Trash pick up day!

Today was FYI service day, so all the freshmen went off to different places with their FYI groups to do volunteer projects of various kinds. It's a tradition for the London and the East Meets West (the other honors program) groups to go together to Buffalo to clean up the area near a river there, so that's what we did. I got up at 6:30, which was somewhat painful, especially on a Saturday, but since we had to meet at 7:20 it was necessary (I'm slow in the morning). The departure time was supposedly 7:30, but we didn't end up leaving until 8:15, for what reason I have no idea. After an hour and a half ride on a bumpy school bus, during which I did manage to sleep a little, we arrived at the headquarters. There we had to fill out waivers and were given free t-shirts, as well as food.

After that it was back on the buses and on to our true destination. The area was actually quite pretty, despite all the garbage. We got our bags and then went to work, without gloves, unfortunately, since no one had thought to take any from the base. There were all sorts of nasty trash around, but a few interesting things too, such as a Chevy bumper one guy found and a TV sitting almost in the river. It wasn't even smashed or broken at all, surprisingly. If you look at the pictures from the link I'll post at the end, you can see some of the things that were fished out of the stream.

An hour later, trash bags stuffed full, we returned to the buses. Originally we had planned to go back to the base to eat lunch, but to save time we ate it there. Because of that the only way to cleanse our hands was through hand sanitizer, which was better than nothing, but I would have liked to do a real wash before eating. Anyway, we were soon heading back; I managed to get a good amount of studying done, but that was the only good thing about the long ride. Once in the dorm, I scrubbed my hands and then took a shower. Ahh, it felt good to be clean.

Despite the few annoyances, it was a fun day; I enjoyed hanging out with the London people and helping make the world a little cleaner. Here's a link to photos:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004267&l=8dd55&id=1449219994