Ethnographies of Ordinary Life

Reaction in Three Parts: Part Three

2008-05-07T20:05:00.000-07:00

Work. As in working class. gristle and grime and all things grey and that start with the letter "g". And a time clock with an egg tooth, hatching another monotonous cycle. Work clothes that you must separate from regular living clothes. As if work is an altered state of being in which you are no longer actually living for yourself, but maintaining the motions of a human with the essence of a machine.

But we are machines, or at least gears in a system, or better yet, cogs on the gear itself in so far as our altruism is evidenced by the structure of our recombined nucleic acids constantly striving for our "common good".

It's easy to be radical and idealistic when you are a single person without dependents. It's easy to scrape by or not really when you don't have someone to whom you justify your hunger or lack of medical attention. You tend to look over most things you remember your mom fretting over when you were younger like whether you have milk for the breakfast cereal or film for the camera. Life becomes smooth like a spackled wall and kind of cheap looking. Sometimes you reach points of surrender/soul searching when you have to say "fuck it" and put your work aside, if you have any work, and think or cry or do something that will make you feel more monkey and less robot.

My dad raised my sister and I under the Protestant work ethic "If you're not working, you're sinning." And in my mind I always imagined the Puritan ladies hoeing turnips or parsnips or whatever they ate with heavy sweat-lined brows. This association has developed into a full love of gardening because it's the only real "work"-like satisfaction that I get. I tell folks it feels like I'm working with the Earth. We get along pretty well.

A Dummy For The President?

2008-05-01T02:14:00.001-07:00

Poverty rate in America has been increasing annually, now reaching over 36 million people living under the poverty line. Also foreclosure has been dramatically increasing over the states. Presidential election is coming up soon and both democratic candidates and republic candidates are trying their best to impress the voters by making great speeches regarding many issues and their solutions to those problems.
I am a liberal. I am very liberal and I don’t want any republican to be president again. One of the many issues has been brought up during numerous presidential candidate debates and one of them was about welfare among middle class people. John McCain, Republican presidential candidate has strong solid agendas for many issues like foreign policy, immigration, the war, national security, you name a matter of state and he got the plan. But the one subject that gets him is the issue regarding our economy.
From Morning Joe on Wednesday morning on April 30th, reported that right now, 85% of the nation is already in recession. Gas prices are sky rocking and our gross domestic product, known as GDP has been decreased. John McCain has publicly announced that he is not familiar with economy and its issues and that economy is not his strongest suit. On top of that, he stated that he would cut down on government’s non-defense spending to make changes in government’s role in the economy, which made another big controversy. If you were running for the president of a country, why would you want to tell the whole world that you are not good with economy? He should be out there campaigning and promoting his strong assets and winning people over to vote for him. He made a huge mistake by dropping that statement on national TV.
Economy is a very, very big and important part of running a country. Economy affects everyone no matter how rich you are or how poor you are. It is something that comes with the other responsibilities as being the leader of a country. I think that he really took the wrong way to approach this situation. Even if he does not know a lot about the subject (which I think it is not true. He is a politician and presidential candidate. He Is very intelligent and MUST have a high level of understanding in these matters), he should not be telling the entire world about it. Also his posture changes whenever he is brought up to talk about economy. His body language alters and the viewers can definitely tell that he seems very uncomfortable talking about the subject. if he wants to be the leader of this country, he should take a stand and try to make the best out of what his statements.
The other thing that shocks me is that McCain does not support the universal health care. If you have seen the documentary movie Sicko by Michael Moore, the United States is the only wealthy, modernized, and industrialized nation without the universal health care. Many many people have died or had their family member pass away because they could not afford the medical treatment that they needed. If the country is capable of covering its citizen’s insurance, why won’t they do it? McCain shouldn’t be cutting budget nor using our tax for something that we do not approve of, the war with Iraq for example. Election is for us ordinary citizens to elect the leader of our country who could carry out our wishes to make this country the better nation, not giving people false promises.

Solitude?

2008-05-01T02:13:00.002-07:00

Everyday is a battle. We get up every morning. We get ready for the day every morning. We go out the door every morning to face this world. When you are walking in the street, when you are walking around campus, when you are grocery shopping, do you ever feel lonely? Do you ever find yourself alone in your room, in classroom, or even when you are hanging out with your friend, meeting people, do you ever find yourself feeling lonely? Everyone around you is living their lives, this world is keep going around and around, but you are there, standing in a crowd, feeling isolated, like you are in your own island. Maybe some people keep things to themselves and isolate themselves purposely. Some people enjoy that kind of solitude and think of it as a privilege since this world has evolved to something that everyone likes to be involved in everyone else’s lives; it became hard for people to find some peace and serenity in their minds.
‘Solitude’ has positive connotation compare to the word ‘loneliness.’ With other six billion people living in this world, how do we end up being so lonely? We were raised to believe that we couldn’t live this world by practicing solitude. Every year, numerous people die from neglect from other people. Neglect from other people can take many forms. Neglect family, friends, and/or just the society as the whole. Yet encounters can happen anywhere.
Solitude. Isolation. Rejection. All these words can be fatal to a person. It can usually lead to a emotional disorder called depression. Depression wasn’t something that a lot of people considered to be something that researcher should really take a look at. But for over past decades or so, it become one of the most reported disorder in America. It is a bit appalling that with over 6.6 billion people in this world, depression is up in the list of increasing medical problem.
We stumble our way into other people’s life. Helping someone with their car, opening door for a lady with many baggages, or giving someone a direction. That short fraction of time, we are part of their lives. We leave a little mark of us in their lives. But we need more than those who ‘stumble’ their way into our lives. We need someone who’s going to stay in our lives. Family for one, and friends for two. True friends are hard to find. My mom always told me that the true friends are the ones that stick with you through hard times. Do you ever find yourself having no one to talk to when you need someone the most? When your friends walk away from you when you need the help the most is worse. These feelings are probably one of the worst feelings you could ever feel.
John Donne once said “no man is an island.” No man is an island; every man is a tiny fraction of the whole humanity. Some people argue that in fact, man is an island. They often use the example of Robinson Crusoe or the movie Cast Away. Even though they are not base on true stories, they still illustrate the concept that every man is a tiny fraction of the whole humanity by the ending of men finding their way back to the world.

