Winding Down...

Hey guys! I am day or so late on this week's post, so I apologize. I do have a very good excuse, though. I was (and still am) sick :(. I woke up Tuesday morning really dizzy and light-headed, so I went to the nurse and discovered I have ear infections in both ears. Not fun at all. The good thing, however, is that Transy has amazing Health Services. They keep antibiotics in stock and was able to get my prescription automatically at no charge!

Sickness aside, this week has been great. The semester is winding to a close. At time of posting, I actually only have one day of classes left. It is amazing that the semester flew by so fast! For others, this is a pretty stressful time with finals approaching. I, on the other hand, have no formal finals at all. Don't ask me how I got so lucky; I can't find anyone else in this situation, but I am definitely not complaining.

Since I have extra time on my hands, I was able to spend a little time this weekend doing some volunteer work. If you remember my first post I told you about the First-Year Urban Program (FUP). Though the main focus of FUP is an intense week of community service projects before the start of term, it does provide some opportunities throughout the semester to volunteer. This weekend, a few of us got together and went to the Salvation Army's warehouse in charge of the Lexington Angel Tree Program.

We helped bag, sort, and take inventory of the donations made to kids. This program works through generous people sponsoring a specific child, so all we had to do was make sure that the gifts donated to the individual children were age/size appropriate. The warehouse also had a massive stock of spare toys, so we made sure that every child had at least two toys in their bag (a lot of times clothes were the big donations), if they didn't we went and picked some out for them.
It was very fulfilling work. It was a bit sad, however. There were tons of donations, but you could still see all the children who hadn't been sponsored. If you look at the picture, all of the white squares on the floor are empty bags of unsponsored children.
Next week will be my last planned blog until next decade (lol, meaning January of course). I plan for it to be a bit of a sentimental reflection on my first semester in college.
Until then, study hard for any finals you may have!

Jake Hawkins