Brandon+Wu+-+Breathing+In+Copious+Amounts+of+Dirt+at+MLK+Day+of+Service+Event

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At the MLK Day of Service event, I was not expecting much. It was a cold day, which was off-putting considering we would be there for two hours, however it would not last for long. I would soon be warmed by thoughts of helping the community and preserving the agricultural heritage of Cary through the Good Hope Farm initiative. Also manual labor. In retrospect, it was mostly the labor. Everyone was assigned different jobs by being split up into groups, I was involved in spreading compost around the field, and I am unsure as to what everyone else did. This consisted of us going out into the fields where massive mounds of compost had been set up, and using pitchforks, rakes, and wheelbarrows to move the stuff around. Some took the job of receiving the compost from the wheelbarrows and then spreading it around farther from the mound, and some took the job of spreading out compost directly from the mound or putting compost into wheelbarrows for delivery. I started out with a rake, but switched to a pitchfork because stabbing the mound is fun. The labor was strenuous, as I initially overexerted myself and then had to reevaluate what I was doing, however later we organized into a semi-functioning rhythm. As the title says, I breathed in a lot of dirt, which made physical exertion somewhat more difficult and may or may not have raised my chances of cancer or Legionnaire's disease, we'll find out. After the event was done, we ate apples and other healthy, farm-grown snacks while we waited for our rides. Upon the advice of one of my co-workers, I took what he described as a "fire apple" and tried it ("fire" appears to be vernacular that the kids use to describe something that is good, which I don't particularly understand), which I don't often do because I don't like the sound of teeth on apple skin. It makes me shudder. It was pretty good, although as I don't typically eat apples I don't have much to compare it to. There was also awful lemon water which deceived me into picking up, as I was interested to know exactly how they were flavoring a zero sugar, zero sodium, zero fat, zero calories beverage. The answer is they weren't. It was in a brightly colored aluminum can, I thought it was a lemonade or something, sue me. It is actually still on my desk as I write this, because I am simply too afraid to throw it out. I will keep it for further occasions if I ever feel the need for something that has a 100% success rate at killing bacteria and other microorganisms.

How is this event related to environmental science? That's a good question. I believe it is related to environmental science because of the symbolism, of us spreading compost around the field with pitchforks. Obviously the field is the world, and the compost is knowledge of environmentally-sustainable societies and sustainable yield, but what would that make the pitchforks? Obviously, that would be the students, who are armed with the knowledge of environmental science to change the world. Mr. Ogren, you would be a slightly larger pitchfork. Maybe a pitchpitchfork, like if you had a pitchfork but instead of being a pitch //fork// it was a pitch //pitchfork//, because it's bigger. Or the leader of pitchforks, like the one that delegates all the pitchforks to do their work but then the pitchforks get upset and then they have an 89 in the class and they're really sad but they don't really want to say anything but on the other hand this is the grade that will be sent to all the colleges that they applied to so they really need to get a good grade on this midterm but at the same time there's like a massive snow week and they don't know what to do. It could be like that, I wouldn't know, of course. On the other hand, it could be related to environmental science in just how the Good Hope Farm works, in that it wants to "honor Cary's agricultural heritage". I mean come on, it even has one of those blue-and-green "Town of Cary" signs, that makes it an important place if you ask me. It "connects its residents to local, healthy food", which is good because it reduces the chance of us buying not local, not healthy food and then dying of cholera. By licensing plots to expanding farmers, it connects more people to the farming industry, which is good because with more educated people in the world this may reduce chances of using evil pesticides or other bad things that probably are not ideal. They also literally offer "agricultural and nutritional education programming", so hey, free learning. By spreading compost around, my group in particular helped farmers prepare for spring planting, so that's a good way to help the community out, even if it's a small thing.

In the end, the question is, "Did I go here?" The answer to that question is "yes." The other question is "Did I do something that was relatively helpful, even though I weigh 110 pounds and was handling a heavy agricultural tool, having never done farmwork in my life?" The answer to that question is "mostly." The other other question is, "did I spend forty minutes writing this?" The answer to that question is "I'm not legally obliged to say, but yes I am aware that I did not need to write even half this much but I really need this retest and I was bored." In conclusion, I believe the best way to give back to your community is by breathing in copious amounts of dirt.

I need ADHD medication.