Lent and Volunteering

It is that time of year again. Today is Mar­di Gras and tomor­row Lent begins. Today is tra­di­tion­al­ly the last gasp of par­ty­ing before dour pen­i­tence takes hold for a month or so. Of course, Mar­di Gras was like­ly coopt­ed from even old­er pagan cel­e­bra­tions of Car­ni­val but there is still some debate. The Wikipedia, as always, has a good arti­cle.

So we’re sup­posed to be shriv­en tomor­row, so I don’t know why today is Shrove Tues­day. Unless Mar­di Gras is a chance to sin so we can have stuff to be shriv­en for. No one uses the word shriv­en any­more. That is a shame.

Any­way, usu­al­ly I give stuff up for Lent. Last year I gave up choco­late and only failed once, for my Grand­ma’s 80th birth­day. I can’t real­ly think of what to give up this year, because I don’t real­ly have any bad habits. I do need to exer­cise more, so this year I’m going to make it my Lenten oblig­a­tion to run, for at least a half hour, 5 days a week.

I’ve also sub­mit­ted some vol­un­teer appli­ca­tions through Busi­ness Vol­un­teers Unlim­it­ed; so per­haps I’ll final­ly end up doing some vol­un­teer work. It is always the right time for self-improve­ment, but it is a bit eas­i­er for me when it is expect­ed of me.