Conclusion

Eddie Truong

Blog #6

This week marks the end of the "Be Green" Challenge that we started about 6 weeks ago. In many ways, I'm very proud of myself for choosing to not buy anything extraneous during this period, but I think that I should extend the period of the challenge so that I can keep this streak going!

On the last day of class, I found it interesting that we went to a thrift store to buy some clothing. I was expecting to go anywhere to buy clothes, even though it was a fashion class. I went around the thrift store looking for some clothes to fit me. I'm not a very fashion-oriented person so it was an interesting challenge for me to find clothes that looked appealing to myself; I just don't have the sense for it. My friend found me a good jacket to wear and I contemplated buying it for the longest time. In the end, I chose not to buy it because I really didn't need the extra jacket. Even though the jacket would have been bought in a thrift store which resists commodity chains on some level, the "Be Green" challenge reminded me that I shouldn't buy anything that I really don't need, thrift or not.

I felt that I didn't get as much out of this challenge as my peers because I participate in less of a consumerist culture than others. I probably learned the most from the readings and connecting it to my thoughts about consumerist culture. I'm happy that I was able to stick to the challenge and I'll probably stick to this challenge on a more personal level so that I can check myself against consumerist mentality for as long as I can. I learned a lot from this challenge and from the class as well; there's so much to fashion that I didn't know about before and I have a new level of respect for this field.