live and let live.

preparing for AMSTERDAM!

2009-04-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

" Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

-Mark Twain

april 10, 9am-4pm
so today we didn't do anything besides learn about our amazing trip to amsterdam!! ill write about everything we do in the amazing city when i get back, but heres a brief summary of what we plan on doing there!

bicycles.anne frank house.greenpeace international. greenpeace netherlands. the sirius. red light district. oceans briefings. gmos briefings. netherlands warehouse. hostels. europe. canals. tulips. van gogh museum.

!!!!!

introducing your new campus coordinator!

2009-04-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

april 9th, 2009, 10am-4pm

today was our last day of the incredibly helpful and interesting student week. we started our day by hearing from ethan who is an organizer for the chesapeake climate network and he told us his story of how he got involved with organizing and what brought him to the ccn. it really seems that the bottom line of all organizers is the wanting to be apart of something bigger than yourself, of having that passion to help others. its nice to see that because that is a quality i know i possess. he was really inspirational because he spoke from the heart and didn't bore us with all the different tactics and strategies you can use on campus...he instead spoke out of the means of motivation. the climate crisis now. our reps aren't denying it, our president won on an environmental platform, and the time is now. after we did more research on our campaign and stressed the importance of time-lining your campaign. this is something i really see as helpful because i never would usually think to make a time line for a campaign, i would just start. but i really understand the importance of goals and timelines now and i think thats going to help me become a successful organizer. i then had my interview with carling to see if i would become a campus coordinator for greenpeace at ucf and i was offered the position! i was really happy because i really think i have the passion and skills to make change happen at ucf. i am going to try to eliminate kc products from our bookstores, since they are no longer being purchased by our school. then i will try to pressure suzanne kosmas, the house rep for ucf to become a climate champion. we wrapped up our day by learning about effective teams and how to work with sga and your campus groups, which is really important because sga should definitely be someone you want on your side. we wrapped up with success stories from the campus coordinators to pump us all up for making change on our campus!

3 days till amsterdam :)

so what brand are you looking for? KLEENEX.

2009-04-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

april 8th, 10am-5pm

five days till amsterdam...unbelievable. so our day began with scott paul, who is the head of the forests department and he gave us a brief history of forests and of course, the kleercut campaign. its crazy how much deforestation is making an impact on our world and we really need to re-consider the way we do logging. i wish there could be some kind of political policy on this because i think our government truly needs to act up. of course these corporations aren't going to act responsibly if they don't have to...but if the gov't tells them they need to log fairly, they would. anyways, it really motivated me to get more involved with the kleercut campaign and be really careful where i buy my products from. greenpeace is coming out with a new application for phones that will have things like tissue and paper towel guide on it, its SO COOL how technology can help win campaigns. anyways, we then used our time until lunch to do more research on our campus campaigns and also power map our targets. mine is suzanne kosmas because she is the rep for ucf and we want her to be a champion for global warming! we also had a training by gabriel who just gave us a more detailed briefing on environmental ngos which was exciting because learning more about other non profits and ngos was one of my goals of the semester. we finished our day by learning about advanced facilitation. its so important to know how to be a good facilitator if you want to work on campaigns because you need to know how to lead and empower people. i think i'm starting to finally feel ready to take on that challenge, which is why i'm applying to be a campus coordinator. my interview is tomorrow with carling, hopefully it goes well!

power to the youth!

2009-04-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

april 7th 11am-5pm

so today was a pretty interesting day, we learned a lot from carling who is one of the people that works with the student network. we started our day by going more so in detail about what the student network is, what it does and who its comprised us. it was really interesting because its so important to understand the political power that the youth holds. i mean without the youth, obama would not be our president! so its really OUR TIME to stand up for our future, and we want environmental and social justice. so basically the student network plugs all gp students into a big system and lets them know how they can get involved. and the campus coordinators make things happen at their schools--they really are the leaders of the whole system. they're currently working on the global warming campaign (better known as project hot seat) in which they are pressuring congress to become climate champions and fight for climate legislation. they also are working on kleercut, making sure Kimberly clark projects are taken off their campuses so we take a stance against KC's horrible practice of clear-cutting. sixteen campuses have already signed on, including ucf. so i think i'm going to apply to be a campus coordinator and focus on global warming, having suzanne kosmas, whos our rep who is also liberal, stand up for the climate. we spent the rest of our day just planning on campus campaigns and i only basically decided that i will try to start a project hot seat campaign at school. i think ill be able to do it, we'll see what happens!

de-brief to re-brief.

2009-04-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

monday, april 6th 11am-5pm

so today was our debrief for our vermont yankee campaign. it was a little difficult since we had two groups and uvm was so incredibly successful, and middlebury was still a little bummed out, but i still learned a lot. we first went over all of our best moments and biggest lessons learned. my best moment was when i was petitioning in front of the rolling sunlight, it was so much fun and we generated so many petitions so it was just an overall great day. my biggest lesson was the importance of communication..when you have a group of 11 leaders, you need to constantly communicate your goals, expectations, actuals, how you're feeling, your ideas, etc. so i really saw how lack-of communication can mess with your group dynamics and i'm glad i experienced that. we also discussed what we learned, our experiences, and what we plan on bringing back to campus. i think my biggest lessons were the importance of positive feedback, smart goals, and being an effective group member. it was a really good debrief and really just brought everyone back on track for the next three weeks. after this we had two training's from gabriel, one on the history of campus organizing and the other on the corporate campus. it was SO COOL to see how much campus organizing has changed, stayed the same, and been so influential in the many years. it was also a really cool training to learn about how much corporations and campuses are intertwined and how you can make that work on your campus.
it was an overall great day and ONE WEEK UNTIL AMSTERDAM!!

only 3 more weeks.

2009-04-04T20:34:00.001-07:00

so its the end of our second campaign, and i really wanted to just reflect on what has happened in the past few months. first of all, i cannot believe the got is coming to an end. the thought of that scares me and excites me more than anything. without a doubt i have never been so sleep deprived but i have also never been more empowered in my life. this program has allowed me to finally begin to believe in myself. it has been nothing close to easy but has been one of the greatest challenges of my life and i feel so lucky to have been apart of this.

as far as personal growth, i know i have become such a better person in a very short amount of time. i think i have allowed myself to really begin to love again. i say the word love a lot but sometimes you get so wrapped up in life that you forget what it really means. i have allowed myself to really open up because i was out here on my own and i really didn't have much choice. it has also really been a scary experience because i have presented myself as 100% me. life is way too short to have personal issues hold you back. this is me, love it or leave it. i am done holding back for others. it is a very interesting experience to come a new place confused and alone and leave more confident within yourself then ever before. i have a very strong feeling that is is going to cause some very serious fall outs in my life, but that is okay. i know that i have a very strong base and foundation for my life and as long as i have my family (and a few very good friends) that is all i really need.

as far as life and career goals, this has been a whirlwind. working with greenpeace has hands down been one of the best experiences i will ever have in my life. to work in an organization this well known, this well respected, and this successful is something you could never explain. furthermore, it truly empowers you to keep going to work everyday. it is also great to be nearing the end of my got experience because i have such bigger things ahead of me, i just know it. i hope that i can work in non profits down in orlando and even more hopeful is land a job once i graduate in only one year. i have one, small, tiny year left until i become a real adult..how scary is that. but got allowed me to transition from student into a working woman every smoothly. there is so much more i have to learn but i know that i have this great base within greenpeace that i plan on fully utilizing.

i am more scared for going back to school then i was to leave. i wasn't unhappy at school by any means, i had great friends, relatively interesting classes and definitely have my place within ucf. but that wasn't enough and this experience has taught me more than i ever could have learned at ucf. i am still no where near a perfect activist, and i may be able to run a phonebank but i still don't feel ready enough to run a campaign on my own. but that will definitely happen with time.

until then, i am ready to bust out these next three weeks with my fullest heart. thankfully i really feel like i put my whole heart into got which is why i think i got so much out of it. but i need to spend this weekend truly getting my mind back in the game, as these next few weeks are going to be even more difficult than before. but i know i am ready to face this challenges and i know i have dealt with ones much more difficult before. i hope that i am able to stabilize myself again this summer to fully kick some butt on the ucf campus before i go off to the real world. i'm sure i will keep everyone posted, as i always do.

with love.

vermont is wonderful.

