I am really not trying to quote things all the time like Evelyn (::grin::); it just keeps happening these days.
It is the first day of classes and, thanks to the downpour, I woke up about 45 minutes ahead of schedule...after going to bed two or three hours behind schedule. ::keels over:: That's partially the fault of the house meeting we had last night, though. It was pretty decent, for a house meeting. Wa-a-ay better than the first-years', which I had to sit through 'cause of being an OG.
Since, like, six or seven Rescue Squad people live in the house, we've decided that the house on the hill (as I've taken to calling it, a la Lily's) is the safest place on campus. ::giggles:: I've already woken up once to one of them going out on a call. Dang, their alert equipment is darn loud, as I know it has to be.
I still totally wish I could stand to be on the squad. Like, they're just so cool, and I can't even make them food, 'cause we have no stove in the house 'til prolly after Christmas (fire-code thing). I could make them hot chocolate come winter, but it would have to be via microwave. :-P
Tonight's the DDR party. 'Cause I can.
Off to Psych Meth/Stat, Advanced Spanish, and Brit-Lit Survey, my classes for today. But first, since I'm still an hour and a half ahead of schedule, a shower that I can actually fully dry my hair after, not to mention breakfast.
-Laurel
8.28.2004
::Newsboys quietly under breath:: "I say hello to anyone who's listening..."
Just got internet at midnight last night/this morning.
This means I didn't get to sleep until past two. Ech.
But it means I can read and send my campus e-mail (this tends to be a positive thing), not to mention talk on AIM and--here's where I'm a total dweeb, because I'm so serious that this's what I missed most in the circa-six days I spent without it--read and leave away messages.
Have been OGing for real since Wednesday, and Wednesday was spectacular, and then it started to get to me that the only time I'm supposed to be alone is in a bathroom or in a bed. It is now Saturday, and things've gotten a little easier, but I will be glad when this's over.
I like the first-year class very much, though. You'd think that, OGing in my honors little's building, I would have met her by now. Haven't.
My mother actually assumed that I was online under a different AIM name because she didn't see me for six days, and sent me an e-mail to tell me that was okay if that's what I was doing. ::giggles:: No, no, and ITS is still my collective hero, but they only work so fast.
Aw, ruddy crud, I have somewhere to be in 45 minutes and I've got to take my laundry out of the dryer downstairs.
All the upperclassmen arrive on campus today that haven't already. Yay for John and Mike and Jay! Yay for Kim and Ada! Yay for Lindsey and Libby and Ryan!
::chair-dances:: When all of this is over and I've gotten some decent amount of sleep--
--well, then classes will have started. But when things calm down a little more, I am holding a DDR party.
All right, I'm going to be late to the OG meeting by the time I'm there, so here's dashing off. Cheerio!
-Laurel
This means I didn't get to sleep until past two. Ech.
But it means I can read and send my campus e-mail (this tends to be a positive thing), not to mention talk on AIM and--here's where I'm a total dweeb, because I'm so serious that this's what I missed most in the circa-six days I spent without it--read and leave away messages.
Have been OGing for real since Wednesday, and Wednesday was spectacular, and then it started to get to me that the only time I'm supposed to be alone is in a bathroom or in a bed. It is now Saturday, and things've gotten a little easier, but I will be glad when this's over.
I like the first-year class very much, though. You'd think that, OGing in my honors little's building, I would have met her by now. Haven't.
My mother actually assumed that I was online under a different AIM name because she didn't see me for six days, and sent me an e-mail to tell me that was okay if that's what I was doing. ::giggles:: No, no, and ITS is still my collective hero, but they only work so fast.
Aw, ruddy crud, I have somewhere to be in 45 minutes and I've got to take my laundry out of the dryer downstairs.
All the upperclassmen arrive on campus today that haven't already. Yay for John and Mike and Jay! Yay for Kim and Ada! Yay for Lindsey and Libby and Ryan!
::chair-dances:: When all of this is over and I've gotten some decent amount of sleep--
--well, then classes will have started. But when things calm down a little more, I am holding a DDR party.
All right, I'm going to be late to the OG meeting by the time I'm there, so here's dashing off. Cheerio!
-Laurel
8.23.2004
::a la Strong Bad:: "Now that's what I'm talkin' about! That was amazing!"
Greetings from the campus center, the only place I have access to with internet hookup until at least tonight.
I am moved into the house, and it is spectacular, but it currently has no phone nor internet. We are campus nonentities, sort of.
Yesterday was pretty darn cool from the moment I woke up at five to four-in-the-morning (I got back to sleep), when it was the day I was to go to school and I'd been dreaming about it.
Got to campus, moved in, saw Lily, had lunch with her--her dad's car and a kid's in a fender-bender coming up the house driveway wasn't cool, but many other things that day were. Got to see all my friends who were there.
Have been in OG training pretty much ever since. It has been fun, but I am getting progressively more exhausted, and this is not likely to change for the next, oh, week, and perhaps longer.
I have a spare 15 minutes left until the training continues; it will not end until sometime after 8 tonight. w00t. So hear this: I am well, I am happy, I have a single with a lot of floor space for DDR and < broad hint>visitors< /broad hint>, and I should be on AIM at some point in the semi-near future, since supposedly the physical plant people are coming today.
Cheerio for now.
-Laurel
I am moved into the house, and it is spectacular, but it currently has no phone nor internet. We are campus nonentities, sort of.
