10.15 So we’re heading off to Bioneers!
After a cramming one week’s work and test into the first three days, we all let out the most relieved sigh ever as we gathered in the Ferry house earlier Thursday morning, ready for the adventure ahead.
It was still completely dark outside when we set off, but all we could think of then is the bright California sunshine that we will be facing soon.
Why Bioneers
Ok, enough for the why essay during college application, right?
I know it sounds pretentious yet it’s simply so true--this quest for reasons shall never and will never end.
I could still remember how I set off on this green journey in high school, with the old experience and the new innovations. Gradually, my team and I set up campus recycling systems, finished zoo enrichment projects and accomplished propagandas, but I know we still could’ve made more differences. Could I have done better with neater publicizing work, more precise plans, larger media involvements, or wider cooperation? Now I’ve crossed oceans to meet America, how can I feel any less avid to get a panorama of all the environmental accomplishments in this greenly-developed country?
This Bioneer Conference came as a perfect surprise and a perfect chance at a perfect time.
I’ve read about the lecturers, the clean technology initiator, the wildlife conservationist, national campus campaign coordinator… Each one is building his or her own unique army and fighting for a better world. I look up to the road they lead and the miracles they create. They will soon lecture me clearly on how, with the correct tools, by the correct means, in the correct directions and with the correct goals, just one or several crucial central cores can gradually attract hundreds of thousands of others to revolve around it, together forming a system powerful enough that it can easily shake the whole wide world.
Hello California!
Danielle drove us sleepy ladies all the way down to JFK. There the morning breeze greeted me again and blew back my memory of arriving in US at this same airport only just less than two months ago. Half a semester felt so short that October break cut me off just when I was starting to feel a little familiar with everything that’s going on. But in the JFK all I can think of is the surprising fact that I have been in the US for almost two months, which never exactly crossed my mind until that exact moment.
Two month earlier, I was just contemplating over my last words of the Bioneers application, and wildly imagining what it would be like if I was really lucky enough to get accepted. Two months later, here I am, walking through some unknown only to face more.
Plane rides are always a pleasure for me. With no phone signals, no web connections and of course no direct confrontations all the way up there, plane trips are the perfect getaway from any terrifying reality. However I wasn’t as lucky this time. I was one essay away from a complete free holiday and the plane was somehow able to maintain WiFi service high up in the air too. So I was operating on my computer for the whole trip, unable to fully embrace the excitement of such a marvelous journey up front at the moment.
However it wasn’t until later that I was reminded of the pollution that air travel brings about. It scared me to the depth that this thought had never even crossed my mind when I was all obsessed about the joy of air travel. The same thing happened to me with firecrackers. I was too immersed in their beauty that I just don’t know how to face the unbearable pollution they produce. But these are things that we have to give up—convenience, luxurious beauty and such things—so that the earth wouldn’t end up giving up on us. If we had be half as kind and patient as the earth has been with us, the world would never have been receiving these deadly alerts. Besides, isn’t it we ourselves that have pushed things to such a limit that it left no chance of tolerance towards any excuses?
Six hours later we landed in San Francisco. I always felt that I have been here because of this familiar name, but it is actually the first time for us all to land in this city. I’ve always known that it’s famous for its Asian population and that’s completely true. Looking around I’d be whelmed by the illusion that I’ve just got back to China.
Anyway, hello San Francisco, California!
Sand in My Shoes
Vanessa’s sister was so kind to offer us a shelter at her family house up in the mountains. It’s like the mountain village where I spent my holidays in, except it’s even more remote here that we have no phone signals or internet receptions.
I’ve never been to a more sustainable household. Most of the food in her house was either in her ecological garden or locally grown. They had separate compostable garbage bins inside the house. Most of the meals they have are raw or boiled, and almost everything that can be organic here is organic. They’re doing environmental education for the kids in local areas, which is something that is I found so seriously lacking in the urban areas. Later we went on a trip along the beach that the kids would go on when they’re receiving this education, and it was the same inspiring for us. I was reminded of the week I spent in South Africa, which was the first time for me to actually appreciate the beach and the only time that I’ve ever seen the Milky Way. Vanessa said that it’s only after you found how precious these natural sceneries are that you’ll have a more determined route towards their salvation. That couldn’t be truer. How lucky are these kids who can start to perceive nature as a treasure from such a young age, and how lucky are their community to have such kids who would no doubt grow up to support everything against the destruction of this beauty that has been imprinted in their mind since they were four.
I felt ashamed. Although I lead Roots & Shoots, there was nothing so persuasive that I could provide to the members to make all of them feel as ardent about the environment as I do. Although I call myself an environmentalist, I was not maintaining a completely environmentally friendly and minimum energy costing lifestyle.
I’ve been simply amused and puzzled by so much there is yet to learn, and it’s even before Bioneers has kicked off. How much more overwhelming could the next three days be?
We’ll see.
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