2009-04-04T20:02:00.001-07:00

monday, march 30th, 9am-9pm

so today was our first day on uvms campus! we were really excited to finally get out on our campus and really get into our campaign. its really cool because one of the students in our program actually goes to university of vermont which is making our campus go super smooth because we know the set up of the school etc. so we started with a usual morning meeting and with our matrix set up we know that we had from 11-3 to work and everyone was supposed to do at least 2 hours of petitioning work. so we set out early in the day and COMPLETELY exceeded our goals. our overall goals for campus was 300 petitions and within one day we got 406 total petitions. so clearly uvm was a very easy campus to work with so that was great. we then used our night to split up half doing door-to-door and the other half phonebanking our petitions. door-to-door went well and i enjoyed it because a lot of people in vermont are just really happy and easy going so they were just great. our goals was 8 postcards each and i was able to get 15 in the time we used to d2d so that was SUPER exciting. i was very happy and proud of myself and my group!

tuesday march 31st, 9am-9pm

we started our day very much the same, our usaul morning meeting to get everyone on the same page. i actually didn't do much petitioning this day, instead the majority of the group did but i went down to town to ask the local businesses for some more donations for our kick off party and also do some flyering as well. so that was very successful because again people in vermont just are really supportive of greenpeace's work. we then closed at uvm's campus getting about 500+petitions and actually went to do a mini-action (greenpeace style, of course). turns out uvms sga was thinking supporting a resolution that would make uvm as a school support the yankee and we did not want that to happen. so we rallied up about 20 something kids and walked into the open forum for sga with our "no nukes" banner. two students (1 from our got and then 1 got graduate that is also a uvm student) spoke up and explained our disapproval of supporting the yankee. after we finished a state rep was at the meeting as well and supported us saying that the school should not support the yankee and listed all the valued points. it was really efficient and i was really proud.

wednesday april 1st 11am-9pm
so today we actually went over to middlebury to help them with last minute outreach since they had their kickoff party that evening. we helped them flyer for a few hours and then had the rolling sunlight crew help us have a small hot chocolate event in the town. the outreach was not very successful because middleburys campus and their town is very, very small and it was frustrating because the middlebury crew was forgetting we were volunteering our time and therefore they must support us. it was a really good learning experience because it helped us formulate ideas for the next day. we then helped them set up for their kickoff party, which was planned very similar to ours. they did not have a very good turn out, about 6 people or so actually came and they were pretty bummed out. its so hard when you're working on such a small campus and it can be very frustrating but you can never let it get you down.

thursday april 2nd, 9am-10pm

today was the day of all of our events! so we started off by setting up the rolling sunlight actually on campus, we were thankfully able to get a parking spot in the middle of campus. it worked SO WELL. we had music and the rolling sunlight is an automatic attention getter and we were doing photo petitions and we generated probably about 300 or so. it was great because we were doing photo petitions, signed petitions, and flyering for our kickoff event. and the weather was perfect, abut 60 and sunny and i don't think we could have asked for a better day. so then we took a little break at 2 and headed over to one of the students parents house for dinner which let us chill out a little before the kickoff, which was definitely needed. we did about an hour of prep, just making sure everything was in place and then the event began at 7. it went AMAZING. our goal was 25 people and we had just about under 100 guests, not including any members from the got. we were SHOCKED and couldn't have been more proud. we had 4 speakers, one professor from the univ (teaches ecological economics), ben walsh (canvass director of VPIRG, who we worked with), chris williams (leader from citizens awareness network) and one last added on speaker. we started with our small intro from the student of uvm and the got member which was a great way to add context to the situation, then went into our 4 speakers and then q&a. after that we had break out sessions, which was recruitment (for grassroots campaigns), writing letters to sga, writing letters of the editors, and also planning an earth day event that will happen later this month by uvm with the rolling sunlight. it was AMAAAZINNG. i helped lead the rec workshop with our coordinator and one other students and we had an agenda perfectly planned and i think the attendees got a lot out of it. we also got news that the letters to sga will deintley need to be put to us because an sga senator showed up and said he is going to help us write a counter resolution to support CLEAN energy! the students also set up great plans for the earth day event. i was so proud of all of our hard work and so impressed by uvm students. it was so exciting and we had a well earned celebration after!

friday april 3rd
travel day. i hate the car.

i think i have a crush on the rolling sunlight.

2009-03-29T20:37:00.001-07:00

saturday march 28th 2009

and as usual, campaign life means working on a saturday. but today wasn't bad at all and was actually a ton of fun. we had our rolling sunlight event at the brattleboro food co-op. the event was based around the rolling sunlight, which is greenpeace's truck that has solar panels on the top and shows how great solar panels are--the amount on the truck alone could power 3 energy efficient homes (1 and 1/2 regular homes) so we had that set up that was making hot chocolate from the truck and then we were having people sign postcards and write small letters to their reps saying their disapproval of the vermont yankee and that they as citizens do not want it re licensed. it was a very easy day and my only bump was that since we were working on a saturday so close to the plant, a LOT of the workers of yankee were out (the plant does employee 600 people which is GREAT). since we frame our messaging around safety it hasn't been too big of a problem but i had a run in with one woman who was totally against us and wanted to argue and we are not there to argue and if you don't support us its fine. but immediately after she brought me down i spoke to an older man who said he worked there for 23 years and he was in support of shutting it down and knows it is not a safe plant. so that ended up being just fine. the event itself was a huge hit and we got a ton of postcards and a lot of people supporting us. brattleboro is a very cute town, and vermont is beautiful. since the event was over by 2 we went down to new hampshire to take a picture by the plant and the area around it was so beautiful and then we went down to the NH state park to take a hike. gabriel showed us a bunch of wilderness survival stuff and it was really interesting and just beautiful scenery. i really like it here and think vermont its a great state. i also feel very lucky to be working on this campaign because social justice is really my "thing" and the impacts of nuclear on people are disgusting and i do not want to see that to happen to society. we need to learn to start taking better care of ourselves and our environment and respecting every thing on this earth. i really feel like im going to be in this for the long fight and am so glad to be here and learning so much. we leave for burlington for tomorrow and i can't wait to get uvm campus ready for safe and clean renewable energy.

i think i have a crush on the rolling sunlight.

2009-03-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

welcome to the green mountain state.