Yesterday was pretty darn cool from the moment I woke up at five to four-in-the-morning (I got back to sleep), when it was the day I was to go to school and I'd been dreaming about it.
Got to campus, moved in, saw Lily, had lunch with her--her dad's car and a kid's in a fender-bender coming up the house driveway wasn't cool, but many other things that day were. Got to see all my friends who were there.
Have been in OG training pretty much ever since. It has been fun, but I am getting progressively more exhausted, and this is not likely to change for the next, oh, week, and perhaps longer.
I have a spare 15 minutes left until the training continues; it will not end until sometime after 8 tonight. w00t. So hear this: I am well, I am happy, I have a single with a lot of floor space for DDR and < broad hint>visitors< /broad hint>, and I should be on AIM at some point in the semi-near future, since supposedly the physical plant people are coming today.
Cheerio for now.
-Laurel
8.19.2004
Outside, looking in
Had the "nostalgia tour" with Bethie and Aneya tonight: we went to our old elementary schools and the other district schools, trying to get in and look around. All but the high school were locked, though, so mostly we peered through unblinded windows, trying to discern whose classroom was whose.
It wasn't so solemn until the high school, when I saw where the flagpole was moved. We used to pray out there on Wednesday mornings, a whole lot of us when the weather was warm, a hardier few when snow flew. An extension of "See You at the Pole", a national thing; we stayed out nearly every week after. Sometimes I'd open my eyes, and one shift of buses would be leaving, and the other would be driving in, and because the pole was in the center of the parking circle, a sort of island, it would look like the parking lot was orbiting us.
We did it because we wanted to. That seems profound in retrospect. Junior high and high school kids, holding hands or gloves--anywhere else, it'd feel like couples, but there it was nice, just friendly, a unity thing. The way we left tracks in the dew. They really were good days, even when people stared, which happened less than you'd expect. And not always dead serious--Steph Brew squeaking "Hi, Lord!" one morning, making us giggle, and Chip Rudd with those ubiquitous sandals and buoyant greetings.
It doesn't happen anymore, I don't think--the pole got moved right up next to the school (harder to circle around it), and there's no flag on it, and the founders graduated.
The elementary schools were nice, but everything higher felt so much like a museum as we trotted solemnly from window to window, naming what it was. And fifteen minutes after I'd been wondering whether I really wanted to leave this place, after twelve weeks of wishing myself back at school, I wasn't sure I belonged anywhere.
I still don't know whether I like being here at home, or if I like myself as well now as I did in high school. (Tom says not to ask, but I can't really be satisfied with that.) I can do more, to be sure, but that doesn't mean I'm more qualified to be an adult. Certainly I don't have so much willingness to be beyond normal, even to be stared at, and that's supposed to get easier with time, isn't it?
Maybe not. Goodness knows most everybody's parents seem overnormal.
Anyway, here's the good news story.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=11644&Cr=olympic&Cr1=
-Laurel
It wasn't so solemn until the high school, when I saw where the flagpole was moved. We used to pray out there on Wednesday mornings, a whole lot of us when the weather was warm, a hardier few when snow flew. An extension of "See You at the Pole", a national thing; we stayed out nearly every week after. Sometimes I'd open my eyes, and one shift of buses would be leaving, and the other would be driving in, and because the pole was in the center of the parking circle, a sort of island, it would look like the parking lot was orbiting us.
We did it because we wanted to. That seems profound in retrospect. Junior high and high school kids, holding hands or gloves--anywhere else, it'd feel like couples, but there it was nice, just friendly, a unity thing. The way we left tracks in the dew. They really were good days, even when people stared, which happened less than you'd expect. And not always dead serious--Steph Brew squeaking "Hi, Lord!" one morning, making us giggle, and Chip Rudd with those ubiquitous sandals and buoyant greetings.
It doesn't happen anymore, I don't think--the pole got moved right up next to the school (harder to circle around it), and there's no flag on it, and the founders graduated.
The elementary schools were nice, but everything higher felt so much like a museum as we trotted solemnly from window to window, naming what it was. And fifteen minutes after I'd been wondering whether I really wanted to leave this place, after twelve weeks of wishing myself back at school, I wasn't sure I belonged anywhere.
I still don't know whether I like being here at home, or if I like myself as well now as I did in high school. (Tom says not to ask, but I can't really be satisfied with that.) I can do more, to be sure, but that doesn't mean I'm more qualified to be an adult. Certainly I don't have so much willingness to be beyond normal, even to be stared at, and that's supposed to get easier with time, isn't it?
Maybe not. Goodness knows most everybody's parents seem overnormal.
Anyway, here's the good news story.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=11644&Cr=olympic&Cr1=
-Laurel
8.16.2004
Scraps from the mental table
Even though it's old, I'm using this cool story for today's good news.
This would be a good time to point out that I've gotten the past three or four good-news stories via The Great News Network. This is not really cheating, inasmuch as I never said how I would locate the stories, just that I would put them up until I got to school. :-P Goodness knows that combing online newspapers didn't get me any farther, nor better stories.
Six days until school. May they pass quickly.
