Work Day #5

Wednesday, February 13th

Today we completed our last two Commonweal labs, beginning with Lab #20: learn ten words in a foreign language. We chose Swahili. Take note of the great variety of words for "sex" - the same is true for our language, and countless others. Just one more thing proving we're not so different after all, for no matter your culture, race, or beliefs, human nature carries through and remains at the base of all aspects of civilization. 

love...upendo, penzi, penda

hate...zira, chukia

music...muziki

dance...ngoma

sex...jamii, puana, kwea, twaana, twalika, segede, sugu, jigijigi, mnyande, mbonya, bindja, gawa, tomba, ingilia, uana, ngono

death...kifo

intelligence...erevu, mtambuzi, fahamivu, fahamu

man...bwana, mwanaume, mwanamume

water...maji

laughter...kicheko

For our final lab, we signed up to participate in "Earth Hour" (Lab #42), an event that began last year when 2.2 million people and 2,100 busineses in the city of Sydney, Australia, turned off their lights for one hour, reducing their energy consumption by 10.2%: the equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off the road for an hour. Earth Hour has now become a world wide effort, and starts on March 29th at 8:00 pm. So Far, about 31,700 people have signed up, along with 1.600 businesses. We made a poster advertising the event, and posted it in 3rd floor Gray.

Go to www.earthhour.org to sign up and become a part of the movement, and while you're at it, do a few of the Commonweal labs yourself! You'd be surprised at how big a diference you can make, and either way, it's a lot of fun.

-Colin, Christian, Orin, and Zoë

Work Day #4

Tuesday, February 12th

Today we set out to write chalk messages for Lab #21, using novelty easter egg-shaped chalk that we'd bought at party city the previous week. We began on the stairs leading up to the side entrance of the student commons, and wrote "Have you heard about Heath Ledger? Have you heard about the genocide in Darfur?". Here we were making the point that in our media, the death of one celebrity holds more importance than the deaths of millions in Africa. Next, we extrapolated on this point and wrote a Stalin quote just outside of the library: "One death is tragic, a thousand deaths is a statistic". Unfortunately, this is quite true, and is exemplified daily by our media.






Next we moved on to Lab #46, and participated in the "Red Hand Day" movement. This is an organization dedicated to putting an end to the use of child soldiers, and uses a red hand as a symbol to promote awareness of this worldwide tragedy. We cut out a bunch of the red hand symbols, writing the organization's website address on each one and posting them around campus.

-Colin and Christian

Work Day #3

Thursday, February 7th

Today we did a quickie. During lunch, Colin and myself (Zoe) left campus to do Lab #44.

If Colin were a death row prisoner, his last meal would be...

...a steak burrito, a steak quesadilla, medium salsa, queso, AND a brownie from Qdoba.
...hmm ...okay.


If I were a death row prisoner, my last meal would be...

...salad Bar from Whole Foods.





After eating enough for a small nation, Colin couldn't walk very well, and decided to crash in my trunk.

-Zoe