Lost in Translation: Low Battery Challenge

It's almost October and those of you who have been following me for a while know what that means: It's time for the Low Battery Challenge!
Last year I was all alone, trying to use as little technology as possible for a month. It was tough and not always a whole lot of fun, but this year I have a friend who will support and do the Challenge with me: Kanra Khan from The Lunar Descent! Together we'll try to get through October without using the usual ginormous amount of electrity.

Why would I do that?

There are two very simple reasons for doing this challenge again.

The first reason is that I've turned into a complete smartphone zombie and I hate it. I text with friends literally all day long. When I'm not texting, I am blogging or working on online college assignments. If I'm not staring at my laptop screen, I'm probably watching tv. That is just pathetic. There's an amazing world out there and I am not exploring it because I am too busy giving my tv a name and staying close to my laptop...

The second reason is an environmental reason. I am a tree hugger and I am proud of that. Sometimes it makes me a little sad: people are slowly killing this planet. Electricity is supposedly so much better, but not all of that electricity is perfectly clean. Until the day all electricity is wind or water or whatever powered, I will feel bad about using so much of this energy source to feed my pointless internet addiction. In a way I'm not just trying to do something for myself, but also for the planet. So for the next 31 days, I'll be trying to use as little electronics as possible and hope not to go absolutely crazy before Halloween comes around!

The rules:

The Low Battery Challenge has a few rules, just like any other challenge. What's special about this challenge is that you can set your own goals. Not using any electricity at all is impossible these days and there are certain things, such as my college email account, that I can't live without.

These are the rules I set up for myself for this year's Low Battery Challenge:

College has the highest priority! Using my laptop to work on and hand in an online assignment is totally allowed.
Pointless checking of Facebook and Twitter feeds is allowed once a day, no more.
No radio.
Cell phone dead? Charge it in the weekends.
Pablo (my tv) can't be on for two hours a day: half an hour a day and Catfish on Sundays is enough for this month.
Internet time is limited to 30 minutes a day.

For a girl who usually spends every waking minute online, this is going to be pretty rough. I'm glad to have Kanra on my side this time and of course I hope to see you all stop by along the way too!

What will happen to the blog?
Don't worry, I won't totally disappear for a month. I usually write my posts by hand before I write them on blogger, so I should be able to keep things running within those 30 minutes I have each day. Apart from that, I will also write an update on the Low Battery Challenge at the end of each week .
Stay tuned for more news, check my daily Twitter update and don't forget to support Kanra and me as much as you can (digital hugs are accepted at all times!).

Stay Awesome!

2 Fellow Ramblers

Thank God it's November! Even when you get used to it, life with as least technology and electricity a possible is tough. When I woke up on the first of November, I was still in Low Battery mood. I didn't turn my phone on all weekend. On Monday I had the wifi turned off most of the day, because it saves energy. Realization hit that night when I tried to figure out Twitter (I now have an account right here!). I didn't have to hurry because I was running out of internet minutes and it just felt soooo good.
Still I think this was a good thing to do. Ive achieved a lot. Time for a short round up!

Electronics

In September I used electronics all the time. I wanted to turn that down a notch. A bit to my own surprise I succeeded!

In October, I:

Cover of my Wattpad novel

charged my phone six times, instead of the average 30
listened to the radio for only five minutes a day on average (don't know how I did that, but theradio was the easiest thing of all to ignore)
watched tv for about 40 minutes per day
spent an hour a day blogging and doing other fun stuff on the internet
barely looked at my Facebook account at all!

What I did with all my extra free minutes? Well, I can cook four different dishes, I can do some embroidery (more or less, but it looks a lot better than it did a month ago) and I wrote the plot line and a few chapters of a novel. The novel isn't as good as I hoped it'd be, but it was a good way to practise finishing stuff :) It's in Dutch and I don't think it's worth translating to English. I'm proud of it anyway. It's called '21 switchbacks' and tells the story of Noelle, who cycles to the top of Alpe d'Huez in remembrance of her father. I'm glad I'm close to finishing it now. I think it'll be completed on Wattpad before the end of this month. And then I'll be able to focus on another story, which will be published on this blog, starting January 2015!

