Where Does It All Go?

2003-11-12

My environmental science class is an easy breeze due to the teacher that lacks experience. He prefers to pass pictures of his daughter�s wedding in Germany through the class. He likes to teach us life�s lessons. He also likes taking field trips. Not having made any social contact with my classmates, I felt rather uncomfortable stepping out of the classroom and exploring environment (i.e a farm) so mostly I skipped the trips. Yet having received an �A� on my last quiz that came attached with a lovely remark on top of the paper, �Keep up the good work�. Well darn it I will keep up the good work. I managed to put my insecurities aside and come along. Lucky for me, this week our objective was the sewage plant.

I witnessed the finer points of human sludge separation, or solid waste tank presentation. Everyone complained about the smell but to me it brought memories of my childhood. As disturbing as it may sound, the smell resembled the smell of the pond back in Poland that everyone came to bathe in the summer. I wonder if the sunbather�s dinner was also floating in that water. That would explain the foamy brown stuff that was always by the shore. Hmm.

Truthfully I didn�t learn squat. But as I did my routine run in the bathroom later on, I found myself staring into the vortex that is my toilet and imaging my �gift� to the world of sewage plants, becoming foamy brown stuff. It was very emotional.