Two, two, two posts in one!

Two posts that I wrote on paper between bus rides today...

Isn't the work attire attractive? Check out my decorated gloves!

What drives us to volunteer?

Why do we volunteer?

As a species, we are supposedly all about survival. As university students, we have barely been surviving all term. Walking like a zombie from class to class, sleepwalking from paper to paper. I've been burnt out since January. And yet...

What motivates us to give up a week of relaxing? We paid to travel on a bus for 18 hours, to wake up at 6am each morning, to perform manual labour we are not traned to take on. And yet...

There is more to life than simply surviving, than keeping your head about the water and thinking only for yourself. An integral part of the human condition is the pull we all feel towards on another. We've all experienced this pull towards someone else's tragedy. You're driving along the highway. You see a car accident, and can't help but slow own. You're wondering what happened, who was involved, are they all ok?

And sometimes, if you know there's a need, you pull over. And you help.

It's wired into us. There's an urge to create an equilibrium- if you're ok, we're ok. And when you personally are given the opportunity to help bring about this balance, it tugs at your heart. You have to take it, because you know that, while you're making sure that everyone else is ok, you'll be bringing yourself closer to ok, and a better person for it.

Why do we volunteer?

Because we're human.

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First Impressions
Images have always spoken louder to me than words. Images seen in person, rather than on a screen, are even more powerful.

On some streets, I feel as though we are in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi flick. There are X's on the doors of most of the houses- as Mike explained to us last week, the X's have spaces for the date the house was checked, who checked it, and how many bodies were found inside. These X's are the strongest connection to this post-apocalyptic image that keeps floating around in my head. It was, I suppose, an effective system at the time, but now it's a chilling reminder.

So far, we've only seen 0s. I can't imagine what my reaction will be when we finally see a 1.

I hate how the big corporations had the resources to clean up first. Thousands of homes in ruin, yet we've seen a pristine McDonald's and a Wal-Mart. I know the economy needed to restart quickly, but is this what society is to become- corporate buildings towering over us while our homes are piles of rubble?

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The group would kill me if I failed to mention the other important happening in our lives today. Sometimes, when you go here...

The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

And are trying to take pictures of these...

Fishies! Penguins! Eels! Oh my!

You keep running into this guy...

Brad Pitt. No, seriously, look again. Brad Pitt. Only Whitney has a pic of his face, we'll steal that later.

Celebrity sighting in under 24 hours = pretty cool day.