This is unequivocally my favorite time of the year for many reasons. Like every student, I'm very relieved that the semester has finally come to an end and that a long summer of relaxation is on the horizon. I also enjoy the sounds, sights, and smells that this time of year has to offer. It always feels like everything that suddenly ceases to exist or function during the winter has come out of a long dormancy and is reborn. Plants are green and blossoming again, the sky is once again blue more frequently than not, and people are outside being productive and enjoying life. I know I'm not the only person that feels this way, but I just like sharing my thoughts on the matter.
Yesterday, my last day living in a dorm room, I spent a better part of the morning and the afternoon packing and cleaning. I looked forward to having just a few boxes to take home, unlike all the other consumerist students that attend the neighboring school and whom live in the same residence hall that I do. I find it hard to believe that these students require enormous moving vans to transport the belongings that they somehow managed to fit into a dorm room about the same size as said vehicle, while still living comfortably. However, some of the students without the luxury of a whale-sized moving van simply throw away the belongings they can't bring back home. It's a sad truth and a very wasteful behavior.
The positive side of this wastefulness is that frugal people like myself who come from lower-income households are given access to a heap of free stuff. It's really incredible how much these students discard simply because they can't take it back home and have the option of spending more money the following year on the same product. I often go rummaging through the trash rooms during the year, but the last week of school is where the real dumpster diving happens!
By about 10:00 in the morning I had already started making an inventory list of all the free items I was finding and that list included a full pack of index cards, five unused legal pads, a couple of unused spiral notebooks, four unopened packs of college-ruled looseleaf paper, three brand new staple removers, a pencil cup with two new highlighters and eleven unused Bic pens, a fully operational electric pencil sharpener, a working three-hole punch, a nearly full bottle of glue, a practically new pair of size ten (my size!) Nike running shoes, two under-the-bed storage totes, a black wire mesh trash can to match my existing Mac OS X-like silver wire mesh trash can, a pack of diet Pepsi, thirteen unopened packages of Ramen, and much much more. I planned on saving all these items for my apartment next year. This would definitely help reduce the costs of purchasing things for the apartment!
Due to my successes that I'd already had on just my floor alone, I invited a couple friends to come with me to rummage through all the other trash rooms in my building. We got a team of four of us together and tackled sixteen other trash rooms in my building. The yields from the first trash room already amazed us. We didn't plan to find much food while picking through the trash, but that made up a large portion of what we found. We obtained probably four or five unopened boxes of quaker oatmeal, a pack of canned Minute Maid lemonade, unopened boxes of granola bars, fruit snacks, cereal, more shoes, trash cans, an unopened bottle of sunscreen, an unopened bottle of Listerine mouthwash, a working hand vacuum, and a myriad of other items. In total, we probably obtained over $250 worth of items. It was incredibly successful and totally made my day! We ended up saving most of the unopened and non-perishable food for use in our apartment in the fall and we couldn't have been more satisfied. I had introduced my three friends to the wonderful world of freeganism.
Not only does the end of the semester and the start of the summer signify free stuff, but it also signifies a time of productivity and enjoyment of the outdoors. I am now free of stresses from school work and deadlines and am able to begin planning out and starting projects that I'd like to complete before the end of the summer. I think four months is plenty of time. With the inspiration of nature, my level of productivity will be much higher than it is during the winter when I am plagued by seasonal affective disorder. The smell of blossoming plants and newborn vegetation coupled with the feel of warm sunshine is enough to bring clarity to my mind and body.
Some of the major projects I'd like to undertake during this summer include starting up a thriving garden of vegetables and herbs, successfully growing at least one cuboidal watermelon, fixing up my old Cabriolet road bicycle, de-cluttering the house, replacing the cheap particle boards of my desk with a more structurally sound and aesthetic material (any suggestions?), and putting together a stunning stop motion video. I believe this is a reasonable enough list of projects to complete or at least make significant accomplishments toward. In between all that, I'd like to maintain a splendid job and spend as much time as I can with the friends I love! Do you think I can do it?
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