Life Time of Silence

2008-05-01T02:13:00.001-07:00

My family is what this society calls “born-again” Christians. I remember when I was little, I’ve never went to church unless I stayed over at my aunt’s house; she was and still is, a devoted Christian. She spends most of her time at her church, which is one of the biggest churches in Korea. She is someone who could be or possibly is an “extremist.” Whenever we stayed a night or weekend at her house, she would make my sister and I to sing hymns, read the Bible, and then she would preach us about God. Growing up in an atheist family, religion was not something that was a big part of my life. We didn’t go to church regularly every Sunday nor went to Buddhist temple considering a fair amount of Koreans are Buddhist. Sundays were the days when my mom cleaned the whole house, go on a family trip or picnics, or I could sleep in since school days are Mondays through Saturdays instead of Fridays like here in the United States.
I was a teacher’s pet throughout my elementary school life. I was always voted for class president and I excelled academically until I met my new sixth grade teacher. I cannot recall her name but I clearly remember how much I despite her. She made my entire class to get a separate sketchbook and write a verse from the Bible and draw a picture about the verse, memorize the verse, get approved by her, and then we could go home. I didn’t mind drawing since art was and still is my passion. But when she made us memorize the verses everyday and checking to see if we actually did memorize it everyday and making us pray before our meal was just too much for me even though I was only in 6th grade. Both of my parents are teachers and I knew this was illegal for teachers to engage in any action that involves preaching of a religion or some sort.
We had our own class newspaper every month and being the class president, I was the editor-in-chief. In upcoming newspaper I published this long essay about how us students have right to decide if we would want to practice or not practice our own religion in school and teachers have no right to force students to follow him or her religion in any kind of way. This made my teacher very, very upset. She was so upset that when she asked the whole class if they agree with what I wrote and being little sixth graders, no one could stand up to her like I did. Then she went on lecturing us about how she’s doing this for our own good and such. I didn’t buy it. She actually called my mom to come to school and held a parent-teacher conference. My mom was so furious that my teacher actually had a gut to call her to have a conference and my mom being also a teacher, went to school and talked to the principal and got my teacher to stop preaching to students.
Coming from all these backgrounds, I’m strongly against religious leaders trying to break away from the separatism and slowly assimilate themselves into politics. I believe that government and religion should be separated completely. Just because the majority of Americans in the States are Christians or some sort of denomination of Christianity, does not mean they should force their ways of lives to Americans as a whole. Christians argue that there is nothing wrong with having a moment of silence in public schools because it is a way for the students to compose themselves and prepare their mind, body, and soul for the day. However, they also do not deny the fact that a moment of silence is based on Christian meaning and teaching and this violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Like Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, mega churches are taking a big part in politics these days, influencing politicians’ platforms and shaping the nation the way they want. Political organizations like the Moral Majority take a big part in the political, molding our society to more evangelical oriented politics.
Few years ago, there was a big controversy about prayers, a moment of silence, pledge of allegiance, and other related act in public schools in the United States. A moment of silence was awakened instead of turning itself to a lifetime of silence. I remember doing a moment of silence in middle school and through out to my high school. I didn’t really think much of it since I didn’t really ‘meditate’ or whatever the purpose of a moment of silence was. To many students and I, it was just, literally, a moment of silence, nothing more. Now that I’m more mature and acquire more knowledge of this world, I have realized that I was naïve.

The Homeless, an Heiress, and the Undead- Ali Livesay

2008-04-30T23:43:00.000-07:00

It is 3:15 in the afternoon and the sun is beginning its return to the horizon as I stride through the shadows of the cars in the parking lot. I walk quickly one because I’m late and two because the air has a still hot quality to it that makes me uncomfortable in more than one way. When they air is still my mind wanders to strange places. As I walk inside the double doors the icy air of my store hits me like a wall of ice and feels like I’ve walked into a silent crypt that hasn’t been opened in years. I quickly put my stuff up, grab my nametag, get to my section, and look busy. It’s then when I notice one of my coworkers out of the corner of my eye. Susan is petite older women whose kids are probably grown and have families of their own. She generally has fairly trendy clothes on and today is no exception. She has on a fitted baby-doll top with khaki pedal pushers and a pair of Velcro Sketchers on.
However, today I notice that her clothes are a little wrinkled and I can’t help but to wonder why. Then of course my mind wanders. Maybe she woke up late since she works the morning shift, or maybe her iron broke, or maybe she just doesn’t care today. But the whole time the Ehrenreich story of the hostess Joan who lives in her vain behind the shopping center pops up in my thoughts and the image of Susan living out of her car and showering at the gym a in the shopping center is all I could think about. It may be an unwarranted and completely unfounded theory, but I toy with the idea all day. I can’t recall ever hearing her talk of home and her lunch generally consists of the pumpkin bread loaf from the adjoining Starbucks. It could make sense, this job only pays like $7.50 an hour and they always prevent you from working over 40 hours a week. It would be hard to live off of that while paying for food, a car, and a place to live. Maybe her husband kicked her out, none of her family is alive, and she doesn’t want anyone to know so she pretends as if everything is fine.
It’s a slow day so I start a strange trajectory of thinking about how well I really know the people I work with. Our conversations rarely get personal and generally consists of work related topics and complaints about our tasks for the day or the odd or rude customers we had to deal with. Only knowing my coworkers in one environment makes me curious to what they are like outside of work. Do I really know at all the people that I spend eight hours a day with? My highly imaginative and shifty mind then begins to question the inner secret lives of every employee I see trying to bring to the lighted surface what they hide behind their seemingly ordinary mask of normalcy. My suspicions become fixed on a young girl about my age who wears nice clothes but always seems wary of appearing too nice that might make the rest of us poor souls feel uncomfortable. She always talks about how she can’t afford this or that or how she hopes she can get some scholarships to go to college. But she doesn’t fool me; in fact she probably has hundred dollar bills in that knock-off Prada wallet of hers. And she enjoys her job too much. She is always smiling while I’m running around with like a chicken with its head cut off helping incompetent customers who only say, “I’m looking for a book; it’s red.” And then it comes to me. She is a modern day princess, or an heiress of an untold amount of fortune who was raised in a mansion and had a lady maid dress her every morning. She only took this job to feel like a normal teenage girl who has to work for money.
My double life leading coworker fantasies are hitting an all time high when I hear a soft muttering behind me. I quickly wheel around and of course he is standing there arms folded waiting for me with a slight smile playing on his lips. My boss, Kevin, is what I would call an attractive middle aged man with a slender angular face with dark hair and even darker piercing eyes. There is a certain quiet grace with which he walks and a smooth richness to his voice that has always left me a little unnerved. He likes to walk up behind me while I’m working and wait as silent as the grave just to see if I can feel his creepy presence in my midst. As I take in his well kept all in black appearance, my overly active imagination guns right for an inhuman assumption. What if Kevin was a vampire? I never really see him eat and he only ever works the night shift. I then wonder how many undead and creatures of myth and fantasy are actually walking among us masquerading as humans working a normal job as a bookseller. There is no real way to tell; just like Susan could be homeless and no one would be the wiser. We don’t really know anyone around us; our worlds are just spheres that occasionally overlap but never really intersect long enough to be compared, and certain traits or truths can slip through the cracks.

