Our weekly highlights are your chance to check out any posts that you may have missed from the ecoTrain this week. This highlights post is like a magazine, and I hope you enjoy reading what our wonderful passengers have crafted for you. This week they are ranked in order of popularity and engagement. Enjoy!

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@markwhittam

• Freedom & Happiness!!!
  If We Only Have One Life, Why Waste It Doing Something That Doesn't Make us Happy? It's the weekend and as promised we are at the beach, but before we get on to the weekly Beach post I would like to share with you a quick how-to guide which can help you on your way to obtaining freedom and happiness.
  
  
• With Over 100 Sandy Beaches, All Within a Short Driving Distance, Where Would You Spend Your Weekends?You know you are free when you can go where ever you please and still feel at home. 'That's easy' you say, 'your house has wheels!' Well, yes! that helps, but I think it's our attitude towards life that helps us feel Free, for example, we have only been in Portugal for 5 minutes, and we already feel perfectly at home.
  
  

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@sharoonyasir

• Batman & Jesus- Why Do We Not Question the Legitimacy and Authenticity of Things?
  You do know who Batman is, right? I think if 10 people come across this, 9 of them do know who Batman is. The Dark Knight, as most of the Generation Z know him, is one of the most famous superheroes of all times. Equipped with his self-created gadgets and wisdom, this superhero is strong and genius enough to fight all sorts of evil. His strength knows no boundaries and this everyone is aware of. Keeping this in mind, Gordon, the police officer in The Dark Knight says, ‘Because we have to chase him. Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now, so we'll hunt him. Because he can take it, because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector, a Dark Knight.’
  
  
• 5 Minute Freewrite Prompt: Big Wave
  Today's prompt for the 5 minute freewrite is 'big wave.' I have been through many intense, upsetting and traumatizing episodes in my life to date, but there is just one that relates to big wave and I had almost forgotten about it till I came across today's prompt.
  
  
• Bahbara Buddies Contest- Everybody Meet Hedgy
  This time I am participating in the Bahbara Buddies Contest by @tattoodjay with a different toy than the one I used last time. The toy I am using is a little hedgehog that came out of a Chupa Chups lollipop my son had. This toy can stick easily on smooth surfaces and my son absolutely adores it and he has quite a collection of these.
  
  

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@eco-alex

• Eco-Build Workshop Challenge Days 10-12- GLASS BOTTLE WALL AND ROOF: "Build a tiny Earthship in under 2 weeks on a $3,000 budget with 30 unskilled volunteers!"
  Suddenly we are on the final leg of the build! It's amazing how the last 5 days just whizz by, but we are in a good flow and everything is taking shape! On days 10-12 we focused on finishing the main walls of the Earthship with glass bottles. We couldn't get enough tyres on short notice, and I was very happy to shift the last few days efforts from tyre ramming to bottle work. This meant that we could work even faster and get the roof on before the end of day 12. That would leave us two more days for the maisoners to plaster the ferro-cement roof frame that we had made, whilst the volunteers finish plastering the main walls on the inside and outside.
  
  

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@hopehuggs

• Life Changing Trees: Save a Tree and Change Your Life - Without Trees, People's Homes and Livelihoods Will Be Destroyed Part 8
  Part 8: Without Trees, People's Homes and Livelihoods Will Be Destroyed (Previous parts at the end of the article) Approximately 300 million people live in forests all over the world, including 60 million indigenous people who's very survival depends on the forest itself. Millions more people live along the fringes of forests. Even a few urban trees can raise property values. According to the U.N, more than 1.6 billion people's livelihoods rely on forests to some extent and a further 10 million people are employed in forest conservation or management. Forests only contribute 1% to global GDP through timber and non timber merchandise. Yet, non timber products support up to 80% of the entire population in a number of developing countries.
  
  
• How to Learn to Deal With Negative Events and Thoughts
  Life isn't all sunshine, roses, and rainbows. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as in all honesty, it would be pretty boring to just have all positive experiences. We need the lows of sadness or disappointment to appreciate the positives. It is what makes the happier times stand out and shine so bright. That being said, negative thoughts, emotions or the people or events that cause the negatives are part of life and there is no avoiding them.
  
  
• Beating the Bully - A Childhood Memory
  The steemiteducation homework was to think of the whackiest classroom tale and my mind honed into this one incident, which was not whacky to me, but at the time everyone in the class thought it was. It was geography class, in the building across the road from the main school. For some reason or another, we did not have a teacher that session. The Witch (that particular geography teacher's nickname) had been called away and there were no spare teachers.
  
  

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@vangelov

• An original Series on: The journey towards Financial Independence through social media. [Part:1 The Beginning]
  Call me stupid, call me silly but I love to see people being successful. There is no room for hate or negativity towards people that made it big. I'm talking about youtube Vlogers, Blogers, Writers, Artists, Photographers, you name it!
  
  
• Your New Years resolution should be your next day's solution!
  Its that time of the year again, the time where people start making all these cheezy lists of thing they would " Like " to do next year. All these lists that end up being lost and forgotten after the alcohol poisoning drops down after the new years eve. Don't Procrastinate! Start today ! Making lists and waiting patiently in the corner takes a lot of time, sometimes it takes a whole lifetime. But luckily today I'm going to drop a shortcut that allows you to rip that list in less than a week! And no, I didn't buy this on a black Friday sale :D
  
  
• Steemit Mystical World Series #15: Manifesting a good life.
  In this edition of the Mystical World series, we will have a look at what stands behind the concept of manifestation and how we can take advantage of the phenomenon. Manifesting
  
  
• A helper's Guide to Understanding the Kundalini Metamorphosis : 1 The Begining
  For the last year and something, I've been going through a full blown Kundalini awakening. The struggles were grave and not having any source of info or a teacher just made everything a nightmare. So now when I feel more stable and more complete I thought about sharing some information on the subject in hopes of helping people like me find an understanding and getting rid of the fears of change. Overall numbers of Kundalini awakenings seem to be increasing around Europe and people like me are finding themselves in something they never knew existed.
  
  
  

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@gardenbsquared

• Birding in Suriname 6 - 56 birds spotted so far, including another Mango!
  Welcome to another episode of Birding in Suriname. The bird in the thumbnail is the Striated Heron. This fairly small heron can been found hunting for little fish alongside the canals here in Suriname. Suriname is one of the former Guyanas north of Brazil.
  
  
• A life under the tropical sun. Reptiles, damselflies and my perspective on sunscreen.
  There’s always a lot of work to do in the garden. At the moment I’m very busy just trimming, clipping and weeding. Weeds grow like crazy here. The same with the grass. In the fields the grasses grow easily 3-4 metres tall. That takes about 5 minutes. Here’s a picture of what came off the garden today and yesterday. It’s definitely time to build that second compost heap. But I haven’t even started yet, I’m ashamed to say.
  
  

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@sashagenji

• Joy of Life in Red
  It has been raining for past few days but Kathryn smiles and rejoices. She loves the rain. Besides, she is one of those people who find positivity in everything around her. She differs from neighborsur, Jean, who always gets moody when the weather is not well. She always looks at him wishing him to understand how simple is to enJOY life in any circumstances. She looks on the rain as the blessings as it brings so needed water to the plants, it nutritious earth and rivers are getting full. Life is all its forms start flourish everywhere. She enjoyes it a lot. She also like the fact that you can dance in the rain or jump into buddies despite the fact of getting wet or catching a suprisied face emotion from the passing stranger. She knows that life exists in every moment and they hide real treasures for her to enjoy.
  
  

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