Habitat For Humanity

Today I got up at 6:30 and picked up three other students from ASU. Dex, a regular from last year, a freshman girl, and Aldo, a friend of mine from studio who wanted to learn something from actual construction. Unfortunately, the build we were on was the last day before landscaping and flooring were installed. I spent half the morning nail-gunning trim to doors, and the other half painting. The nail gunning was fun, and although I dislike painting (especially with rollers), its still better than poor dex, who pretty much spent the entire time caulking. There's a lot of everything to do. They didn't provide lunch for us, I think only the second time that's ever happened to me, so we hopped in my van and found a churches chicken. We were all starving after working so hard all morning, we could hardly wait to tear into the fried chicken. We got a big 20 pc meal two big tubs of mashed potatos. I had about half a tub with gravy, three pieces of chicken, and two muffins. It was the best meal I'd had in a long time.

That's one of the things I love about working with habitat, lunch is always the best meal of the week, when you've been working hard out in the sun, you're tired and starving, and there's plenty of food out on the site. I don't know why it tastes so good, it just does. Mom would say everything tastes better outside. I was also happily surprised when dad called at the end of the lunch break from Houston. We talked for a bit, he's got as nice weather as I have, which is a small consolation for traveling halfway around the world. It's too bad his travels never take him through Phoenix. At least I'll get to see him over spring break.

Anyway, we worked long- until 2 PM. When we told the site leader that we were going, he was shocked to find out we were architecture students. He never expected to see someone with such a rigorous program out on the builds. Aldo, who'd never done this before, had a blast. We talked about geting the rest of the studio out for when they begin framing the next house. Its too bad is over in Glendale.

Another thing I like about habitat is the shower afterwards. It's like you've never really been clean before it, and you lose about a pound of dirt, paint, and sawdust from your skin and hair.

Anyway, after I got cleaned up, I went with Nickee and a few friends to see Nanny McPhee, a rather bizzare kids movie, very much like if a tranquil Tim Burton did Mary Poppins. After the movie, I went into studio at around 7 PM where I worked until about midnight on my second model. Subway for dinner. And that's my saturday night!