Ghosts Carved in the Wood- Ali Livesay

2008-04-30T23:42:00.001-07:00

The soft rays of the fading, sinking sun slant sadly through the large library window as another day comes to a close. A cloud floats across the sky casting a light shadow on my page causing me to look up. There is something so dreamy about the afternoon, some strange element that guides thoughts out of the present and sets them loose in a dream like world to be free from present concerns and plans. I rest my chin on my hand, my elbow on the table as I stare blankly into the blank cubicle space directly in front of, pondering the reasons for this strange occurrence. It is then that my gaze deepens and onto the surface of the supports holding the small corner shelf in the cubicle.
Words are written in various colors and scattered across the surface like shells on a beach. “Nick was here” is scribbled in large boxy letters while “Philosophy Sucks!” was printed in angry lines of dark black ink. As my eye wandered across the grainy surface other writings and narratives and lives, I noticed some curved lazily around each other, snakelike, while others intersected or even went over their composing processors. Most touched, some overlap; some are more faded than others. It reminds me of a “Mystic- Writing Pad.” Stories, notes are overlapping and fading but they never disappear. They were all different, yet at the same time all the same. They represented specific people and lives lived whose only commonality was sharing a study desk, a need to relate something personal, or just liked to deface public property. Yet one life catches my eye. In small bold letters is carved the words “I love Pammy” deeply engraved in the surface. It seems much older than the rest, alive with more history.
My mind fanaticizes about the person who loved Pammy, and if they ever ended up with her. I wonder about their dreams, hopes, concerns, pains. The carving is just a ghost of the person who inscribed it but I can’t help but to dream that the finger that carved that message did great things and made mistakes, and lived a full life. I’m like Allen Shelton who wishes it was his grandfather’s thumb that had made that mark on the spade. These ordinary things are something that connects us just by touching the same surface. It reminds me of a “Mystic- Writing Pad.” Inscriptions may be faded, scratched out or even painted over, but they have left their mark nonetheless. Their memory is just as fresh and alive in the wood as the day it was carved, and there it will remain.

Eeyore’s Birthday Party

2008-04-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

For a few months now I have spent a bit of time at Pease Park. Many of my previous blogs centered around Disc Golf and the course that can be found there. It was after starting on this topic that I was made aware of the event Eeyore’s Birthday. Historically the party was a spring event for University of Texas students, and is now known for live music, drum circles, recreational drug use, and costumes. This past Saturday, April 26, the annual event happened again and it was my first time in attendance.

My friends and I traveled there on foot. We descended west down the hill on MLK and bolted across the road into the edges of Pease Park. As we crossed the stream following the beat of the bongo drums could be heard in the distance leading us to the event. As we came across the river I was startled to encounter a State Trooper. As we entered the event I noticed that there were many State Troopers about. Given the type of event and the peaceful atmosphere I was startled by the heavy police presence.

We had done no planning, nor knew what to expect, so we just began to wander. First we observed an intense bongo circle that never stopped, I literally think it was going all day without rest, people joining and leaving freely. The participants ranged from young teens to old men and women.

We then continued towards the stage where we could hear mellow rock style music, with a reggae influence. The band was jamming out on stage and you could see that the audience was enjoying the free concert. We didn’t loiter for long though, as there was nowhere to sit and the area was already crowded. There was more exploring to be done.

We next wandered along the numerous stands that were present. Most sold food and I wished I had my wallet; the giant turkey legs looked all too tempting.

I was also fascinated by the costumes that were present. Clowns, Jolly Green Giants, Ferries, and unicycle riders doing tricks. Many were very elaborate and you could tell people planned far in advance. Many couples or children and parent combinations were in themed costumes together.

Eventually after wandering for an hour or so we realized that, without a blanket to sit on or friends to meet there, we were just standing there in a small huddle not knowing what to do. We didn’t have any money to further browse the shops and the stage area was alright, but there is only so much standing we were willing to do.

As a result we decided to head home. While we were only there for a couple hours it was a fun time. Next year I will be sure to take a blanket to relax on and maybe some dice or cards to remain entertained while soaking in the atmosphere.

