Over the Edge *January 23rd 2013

SIMPLE RULES FOR TRAVELLING:
MOVING TO A NEW CITY

SARAH JACKSON

CONTRIBUTOR

At some point all of us have to leave home
and head out into the world to find something.
Whether that something is an education, an
adventure or even ourselves there are some
things you can do that will make the experience
more memorable and less regrettable.

1. Limit time spent on Facebook and Skype.
Looking at photos of your friends’ lives
hundreds or thousands of miles away will
make you feel depressed. Period.

We have all experienced social media
withdrawal in one form or another. Even
if its just sitting in a classroom where the
Wi-Fi won’t work long enough for you to
check your Facebook it can be a debilitating
experience. When you are away from home
and aching with the uncertainty of it all, social
media can be a lifeline. But it can also be a
serious impediment to actually living your life
wherever you actually are. When I was on my
first backpacking adventure I read something
on the John Lennon wall in Prague that has
stuck with me ever since: Wherever you are,
be there: solid advice from an extraordinary
wall.

2. Find new places. Leave your hostel, hotel,
or apartment, especially on those mornings
where you don’t feel like crawling out from
underneath the covers. Go for a walk. Buy a
tea and coffee from that funky looking shop on
the corner.

It can be tempting to lay in bed, eating chips
and watching Terminator. God knows we all
need to do it once in a while especially when
the world outside is unfamiliar. But if you
drag yourself out of bed you will be surprised
by what you find or rather what finds you.

6

Adventures always seem to find me when
Im abroad whether its riots in Greece or the
discovery of a new and delicious kind of food.
Making the effort is always worth it. Take a
chance. Thats why youre there isnt it?

3. Find new people. Use your voice. Say hello
to the cute guy, girl sitting in the funky little
hole in the wall. Smile even though your hands
are trembling and your heart is beating louder
than the sounds of shuffling baristas and chill
electro-swing.

See what happens when you take a chance.
The scariest things are often the most worth it.
The moments you remember sometimes begin
with moments you would prefer to forget.

4. Be brave.

5. Create something new. Write. Paint. Create
yourself. Every day.

Art is something that never leaves you. The
ability to make something that never existed
before is something that defines us as human
beings and as individuals. The John Lennon
wall I mentioned earlier is a wall hidden in
the depths of Prague covered in Beatles lyrics
and peace signs. It was originally a form of

rebellion before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
People would risk their lives every night to
paint the wall, and every morning the Soviet
guards would paint it back over. Art is hope
that we can all create.

6. Talk to everyone. Talk to that old man on the
bench feeding the ducks and the fifteen year
old at the checkout counter. At the same time
trust your gut. Stand up for yourself because
when you’re alone no one else will. Some
people will be strange. Most people will be
wonderful. Have faith in the many and let go
of the few.

Travelling is wonderful because it reinforces
your faith in people. You are forced to depend
on strangers and generally they come through.
I'm not saying go out and look for strangers
to stay with or take unnecessary risks, but if
you get the chance to stay with locals take it.
You will be surprised how much love can exist
between people who don’t even speak the same
language, how much can be communicated
without words.

7. You will be lonely. Sometimes you will feel
like you are drowning in loneliness. Take a big
breath. Take another. Think of loneliness as a
gift in those moments where you’re terrified
you won’t make it to the next breath. Inhale
it. Learn from it. Make it a part of the shield
between you and the world. Nothing can harm
you if you wear it proudly.

I met a retired American schoolteacher in
Prague who had been backpacking since
he was eighteen. He told us about his first
travelling experience and how he almost
gave up in Paris before he realized that “even
loneliness is something you can learn from”. In
my worst moments I think of those words, take
a deep breath and hold on tight.

Create something new. Write. Paint. Create

yourself. Every day.

8. Tell your story to people that you trust. Tell
your story to the world. Our stories are the only
things that stand between the boxes society
attempts to put us in.

Whoever you are I guarantee you are more
than the information you need to fill out a
passport. But the only way the people you
meet will know that is if you show them.

9. Remember all the people that love you. The
ones who believe in you. Trace the shape of
their faces with your mind. Let them go. Learn
to love someone, somewhere, something new.
Let it go.

We all lose ourselves sometimes, in people,
places. The truth is getting lost is the best part.
The moments you remember are not the ones
that go according to plan; the moments you
remember are the ones where you come up
against something unexpected and find your
way through it. So get lost because it’s the
only way you're going to find those parts of
yourself that you never knew existed before.