What else did I accomplish?Well, I got rid of some bad habits. I don't waste my time on Facebook anymore. I think I've outgrown the website. I also turn off the computer when I get bored with the internet (yes, that does happen from time to time!). I turn the lights off when I leave a room. Most important of all: I don't feel like a smartphone zombie anymore.

My Challenge was difficult, but I think it was totally worth it.

Stay Awesome!

Living life with your phone at 5% battery, knowing you won't be able to charge it for a long time...
Sounds like a postapocalyptic scenario? No, it's just part of my Low Battery Challenge!

Lately I've been using a lot of energy. And I don't mean the kind of energy you get when you're overdosing on cofee. I mean the stuff that kills you when you poke your fork too far into the toaster.

I don't like to use this much energy. As a half-hipster, I care about the environment. I even hug trees. But by using so much electricity, I'm not exactly helping the environment. So I set up a challenge for myself for the month of October; the Low Battery Challenge.

What's the goal?

Use as little electricity as possible in October! Going cold turkey on electricity is almost impossible these days, especially since I have a lot of online assignments.I'm going to try this anyway, because looking at the facts makes me sad and a bit desperate.

On an average day I:

wake up, turn on my phone, radio and laptop. I use my laptop for about 40 minutes, the radio for 15 minutes.
use 40% of my phone's battery at school and the other 60% at home.
come home and work on online assignments for about 2.5 hours.
watch tv (when my homework is done) for another 1.5 hours.
write blogposts and comments for about an hour a day.
waste another hour on sites like Facebook, doing nothing.
turn on the radio multiple times a day, which adds up to at least another hour of using energy.

So I spend approximately 10 hours a day toying with technology. I think I can at least halve that for the next month.

What am I going to do?

For the next month I'll be trying to spend a maximum of four hours a day playing with electronics. This is not going to be easy. For example: I can't turn off my phone. Everytime I do, something goes wring and people who really need to reach me can't reach me. I also get a lot of information about college and homework over the phone. In case you're wondering: yes, I do need that information. A lot. So now I'm using it all the time and I have to charge it every day. I'm going to try to bring that back to once a week.

The radio is not going to be on anymore while I'm doing homework. I don't really pay attention to the music anyway. It's mostly just distracting me from my homework. If the radio's off, I can concentrate on my homework and have it done within two hours.

I'm also setting a limit of 20 minutes a day for checking my e-mail, timetable changes and Facebook. If necessary I can check my e-mail more often, but Facebook only once a day. That pointless site is devouring waaaay too much of my time.

Then the tv is left. I don't watch a lot of shows, but I can't live life without my Futurama episode on weekdays (30 minutes, including commercials) and my Catfish-Awkward-Faking it marathon on Sunday. Still, that would bring my average down from 1.5 hours a day to approximately 40 minutes.

How about blogging?

Don't worry, my blog will be updated just as often as you're used to. I'm just going to take a different approach. Instead of staring at the screen for way too long, I'm going to draft my posts in my blogging notebook, then when I'm done drafting I'll type it out as fastas I can so I have some time left to read your posts and comment on them. As long as you're supporting me, I'll be supporting you ;)

I am also going to do (almost) weekly updates on my challenge. They'll be posted on the 7th, 14th, 22nd and 29th of October. On the 3rd of November, I'm doing a round-up.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about this challenge. I'm not sure if I'll make it till the end of the month. On the other hand I'm very excited: using less electricity means wasting less time, whichmeans I'll have more time for writing. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to publich a book by the end of October!

Wish me luck, and stay tuned for more news on the Low Battery Challenge!

4 Fellow Ramblers