This Ain't Alabama But Close Enough

2008-04-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

The thunderstorms had come and gone by the time we walked into Chilifest, the entire fairground was soaked and the aisles looked like they were ready for mud wrestling. As we march through it to our camp my shoe falls victim to the mud and is sucked right off covering me in mud to mid shin; I struggle backwards to pry my shoe from the sludge and trudge on through the mud proceeding to our camp. As we arrive at the camp the smell of hamburgers and hotdogs permeates throughout the air as Holland is posted up at the grill. The first run of hamburgers comes off the grill within the first ten minutes of arriving there with one minor problem; we left the buns in the car. After this realization occurred all the girls looked at us with disapproval for not having the meal organized and we knew what we needed to do. All the guys knew we needed to retrieve the buns and therefore looked at each other waiting to see who was going to take the initiative. As this goes on it becomes quite evident that the nominees are Korey, Baron, and myself since Holland and Blaine were manning the grill. We gather the cart to bring the rest of the supplies from the cars when John comes running up to me with his key shouting, “Get me, my sweater”. I snap the keys out of his hand and look him up and down shaking my head at his laziness and then move on to join the group pulling the red cart towards the sea of cars.

As we move back through the mud, the cart feels like deadweight as the wheels get lodged in the mud as we drag it through the aisle. We exit the fairgrounds to start our mile walk back towards Holland’s car armed with slapstick instructions about the car being in the middle of the cars pointed towards the road, right past the pond. We move through the mucky path past the barn and cows to arrive at the end of the pond. We take a left and scan through the cars until we see the large yellow truck with flood lights on top, which should have been easy enough except we were in Texas. We rummage through the cars towards the trucks and start collecting the rest of the supplies and throwing them onto the cart starting the trek back to the camp. As we are moving back towards the camp we run into some people from my high school as we move by them we all look at each other not saying a word but just making eye contact to acknowledge each other. Its one of those awkward moments when you see someone but have nothing to say to them except the cliché statements that we all run through trying to act as if we care the answers to the questions. Moving with the cart seems useless since the wheels can’t spin; we finally get to the top of the hill and let gravity take care of the cart. We stop at the tent for twenty one year old wristbands for Korey and stand by the cart exhausted just looking at each other shaking our heads because we know what the aisles through Chilifest have in store for us. We all re-gather to make the final push to the camp and as we arrive we drop the cart at the front and walk in. As we make it into the camp the rest of the guys come up to us and ask us if we need help taking the stuff off the cart. We all look at each other shake our heads and tell them to go ahead and act like they did something. Then we all move to the beer tub, grab a beer and walk to the couches.

The sun slowly starts to hide behind the Earth as the day finally becomes the night. After we get off the couch, we start grilling the rest of the hamburgers and talking. Finally, Mitch and the rest of the team show up from their nine hour drive from Lubbock and in unison swarm the grill and tub. We start playing washers and assembling bolo balls for the night ahead. After awhile we decide to get the group together and head to the concert area for the rest of the night. We stand around singing and chatting to the songs as the singer instructs the crowd to a cheer and all of a sudden beer starts flying out of the cans into the air creating a beer shower that soaked the entire crowd. As the concert drags on people start throwing the cans in the air, which leads to a swarm of cops and TABC flowing through the crowd pulling these people and taking them behind the concert to the make shift court. They all come out from the other side with their ticket and rejoin the crowd although usually in a less jolly state of mind. The concert comes to a close and we all gather the empty coolers and head back to the camp.

The camp was filled with live chatter as the crowd that hung back was enthralled with the games that we had left earlier. As I enter towards the camp I realize I need to go to the bathroom and make a move to the line of fifty port-a-potties about a quarter of a mile away. As I enter the lines the police are arresting people for peeing outside of the toilets into the shrubbery. I chuckle at this as I move into the bathroom and back towards the camp and join in on the festivities as we play the games for the next few hours. The night finally becomes late and we all go to our respective tents or in my instance outdoor couch. As I move to the couch I share it with three other people as we lay there and fall asleep in the sitting position.

As the sun rose for a new day its glare struck my face and awoke me from my slumber. Rising from the crouch, while stretching my arms out with an uncontrollable yawn, I look at the grills to see Holland and Blaine cooking even though it was seven am. They both tell me how they have stayed up all night and I thanked them for starting the meal as they both retreated to the now vacant spots in the tents to crash until the concerts started. The chili finally finishes and everyone up huddles around as the cool air blows on our backs as we start devouring the pot of chili and while grabbing a sample to submit into the contest. After finishing the chili some of the group leaves with the couches to set up our spot for the concerts for the day. At around eleven the entire group tries to gather to head towards the concert but the musical chair style bathroom run holds us around the grill for another forty minutes until we finally head out. We squirm our way through the crowd, searching for our group shirts standing on the couch. After about ten minutes of searching we find our way to our destination to start dancing, drinking, and singing to the five shows in store for us. As the show progresses the crowd pushes itself into our group and others start climbing on the couch with us and as the time wears on the couch slowly starts to fold to the weight and gradually pieces start breaking off until it’s completely annihilated. Upon this happening Mitch, Adam, Alex, and myself decide its time to head back and go home to watch the Kansas versus North Carolina game.

As in Dreamworlds of Alabama (p. 93-95) the walk into Chilifest had a nostalgic feeling for me since it only happens once a year at the same time. As I walked to the events I could see all the booths and tents that are there every year without fail just as if it were a small town in Alabama that hasn’t changed. But at the heart of this square was not a plaza where people gathered but rather a stage where people could converse and enjoy themselves. Instead of a statue as the central figure that lead to reminiscing, the artists were the center of Chilifest and people talked about the artist’s songs and performance. This forces people to think about the past and allows them to recognize what events have transpired that have led them to their current state.

Motorcycle Trip

2008-04-30T20:22:00.001-07:00

Behind the controls of my motorcycle, cruising with the wind in my face and weaving traffic, is where I feel most relaxed. There is a sense of freedom and exhilaration that cannot be explained to non-riders. Ordinary life is stressful and full of obligations, but when on the motorcycle that all disappears. I can’t answer my phone, there is no homework to do, the only thing is the road ahead.