2009-03-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

wednesday march 25th 10am-5pm
so today was really chill, we just went to the equitment center to prepare our banners and also went grocery shopping for the next few days. we made two banners, one that is designed like the vermont license plates that says "no nukes" as the letters, its pretty simple but gets the message across in a way that vermont citizens will identify with. our second banner says "this yankee is old and cranky, retire vt yankee". we had some issues with the banner due to poor communication and not knowing anything about professional banner making, but after fixing a few kinks they turned out great. we're leaving tomorrow very early for our 10 hour drive and can't wait to get there and kickstart our campaign!!

thursday march 26th, 8am-8pm
today was just a travel day. long and tiring. too much driving. but, we're finally in vermont!

friday march 27th, 10am-5pm
so today we started our campaign in battleboro! first of all, brattleboro is the cutest town ever and i love it and vermont. its just adorable and so beautiful and i adore it!! so we split up our campaign time by petitioning, and flyering on cars and in businesses. it is great to be in vermont because not only are the majority of people liberal, they also really are mostly in favor of shutting down the plant. so its really great to be working in a town that is for our cause. petitioning was really easy because you don't need to fight with people and we're only asking them to sign our postcard which is a very easy ask. so it went really well and we also put flyers on cars which was also very easy. so overall the day was very easy and fun and great to work with. so hopefully the rest of the campaign goes this smoothly!

the calm before the storm.

2009-03-24T16:24:00.001-07:00

so this week is our final few days before we begin our vermont yankee campaign. let the chaos begin!

monday, march 23rd, 10am-5pm.

we started our day with our tonics briefing, which was really interesting. its so frustrating to see how many chemicals are toxic and pose such a serious threat to society and how easy it is to switch to better options and we just don't. we also watched some movies on toxics, and without a doubt the most inspiring was a short film about habitat for humanity. they paternered with greenpeace and have started to build homes toxic free. and if habitat for humanity can do it, that means its NOT expensive and EASY to do. that means there is no reason why we have toxics in our life. i hope that soon we will all be living toxic free, which will greatly improve our life, health, and environment. after this we worked on our campaign as a full group, going through our timeline (by each 15 minutes!) for the next week. its crazy how much you can break down a campaign but its really important to set goals and plan it all out. we then went over messaging and message tactic after my long day i went over to hrc (human rights campaign) to go phonebank because their is a huge law being voted on today. basically this law would make it legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity and i was more than happy to go help with something i believed in. the vote is being counted now and i do not think its going to pass and its very exciting, another win for equality and a more progressive future!

PS--BREAKING NEWS: WE WON!!!! I AM SO PROUD TO BE APART OF A CAMPAIGN THAT SUPPORTS EQUALITY AND NOT DISCRIMATION, AND EVEN MORE PROUD THAT I HELPED LEAD GAINESVILLE TO A MORE PROGRESSIVE FUTURE. IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY AND MAKES OUR FUTURE LOOK BRIGHTER!

tuesday, march 24th, 10am-5pm.
so today we focused on door to door campaigning, which thanks to mike smith, i am incredibly comfortable with. we first learned more about the importance of goals and those annoying tick sheets, and then we were briefly trained on what door to door is, what to expect etc. i feel pretty confident going into this campaign and really don't think we're going to do anything but just rock out and get the yankee shut down...even though we won't find out until 2012, its fine. after that we got to go down to the mall and play frisbee and soccer and hang out and chill. we went down to the botanical gardens which were beautiful and it was super nice. great way to chill out before our stress happens for the campaign. after that we had a great training from a organizer from moveon.org who taught us about the importance of facilitation. i really thought this was great because its been very stressful working in a group of 11 people and i think this is really going to help us.

2009-03-24T15:59:00.001-07:00

my facebook has become a platform for all my activist work.

all my friends probably hate me, but hey, anyway i can use to advertise my progressive ideals, i will.

the environmental state of depression

2009-03-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

between nukes,
&
the monstanto documentary.

not to meation junchi and toru.
i already felt myself falling into a "environemtnal" depression.

and now im reading about frank luntz and the conservative framing, or should i say lying?
and i'm pretty confident in my statement that i hate the world.

i need some inspiration & i need it NOW.

okay thank god. i just got some.

george lakoff is my new hero&his manifesto just changed my life [thats a little dramatic, but fabulous linguist on how liberals must unite and re-frame, which i think obama did a great job of.]

uniting bird and rock and tree, and you and me.

2009-03-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

thursday, march 19th,9am-5pm

another interesting day at greenpeace, what a surprise. so we started our day off with a little mini action! so last year there was arrests with two japanese activists, who basically stole a box of whale meat to unleash this whole scandal. in greenpeace's words, "The Greenpeace anti-whaling activists face trial charged with theft after exposing the scandalous blackmarket sale of whale meat from research whaling in the Southern Ocean sanctuary." so we went down to the japanese embassy to join a ton of other people that have shown support for them. we dropped off a letter in support from greenpeace usa and used it as a photo op to send a message around the world. it was really cool and we had 3 people standing with their hands saying "hear no evil see no evil speak no evil" and we had two poster sized boards of japanese documents showing their lies, as well as a banner that said free junchi and toru. it was really cool and the secret service came and it was a fun experience!! the pictures are on the website http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/photosvideos/photos and i saved them on my computer as well. we then went back to the office to have a lobby day training, which was really helpful and i definitely want to use lobbying as a future tactic and i feel ready to do it now. we used the rest of our day planning our campaign, just figuring out more scheduling and messaging plans. looks like its going to be great!

you've got so much love in you.

2009-03-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

1. i wouldn't define it as homesick but i REALLY miss my friends [and family].
2. i can't wait for vermont and amsterdam.

okay so i have a little catching up to do...

tuesday, march 17th 10am-5pm
st patricks day! i'm pretty sure my highlight of the day was gabriel singing his irish song, but that doesn't really have much to do with campaigning. we started our day with a training from chris eaton, which was done over skype cause he works out of nyc. his training was focused on osn's, or should i say online social networks (facebook, twitter, etc). there is so much more to facebook than just your friends and its such a great resource for campaigning (along with all the other osns). the 21st century has brought SO much to campaigning and its hard to even wrap your mind around all the opportunities the internet can bring to your campaign. so the big news of today is we split up into our groups for our vermont yankee campaign. we're going to be going to burlington and middlebury, to go to middlebury college and univ of vermont. i really wanted uvm because i wanted to see burlington and hang out there, and i was happily placed with my 10 other group members there. 11 total makes for a huge group but we're going to be able to get a lot done (if we can all collaborate together). we then started our basic planning for the weekend and assigned roles for the day. i was assigned to do general research on the yankee plant and i also made our groups google group (great resource) to get us started. i think its gonna be a great campaign!!

wednesday, march 18th 10am-6pm
i'm really starting to get used to these "short" days again which is going to be hard when we get back to the campaign life! we started are day by having a short campaign meeting, which we used to develop our messaging. we came up with two great ideas!! so for our banner our theme is going to be a vermont license plate with "no nkes" or something like that written out, and the vt plate says the green mountain state on the bottom. so we're going to say "dont contaminate the green mountain state" and play off that idea. now my favorite part is what we're doing for our kick off party. since no nuclear plant has ever run past 40 years and if the yankee is relicensed (which is why we're pressuring reps to make sure that doesn't happen), we're playing off the fact that the yankee is almost 40. so we're going to theme our party "over the hill!" our slogan is this yankee is old and cranky--retire the vermont yankee. its super cute and going to be a really fun idea for our kick off party and i can't wait! we then re-convened with our coordinators to make sure everything was going smoothly. after that we broke for lunch and bill richardson and mike clark took us out and we got to smooze with some really important greenpeacers :). we then did more campaign work and split up into a group to work on banners and other prop details, and then worked on our time line grid, flushing out all the details of hours and time needed for all of our events. after that we met with the actions team to discuss a little mini action going on tomorrow that i'll write about tomorrow, hopefully it goes smoothly!

. . . when each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lies every day the sun rises.

