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Instinct says Ew.
I decided today in chemistry class that writing my thoughts down is an important ritual in my life. I rarely want to stop writing altogether, though I easily want to avoid certain journals. I've had countless journals both here and on Livejournal, each abandoned in its own time. The longest I've been in one place is somewhere around two-three years.

Since I switched over to a vegan diet, I've found myself avoiding soda. Normally, I'd drink upwards of four cans of diet a day, two caffeinated and two decaf. Tea is much more tempting nowadays, and splurging on a Diet Dr Pepper today is about to result in dumping most of it down the drain. It doesn't even taste good. I'm mostly happy that not drinking it as much will both help the environment (do you know how many of those cans add up, even recycled?) and save money. Two boxes of soda are around $9, every couple weeks. That's almost $40 a month, wasted on chemicals and aluminum.

I was more alert in class today than normal, and I was able to get up early and shower before class. The topic made me giddy beyond belief, considering how much I despise chemistry as a whole. We were going over orbitals and putting the periodic table into neat little sections, and I'm enjoying it a lot more. It only took about four damn months to finally enjoy this class.

What I like about it is it's more conceptual than just memorizing conversion factors, which I hate. My mind is like a database: comprised of tables. If I can put something I learn into little rows and columns in my head, I will learn it. If you tell me to memorize something, I'll rebel. Memorization is not learning, and I find it near pointless, though there are situations when you can benefit from it. But those situations, for me, are usually more along the lines of "fun" than anything else. If it's not pure self-indulgence, I'm not going to do it.

Back to the vegan thing. It's brilliant how many things I eat already are vegan. I was distraught to find that my favorite bread has butter in it, but I can easily find a substitute. I also find the flavors of soy cream more appealing than most ice creams. I was also shocked to find that Taco Bell has quite a few vegetarian and vegan options. I don't know just how far I'll go with veganism, and I'll likely eat dairy every so often, but I don't think it would be too difficult to stick to it. The level of disgust I find in animal products helps, of course, whereas before I would stop eating meat simply because I found it amusing to restrict myself; I could never give up cheese.

Now, cheese seems more gross than meat once my vegan friend Richard informed me that pus and blood from the udders often gets into the milk. Dear christ, that's disgusting. Not so much the blood, as that doesn't bother me much--any pathogens would be killed through pasteurization. But. Pus. Logically, it's mostly concentrated white blood cells. But I'm not going to listen to logic on this one. Instinct says 'Ew'.

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2009-04-13 @ 12:07 p.m.