Motorcycling is a big little world that spans many demographics. There are old guys who love to tour and young guys who rock around town on racing bred sport bikes trying to maintain an image. While I have always been part of this little world and say hi to fellow riders I have never been involved as much as I am becoming. I am in the process of gearing up for a 3,500 mile trip west to LA and then up the coast to Vancouver to my summer internship.

In preparing for such a trip I have become very involved in reading online forums, investigating luggage and other trip options. Route planning and having to take motorcycle factors under consideration; rain, smaller gas tank, butt comfort. The internet is full of information, advice, and other riders seem particularly eager to offer up advice from their previous experiences.

Just this last weekend, I installed an oversized luggage rack and wired two 12v DC outlets onto the bike for mobile charging of my phone, ipod, and laptop.

The other challenge in ramping up for this trip is all the pre-planning. Fifteen days on the road that all must be planned ahead of time and camping spots found an reserved for each night is a logistical nightmare, especially when so many factors could arise to through the trip off schedule.

Additionally, finding someone to accompany me was a bit tricky. My preference was for a female companion or a guy with his own bike. Going two to the bike for that distance with two guys just isn’t something I am all that interested in. However, my only friend with a bike has to work and girls parents are not so excited at the thought of half a month with a boy on a motorcycle camping at national parks along the way. Luckily my long time friend Jenny was so excited by the idea of such a trip that she bit the bullet as far as having to fight with her parents over it, and will be tagging along for the trip. A great relief so as to not be so lonely the whole time.

The map at the top shows that tentative route.

My parents are very supportive of the trip, my dad did a bit of touring in his day. But I still think that the trip will be more difficult than I am anticipating and something WILL come up to throw us off course…I can only hope for the best.

Right On

2008-04-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

The breeze came through the window blowing my hair against my face as we drove by the lush green landscape up highway 21 towards College Station. As we drive Mandy, Patsy, and I are all silent as we all listen to Incubus and fall into our own little worlds not saying a word to each other but instead choosing to talk to other people through our phones. As the time passes we finally arrive at College Station and in unison we exclaim that we need to go eat, we argue amongst ourselves and finally I end the argument by proclaiming, “I am the driver and this car is going to Layne’s so you can eat there or stay hungry.” As we get their I call Blaine as he is walking right past Layne’s from class and tell him to come meet up with us. He walks in the door right on time since I can’t remember what I want from Layne’s and ask him to remind me about the inner workings of Layne’s. He instructs me to get double sauce double toast which I must agree is the only way. All three of us devour the food without even taking time to relish the flavor and start reminiscing about last years Chilifest and how this year will be even better. Blaine tells us not to worry as he whips out his phone with a goofy smile washed across his face and shows us the forty two cases of beer we have for our team of fifty. We all just sit their looking at each other smiling and laughing.

We all head towards Blaine’s to go see this so called mountain of beer and to check out the team uniform. Moving towards the house Holland is out on the front lawn, drinking a beer, working on the generator. We all yell obscenities at each other and crack jokes as we stroll into the house and within seconds Holland pulls out the shirts and lays them in front of us. The shirts are grey with Sean Connery on the front with a Jeopardy stand right in front of him reading -3500 with the caption “ Chilifest just the way your mother likes it…Tribek” as we sit there we start cracking up at the shirts but Mandy and Patty are not amused by the shirts. We explain to them how hilarious the shirts truly are but both of them don’t seem to understand; however, thanks to the creation of YouTube they soon learn. As the day dragged into the night we sat watching the North Carolina versus Kansas basketball game while talking about the homed brew beer that Blaine and Holland had made. We slowly moved outside and started a fire while everyone started to get ready for the night ahead as we all sat outside chatting away. The window from Blaine’s room came flying open as he cranks up his stereo playing Sarah Bareilles’ Love Song. He comes rushing out onto the porch singing and dancing with a broom as his dance partners. The song choice cracks up all of us as Blaine tells us that this is his pump up music for the night. The song is broken up for me as my friend Mike calls and tells me that he has arrived at Blaine's. However, in Mike fashion he seems to be unable to recognize my car and drives past the right house three or four times before I have to walk to the front yard and wave him in. We all sit in the back in the shadows of the fire talking and eventually deciding to head to Northgate for the night.

We all cram into the cars in order to drive to Northgate when all of sudden Mandy starts yelling at me to move. I instruct her if she tells me what to do one more time that she will pay and in her own way she egged me on leading me to throw her left over Layne’s out of the car. As we arrive at Northgate we meander through the bars not keeping track of where we are going. We finally stick with Mad Hatter’s and start congregating in a corner talking about whatever came to mind when Mike’s two friends Sarah and Christina. We start talking for awhile when finally Sarah points out that the other girls with us are staring them down especially Mandy. We all look back to see them and we try to persuade her that they are doing no such thing while we know they are. This doesn’t turn out the way we would have liked as they decide to go home. I turn to scold Mandy as I start realizing that I should have left that food in my car. As 2 am rolls around we all cram back into my Jetta with six people making it a tight fit especially for Blaine and Sean since they both forced themselves into the front seat. On the way back an earthy smell starts to come from their area as we arrive at Blaine’s house so I kick them both out of the front seat as I parallel park the car. Inside Blaine’s Mandy starts yelling at Sean and the rest of us leave the room to cook pizza rolls and by the time we arrive back in Mandy and Patty are out the door.

