Greenpeace and Painting and Yoga, Oh My~

Phew~!

So I had a pretty long day. Although I wasn't necessarily busy, I did do a lot of walking (which I will explain why in just a bit).

First, I'd like to share what I do while at the Greenpeace office. While I can't give specific details such as tactics and the like in regards to our campaigns, I can tell you general information. For instance, I can tell you that the campaign my fellow interns and I will be working on is Chicken of the Sea.

I won't take up too much time explaining everything about the Chicken of the Sea campaign (as you're all sure to read more about it in later posts), but for those who don't know, Chicken of the Sea is one of the biggest companies for canned tuna. Following right after them in the canned tuna business is Bumblebee and StarKist. What these big corporations don't want you to know is that they engage in horribly unsustainable and destructive fishing practices killing thousands of sharks, seabirds, turtles, baby tuna and other precious sealife in the process.

You'd  have to admit that their fishing method is actually extremely efficient and clever, but this is still no excuse for jeopardizing the vitality of such an important part of this planet. What canned tuna companies like Chicken of the Sea do is use FADs or Fish Aggregating Devices. Many fish and other sealife are known to have a behavior that causes them to be attracted to anything new entering their water and as a result swim towards it. FADs are man-made objects that attract not only tuna, but also sharks, turtles and juvenile fishes. Then, they use a massive net and swoop up not only tuna, but everything that had congregated around the FAD resulting in a disgustingly large bycatch.

The way they fish for tuna is catastrophic and rips up the ocean eco-system which is why Chicken of the Sea, Bumblebee and StarKist must end what they're doing and switch to more sustainable fishing practices.

Since I don't want to bore you guys with a wall of text (although this is seriously important information), just watch this video to give you a better understanding of why we're demanding companies like Chicken of the Sea to switch to sustainable fishing practices.

For more detailed information and more videos, go to Tuna Secrets.

Now I'm just going to move away from this and go back to what my role is in Greenpeace's Activist Network. One major part of my work is calling lead activists across the nation and coaching them. What I mean by coaching is basically me helping and guiding them towards their own solution for a problem they're facing in their communities. In simpler terms, it's my job to empower and inspire them to take action against any environmental injustice they find in their community. I have yet to really start this part of my internship, but I'm sure most of it will be related to the Chicken of the Sea campaign.

The second major part of my internship work is called realms work. In a nutshell, each intern got to pick from three choices of realms work: Projects (shipping and inventory), Logistics and Scheduling, and OSN (online social networks such as GP's facebook).

I'm sure all of you know what I signed up for, haha. If you guessed OSN, then you're right! It only seems fitting that I choose the realm that involves using the computer/social network sites since I'm so savvy in this field, haha. My job in this realm is actually pretty easy, but still fun. I get to type up and post messages that link to articles, petitions and other news regarding Greenpeace campaigns to GP's Student Network Facebook page. So far, I made two posts on the page.

So if you have a Facebook, be sure to fan the page to keep yourself updated with all the posts I make which are all really important information. And if you don't have a Facebook, go check it out anyway~

Well, now you know the bulk of what I do. Now onto the next part of this post.

Painting.

Painting? What kind of painting?

Painting banners for Greenpeace campaigns, that's what~ Once in a while we'll get the chance to walk over to the GP warehouse. This is where all the walking I mentioned earlier comes into play. The distance from the GP office to their warehouse actually isn't that far and it doesn't take too long, but it's still a good walking exercise due to the all the inclines San Francisco is famous for, haha.

My fellow interns/friends and I spent about two hours (from about 3-5pm) at the warehouse painting two super large and long banners. It was really fun and with everyone working together we got done with both banners pretty quickly. Not to mention we did an awesome job because they look great! Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures of them due to secrecy, but if I ever see the banners I helped paint in any articles or any other sort of news, I'll be sure to post about it.

Now here comes the last and, I feel, the slightly funny part of today's story. I will shamelessly admit that I have absolutely no yoga experience. None whatsoever. Zilch. Nada.

But both my flatmates and many of the GP staff are....yogis....which is a new term I've learn recently since I've been here. Yogi, someone who practices yoga; go figure, haha.

Anyway, today the Activist Network Fellow, Jess (the person the other interns and I work closely with), set up a time for her to teach an hour yoga class to anyone who was interested. Rachel was in on it from the get-go and in a way I sort of got dragged into it. While I would have said 'no, but thanks for the offer' if I really didn't want to do it, I will confess that I was curious about this whole....yoga.....art....stuff....something or whatever.....I'm not sure how to explain it without sounding like a non-yogi (although I am so it really doesn't matter, haha). With this curiosity, I decided to take a crack at it and see how this yoga experience would go for me.

Again, I've never done yoga before, meaning this was my first time ever. I'll be honest...........yoga is seriously not for me, haha. While it was a fun and interesting experience and certainly relaxing, I just couldn't get into it like the four other girls who were there. And while I did feel the stretching and the strengthening exercises, I just wasn't feeling....whatever I'm supposed to feel when doing yoga. Maybe it's just because I was and am new to yoga so I'm not used to it, but honestly, even then I just don't think it's my sort of thing. I also just can't sit through a meditation, I just don't work that way, haha.

While I did give an honest shot at it and actually tried to get into it, I was still super bored. The only part of the class I liked was when we got to lay down on our backs and just relax (and this was near the end of the class) where I almost fell asleep.

Overall, I'm not going to do a yoga class again. I just can't go through all of that again, haha.

So that was my day today. Sorry there were no pictures in this post. I did add a video even though it's GP related and not so much about what I did today, haha.

But it's still a video, so there!

Anyway, with that, I'll say good night and hope everyone has a lovely night.

And if you're already asleep, well......hope you're sleeping well and you'll read this in the morning....or the afternoon....or whenever you check your email for a message notifying you that I submitted a new post, haha.

Much love,

~Sara