2009-03-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

i think that quote from the alchemist sums it up the best. i kind-of-almost have a free moment and i just didn't want to forget to take a moment away from my assignments to reflect on my experience.

i knew from the moment i saw the outline of the got on the greenpeace website that this would be the once in a lifetime opportunity i was looking for. adventure, hands on experience, trainings, readings, new city, travel. looks like everything one would want in a semester...but i never once thought it would be half as good as it is. i am so incredibly lucky to be living here. i live on the same street as the capitol, folgers shakespeare library, and the supreme court is actually my neighbor. i'm within walking distance to the cities best farmers market and a metro stop away from anything this city could offer. but living in our nations capital isn't even close to the pinnacle of my experience. it within a doubt is working and learning under greenpeace. this organization is one of such compassion, pride, optimism, drive, and strength that i would be lucky to ever have the chance to call myself an employee later in my life. and the best part is i'm not an employee, im a student. that means i have the slim opportunity to mess up, to fall on my face...only to learn. i am able to walk into our eco-chic office everyday being completely open-minded, having only everything to gain. and those days at the middle-of-nowhere equipment center have provided some of the most unforgettable moments of my life. its not so often that you get the chance to participate in an art build for a 3000 person protest, jamming to the best beats with 50 activists using their passion for something good. these experiences have given me the belief that the time is now. there is no more comprising the environment & human rights. social justice is going to happen and our generation is going to bring us one more step closer to peace. i also know that i can do this. i have been awarded a passion and drive that most people don't ever get to taste and i am ready for the challenge. i am only twenty years young and will bring change to my world. this challenge is one that is going to take some time but i'm here for the long haul. i won't ever be perfect and neither will our world. but what i can be is everything greenpeace is. i am incredibly compassionate, prideful (but not too egotistical, so i hope), optimistic, full of drive, and a strong woman. i am grabbing this experience by the horns and am not giving up until social and eco justice is reached.

and a reminder of thanks to every person that brought me here. every experience in my life has made me stronger and its all of these strange life stories that morph me into the person i am today. so thank you all, thank you to my life. i hope that by the time i am no longer apart of this world i can say that i impacted at least one person positively, it is then i will know my life was worthwhile.

with love and peace.

NO MORE NUKES!!!

2009-03-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

so today began our nukes week which is really exciting because next week is our campaign in vermont!! and i really like having the chance to really learn about the stuff we're going to be campaigning so its all good stuff. we started our day by hearing from jim who is the nukes guy from greenpeace. he answered all our questions about nukes and has worked on this stuff for quite some time so he really knows his stuff. although most of us were already pretty set in the idea of being anti nuclear, watching the video a dark circle really brought it home for us. it was an hour and a half documentary from the 80s all about the effects of nukes, mostly focusing on a neighborhood in rocky flats colorado. it was really depressing and the visual was so hard to watch. we had to watch little piggies being blown up and see the effects of hiroshima on innocent people. not to even mention the cancer rates and the defects the plutonium. it really was so upsetting to watch and to know that we're still making bombs and having electricity from this kind of power is so frustrating. it is old BAD technology and unlike coal which has the upside of being cheap, nuclear power is so damn expensive its not even economical to have this kind of plant around. we don't need it and the negative effects totally outweigh the slim positives. after that we got more info about vermont and we're going to pressure the representatives there to vote so that the yankee power plant in vernon cannot be relicensed. we ended our day with campaign planning 201, which just showed us how we can grid our entire campaign and break it down into people and hours needed. campaign planning takes a lot of organization and in order to be successful you must implement that. so today was really exciting and i'm glad to be apart of the got!!

actions week

2009-03-11T18:32:00.001-07:00

tuesday march 10th, 10am-5pm.
so today began actions week, so we're learning about the past actions greenpeace has done as well as being put in some of the scenarios that activists usually find themselves in. the majority of our day was spent attempting to define a lot of the words we use, such as non violence, direct action etc. the word violence when speaking with direct actions get a lot more complicated then you would believe. although greenpeace prides itself on doing non violent direct actions, some people would think that cutting a lock or a gate would be violent. its a lot up to personal belief but overall what i got out of it is that violence is defined within the greater good. that is, is you're cutting the lock to a gmo factory, to me, thats okay because gmos are messing up our world and a lock to that factory is not a good thing. many would disagree with me but to me that isn't a "violent act" but those gmos are. its very complicated and i'm actually surprised greenpeace gets away with as much as they do because a lot of their actions may been seen as violent, even though they pride themselves on nvda. i guess its all up to personal belief. i didn't get a lot of the day because i felt very sick so i really just listened a lot.

wednesday-friday, march 11th-13th.
sadly i have been really sick and unable to go to got. they spent the days actually simulating nvda's as well as going out on the greenpeace boats and learning how to climb. i'm pretty bummed i had to miss this but i guess i'll just have to become a greenpeace activist in order to experience it!

a weeekk behindd

2009-03-04T15:24:00.000-08:00

wednesday--9am-10pm

so today was our capitol climate action briefing. this was SO exciting!! we started of by hearing from gabriel, who kind of just told us why coal was so bad. after watching a quick movie, we were convinced. coal CANNOT be our energy source anymore. it is dirty, horrible for the environment, and horrible for humans. and KEEP OUR MOUNTAIN TOPS ON OUR MOUNTAINS! after this we heard from deepra, who is the lawyer for greenpeace and she just briefed us on all the legal stuff. this was really important and helped us understand exactly what we were getting ourself into. it was really interesting to hear all the legal stuff and our rights and what could happen to us etc. i feel so lucky to be be apart of this movement and know i am in exactly the right place at the right time. we then were put into our spots for cca and i will be apart of the food and water team making sure everyone is happy and healthy. we then all stayed after at the warehouse to help them with the art build. i felt like i was in the 60s! tons of hippies dancing rocking out to music building art for the movement. it was such an inspirational night we were just getting stuff done and making things happen. it was seriously AMAZING. we made four banners, 200 flags and much more will be done later in the weekend. it was just an amazing day full of passion.

thursday-9am-4pm.
today was a nice short day!!! and by that i mean a work day that was a normal amount of hours. most people worked mostly at the 9:30 club, but a few of us went over to the energy action coalition office to help them phonebank. now that i'm basically a phonebanking professional i don't really mind it. and since eac is putting on powershift it was really cool to be at their office helping out. we were calling all the volunteers (600+) to remind them of their times and shifts. i thought this was incredibly ineffective. either no one cared, no one picked up, or they already knew about it. as a volunteer, you never want to have your time be wasted and thats what i felt like what i was doing. but i did remind myself of a valuable lesson..never feel like your time is being wasted. so i was reminding of that and i did learn something new for the day. when we were done around 1pm we went over to the 9:30 club which is a music venue in dc and joined the rest of our group who was putting together packets for powershift. this was pretty boring as well but we got a free concert by ben keller who was doing his soundcheck. so that was pretty cool and it was a relaxing day to prepare for the weekend!!

friday-saturday-sunday-POWER SHIFT 2009.

power shift was too amazing of an event to even attempt to break up into individual days. let me first attempt to explain. 12,000 students in one building, gathered in order to reclaim our future. or better yet, 12,000 students giving up their friday evenings and saturday mornings, demanding clean energy and environmental (and social) justice. if thats not inspirational, i don't know what is. the days were filled were workshops and nights passed with incredible speakers. i can't even attempt to go into detail because i won't give it justice. i have the information all saved and hope to keep it forever because i don't ever want to forget what amazing people like majora carter and van jones had to say. they embody the idea of green for all and environmental justice. so incredibly inspirational. but what i will say is nothing felt better then seeing the 12,000 students all gathered together for the same cause i believe in. this country IS CHANGING. and i am apart of that movement. and it is a beautiful thing.