The next day we all wake up sluggishly to the daylight flooding into the living room at Blaine’s along with Holland’s dog Bleu making sure we knew he was there. As we get up we start moving everything into the trucks including the beer, meat, and cooking equipment. We all go in different directions to collect the rest of the people and supplies and to meet up in waves at the Chilifest tent. I leave with Blaine in to meet up with his girlfriend, Lauren, to collect everyone and see the rest of the team before we leave. However, once we arrived there it became quite clear that college students don’t know how to leave when they say they are going to. Being this way Blaine, Korey, and I decide to leave to get the rest of the equipment to the camp in order to start cooking. We run into a wall of cars waiting in line to park for Chilifest and after thirty minutes finally gain our parking spot. Looking like three drunk stooges we stumble through the mud with our supplies for a half mile, while moving through the mud the gas can I am clutching has spilled all over me as we arrive to the entrance. As I stand at the end of the line waiting for Korey and Blaine the security guard asks to see my gas can to check to see if liquor is in it. My face turns into complete bewilderment as the can and I both reek of gas.

While waiting I start to think about how ironic it was that an event located in the heart of a very fundamental Christian area could put on an event that focused on college binge drinking. It seemed hard to fathom why an area so religiously right would find it permissible to sin while at the same time having no remorse; however, money does still speak loudly to them. The reasoning for this disenchantment with taking religion to heart can be explained by modernity according to The Book of Jerry Falwell (p. 271). The difference according to my religious friends is that fundamentalism is too rigid of a system that restricts their freedom so instead they choose to believe in the Bible rather than to accept and know it to be the end all. They all seem to juggle multiple viewpoints that are in line with their perspectives even if they don’t logically coexist. They did this in order to prove that they were good Christians. As I thought about it this seems to be what every American does since Christian morals have a strong foundation in our line of thinking ,which leads me to believe that the fundamentalists see all of us “sinners” to be a lost cause and therefore use the money the town receives from Chilifest to spread their message. This little town of Snook, Texas has a few churches off the side of the road and every time we drive by them they are all gathered together in what seems to be the entire town. As I stand there rapping up my reflection I feel a shove come from behind from Blaine as he yells, “We have got places to be son.”

"Aint always what it seems to be"

2008-04-30T17:50:00.002-07:00

“So if you wonder why Americans are so obese, consider the fact that waitresses both express their inhumanity and earn their tips through the covert distribution of fats” (Barbara Ehrenreich)

So if you wonder why Americans are crazy about music, think of the people that work at Music Stores, and their influence in the development of the artist, sound, genre; and mainly the small world that surrounds a music store.

“What’s good?”

“What’s New?”

“What’s Hood?”

“What’s Soulful?”

What is ______?

The point is clear a music store is much more then a retailer, it is a community of people that come together to purchase a piece of culture, which helps them relate to what their life is, has been, or wants to be like.

The first day I entered Music Mania the smell of the store filled my nostrils, it physically attached itself to my body. The sounds streaming from the speakers gave me a perception of what the store would be like. And as I first walked over to the counter to speak with James and introduce myself as the college rep for Warner Elektra Atlantic, it was then the moment that the small world that exists inside Music Mania became apart of me.

I distributed “fats” through albums, which made people PHAT. It was the music of the moment that best fed the customers, that kept them going through the days, hours, minutes of their lives.

Music and Music Retailers are a sub culture that is undergoing drastic change, change that could hurt or help the music industry. Music is apart of the ordinary of many and will stay this way. But in what format of distribution or distributor, is what becomes the unknown……………………………….. And all may be lost

The Core

2008-04-30T17:50:00.001-07:00

Music Mania; Waterloo; End of Ear; Backspin Records; Encore; DJ Dojo; all the Core Music Indie stores of Austin…and all on the verge of Extinction, but all so different

Music Mania: Hood Soul

Waterloo: The Mix or the Native

End of Ear: The Niche

Backspin Records: Vinyl __the illy

Dj Dojo: DANCE

Individualized cultures and their ordinaries exist in these different music retailers. I have been able to be apart of almost all, and have seen that their existence is needed. People don’t realize the “ordinary affects” that make the ordinary of these stores (Stewart). The realization hasn’t hit, the affect of illegal downloading, is perhaps overlooked. But this affect is one that is shared by these retailers and has become apart of their ordinary.

The ordinary that labels are distributing less of a tangible product and more of an intangible product. The ordinary that sales are down, that new forms of product are being sold, and that what was once the core product of music retailers, music, is slowly disappearing.

Beauty Shop

2008-04-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

Have you ever said to yourself “small world” when you meet a person who you both are connected to through another person? Kathleen Stewart’s book Ordinary Affects, highlights the strength of common experiences and strange encounters.
While I was joyful that I had found a creditable and recommended beauty salon in Austin, I was still skeptical of the area and those inside. A beauty salon is like a church or a masseuse that you choose wisely so you are satisfied and will continue to return back. Walking into the place brought a sense of home, being from Dallas where the people are majority African American and are solely the ones who tend to the hair, that was obvious here. There was soothing music, products along the walls for purchase, and a beautiful waiting room. When I approached the counter to get assisted there was an African American woman there who greeted me saying “Welcome to Angie’s” and took my information on the computer to store for further reach if necessary. I told her that I have and appointment with Angie and was here to get a wash and flat iron. She told me she will come to get me in a few minutes so I sat down and listened to the talk of the community and personal stories from the weekend. One lady had her grandchildren and took them to Austin park and play to blow steam off so when the got back home they feel fast asleep. I imagined Mondays were always chattering with new updates from the weekend. As I sat down I noticed a young lady with a longhorn t-shirt was waiting so I asked if she had been here for a long time, and she replied no. Next thing I know she’s asking me if I went to college and which one. I replied UT and guessed if that was her college as well. After that response she was very open to communication and asked what my major is, where I was staying and what organizations I was involved in. Being me, the more secluded and defensive person it was hard to allow the sense of my barrier being invaded by another person. I saw in her eyes she was excited to meet me and I guessed in my head she was a freshman so I continued to engage in the conversation. She explained how she was having a less fulfilled year because she was a freshman and living off-campus, so it wasn’t easy meeting new people aside from her older sister’s friends. As we talked about my organizations we came to found out that my coworker happened to be her sister. At that moment my mind exploded with an understanding of why she was so sweet and respectful, because she was her sister’s sister. We continued to exchange information and I advised her on what she should look into for assistance in the community and recommended which organizations to try to join for her benefit. Those few minutes of waiting felt like an hour talking with her because my name was called for me to take a seat and relax. I sat in Angie’s chair to get my hair treatment and closed my eyes to pray it would come out wonderful.

