Walk for Water 5K Event

I had an interesting series of events Saturday. I started at the American Legion Mall in Downtown Indianapolis, where I was amongst the highest per-capita concentration of yellow buckets I had ever seen. The buckets were for the Walk for Water, a 5K walk meant to replicate (inexactly, of course) the daily trip that villagers in Kager, Kenya, make to retrieve water that may or may not be fully sanitary. The organizers of the event, the Jubilee Village Project, has partnered with the 3,000-people African village to develop a safe water system that would negate the trip. To raise awareness, people walked from the Mall to the White River Canal under Ohio Street, got their buckets filled by Boy Scouts, and walked back to the Mall carrying the filled buckets on their heads. (Well, some people filled their buckets all the way, and some people put them on their head.) Except for two shortcuts, I walked the entire 5K looking for photos.

Then I took a math placement exam.

I'm taking physics as part of my pre-med coursework this coming year (more on than in a later post... hopefully). Because I haven't taken a college math course since spring 2009, I had to reassure people that I still know math. I needed a raw score of 46 to qualify for the non-calculus physics class I need to take. In a case of not thinking things through, I scheduled the exam for immediately after the photo assignment, so I was tired, sweaty, and a little bit foggy as I began the computer-administered exam. Two hours later, I finished and promptly worried that I would need to spend money on another math course before taking physics. Fortunately, I didn't need to worry: I got an 86. Six years after my 5 on the AP Calculus exam, I've still got it.

Then I sent the 5K photos to the Star. They appear below and in the full gallery at IndyStar.com (on a special white background!).