and gives me the freedom to try to change the world for the better.
This next semester, I will likely need to take a break from the issue of shark finning in order to focus on different aspects of my life, namely working on a show and improving my physical and mental health. This does not mean I’m giving up — quite the contrary — it’s just means that I can care about something while knowing that it’s not viable to dedicate a lot of time to it at this point in my life. I’d like to further my investigations into shark finning by communicating with local restaurants about their menus and where their ingredients are coming from and coordinating with organizations such as Shark Trust to combat the inhumane practice.