Who Lives in Poverty??

2008-04-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich revealed the low-wage lifestyle of many Americans and changed the way America perceives its working poor. Poverty may well be the underestimated culprit that inhibits many children from succeeding in school. Poverty remains the greatest barrier to educational success for many children of color.

Poverty in Nigeria has many indices. Nigeria is a country with over 140 million people therefore the dimension of mass poverty in Nigeria is both dreadful and shocking. Many citizens of Nigeria cannot afford to live a decent life. Several millions of Nigerians do not have the usual or socially acceptable amount of money or materials possessions. Only a few people are comfortable. Commonly, drinking water does not flow in Nigerian homes. People have to buy water as many bore holes have run dry and the public taps have virtually disappeared. You begin to wonder what the functions of the Water Corporation are. Even cities like Lagos that lines the Atlantic Ocean cannot get water to its inhabitants. Yet, every election year the people receive promises from desperate politicians that they will be provided with water. Lies upon deceits arise.

There is nothing more serious to express the physical mass poverty in Nigeria than the prevalence of hunger. In Nigeria, common and staple foods are now very expensive and many people have devised different formula to survive daily, weekly or monthly. “To what use are the vast fertile lands across the length and breadth of Nigeria?” my father may recite.

Food, water and housing are 3 important parameters to measure the values of our lives and these things have become elusive to the masses in Nigerians. The purchasing power of the Naira is extremely weak. In some very bad situations, some people do not have money at all. Nigerians do not have options but to face blackouts. It is a hard reality of life. It depicts cruelty. This deficiency of power supply has aided the mass poverty as thousands of people have been put out of job since many companies can no longer sustain their operations in the absence of it.

When speaking to a friend of the family Ike Okereke, he recited the story of his grade mate (also known as person of the same age group) growing up in Nigeria who suffered and tackled the issues of poverty alone. “As a boy the friend spent 5 of his years living on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, the second largest city of Africa. Like hundreds of other children, he spent his days and nights in that extensive metropolis trying to fend for himself. He said it was not easy living on the street but what could he do. He had two sisters that he hadn’t seen in five years, smoked Indian hemp like other boys of his age, got beaten by bigger boys, robbed of his money, took his bath in the canal and slept under the bridge. The good thing he was alive!”

Many children escape from unhappy homes in search of adventure. They end up selling water packaged in plastic bags or washing the windshields of vehicles in heavy traffic. The friend had worked as a ‘bus conductor’ – collecting fares from passengers who squeeze onto the yellow commercial buses of Lagos. He earned $5 to $6 a day.

Poverty exists beyond America and being Nigerian American I feel obligated to protect and work for my whole family, America and all. Living my college life I feel I am in poverty but then remembering it could be a lot worse and thank God for my blessings.

Language in Subculture

2008-04-29T00:26:00.001-07:00

The Way Words are used in “Subculture”
In the Book of Jerry Falwell, Harding explains how what fundamentalists hear when Falwell speaks is a lot different from how others hear the same words. This made me think about how influential language is and the importance of communication.

I volunteer for Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. When I first started volunteering someone came to speak to us about how to communicate with them. The first thing I found interesting was that it is improper to guide someone by their hand. This makes the person who is blind feel inferior, like they are being lead around. Instead walk beside them. They will feel for and then hold onto your elbow. This way you are walking side by side. I often spend time visiting my friend Michael who is partially blind. He doesn’t need to hold onto me to get around, but he rarely walks ahead or behind me. He is always beside me. There is no reason to leave out words like sight, vision, etc. This is part of everyday conversation and a person who is blind relies on others to describe exactly what they are seeing. For example, I was having dinner with a little girl who was blind and she asked me to describe how things looked on her plate. It was very important that I did not try and make anything sound better then it actually was. I proceeded to tell her it was white chicken with a brown creamy sauce that looked like it had a lot of spices in it. I also told her the green beans were dark green, thin, and looked kind of mushy. After I got done describing everything on her plate she asked, “What color is the plate”? The point of that story is to show that no detail is too small.

One way that language can be offensive is how you refer to a person who is blind. It is very important to refer to the person and then to the disability. It is impolite to refer to someone who is blind as a blind person. I was informed of this when I asked if there was anything special I should know about working with blind people. The woman at the front desk of school politely explained to me that this was an offensive term that most people do not know about. The polite way to refer to someone with a visual impairment is to refer to them as someone who is blind. I found it strange how the order of words can make such a big difference in the meaning. It is not that the word “blind” is offensive, but how it is used in referring to someone that can be offensive.

Independence is a big deal in this world of visual impairments. It is not necessary to do everything for someone who is blind. They grow up learning how to live with their disability. I learned this when I was having dinner with Michael. He was having a hard time cutting his meat so I asked if I could help him. He told me he very capable of cutting his own meat and if he needed my help he would not hesitate to ask. He then told me if they hadn’t given him such a crappy piece of chicken that was all fat, this would not have been a problem. We both laughed.

Communication and language varies for different subcultures. It is incredible how one word or reference to one subculture could mean something completely different or even be offensive to another subculture.

Born Again?

