Thursday, April 3, 2008

Reducing my Carbon Imprint one Insane Bus Ride at a Time

In my quest to reduce my daily carbon imprint on our little world, this semester I have taken the bus to school everyday and to say the least it has been educationally interesting. This morning for example, I choose to wait for bus 66 by Central and Edith instead of taking the Rapid Ride in front of Presbyterian hospital as I usually do. To my surprise a normal pretty UNM student was waiting at the stop-such a nice change from the spitting homeless men I usually encounter at 9:30 am. I took this as a sign the bus wan't going to be that bad. Oh how wrong was I.

When the 66 bus pulled up it was packed to the gills with passengers. As me and pretty girl stepped to get on, a heavily tatted woman with no teeth started yelling, "Yall need to move back. I said move back. Are yall def?"
"No, but I'm blind" screamed one crazy back to another.

So I as boarded the cattle bus I was forced to hold onto the hand rail on the top standing next to a very odorous fat woman who kept giving me these looks of awfulness the entire time. Yea like it was my fault I'm stuck next to you is all I kept thinking. Thank goodness that it is a very short, albeit smelly, bus ride to UNM and I even got off a stop early to save my sanity. I immediately rushed to the bathroom and washed my hands. Twice.

Then after many hours of lecture in the lovely topics of Italian Baroque Art, Aeneas, and Photojournalism it was time to get back onto the bus. Now getting back home I usually get on what ever bus gets there first, the Rapid Ride or #66. Today the Rapid Ride came first and getting on wasn't such a cattle drive, I actually got a seat! As I approached my stop I spied to of the most beautiful sights I have seen in awhile- two vibrant sculptural Mohawks. I admired them from afar and got off the bus and began to walk home. However, I spied them making their way down central and snapped this awesome picture with Sven, my Blackberry, as proof that beauty still exists, you just need to keep you eyes out for it.