And may there be no issues with personnel, either in all the conflicting personalities with whom I am trying to be friends, or in the pledges we get for APO, 'cause I ended up torturing myself today in thinking about who is likely to join the brotherhood, because some of the answers don't thrill me. Not all of that is petty personal dislike, either; in some cases I have actual decent reasons. We can't be cliquey, but I have a feeling that if we get much bigger (which we want to), we're going to have a few things to learn about the term "friendship" as a cardinal APO virtue. The meaning shouldn't be lost, but considering that we pretty much all pledged because of friends within the chapter, I'm not sure we're going to be able to define it in quite so warm and fuzzy a way.
(I realize that that was probably ambiguous at best. Mostly I am thinking aloud, saying only as much as is safe. Sorry.)
In other news, my dad has just had converted to DVD, from the original film strip, videos of football games he played in high school. He is also giving copies to two high school friends from the team that he still keeps in pretty close touch with. If their reaction is anything like his, all the other wives and children involved will be hearing a lot of "look, watch this!" and self-praise and self-derisive laughter in the coming days.
And that's all I have to say about all of that.
-Laurel
This would be a good time to point out that I've gotten the past three or four good-news stories via The Great News Network. This is not really cheating, inasmuch as I never said how I would locate the stories, just that I would put them up until I got to school. :-P Goodness knows that combing online newspapers didn't get me any farther, nor better stories.
Six days until school. May they pass quickly.
And may there be no issues with personnel, either in all the conflicting personalities with whom I am trying to be friends, or in the pledges we get for APO, 'cause I ended up torturing myself today in thinking about who is likely to join the brotherhood, because some of the answers don't thrill me. Not all of that is petty personal dislike, either; in some cases I have actual decent reasons. We can't be cliquey, but I have a feeling that if we get much bigger (which we want to), we're going to have a few things to learn about the term "friendship" as a cardinal APO virtue. The meaning shouldn't be lost, but considering that we pretty much all pledged because of friends within the chapter, I'm not sure we're going to be able to define it in quite so warm and fuzzy a way.
(I realize that that was probably ambiguous at best. Mostly I am thinking aloud, saying only as much as is safe. Sorry.)
In other news, my dad has just had converted to DVD, from the original film strip, videos of football games he played in high school. He is also giving copies to two high school friends from the team that he still keeps in pretty close touch with. If their reaction is anything like his, all the other wives and children involved will be hearing a lot of "look, watch this!" and self-praise and self-derisive laughter in the coming days.
And that's all I have to say about all of that.
-Laurel
8.13.2004
"Stay, and find out what the real world is like..."
Had a strange dream last night. B, 'Nanda, Erik, a bunch of random people, and I were in another country together, and the dream is funny in the remembering, but I guess we accidentally stayed in a huge house with people we didn't know were criminals. Stuff happened, and the criminals started trying to get violent with us, and maybe even we with them, and they blew up the railroad track outside the house, which we'd used to come there (we'd come by train to a foreign country? Hm...). We were trying to hide from them, and then from the police, which came to get the criminals, but I guess we'd done something to be arrested for, too. There was a lot of spy-type sneaking around going on. Eventually we were all (we travelers) hiding on the porch outside, and the criminals were caught, but Erik and 'Nanda and I tried to sneak in to go to the bathroom or something, and we were seen by the police. They started chasing us, and we bolted back outside, yelling, "Run, run!" as we passed the porch. There were screams and running, and then B, standing still on the porch as people jostled each other, shouted out above all the din in this commanding voice, "Stay! Stay, and find out what the real world is like!"
I realized that we shouldn't run from what we'd done, which is what he'd meant, and halted to await our capture, and I think most of the others did, too. Just then, there was another explosion from the direction we would have been running, one last thing by the caught criminals, I guess, and dirt and grit and rubble rained down on us. I got down on the ground, huddled up, and felt the dust pour over me, and everything faded out like in a movie.
When it faded back in, we were out of the rubble and cleaned, and we'd rebuilt the railroad ourselves as payment for whatever crime we'd committed. The locals were sitting around talking about our effort approvingly, and the way we'd done what was fair--what B had made us stay for--and we got to go home.
Dude, when do I start dreaming in, like, cracked-out Westerns or something?
But what B yelled has stuck with me in the hour since I woke up. Strange.
Last night was the SFE picnic, and that was pretty entertaining. B's kids get more adorable every year. And it was nice to see Woodpecker-John and Mike, even though I didn't get to talk to them. And, of course, it was fun to hang out with everybody. Having my brother there was cooler than I thought it'd be. He hung around with Robbie, which meant he wasn't bored, which was good.
(My brother is the same age now as Glenn was for most of our relationship. This is a hugely frightening thought for me, but then again, Glenn is very different from him; he had to be, all things considered.)
...This is the point I was at while writing this morning when I realized that I'd slept through my doctor's appointment while having that freakified dream. Got it rescheduled. ::blushes:: I have been such an idiot this month. What is the deal with my being so dumb in August? This happened last year, too; John remembers what a complete dolt I was the first days of school.
Speaking of idiocy: the eBay guy has offered to refund my CD, although--surprise!--he insists that it was the Postal Service that did the damage. In my e-mail back, I pointed out that there were no scratches on the CD, but it still wouldn't play eleven tracks properly, and that this may have had something to do with shipping it more cheaply than he'd charged me for it. I sent it back Media Mail. With insurance. So it will get there, and he can't say the USPS damaged it more on the way back. I informed him that he is reimbursing me on that shipping as well (except the insurance, 'cause that wasn't part of the original shipping agreement).
So basically, two weeks this whole transaction and retransaction took, and in the end, I am out $1.30, with no CD. ::shrugs:: It's my own fault, though.