monday-CAPITOL CLIMATE ACTION. (10am-5pm)
CCA IS FINALLY HERE!!!! and what a DAY IT WAS. what an amazing day it was. we began by meeting at the same church that the civil rights movement began in and just got our stuff , got together and learned our positions (blue bloc!!) and read the maps of the surrounding areas. after a short briefing and time to prepare ourselves mentally we set out to the power shift rally. we surrounded circle with our 8 feet flags shouting the words change, security, community, and justice and just stood there waiting for the right time. at 12:30 we rose our flags and began chanting "no more coal" and marched to the spirit of justice park. thousands followed us and it was the most empowering moment. we were on our way to STOP THE COAL PLANT. we got to the park and they all gathered to listen to some speakers and get ready for the day as we stood at the surrounding areas showing people where to go. we then went back to the park to finally march to the capitol coal plant. it took about one to two hours and we finally were there. but the march was the most incredible thing. it was empowering, amazing, incredible. i helped lead 2500+ activists IN THE SNOW and together we blocked off all entrances of the coal plant. and we stayed there until dusk, chanting, dancing, marching. that coal plant was stopped for the day and it sent off messages around the words that coal is no longer the answer. coal is a killer and NOT a good energy source. we want renewable energy, we need clean energy, and it must happen now. cca was a long day but it showed me how important political action is.

wednesday-10am-2pm
short day before our almost week-long break!!! today was fast and not much happened. we met at gabriel and adams house and debriefed how we thought power shift recruitment was and what we learned for next time. i learned how to work with many personalities, how to organize, how to empower others, how to communicate, and how to put my personal life on hold for the greater good. recruiting for power shift was such a great experience in my life and actually attending power shift and being a part of cca was something i will never forget and would never trade for the world. i feel SO incredibly lucky to be apart of this great movement and am so happy that it went as well as it did. after our debrief we learned our next trip is to vermont and then somewhere even MORE exciting for our international trip. i am having the most amazing semester of my life and am just so lucky!!!

2009-02-24T20:53:00.000-08:00

tuesday, february 24th, 1030am-9pm.

so after all of our work, we did it!! it was so exciting to finally get to 20 people and it may seem like a small number but it took a LOT of work. but i guess i should explain how we got there. we started out the day at our usual location of starbucks and just organized for our day. we figured out who would do our class raps, who would be our polar bear(s) of the day, and who would be petitioning. we were all pretty burnt out at this point but knew we had to keep going. so we did. i started off my day by databasing and organizing everything in starbucks, and then called our list of committed people. sadly, a lot of people said that they would show up at starbucks and register on the spot but they lied and never showed up. after i did that i was our next polar bear! sadly my height didn't make me a great polar bear but people loved it still. its such a good attention getter because they look at the person in the suit (obviously) and while we have their attention we can babble on about powershift and they usually listen. we finally left gwu around 4 and it was greattttt to finally be done. but then we went back to the office and phonebanked as usaul. of course we got more no's then anything else but i was again assigned to calling the committed and we had enough people switch from commit to register to hit out goal! its going to be great to know that got's work makes up for 1% of the population of powershift and i cannot wait for this weekend! hard work takes a while, thats for sure, but when you hit your goal of campaigning, its all worth it!

2009-02-24T12:08:00.001-08:00

NEW ADDRESS:
204 EAST CAPITAL STREET NE
WASHINGTON DC 20003

YAY <3!!!

dancing with the polar bears.

2009-02-24T11:56:00.000-08:00

monday, february 23rd, 10:30-9

our second to last day at gw! so in order to mix up our tactics we did something crazy today. and by crazy i mean, we took the polar bear suit from the equipment center, grabbed a boom box and walked around gwu. it was ridiculous but actually worked. since the polar bear was able to draw so much attention, we were able to stop people on the streets and get them to listen to what powershift was about. some people found it distracting which is not surprising but i thought it worked really well. it helped us have fun and also got us the attention necessary for powershift. we thought that security would have an issue with us but instead it was totally cool and worked really really well. registration is now up to 9,822 and we're so close to hitting our goal. it feels really amazing to know we were apart of this movement and is so cool. i'm super excited for powershift and think its going to be an amazing experience. gwu was actually a great campus to be on even though it was difficult at times it still helped us because we wouldn't have been able to do this on any other campus. after that we went and phonebanked which was really easy because we've spoken to the majority of our people already. so we're focusing mostly on our "committed" section because those are the people we want to switch over to "registered". so far so good and we only need five more to hit our gwu goal and i hope we do it!

i felt like the kid that has no one show up to their birthday party.

2009-02-21T20:54:00.000-08:00

saturday, february 21st, 2pm-6pm
today was supposed to be our kickoff party in order to get kids registered. we had a lot of complications finding a place that would allow us to sit there for a few hours and hopefully provide free internet. we finally found one, this restaurant/bar/lounge place that would also be the host to a greenpeace band later in the evening so it was pretty perfect. we had a few volunteers show up halfway throughout the day who helped us make posters and goody bags, but they aren't even signed up for powershift. i then sent a mass email to about 300 who we petitioned inviting them to stop by tonic as well as sign up for powershift. we waited around all afternoon and no one showed up. it was pretty much a bummer because we had all worked so hard to get there. but thats the game of politics..its not always going to work out.but i just spoke to my group members and they said that they were at tonic now for the band and they have gotten about 5 people to sign up which is still really exciting, so i guess it worked out. but tomorrow night we are phonebanking so hopefully after that we'll reach our goal of 20 signed up gwu students.

working for the weekend..oh wait we don't have one.

2009-02-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

so lets see how the past two days have gone.

thursday, february 19th, 9am-11:30pm (true story)
so another day at gwu. so we started our day with our morning meeting, but a team member and myself actually did not go to the meeting and instead went straight to campus to do a class rap. i was kind of the wing man and didn't do much in the actual class rap, instead helped pass out the info sheets. there were about 30 students in the class and we were able to get 2 volunteers and 1 possible recruit so according to the rule of halves, that isn't bad. it just sucks with politics you have to work so hard to get those numbers. so then we met up with the rest of our group and like usual, petitioned all day long. one thing that our group did that was really smart was we designated a hub person who would man our table, which was really helpful because then we were able to take breaks and we were also just able to keep our stuff on the table instead of having to carry it around. no other group thought of this and it was so incredibly helpful because we were able to not run our brains dead. the hub person also databased while siting at the table which made phone banking less stressful because then we didn't have to do so much preparation. so we petitioned from about 11 until 4, and then headed back to the office. my goal was to finish a full sheet-which is 26 names/emails/phone numbers and i was able to do that so i was happy. we then went back to the office and phonebanked which was difficult because as usual, people don't answer their phones/are busy/don't care. i was the phone bank leader and lead our group through our phonebanking goals (to finish everyone that as been databased) and make sure we're clear on what we're asking the people (to volunteer for us, to come to our kickoff event on saturday, or to just sign up for powershift). it went really well and it took a really long time but we got through everything we had to and i left the office feeling very satisfied with our work day.

friday, february 20th, 1pm-4pm
today was a very go with the flow day. due to personal reasons i had to go into work late today and missed the morning meeting and just met up with my group at gwu. today was pretty chill, at this point we knew we had already petitioned a lot of people and it was friday so a lot of people aren't walking around campus. so we instead only sent out two main petitioners and just got stuff done on campus. we put up some posters, we contacted some groups, and we did follow up emails for class raps as well as sending out mass emails to groups on campus. it wasn't a numbers day--we knew we wouldn't be able to talk to that many people since its friday so instead we used our time wisely and just used the day to get stuff done. i think it was actually pretty successful and we did accomplish some important goals. tomorrow is our kickoff meeting and even though its a saturday and a lot of people aren't on campus, i think it will be successful. until then, i have some important emails to write to insure that tomorrow goes smoothy.

