Did you do your part to celebrate Earth Day this year? Maybe you showered with your man to conserve water or skipped the cardboard sleeve on your Starbucks to reduce paper waste. As for me, I went to a showing of DisneyNature’s new documentary film, Earth.

If you are into the kind of documentaries that make you feel incredibly guilty for living a lifestyle full of gas guzzling cars, 30 minute hot showers and an “ignorance is bliss” attitude, then this movie is not for you! Going in, I expected a deep-voiced narrator (most-likely Morgan Freeman) to describe how keeping my laptop charger plugged in is contributing to the deaths of adorable, innocent baby polar bears, but was pleasantly surprised at the opposite.

This film didn’t make me feel like a bag of crap for living in a world of consumerism. There was no finger pointing and guilt tripping here! However, the gorgeous views from around the world (and the stories of amazing animals) did make me think twice about not recycling my Red Bull. Instead of laying it on thick about the importance of what humans can do to help the planet, the narrator takes the viewer on a trip around the globe to educate you on the things we forget even exist.

Did you know that the Rainforest makes up only 3% of our land mass, but contributes more than 50% of our Earth’s oxygen? Not only did that fact blow my mind, but it inspired me to spend a Saturday not hungover in bed, but outside planting a garden instead.

But the facts and information presented were nothing compared to the film’s photography; I have never seen ocean water so crystal clear or trees so lushly green. Imagine what it would be like to take a helicopter tour over Hawaii and you can get an idea of what watching this movie was like. I especially loved the time lapsed sequences when you could watch a flower bloom in seconds and see an entire continent turn green with growth. My mouth hung open in awe at what our planet can do!

Oh, and the animals!  Watching the baby polar bears play in the snow had my heart melting along with the ice caps; and nothing is cuter than a furry little butt (as long as it’s on an animal and not my man).

The OCD bird who was obsessed with cleaning up his nest to attract a female had me cracking up in my seat. I barely know any guys who would go to the trouble of picking up a sock, let alone scour his room to spic-and-span standards! Those “chicks” in the forest have it made! When you’re not laughing at the birds, you’ll be rooting for several animal families as they run from predators and risk their lives in search of food and shelter. After learning that elephants trek for over a month just to find a drink of water, you’ll never hear me complain about a 3 mile run again (well, maybe).

If you haven’t gone to see this film yet, I am urging you to run out and buy a ticket. This is one documentary that is anything but boring and won’t have you feeling guilty when you do have to print out that 10 page essay or go for a drive. You’ll be cracking up at the animals, mouthing “WOW” at the gorgeous sights and become inspired to do your part to keep our world as beautiful as it has always been.

Don’t forget to stay for the ending credits! You can catch a hilarious blooper of the filmmakers crashing into a tree in their hot-air balloon. High comedy, I promise!

Even though I’m “poor” compared to a lot of Americans, I realize I’m fabulously rich compared to most of the world’s people. So, every once in a while I try to help out others by donating a few dollars to charity.

I don’t donate as much as I should, and I’m working to get better at that. But for those of you who are strapped for cash like I am, two Web sites have made it really easy to donate without reaching for your credit card.

The Hunger Site is part of a group of six Web sites (the Breast Cancer, Child Health, Literacy, Rainforest, and Animal Rescue sites are the others) that rely on sponsor donations to help charities. If you click once daily on the big button on each site, sponsors will donate a small amount for all the causes on your behalf.  Cool, huh?

And if you’re a word nerd like me, you might like FreeRice. It’s a vocabulary quiz site that works through the United Nations to donate 20 grains of rice for each word definition you guess correctly. If you play for even five minutes, you can donate about 900 grains of rice.

So click, click, click away! These are charities that both your wallet and your mouse can appreciate.

I don’t regret that “B” I got in English my sophomore year because I opted to go to a date party instead of the library. I don’t regret hooking up with a good friend, even if it turned out horribly ugly in the end. I don’t even regret catching a terrible cold that lasted 3 weeks after wrestling in Jell-O in the middle of October…in Michigan.

But if there is one thing I do regret from my years of undergrad it is that I never went abroad.

When my friends first started discussing going abroad for Junior year I was wary. Living in another country sounded interesting, but I was worried about being half way around the world for such a long time. I would miss my family. I would miss my friends. I would definitely miss late night pizza in Ann Arbor.

My friends moved forward, signed up to study in Australia and I opted out in favor of more time in good ole’ Michigan.

And I didn’t regret my decision…then. I had a great time! While it seemed like everyone I knew was going to be abroad, I ended up having tons of friends stick around Michigan with me. We all got a ton closer, I got more active in things around campus, I had an awesome spring break and it was a really fun semester (turning 21 helped, obviously). So what if my friends were off in Australia learning how to surf, camping in the rainforest or travelling through East Asia on their way home? Ann Arbor was just as great.

Then I graduated, got a job and realized that I only get 2 weeks of vacation time a year. Not nearly enough time for me to settle into another country, experience other cultures or see the world.

And the regret sunk in.

My mother makes fun of me whenever I bring this up. “Oh, poor baby,” she tells me. “You have such a hard life!” But she just doesn’t get it. I missed out on a truly once in a lifetime experience. I will never again be able to pick up and just go. I will never again have the time (and total lack of responsibility) to do serious travelling. So, instead of whining like I usually do, I decided to keep others like me from making the same mistake.

Go abroad! Travel! See the world!

If you have the opportunity to go abroad do it. Don’t let the little things keep you from such an incredible experience. Never again will you have an unlimited amount of time to escape from life and do something so rich and fulfilling. Going abroad is so much more than just meeting new people and seeing new things; it can really change you. Don’t miss out on that chance because of a boyfriend, a fear of the unknown, or any other dumb reason you keep coming up with. There is no good reason not to go abroad. None.

Unless, of course, you like the idea of spending your post college years sitting on your couch, watching the Travel Channel and crying about never having seen those things first hand.