And I sent CB her letter, finallyfinally, and got a card back, 'cause mail from here to there is so fast (USPS is my hero these days, whatever the eBay guy says; I've sent so many darn things in the past few weeks), and it was kind and cool.
Tonight 'Nanda and Erik and Ian and I went to the ritzy Wegmans, and it was okay, especially the international-food section, which truly was awesome. Mostly, though, it was like any other Wegmans, but with fancier decor and wider aisles.
Watched the Olympic Parade of Nations, which I always like. Bob Costas is a horrible, punny color commentator. "You bet Djibouti" was the pits. But the parade itself was cool. Yay for Peru's six athletes.
Well, that concludes this entry. I'm tired. Maybe I'll go to bed.
Tim goes home tomorrow! :) Back to school in nine days!
Edit 8/14: Forgot my positive news story; here it is now:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996275
-Laurel
I realized that we shouldn't run from what we'd done, which is what he'd meant, and halted to await our capture, and I think most of the others did, too. Just then, there was another explosion from the direction we would have been running, one last thing by the caught criminals, I guess, and dirt and grit and rubble rained down on us. I got down on the ground, huddled up, and felt the dust pour over me, and everything faded out like in a movie.
When it faded back in, we were out of the rubble and cleaned, and we'd rebuilt the railroad ourselves as payment for whatever crime we'd committed. The locals were sitting around talking about our effort approvingly, and the way we'd done what was fair--what B had made us stay for--and we got to go home.
Dude, when do I start dreaming in, like, cracked-out Westerns or something?
But what B yelled has stuck with me in the hour since I woke up. Strange.
Last night was the SFE picnic, and that was pretty entertaining. B's kids get more adorable every year. And it was nice to see Woodpecker-John and Mike, even though I didn't get to talk to them. And, of course, it was fun to hang out with everybody. Having my brother there was cooler than I thought it'd be. He hung around with Robbie, which meant he wasn't bored, which was good.
(My brother is the same age now as Glenn was for most of our relationship. This is a hugely frightening thought for me, but then again, Glenn is very different from him; he had to be, all things considered.)
...This is the point I was at while writing this morning when I realized that I'd slept through my doctor's appointment while having that freakified dream. Got it rescheduled. ::blushes:: I have been such an idiot this month. What is the deal with my being so dumb in August? This happened last year, too; John remembers what a complete dolt I was the first days of school.
Speaking of idiocy: the eBay guy has offered to refund my CD, although--surprise!--he insists that it was the Postal Service that did the damage. In my e-mail back, I pointed out that there were no scratches on the CD, but it still wouldn't play eleven tracks properly, and that this may have had something to do with shipping it more cheaply than he'd charged me for it. I sent it back Media Mail. With insurance. So it will get there, and he can't say the USPS damaged it more on the way back. I informed him that he is reimbursing me on that shipping as well (except the insurance, 'cause that wasn't part of the original shipping agreement).
So basically, two weeks this whole transaction and retransaction took, and in the end, I am out $1.30, with no CD. ::shrugs:: It's my own fault, though.
And I sent CB her letter, finallyfinally, and got a card back, 'cause mail from here to there is so fast (USPS is my hero these days, whatever the eBay guy says; I've sent so many darn things in the past few weeks), and it was kind and cool.
Tonight 'Nanda and Erik and Ian and I went to the ritzy Wegmans, and it was okay, especially the international-food section, which truly was awesome. Mostly, though, it was like any other Wegmans, but with fancier decor and wider aisles.
Watched the Olympic Parade of Nations, which I always like. Bob Costas is a horrible, punny color commentator. "You bet Djibouti" was the pits. But the parade itself was cool. Yay for Peru's six athletes.
Well, that concludes this entry. I'm tired. Maybe I'll go to bed.
Tim goes home tomorrow! :) Back to school in nine days!
Edit 8/14: Forgot my positive news story; here it is now:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996275
-Laurel
8.09.2004
Caveat Emptor
A spectacular evening, soured by eBay stupidity.
Having lost my Jars of Clay CD Who We Are Instead the first time around (like, really lost it, for good and all, before I even managed to listen to it once through), I figured I'd try to get it cheaper on eBay. And it worked: even with shipping, I paid about half as much as I would've in the store.
Got it today, along with a letter from Tim. Decided that I'd put the CD on while I read. Stuck it in my alarm-clock player and was a bit nettled to find that it wouldn't play, but booted up the computer and got iTunes to play it. Out came "Sunny Days", the song I practically rebought the CD for, and you have to read the lyrics to know how perfect they were at that moment.
Looked over the letter and the pictures sent me, grinning like a loony, and flipped to the third track.
Which emitted a staticy blip with each note. Tiny skips.
Tried the rest of the CD--everything past the second track was the same.
And the description had said the CD was "still in wrapping, mint condition". Included liner notes were flawless, but I looked at the case: small cracks. Looked at the CD and compared it to a Chris Rice one with about the same run-time: JoC was only half as thick.
I think I bought a very meticulously-copied bootleg. Meticulous visually, anyway.
I was baffled: the seller had so much feedback, and 99.5% was positive. One negative comment, right?
Or not. The guy's been in business about three years. I went back and looked past the first page, as I should have done in the first place. Thousands of pieces of feedback, and when it was good, it was very, very good--but when it was bad, it was horrid. 'Cause everyone with a negative comment to give? Had it about a CD.