13 hour work day ahhh

2009-02-18T20:31:00.000-08:00

today was in-freaking-sane
9am-11pm.
OUCH.
but we got so much done and so worth it...and will be repeated again tomorrow.

so we meet in the morning at the office and just went over our goals as a full group as well as the gwu group. these morning meetings and super important to make sure we're all on the same page. so we just discussed what we would be doing and how it would be going on. so then we left around 945 after planning out our day, which was relatively useless because once our day was started, we had to completely revamp. so we got to foggy bottom (main part of campus) and hopped right on the shuttle to the mount vernon campus. two group members stayed at foggy bottom to drop papers in professors mailboxes and hopefully schedule class raps, which was finally a success because we were able to get professors to finally talk to us. the thing about politics is you have to talk to so many people in order to get even some return rate. so the other four members headed over to mount vernon, which is much more "campus like" and its pretty small but actually has a quad and outdoor area etc. sadly, it was raining so we had to do our petitioning all inside, but it ended out. me and another team member headed around campus to put posters up in which only an hour later we got yelled at and had to take them down. apparently universitys have lots of rules and red tape which we found out about. so then we just petitioned in the cafeteria area which wasn't a super high traffic spot but we got some people to sign interest forms about powershift. after lunch time it really slowed down so we went over to the foggy bottom campus and did the same thing over there until about 5. it was a really repetitive day but had to be done. then we went over to the office and all discussed our days and we all had pretty similar experiences. then we all went to group dinner and meet the san fran got!! that was exciting to see the rest of our group finally and put all of us together. then back to the office when the madness started. we had a quick training on databasing and had to database all of our interested people which is super timely but so important for seeing who you are getting and how many people. this is all stuff i have learned through past campaigns so i know how it works and how important it is. by the time we finished it was 930 and we thought it would the best use of our time to only call the people that said they would volunteer for us, in which everyone was busy and we have to call them tomorrow. so tomorrow is another day and hopefully we'll get more volunteers and more importantly more people to sign up for powershift! until then..

off to george washington university.

2009-02-17T18:58:00.000-08:00

february 17th, 9-6.

our campaign finally began today! but first we had a lot more stuff to cover.
we started off meeting amanda starbuck, who is the student team manager of gp and a really important player in the student network. she just gave us an energizer and passed it along to mary nicol, who gave us another powershift roll out. she gaves us much more info about powershift, including the knowledge that 7000+ students have already registered. that was a huge motivation because we don't have to register that many more people in order to hit our 10,000 goal! gabriel then finally gave us more information about capital climate action, which basically explained more logistics and how to avoid getting arrested or not. this action is going to be huge, it going to be the biggest civil disobedience on global warming in the nation. i'm super excited and know its going to really help push congress. we then just kind of discussed our strategies with our groups and adam held some workshops just on general ideas, class raps, feedback etc. we then finally were off to our campuses! it was really good to finally be there and even better because we spoke to green gw, the environmental group on campus, after calling them a million times. they really helped us out because they have already done a lot of recruitment for powershift and they recommended we go over to the mount vernon campus since they have already hit everything up on the foggy bottom campus. we really spent a lot of our time re-strategizing and figuring out what we will be doing on the other campus. i hope tomorrow we actually speak to some students about powershift and hope they other campus is more helpful. until then, we still need 20 students to sign up (thats our goal) and i'm determined to make it happen!

how many people can say they're allowed to wear tye dye to work?

2009-02-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

alas, friday has finally arrived.
now don't get me wrong, i really do enjoy working for greenpeace. but long days are still long days so this 3 day weekend is much needed.
we had our final book discussion on "rules for radicals" at teaism early in the morning. we mostly focused on the rules he laid out in one of the later chapters. they were rules for tactics such as knowing your enemy and making sure you keep your campaign new and fresh. it wasn't my favorite book but it was a really important book for any organizers from the 70's so i am glad we read it. when then had our two week recruitment drive which explained everything we were doing on our campuses. we got our schedules for the next three weeks (its going to be crazy) and were explained one really crucial part of recruitment; the rule of halves. what this does is lets say you have 10 people you want to come to your event. s then you must have 20 people say yes, which means you must have 40 people with good conversations, 80 people that pick up the phone, which means you have to call 400 people (you multiply the last part by 5 because when you are phone banking its a 4/5 chance that they won't pick up the phone). and this rule goes into how much lit you need, how many volunteers you need, how many hours you're going to spend working, etc. it translates into basically anything and kind of made all the madness of the amount of people you must call kind of make sense. so that was a really useful tool to use for the future organizing we will be doing. then our groups and our campuses were finally announced. i was really happy because i'll be doing all my powershift recruitment at gwu. gw is the coolest campus to the office and since i have some friends there, i thought it would be a great place for me to go. so basically everyday we'll all meet at the office, gather materials for the day, spend about 4 hours on our campuses recruiting, and then go back to the office and phone bank all the people that we called earlier in the day. the next 2 weeks for recruitment is going to be really difficult but its really important so i think its totally worth it. we ended our days with our peer to peer evaluations which is kind of just a catch up for the week and then we were done! now i get to enjoy my weekend before the chaos starts on tuesday.

10,000 students in the first 100 days.

2009-02-12T20:22:00.000-08:00

february 12th, 10-5.
today was not my most favorite of days. we started off hearing from johanna, who is the frontline fellow. she spoke about leadership development, which is really important in grassroots organizing. adam, our coordinator touched on this idea yesterday. basically the main point of it is you want to organize yourself out of a job. apart of organizing is to empower other people, which is why you need to have a strong ability to develop others as leaders. this also means you can't be too proud of your own power and you can't hold on the power yourself. i think this is a really important characteristic of grassroots. we then moved onto actually our class raps as well as researching more people to call. i personally emailed about 50 student organizations explaining what powershift is and why their group members would want to come. i thought we would get some responses but we haven't yet which is pretty disappointing. hopefully we hear back from a few groups soon because i really want to see more gwu students get involved with the opportunity of powershift. we finished the day by videotaping ourselves reciting our personalized class raps so we could watch ourselves and receive feedback. although it was really embarrassing it was a pretty useful tool to see how we were doing. i definitely think it will help us in the long run. thats all for now, tomorrow is friday woohoo!

do you have a minute to talk about the environment?

2009-02-11T16:12:00.000-08:00

february 11th, 11-4
so today was a very nice day, in much thanks to the weather. we started off at the main office and began our day with an overview of raps, which are basically how you talk to people about whatever you're trying to tell them. what we were pitching was powershift registration and also the postcards in which we would be attempting to have people sign. we went over to american univerity each postcard was addressed to the members of congress tht would be delivered on march 2nd, which is the lobby day of powershift. all of these postcards were used in our efforts of petitioning. our second "ask" was to be registered for powershift. it was definitely a lot harder than asking for the people to sign the postcard. i thought it would have been really efficient if we only had one ask because i thought we were asking too much in one time period. but it was still a relatively successful day for our first day out. our day was pretty short because we really just wanted to go over raps and then just practice what we would be doing next week. short day but still important!

i am almost free.

