Hi there! Welcome into my personal weekly diary. Great that you’re here! In this weekly diary I try to show you what an eco-positive lifestyle looks like on a daily basis. What decisions and choices make my life eco-positive? The past week I went to my graduation ceremony in a borrowed dress, had a vegan high tea and my holiday has started! Want to read along?
Thursday
Today I’d like to highlight the things I put on my bread for lunch. I had the vegan celery-apple from Johma, which is entirely vegan. And on the other two sandwiches I had chocolate spreadchocolate spread, which is zero waste, vegan, organic, fair trade and palm oil free. The perfect thing to put onto your bread if you ask me! It’s maybe not the healthiest thing, but a good replacer for let’s say Nutella.
Friday
Such an exiting day! I went to my graduation ceremony! I had graduated back in August already but since I had a little delay the ceremony was today. I am very proud of what I was wearing since it’s a borrowed dress from LENA the fashion library in Amsterdam. I borrowed it a while ago for this graduation, the Christmas gala, Christmas and New Years Eve. I borrowed it for 25 euros for an entire month. This way I can wear something else every time I have a special occasion, but still in a sustainable way. Lending is more sustainable than buying since you share one item with a lot of people. The graduation was amazing. I have worked for this piece of paper for the last 4 years and it feels hella good to finally hold it! Bachelor of Science in the pocket. I studied Facility Management. Right now I’m already studying somewhere else again. At the Free University in Amsterdam, to do a master in Environment of Resource Management. I think that is more in line with my values than Facility Management. After the graduation we went out to eat in Enschede at the Twentsche Foodhal. It’s a place where you can eat vegan but also non-vegan. So, for me there was good vegan food, but since my family is not vegan there was also something for them. I had a lovely seitan burger with nachos.
Saturday
I got a Christmas Box from work today. It’s a box stacked with a lot of food for the holidays. Since I eat vegan there’s a lot of food in the box which I do not eat and so I give this away to family. My boyfriend and I went to Harderwijk where we had a party at night. They only had disposable cups there and I forgot my reusable cup. Yet! They made an exception for me and put my drinks in a reusable glass all night. Zero waste, yes! I also met someone who is really into zero waste on the party, which was really great. It’s always so amazing to meet like-minded souls. We went out in the city centre for a short while and afterwards we went for a mid-night snack. I had a vegan burger, but it was not zero waste unfortunately. There was a small cardboard plate under it. Plastic free, so fine with me.
Sunday
My boyfriend’s grandma celebrated her birthday with a high-tea. Since I eat vegan they made some special things for me. It was lovely and tasty! No need to skip family celebrations, they just make vegan food for me separately.
Monday
Today my nephew came home from Stockholm, he had lived there for 6 months. We celebrated that once back home where I had a lovely vegan cake. It was very creamy and soooo good! Soon after I went to Sanquin, a Dutch institution where you can donate blood and plasma. I’ve been a donor since I was 18 since I like to help others. I am currently a plasma donor. They make medicines out of plasma and treat people with severe burns. Today was not such a good day since I almost fainted. That can happen sometimes, I probably did not drink enough. I did complete the donation but it is not a very nice experience. You get nauseous, sweaty but cold and yes, almost faint. The people were very helpful and after a small soup and some water I got to go home again. Now I can’t donate for 2 months but that’s fine. I will still continue, it’s just a tiny discomfort compared to the people who need the plasma. You save lives.
Tuesday
Judgement day! I had my first exam today, out of two. I was quite nervous but it went well I think. It was a tough exam. I brought some good zero waste lunch to get through the day on school. Once back home I edited my vlog from last week for on Youtube, you can watch that here. At night I studied for the second exam a little bit, which is tomorrow and after that I am officially free! Holidays! While studying I had a good vegan hot chocolate with whipped cream.
Wednesday
Today is the day! My second and last exam. It went quite well and afterwards classmates and I went to have drinks. At night I went out to dinner in Amsterdam with classmates at an Indian restaurant, it was very tasty! They had a lot of vegan options. We went out to celebrate the holiday and that’s it, I’m free for 2,5 weeks now!
Yours sincerely,
Romee