And the guy's played dirty in the past: someone left him a neutral comment for offenses much like mine, and he gave a negative one back, with the explanation that "buyer didn't purchase insurance; not responsible for USPS problems." USPS problems, when it was the 20th piece of feedback mentioning a cracked case.
I have withheld feedback until he answers my e-mail--if he does, since someone a while back "e-mailed five times with no response"--because someone got him to resend it, and it was right the second time, even if the shipping was at his own expense. (I asked him to refund my money, including the shipping-back of the CD that I intended; we'll see how far I get.) That's another common complaint, one also true of my experience: he charged more for shipping than he actually spent on it--about double.
It's my own fault for not looking harder. I got into the auction when there wasn't much time left, having lost a previous one; I went too fast. I've never been cheated by a seller before and didn't expect it. I'm lucky, in the end, that I only lost $11.15 in money-order form, plus a thirty-seven cent stamp.
At least the song I bought it for works perfectly.
Positive story: http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=27023
And my boyfriend is spectacular. Which I knew before the letter, yes.
-Laurel
Having lost my Jars of Clay CD Who We Are Instead the first time around (like, really lost it, for good and all, before I even managed to listen to it once through), I figured I'd try to get it cheaper on eBay. And it worked: even with shipping, I paid about half as much as I would've in the store.
Got it today, along with a letter from Tim. Decided that I'd put the CD on while I read. Stuck it in my alarm-clock player and was a bit nettled to find that it wouldn't play, but booted up the computer and got iTunes to play it. Out came "Sunny Days", the song I practically rebought the CD for, and you have to read the lyrics to know how perfect they were at that moment.
Looked over the letter and the pictures sent me, grinning like a loony, and flipped to the third track.
Which emitted a staticy blip with each note. Tiny skips.
Tried the rest of the CD--everything past the second track was the same.
And the description had said the CD was "still in wrapping, mint condition". Included liner notes were flawless, but I looked at the case: small cracks. Looked at the CD and compared it to a Chris Rice one with about the same run-time: JoC was only half as thick.
I think I bought a very meticulously-copied bootleg. Meticulous visually, anyway.
I was baffled: the seller had so much feedback, and 99.5% was positive. One negative comment, right?
Or not. The guy's been in business about three years. I went back and looked past the first page, as I should have done in the first place. Thousands of pieces of feedback, and when it was good, it was very, very good--but when it was bad, it was horrid. 'Cause everyone with a negative comment to give? Had it about a CD.
And the guy's played dirty in the past: someone left him a neutral comment for offenses much like mine, and he gave a negative one back, with the explanation that "buyer didn't purchase insurance; not responsible for USPS problems." USPS problems, when it was the 20th piece of feedback mentioning a cracked case.
I have withheld feedback until he answers my e-mail--if he does, since someone a while back "e-mailed five times with no response"--because someone got him to resend it, and it was right the second time, even if the shipping was at his own expense. (I asked him to refund my money, including the shipping-back of the CD that I intended; we'll see how far I get.) That's another common complaint, one also true of my experience: he charged more for shipping than he actually spent on it--about double.
It's my own fault for not looking harder. I got into the auction when there wasn't much time left, having lost a previous one; I went too fast. I've never been cheated by a seller before and didn't expect it. I'm lucky, in the end, that I only lost $11.15 in money-order form, plus a thirty-seven cent stamp.
At least the song I bought it for works perfectly.
Positive story: http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=27023
And my boyfriend is spectacular. Which I knew before the letter, yes.
-Laurel
8.06.2004
::wilting with fatigue, but relieved and happy::
Okay, before anything, this spectacular news story. Godspeed in finding those treatments; save my future children from Accutane-related defects, I beg of you.
So I'm this tired because I spent most of today helping out with a college program. I work at a college, for anybody who hasn't figured this out, and every summer they run a couple of programs where kids get to come and stay overnight and then, the next day, try out a bunch of "sessions" on campus, sort of mock-classes, very hands-on, across a bunch of different majors and fields.
Well, we get hundreds of kids for this program, which leaves at least 40 parents, most years, who accept the college's offer of a parents-only trip downtown, to see the sights (such as they are) and go to a restaurant. Nothing too fancy, since the parents have to pay for their own dinners (more's the great pity, but it's hard to cover 40 or 50 fine-dining meals, you know? Especially since people'd be freer if they knew it was our tab...), but good middle-priced food. So my parents and their coworker/friend Joe, and his wife Terri, they've all been running this program pretty much since the start, with only a few exceptions where we were on vacations and whatnot and other people've had to cover for us. My dad takes his job very seriously, and knows how to charm just about anybody, and keeps up with all the statistics about the college and about our city and knows a huge percentage of anything a parent wants to know about the place, plus a salmagundi of absolutely random facts (apparently, of all "big cities", though I don't know how that was defined, we were one of the top-rated for our ability to, with friendliness and knowledge, direct people who randomly walk up on the street and ask for directions).
Well, for almost as many years as my parents have been running the tour, I've been tagging along (sometimes my brother comes, too, but right now he's at my aunt's), wishing I could be cool and informative like my dad.
Now that I'm in college, I can be, to some degree. Granted that, not actually going there (they didn't have my major; whadaya want?), there are a lot of ways in which I cannot be helpful. When my brother goes there, because he most likely will, he'll be the great and powerful Source of Inside Information. Until then, they have to settle for me.