2009-02-10T20:19:00.000-08:00

tuesday, february 10th, 12-9.

so today was a really, really long day. but really, really great.

we were supposed to have an optional rock-climbing event with the actions team but it had to be rescheduled due to logistical reasons. no big deal though. but our day began with our powershift roll out! powershift means 10,000 students getting together to address the issue of climate change. feel free to check it out--http://www.powershift09.org/ its going to be amazing. when then continued our day with a brief overview of the greenpeace actions team. they all described their jobs and how they got into working for greenpeace, which is basically just a lot of hard work. then, james brady who is the actions recruiter described his favorite story. in korea a little while ago they were not allowed to commercially whale, but they could whale if it was "accidental" and the government was going to build a factory for the "accidental" whales that were caught. so greenpeace decided to camp out on the parking lot for 2 months, advocating for the whales and educating the public. they ended up winning because whaling is still illegal and the factory still hasn't been built. so that was inspirational just to know that these campaigns really do work, and one key point i took from his presentation is that kindness does win. actions really are an important point of greenpeace because they're a lot of the work that the public actually do see. we then moved along to go over class raps--which is basically going into a class to discuss your cause. we researched the schools we're going to (gwu, george mason, and american) and found some classes and clubs to go talk to for next week for powershift. this is probably one of our best recruiting skills. then, we had bill holland who is the deputy director of public citizens global trade watch come speak to us about the 4 c's and kind of the basis of phonebanking. the four c's are essential for any communication but really important for any phonebanking call. although i consider myself a pretty well trained phonebanker after mike smith, but this man really helped me remember all the skills i had to teach myself, and definitely helped all the students that aren't as well versed as i am in phonebanking. we then broke for a short dinner break and then went on our first phonebanking adventure. we were calling people in new jersey to discuss a event greenpeace volunteers were hosting on february 12th in order to gain support for capital climate action as well as just build a stronger gp support system. it was a free event in which people were going to hear about cca and have a conference call with the executive director of gp. i didn't get to talk to many people but the people i did talk to were all basically nice, which was probably because the people we were talking to were greenpeace members. so it was a pretty successful phonebank.
so our day was really long and jammed pack as always, but since i am basically in love with the organization and the work we do, time really goes by pretty quickly. so no major complaints and am looking forward to tomorrow!

power to the people.

2009-02-10T07:13:00.001-08:00

monday february 9th, 2009.
9am-4pm.
today begin our study on climate change. we started the day with a brief overview thanks to gabriel, and then started to discuss what exactly recruitment and organizing is. we first had to break down the different avenues in which a campaign could be organized-legal, lobbying, education, and lifestyle changes. we discussed all the pro's and con's of these-the highlights included, the expense, the risks you take, the complications, and many others. gabriel then lead us through the discussion of what organizing is-which is basically getting people together because when it comes to grassroots organizing, all of the power is in the people. and all historical organizers (mlk, ghandi, martin luther) all had great communication skills which are essential to any organizing. once you begin organizing, you must recruit people to the campaign. and again, all of the power lies within the people. after we ended our discussion, ryan patterson who is the campaign assistant for project hotseat came in to speak to us. project hotseat is basically the global warmings campaign for greenpeace. he laid our their goals, strategy and tactics, and then explained how they are achieving them. it was really inspiring to see how the campaign was laid out and how exactly this is working. after ryan finished up, we had our lunch break and then went on to have kert davies speak to us. kert davies is the research director and basically gave us the scientific breakdown of global warming.

Greenpeace Orientation Retreat Pennlysvirginia

2009-02-08T14:19:00.000-08:00

GORP WAS AMAZINGG :).

thursday february 5th-saturday february 7th.

so our day started by heading out to traders joes to get our groceries for the whole trip. fun fact: eating vegetarian is so much easier when greenpeace doesn't purchase meat. aka, i could eat whatever i wanted all weekend without stressing about what was in the sauce or if it had chicken in it. it was so exciting. so after getting a billion groceries we headed out to leray, virginia. and by leray, i mean middle of no where mountains. it was completely beautiful and the weather was amazing (except for at night in which it was unbearably cold). so basically we spent the majority of our time doing team building exercises and getting to know each other. we also had adam and gabriel lead a few trailings, on active listening and the book discussion of rules for radicals. the book discussion was really great because we were able to take some of the ideas from the book (ie: are we working against the system or with the system) and relate them back to greenpeace. we learned a lot about eachother, a lot about greenpeace, and just really bonded as a group. there was not a lot of focus on so much "learning"-moreso the focus was to really enjoy ourselves and just get to know every individual. i found this really important because we're spending a lot of time together and we really need the ability to be able to work well with every individual in the group. so gorp was basically amazing and i loved it and i love greenpeace :).

lets try this.

2009-02-04T15:30:00.001-08:00

so i'm really trying to make it a daily habit to write in my blog for two reasons:

1. i won't forget things.

2. jewett approved me keeping my journal in a blog format as long as i keep the necessary info, so if i actually do this it will make my job so much easier when i go to write my portfolio.

february 4th, 9am-6pm

today we worked in the chinatown office and our day was a little crazy. we had had a photoshoot down at the capital in order to take pictures/videos for climate capital action [www.capitolclimateaction.com if you would like any more info]. the police didn't give us any problems and were really nice to us as long as we promised to not like, jump the fence or anything. which wasn't at all the plan, we just wanted some nice pictures with the lovely coal plant in the background. it was freezing out so that was the hard part, but it was cool and we got our awesome greenpeace jackets and it was fun. we then headed back to the office to had a training by gabe on campaign planning. we were really time crunched since the photoshoot took longer then expected, but we learned something really helpful which is a power map. it basically helps you lay out all the people that will influence your target (who you will be convincing to help you in your campaign). there are four grids: influential, not influential, with us, and against us. it really helps you see what is important and who you need to talk to. we then broke for lunch and meet with our groups to finish our oceans campaign project. and let me tell you...this was madness. it was apparent they were trying to stress us and see how we handled it and if we were still a team player. we had to basically come up with a full campaign for bottle trawling and then find a good way to present it to phil kline, who is the head of the oceans department and basically the "it" guy for the oceans. so if the situation wasn't stressful enough, we had the pressure of presenting it to a really important member of gp! my group was lauren, martha, david, and hanna (hi martha, i know you're reading this). as a whole i think our group was really successful. we had a few bumps in the road but we mostly kept our cool, listened to each other, and finished the majority of our work. since we were told to bring mundane props for our presentation and instructed to present it in a creative way, i came up with the idea of making the story of bottom trawling like a fairy tale, with our group (named gang green) as the happy ending. it worked, we got our information across, and definitely made everyone laugh more than a few times. we were all really scared how it would come out but i think overall we were happy with the ending. we then discussed as the whole got group the strengths and weaknesses of our groups, and our coordinators admitted they knew we had way too much work for such small time and it was an intentional effort to stress us. so it was another good, hard-working day and tomorrow we leave at 9am for GORP (aka greenpeace orientation retreat in pennsylvirginia--the group used to go to penn but now we're going to virginia so gp made up a state in order to fit the name). i probably won't have cell service cause we're camping (and i'm assuming its going to be the middle of nowhere) but we will be back on saturday afternoon and i'll speak to you all soon.

until then,

me.

and it begins!

