You can also buy Joy To The World for $1500

While taking a short break from my life of calculating things (yes, you did read that correctly; somehow my thesis became about MATH. what do I thoroughly dislike more than most things? MATH. why is my thesis about math? please refer to this post. this falls under both #1 and #2) and before I have to run off to lead a workshop on homophobic language (really, this is my life; I couldn't make this up if I tried), I am here to tell you about The Heifer Project. Apparently UNH has decided to participate, and furthermore decided to inform us about this by having a giant chocolate fondue fountain and fresh fruit at lunch to "raise awareness about this important project".

The Heifer Project is - predictably? - a project wherein a group raises a bunch of money and buys an animal for an impoverished third-world country. This is generally a good idea in that a privileged country with indoor, attached-to-the-building restrooms and clean drinking water is helping an underprivileged place by donating them a goat, sheep, oxen, a flock of geese, water buffalo (I'm reading the site - I don't know either. What do you do with a water buffalo??), or; best case scenario: an actual cow.

The last time (that I'm aware of) I was a part of an institution that was involved with The Heifer Project was my high school. I distinctly remember that we didn't raise enough money to buy anything useful like a flock of geese, a water buffalo, a trio of rabbits or even "Trees" (just trees. really.). We sent some impoverished third-world country in Asia - I forget which one or if it even still exists any more - a swarm of bees. Yes. Someone had to take a swarm of bees, box them up, put them on an airplane, and mail them to this country. And then someone in this place had to open a box of bees.

I really can't take this project very seriously after that experience. Whenever someone mentions The Heifer Project and how I should really truly consider donating to it, I just imagine an indigenous person being attacked by Franklin High School's Swarm of Bees and cursing our existence for sending him a box of pain and misery.