So I talked and talked, trying to converse with these parents who all seemed so eager to talk about their kids by name, telling us things that really we didn't need to know (like this lady's son Phil's penchant for theater and how he got an award for turning small roles into scene-stealing ones), but were nice to know, considering that in a school this size, for once it felt good to zoom in. I see so many names every day--and I'm just a student-worker, doing data entry--and it's so hard to know the little things about twelve thousand kids, especially in financial aid, where sometimes it seems like the only meaningful detail is monetary detail, family situations and grade point averages...but here, the parents talked freely--especially to each other--about their kids' study habits, favorite subjects, worst subjects, AP studies...so many parents just bonded, and some of them stuck to us a lot, which always happens, and that's cool, too. My dad kind of led things, and my mom (who also knows a lot, though Dad upstages her a little once in a while) said a lot, too. I interjected whenever I thought it appropriate, hoping I didn't sound eager-but-dumb.
Guess I didn't: when we were going home, my parents told me that I'd been great, that I had that admissions-worker kind of quality. That felt good. I like interacting with people. Whatever darn job/career I do get, I definitely want it to be people-based. Nothing has taught me that more than this year: my happiest moments in work are with the outside world, no matter how frazzled those inhabitants may be. Less sitting, more doing. I can't use coworkers as that people-base and work with data; I've tried that. Even though the input helps run the system, that's not enough for me; I have to feel like I'm working with living, breathing beings.
A fine thing to say from someone who lives on the internet, I know. But I mean it. I need a human connection. AIM is only cool when it's people you're going to see. Outside of that, it's necessary, but it's also a horrible tease, because you never want to leave: to close that box is to be severed.
Phone calls are better in many cases, though. Not all: when I want to ask a question but I'm sort of afraid to, or it's sort of embarrassing, taking the face and the tone away gives me that much less to misinterpret; it's just enough detachment. And, being an English major, what I say is sometimes more likely to be concise and thought-out if I can type and delete; maybe it's from a childhood spent writing half-finished stories, but my fingers are often a lot more fluent than my tongue is.
But...phone calls mean voice. And I had no idea how important that was until three or four weeks of this summer went by without Tim and me calling each other (we were on AIM every night; what, we wondered, could we possibly talk about if we went from AIM to phone?). And then we couldn't get enough; it happened three nights in a row, until the phone cards were gone and I'd charged two hours of long distance without one. Just that voice; it felt so good hearing, and suddenly we had so much to say.
So okay, as usual, right after being a whiny brat about something, I get a sort of lift in the right direction. I am not all weakness. Part of why I half-suck at my job is because it's not what I'm made for. I'm a reader, a talker, a helper. Give me a sheet of data and something to do with it, I'm going to go for fifteen minutes tops before I start dreaming. But give me something alive, and I'll be alive, too.
So I still want to go into public service, helping people somehow. Is there a way to do that English-wise without doing office work, and without teaching?
::shrugs:: Suppose I could teach. It wouldn't be horrible or anything. I'm just...as horrible as it sort of is, and as mediocre as I often am with one, I really do want a sort of high-stakes case. Aubrey tore us all apart, but I'd never felt so alive, felt like nothing I'd ever done before had ever had as much meaning as trying to help him. Just that, at that height, the fall's going to kill you. When it turned out he'd lied about some things, that we'd given so much willingly and he'd been playing us, everything unraveled.
And I think that's part of why I mistrust the whole psychologist route, between Aubrey and Calypso. But it was why I pursued the Peace Corps thing so passionately. Take less, make more. Wasn't I given the ideal childhood for just such things as that? Not so that I could--and I think I've said this--not so that I could stand in another suburb, in front of other children with the richest lives in the world, and instruct them...but so I could take a situation with a lesser start and make something more, something beautiful.
Should I lower my expectations? Any cook knows that to make a truly good salad, you need truly good produce. Anything lesser, you can make a salad, but it isn't going to be a good one, nothing so good as if you'd started higher. Given people with problems, situations with problems, systems with problems, who am I to try to make gourmet out of bargain-basement?
But then again, who gets to say what's bargain-basement? Sold for cheap doesn't always mean bad-quality. If someone doesn't succeed, usually it's going to be partly their fault. But how much?
I'm not trying to go Rudyard Kipling here, but we people who don't want for the basics of life, who know what it is to be warm, fed, safe, and curious: aren't we responsible, to what degree we can be, to help people who are lacking those find a way out, whether it's teaching them skills or helping them make a way in the meantime? If you ask me why, I'll ask you why not. We should be looking at the way the world is run, probing, analyzing, asking ourselves what the problems are and their solutions. Not just asking ourselves, either, but asking those with the problems. We won't all agree on the answers, but talking shouldn't hurt too much.
...now, how do I do this while still doing what I love?
And how much will it, could it ever be just an "I"?
-Laurel
So I'm this tired because I spent most of today helping out with a college program. I work at a college, for anybody who hasn't figured this out, and every summer they run a couple of programs where kids get to come and stay overnight and then, the next day, try out a bunch of "sessions" on campus, sort of mock-classes, very hands-on, across a bunch of different majors and fields.