2009-02-03T17:14:00.000-08:00

so, greenpeace is AWESOME.

i'm just going to go through my last two days in the most details as i can because that way i'll remember it and also it will make my daily journal entries for jewett go a lot smoother :).

first day, february 2nd.

we arrived at 9am to our chinatown office, which is the most convenient location ever. when we walked in we were told to enter the large meeting room, better known as ghandi (yes, the rooms are all named. as of course, named so appropriately). so we finally were introduced to our got coordinators (gabriel and adam), as well as our got intern (emily). we started off quite simply, with just one minute intro's about ourselves and then played an icebreaker type of game just to get to know each other. fun fact: i was the only one of the group to have never really seen snow! we then got a powerpoint presentation really breaking down greenpeace's main goals/ideas/campaigns etc. it really helped bring everything more into perspective and was nice to finally have a more defined view of greenpeace. we also discussed all of our goals and expectations for the semester, and it looks like we will be meeting most of these (travel, learning the activist life, campaign, make a difference, etc). we then finally were given an office tour. and let me tell you, this office is GREAT. first of all, it is huge. second of all, its gorgeous. third of all (and heres the kicker), its eco-friendly! the carpet is of course made out of recycled carpet and the floor is made out of recycled tires. the best part was the kitchen (of course i would say that). they have their own water filter as well as a whole huge part for recycling, and all of the counter tops are made out of recycled yogurt tops. okay, i know that sounds so ugly but it looks just like granite and is the coolest thing ever. and the office is all open style and just has a really great vibe to it. we all then went to lunch at a little thai place right next door and we were really lucky because the whole grassroots team joined us. it was great talking to them and they were all really friendly. grassroots is a really important part of gp because they are the people that actually mobilize people to do stuff, and they work with the student network, which got is a huge part of. when we got back to the office we all broke up into groups and went around the office to find out about different parts of gp. its funny because you think oh well its a bunch of hippies, they can't be organized and productive. and that is anything but true. this office is ridiculously organized and they have thought of everything. our day then wrapped up, ending it just the necessary info and then a personality quiz which apparently we'll find out about later. it was a long day, we left around 530 or so. our homework for the evening included a letter to self as well as starting our first book, which is rules for radicals.

tuesday, the 3rd.

our second day at greenpeace! although waking up early has never been my thing, it was nice to be excited when i woke up this morning to see what the day awaited us. they did give us a schedule for the week but everything is written very simply and you really have no idea what you're doing. so today we had our first guest speaker, rebecca van damm. she actually used to be a got coordinator but has stopped working for gp in order to follow her dreams in a music career. but she came in and spoke to us about goals, strategies, and tactics. it was actually much more interesting than i expected and we learned about smart goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timeline)--which i know are going to follow us throughout the whole program. she was a really fantastic speaker and really knew her stuff and was really helpful. gabe, one of the coordinators for us, then came back to just go over the main ground rules which was just the usual stuff (respect, listen, etc). we then went to the office potluck. it was really crowded because everyone in the office joined us to kind of welcome us to gp. i was able to talk to some people from the legal department as well as the actions committee (who i'm sure have some crazy story). everyone was really friendly and seemed happy to have us (the young activists) with them. after our lunch we all took the metro over to the equipment center, which was basically the coolest thing i have ever seen. our got classroom is super cool and its great that we have our own space. i can't go into much details about the ec, but it is like, amazing. its so cool to see all the stuff that gp can do! what an amazing organization. we started a group project today figuring out ideas for an oceans campaign. its only our second today and i feel like i've already learned so much. our homework tonight was to read the next chapter in rules for radical and bring some props tomorrow so we can act our our oceans campaign proposal. and then one more day at the office and we go on GORP!

thats about it from me for today. which means now i get to move onto other things, like online grocery shopping. miss you all.

peace.

it's go time.

2009-02-02T04:55:00.000-08:00

so, this is it.

i wouldn't say i'm beginning a new life today, because thats just a little bit too dramatic for my style.

but i would say today embarks a new day; for today i start on my path of activism.

its going to be crazy adventure, that goes without even saying.

but hopefully this rollercoaster has more ups than downs.

with love,

me.

2009-01-27T10:17:00.001-08:00

its snowinggg :)

first week in DC.

2009-01-26T19:21:00.000-08:00

so, i was getting really tired of explaining my first week here over and over again and just thought it would be easier to just write it out.

i got here on friday just before the inauguration madness hit DC. my little townhouse is great. currently i have my own room, i'm supposed to have a double but we're hoping no one else shows up. with nine other roommates its definitely crazy/a little real world inspired but i think its going to be a great overall experience. i walked just down the street and i'm right next to the huge train station with a million little shops which is also right across the street from the beautiful capital. the location makes up for some of the not-so-nice amenities, such as the oldish cramped for space room as well as the rusty kitchen. but it will make due for the next three months considering i'm in the midst of capital hill! i spent my first two days just relaxing, unpacking, and doing some exploring. i was able to get down to dupoint circle on saturday which is a really cute, walkable neighborhood with some great shops/bookstores etc.

sunday i went to the we are one concert with two other GOT interns-it was GREAT. i mean, i was able to see stevie wonder, beyonce, bruce springsteen, sheryl crow...the list goes on. not to even mention the obama & biden family! and so so so many people. it was just a really memorable experience. i know it seems overstated but it really felt like the country was coming together. people of all colors and backgrounds were standing in the freezing cold just to get a glimpse of obama, who was without a doubt the star of the entire concert. so it was just a really fun day.

monday was of course MLK day, which has actually be a declared service day for 14 years -fun fact. clearly, that has not exactly been working out and obama actually got people to do something! so i followed our almost presidents instructions and went down to the kennedy stadium and helped assemble about 80,000 care packages for our soldiers. it was really cool to see all these people getting together to help the real heroes of our country. it was sponsored by target so literally all we had to do was spend an hour putting things in bags, and write an optional card thanking them. it was definitely a worthwhile way to spend my day.

and then finally tuesday, the big day! so since i live right on capital hill and the temperatures were cold with possibilities of snow, i did not want to wake up at 3am and wait until noon in the freezing cold. so by a freak chance of luck, i got incredibly lucky. i walked outside of my apartment at 10, followed the crowds for about an hour and popped up right by one of the smithsonian museums and had the perfect spot. i was standing right behind one of the silver ticketed areas and was able to see the capital and everything. however, after about 20 minutes of waiting, the crowd got annoyed and decided to break down the barricades for the silver tickets and i had an even better spot. so i was able to watch everything and was able to watch barack hussein obama become our 44th president! it was one of the most surreal moments of my life.

wednesday i went down to the holocaust museum. i decided to go alone my first time because i know i can get very emotional during holocaust related things so i just wanted to be able to take everything in at my own speed. as a whole, i did think it was a good museum. of course, the things that got to me were the real items. i know the history, i know hitler, i know how it happened. but its the real artifacts that kill me. seeing the shoes piled up is always hard. without a doubt the most difficult situation is during the second level, in which you walk through an actual cable car. i've seen them a million times in pictures and i know what they look like. but actually being inside one is like no other feeling. knowing that could have been me so easily is just a beyond surreal thought. they are so small, so disgusting, so inhumane. but it is apart of our history and makes me very proud to be who i am.

thursday and friday were just days to myself. friday night i headed over to gwu, and went to dinner with marisa which was nice to catch up. we then headed over to the postsecret talk, which was amazing. if you haven't heard of postsecret, go to postsecret.com like, now. i really think its one of the best sites on the internet. its kinda like the theme of my whole trip here so far. we are one. all of us have our flaws, our defects, our fears. but theres a similarity to all of us that makes us human. checking postsecret is my favorite thing to do on sundays. in my opinion, frank warren is a 21st century hero. without a doubt he is saving lives. and that is inspiring to know he is really making a difference.

then i headed over to the big apple to play with sister! nothing too exciting, i've been to the city so many times its just like another home to me. but, we did go to max brennars (chocolate restaurant/heaven) as well as a delish vegan asian restaurant. of course there was the usual of dylans candy shop and soho shopping, but nothing too big. just quality time with my sister.

and now i'm back in the district...so thats my rundown.

i miss you all more than words can explain. my address is 305 massachusetts ave NE, washington DC 20002. feel free to send presents!

ps video chat is the best thing ever invented when you're missing the ones you love--so pull out your mac and see my face :).

sidenote-i start greenpeace on monday, as in a week from today. so until then i will keep running around and updating you all. and i'm sure a big update will come after my first day at the office.