TURNING OVER THE PILE: UNBC’S

CAROLYN KNAPPER,
SUSTAINABILITY INTERN

As you have probably seen around the Prince
George campus, UNBC currently participates
in a composting program. What you might
not be seeing is the blood, sweat and tears of
volunteers and stakeholders making this project
possible. Over the past two decades, hundreds
of dedicated volunteers have collected, weighed
and transported bins of decomposing lunch
leftovers from various sites on campus to their
designated compost piles. With the coordinated
help of students, faculty, and facilities, heaps of
compost have been diverted from landfills and
have been used instead to nurture plants and
vegetables around campus and in the community.
The first real concept of a composting program
arose nearly ten years ago as an Environmental
Studies student project that investigated the
capacity of our facilities to handle such a system.
This project was then adopted by PGPIRG
(Prince George Public Interest Group) who
worked in collaboration with REAPS (Recycling
and Environmental Action and Planning Society)
to make the dream a reality. The initial compost
location was set up near the PGPIRG garden
up by residence. Rain, snow, hell or high water,
volunteers would push the composting bin uphill
(both ways), to get what was collected to the
main station. Aside from the huge amount of
manpower required to make this happen, with the
composting site so close to the forest, our hungry
northern friend, the Black Bear, was inevitably
drawn out to snack. Bears plus students was
obviously not a safe environment (both parties
often hungry and irritable under stress), so there
was need for a new system. In 2010 PGPIRG
received support from the Green Fund to upgrade
the system. New green bins and a hopper to store
compost between drop offs were purchased, and
the site was moved down to the parking lots in
front of the school. An electric fence was installed
to keep out hungry pests, better pile systems were
built (using UNBC engineered “beetlecrete,” a
product that combines beetle killed wood and
cement), and the composting program continued.
This is the system we use today- the static pile
system. Compost is still collected by about 15
hardworking volunteers from about 12 bins
around campus daily and placed in a hopper. At
the end of the week the hopper is brought to the
composting site by facilities. Once at the site, the
compost is dumped into 2 beetlecrete containers,
and is moved in the spring to 8 wood and wire
composters where it continues to break down.
From here, the decomposed product is sifted and
used around campus by the groundskeeper, and
is also sold by the bag.

COMPOSTING PROGRAM

This all sounds fine and dandy, but the truth
is, our current compost program has reached
maximum capacity, and it does not currently
collect from either of the residence buildings.
Being the sustainability go-getters that we are at
UNEG, this just isn’t good enough. The search
began for a system that is more economical;
a system that could digest more compost, but
use less man hours. In November of 2011 more
funding was received through the Green Fund
to host a Visioning Session on how to expand
the current system. As part of this process,
Stephanie Doherty, a second year Environmental
Engineering student, was hired to investigate
what other University campuses like UBC,

University of Ottawa and McGill are doing
with their compost. What she found was that
there are a wide range of opportunities available,
but for the most part, many schools are using
a model consisting of rotating bins that keep
the compost oxygenated. To fully decompose
one load of compost, it takes about two weeks
on average, and the amount is dependent on
the size of bin being used. This type of system
could chew through compost much faster than
the conventional static pile method, and could
substantially reduce the required manpower.

The next piece of the puzzle is how much
compost do we need to be able to digest if
we were to include residence. Working with
D’Arcy Michiel, a Masters student at UNBC,
a composting audit was conducted this past
October. Compost buckets were distributed, and
students were asked to collect unprocessed fruits
and vegetables over the course of four weeks.
The buckets could then be dumped in larger
bins located at the residence entrances where
compost was collected and weighed. “Student
participation was awesome,” say D’Arcy and
Stephanie. “We wouldn’t have been able to
accomplish this without the help of students,
RA’s and Housing Staff’. Although it is still a
work in progress, as the data is currently being
sifted through and compared to different possible
systems, we can expect to see some big changes
in composting for the Prince George campus
within the next year or so. And just as small
composting initiatives snowballed into larger
ones, it is possible that more ideas may sprout
from the pile. Perhaps we may see things like
compostable plates and utensils at the cafeteria or
even vermicomposters, utilizing little red worms
to consume our rotting vegetables and turn them
into soil.

There are a lot of dedicated people working on
some pretty awesome projects at UNBC. Thanks
to all our hard working volunteers, students,
faculty and staff who help keep our campus
something we can truly be proud of! A special
thanks to Gail Fondahl, UNBC’s previous VP
Research, for support in making this initiative
possible. For more information on composting or
how you can get involved, drop by the PGPIRG
office, third floor of building 6, or contact Sarah
at PGPIRG@unbc.ca.