Well, we get hundreds of kids for this program, which leaves at least 40 parents, most years, who accept the college's offer of a parents-only trip downtown, to see the sights (such as they are) and go to a restaurant. Nothing too fancy, since the parents have to pay for their own dinners (more's the great pity, but it's hard to cover 40 or 50 fine-dining meals, you know? Especially since people'd be freer if they knew it was our tab...), but good middle-priced food. So my parents and their coworker/friend Joe, and his wife Terri, they've all been running this program pretty much since the start, with only a few exceptions where we were on vacations and whatnot and other people've had to cover for us. My dad takes his job very seriously, and knows how to charm just about anybody, and keeps up with all the statistics about the college and about our city and knows a huge percentage of anything a parent wants to know about the place, plus a salmagundi of absolutely random facts (apparently, of all "big cities", though I don't know how that was defined, we were one of the top-rated for our ability to, with friendliness and knowledge, direct people who randomly walk up on the street and ask for directions).
Well, for almost as many years as my parents have been running the tour, I've been tagging along (sometimes my brother comes, too, but right now he's at my aunt's), wishing I could be cool and informative like my dad.
Now that I'm in college, I can be, to some degree. Granted that, not actually going there (they didn't have my major; whadaya want?), there are a lot of ways in which I cannot be helpful. When my brother goes there, because he most likely will, he'll be the great and powerful Source of Inside Information. Until then, they have to settle for me.
So I talked and talked, trying to converse with these parents who all seemed so eager to talk about their kids by name, telling us things that really we didn't need to know (like this lady's son Phil's penchant for theater and how he got an award for turning small roles into scene-stealing ones), but were nice to know, considering that in a school this size, for once it felt good to zoom in. I see so many names every day--and I'm just a student-worker, doing data entry--and it's so hard to know the little things about twelve thousand kids, especially in financial aid, where sometimes it seems like the only meaningful detail is monetary detail, family situations and grade point averages...but here, the parents talked freely--especially to each other--about their kids' study habits, favorite subjects, worst subjects, AP studies...so many parents just bonded, and some of them stuck to us a lot, which always happens, and that's cool, too. My dad kind of led things, and my mom (who also knows a lot, though Dad upstages her a little once in a while) said a lot, too. I interjected whenever I thought it appropriate, hoping I didn't sound eager-but-dumb.
Guess I didn't: when we were going home, my parents told me that I'd been great, that I had that admissions-worker kind of quality. That felt good. I like interacting with people. Whatever darn job/career I do get, I definitely want it to be people-based. Nothing has taught me that more than this year: my happiest moments in work are with the outside world, no matter how frazzled those inhabitants may be. Less sitting, more doing. I can't use coworkers as that people-base and work with data; I've tried that. Even though the input helps run the system, that's not enough for me; I have to feel like I'm working with living, breathing beings.
A fine thing to say from someone who lives on the internet, I know. But I mean it. I need a human connection. AIM is only cool when it's people you're going to see. Outside of that, it's necessary, but it's also a horrible tease, because you never want to leave: to close that box is to be severed.
Phone calls are better in many cases, though. Not all: when I want to ask a question but I'm sort of afraid to, or it's sort of embarrassing, taking the face and the tone away gives me that much less to misinterpret; it's just enough detachment. And, being an English major, what I say is sometimes more likely to be concise and thought-out if I can type and delete; maybe it's from a childhood spent writing half-finished stories, but my fingers are often a lot more fluent than my tongue is.
But...phone calls mean voice. And I had no idea how important that was until three or four weeks of this summer went by without Tim and me calling each other (we were on AIM every night; what, we wondered, could we possibly talk about if we went from AIM to phone?). And then we couldn't get enough; it happened three nights in a row, until the phone cards were gone and I'd charged two hours of long distance without one. Just that voice; it felt so good hearing, and suddenly we had so much to say.
So okay, as usual, right after being a whiny brat about something, I get a sort of lift in the right direction. I am not all weakness. Part of why I half-suck at my job is because it's not what I'm made for. I'm a reader, a talker, a helper. Give me a sheet of data and something to do with it, I'm going to go for fifteen minutes tops before I start dreaming. But give me something alive, and I'll be alive, too.
So I still want to go into public service, helping people somehow. Is there a way to do that English-wise without doing office work, and without teaching?
::shrugs:: Suppose I could teach. It wouldn't be horrible or anything. I'm just...as horrible as it sort of is, and as mediocre as I often am with one, I really do want a sort of high-stakes case. Aubrey tore us all apart, but I'd never felt so alive, felt like nothing I'd ever done before had ever had as much meaning as trying to help him. Just that, at that height, the fall's going to kill you. When it turned out he'd lied about some things, that we'd given so much willingly and he'd been playing us, everything unraveled.
And I think that's part of why I mistrust the whole psychologist route, between Aubrey and Calypso. But it was why I pursued the Peace Corps thing so passionately. Take less, make more. Wasn't I given the ideal childhood for just such things as that? Not so that I could--and I think I've said this--not so that I could stand in another suburb, in front of other children with the richest lives in the world, and instruct them...but so I could take a situation with a lesser start and make something more, something beautiful.
Should I lower my expectations? Any cook knows that to make a truly good salad, you need truly good produce. Anything lesser, you can make a salad, but it isn't going to be a good one, nothing so good as if you'd started higher. Given people with problems, situations with problems, systems with problems, who am I to try to make gourmet out of bargain-basement?
But then again, who gets to say what's bargain-basement? Sold for cheap doesn't always mean bad-quality. If someone doesn't succeed, usually it's going to be partly their fault. But how much?
I'm not trying to go Rudyard Kipling here, but we people who don't want for the basics of life, who know what it is to be warm, fed, safe, and curious: aren't we responsible, to what degree we can be, to help people who are lacking those find a way out, whether it's teaching them skills or helping them make a way in the meantime? If you ask me why, I'll ask you why not. We should be looking at the way the world is run, probing, analyzing, asking ourselves what the problems are and their solutions. Not just asking ourselves, either, but asking those with the problems. We won't all agree on the answers, but talking shouldn't hurt too much.
...now, how do I do this while still doing what I love?
And how much will it, could it ever be just an "I"?
-Laurel
8.05.2004
(meh)
Well, I think this's good news, whether you're traveling in Australia or not:
http://www.bordermail.com.au/newsflow/pageitem?page_id=774145
Not a whole lot of hugely noteworthy stuff has been happening these days, but a lot of little things. I went to the Renaissance Festival with Erik; that was very cool. He'd never been, and it's totally his thing, but he didn't seem as interested in the shows so much as the artisan booths (which makes sense, considering) and the glassblowing (which is very cool). And the food. Needless to say.
Work has been, well, what it is. On Monday I was doing this project that was too advanced for me (someone'd assigned it at the last minute before they went on vacation; when Rachel-my-supervisor looked it over, she told me it was never supposed to be mine in the first place, so it wasn't my fault), so I ran the risk of screwing up 94 kids' financial aid. In their favor and everything, but I would've cost the university money, and they're paying me, so that just wouldn't have been cool. It took a while to sort out, and I felt dumb, 'cause as it is I'm not that good at what I do; can we stick to projects I at least have a chance with?
Also, I'm no good at office work. This is a horrible sign, considering that I'm an English major. Maybe I will go into psychology after all. But...not the kind where you have...an office...
::sighs:: Unfortunately, there's no way I could be a paramedic. I want to help people who really need it, but, unfortunately, I'm not good under stress (like, really; I've gotten better since childhood, but I'm still not too good) and I can't stand people throwing up. Two huge strikes against me.
'Cause I want to work for, like, the Red Cross. But...I'm not medical, much as I wish I was/could be. I don't have the math-science aptitude. Nor the nerves. So I'd be doing...office work. Right?
Great.
'Cause now that I'm in and out of Peru and didn't really, well, like it, my Perfect Career in the Peace Corps (tm) is totally shot. And that sucks, 'cause now I'm not only aimless, but aimless and freaked out about it, despite the 20542308945 people who've told me that I "don't need to know yet" what I'm doing with my life. ...The heck I don't! What does everyone think I'm in college, choosing my own classes, for?! Doesn't anybody realize that there's a difference between job and career, and I'm looking for the one that doesn't make me want to keel over and die?
Unless they just mean that it doesn't matter what I study, since there're no jobs anyway.
::scowl::
Whee, another entry started normal and turned angsty. Everybody loves Quid Pro Quo.
"Won" Peasant's Quest over on H*R tonight. Woo-hoo.
-Laurel
Update, 9:49 PM: Dude, it's not any happier, but read this.
http://www.bordermail.com.au/newsflow/pageitem?page_id=774145
Not a whole lot of hugely noteworthy stuff has been happening these days, but a lot of little things. I went to the Renaissance Festival with Erik; that was very cool. He'd never been, and it's totally his thing, but he didn't seem as interested in the shows so much as the artisan booths (which makes sense, considering) and the glassblowing (which is very cool). And the food. Needless to say.
Work has been, well, what it is. On Monday I was doing this project that was too advanced for me (someone'd assigned it at the last minute before they went on vacation; when Rachel-my-supervisor looked it over, she told me it was never supposed to be mine in the first place, so it wasn't my fault), so I ran the risk of screwing up 94 kids' financial aid. In their favor and everything, but I would've cost the university money, and they're paying me, so that just wouldn't have been cool. It took a while to sort out, and I felt dumb, 'cause as it is I'm not that good at what I do; can we stick to projects I at least have a chance with?
Also, I'm no good at office work. This is a horrible sign, considering that I'm an English major. Maybe I will go into psychology after all. But...not the kind where you have...an office...
::sighs:: Unfortunately, there's no way I could be a paramedic. I want to help people who really need it, but, unfortunately, I'm not good under stress (like, really; I've gotten better since childhood, but I'm still not too good) and I can't stand people throwing up. Two huge strikes against me.
'Cause I want to work for, like, the Red Cross. But...I'm not medical, much as I wish I was/could be. I don't have the math-science aptitude. Nor the nerves. So I'd be doing...office work. Right?
Great.
'Cause now that I'm in and out of Peru and didn't really, well, like it, my Perfect Career in the Peace Corps (tm) is totally shot. And that sucks, 'cause now I'm not only aimless, but aimless and freaked out about it, despite the 20542308945 people who've told me that I "don't need to know yet" what I'm doing with my life. ...The heck I don't! What does everyone think I'm in college, choosing my own classes, for?! Doesn't anybody realize that there's a difference between job and career, and I'm looking for the one that doesn't make me want to keel over and die?
Unless they just mean that it doesn't matter what I study, since there're no jobs anyway.
::scowl::
Whee, another entry started normal and turned angsty. Everybody loves Quid Pro Quo.
"Won" Peasant's Quest over on H*R tonight. Woo-hoo.
-Laurel
Update, 9:49 PM: Dude, it's not any happier, but read this.