2008-04-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

After reading The Book of Jerry Falwell I am reminded of a good friend of mine who is the embodiment of a born again Christian. John was one of my best friends growing up. We met in the church day care when we were babies and have been friends ever since. In high school John and I ended up attending different schools and never really lost touch. Being the charismatic, nice, dependable, and loyal guy that he was he was just a good friend to have. Once we hit the stage in adolescence where alcohol and pot started showing up things started to change. There was a group of us that would all partake in safe and comfortable environments usually at our respective houses when the parents were away or around bonfires at the beach. The point being is we knew we weren’t supposed to be doing it but at least we weren’t driving around with liquor in the car or bustin smoke cruises around the city. Most of the time we wouldn’t get hammered drunk or so high we couldn’t function. Like I mentioned we were testing new boundaries but weren’t stupid about it. John on the other hand had the personality that it was all or nothing. I guess it was just that he had an addictive gene in his blood but he just couldn’t stop drinking or smoking on his own once he got started. He would go until the every drop of alcohol was gone or every ounce of weed smoked. Even when we were new to the scene we knew that it was not good. After we graduated John got himself into a lot of trouble because most of us moved away for school and he found himself surrounded by another group of people that just didn’t give a damn. The summer after my freshman year I worked with John as a lifeguard and was surprised to see a completely converted John. He told me that he had lost touch with himself and was drinking and smoking in excess like he was because he was trying to fill an empty void. John became very involved in the church and is now five years sober and a very happy individual. I respect his devoutness and devotion to God. I really think that it may have saved his life.

I found that as I read Harding’s book I began to think about what it is to be religious. I, myself, have always approached the topic of religion with extreme caution because I do not consider myself a deeply religious individual by any means. I don’t like to voice an opinion on religion because I don’t have a basic knowledge of the Bible and as a result don’t want to base any argument on ignorance. A lawyer wouldn’t go to court without all the facts. The older I get the more distant I have grown from the Church. I rarely attend church anymore and as a result I tend to put reason before faith these days. I stopped going to church because I started to notice that there is a lot of hypocrisy in religion. For instance, the lead singer of our church’s contemporary service band portrays herself as the holiest of people but while preaching the Word of God to the congregation she broke up a marriage and began living with the husband of a very influential and well respected church member. What message does that send? Is it okay to commit adultery during the week as long as you repent on Sunday? Maybe Church isn’t for me anymore but I believe you don’t have to be in a church to have a relationship with God anyway. Looking at the world through scientific eyes of a geologist has blurred my vision of religion and to be honest there are a lot of questions that I have no answer to. I envy my friend John for being so sure in what he believes in.

A Party for a Fictional Donkey

2008-04-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

As the clouds crawled across the sky against the sun, we were walking down the hill on 24th street towards Pease Park, with the breeze briskly blowing my brown hair back. As Leah, Tina, and myself approach Lamar we see a crowd of twenty people waiting at the light as the cars start to turn left from Lamar onto 24th. We all start picking up the pace as these are both sure fire signs that the walking light is about to come on and as the flashing hand pulsates, we scurry across the street. We make our slow descent into the park as we pass the bridge and approach the practice tee for disc golf. The topic of disc golf comes up and we discuss how none of us can throw the disc far or straight enough to compete in disc golf. Moving through the forest towards Eeyore’s birthday there are vendors on the side of the trail selling paintings of mushrooms, glass pipes, soaps, and handmade jewelry. We finally enter to the clearing from the forest as three officers stand there checking through bags to make sure there are no glass containers and we proceed to wander through the park.
Upon entering we hear the sounds of drums coming from the crowd and become intrigued as to where this is going on. We follow our ears to the circle and as we approach there is a statue of liberty with Eeyore’s face looking over the circle. The drum circle has people coming in and out of it and as time goes by we can see the tendency of the beats to change with the people. The people in the middle without instruments are dancing around throwing their hands in the air, bobbing their heads back and forth, as they bounce around. As we stand around watching two women walk into the circle together with one going towards the drums and the other the dance circle. As the lady entered the dance circle all the males in the circle started to try and dance around her. She slyly moved away from them trying to give them the hint that she had no interest to dance with them. Finally, her girlfriend comes back to dance with her and they isolate themselves from the rest of the dancers and start kissing in order to show the guys in the circle that they have no interest with any of them. After awhile we decide to go on an adventure and see the rest of the festival and grab a bite to eat.
We get to the booths but there are long lines for all of them especially the drink and turkey leg line. So we decide after seeing the sign for Eeyore’s pin to go see the celebrated donkey for whom this party was for. Squirming through the crowd like worms through dirt we make our way towards the pin and run into my friends Laura and Tara who are standing around the pin drinking their beers. We start discussing with them how long the line is for drink tickets and reminiscing about Sixth Street on Thursday. After a short chat we move our separate ways as we move to fill our orange and blue water bottles. Upon coming to the water fountain there is a child trying to fill his bubble tube and struggling to hold all the pieces while filling it with water. I try to help him by holding the water button but as I do this he turns to me and says, “Push it harder”; however, I knew that if I were to push it harder that it would spray everywhere and so I told him it was on as fast as it would go. He moves me over and slams his hand onto the water button to fill his tube and leaves giving me a scornful look. We fill our bottles and start to drink them as we walk past the band on the ridge and the porta-potties to an open area where people were playing with hula hoops. We decide to sit down so we can watch them and listen to the drums.
As we lay there a lady with a turquoise top starts showcasing her hula hoop skills by moving the hula hoop around her body from her head to her feet using both her arms and legs. While watching her we began people watching and as the people passed they were all dressed in the most bizarre ways as if they had come out of a fairy tale with cats, fairies, and wizards that moved about along with men in thongs and women with exposed painted chests. As we are sitting there a child ran away from the hula hoops as her grandmother followed her. The child ran to the group next to us and offered the other little girl some of her granola bars. The girl refused and the child moved to her mom and puts it up to her face to offer a bite but the mom politely declined and the child stood there baffled at why no one would want a bite of her granola bar. The music grew louder as she fell to the ground and gathered herself as her grandmother came up to her she ran through the crowd with her food above her head towards the music. Once she left a guy with long hair and a beige green backpack came around our crowd and approached the people sitting down with offerings of baked marijuana goods. He sat down at the group next to us pulled out his backpack and the compartments and organization of his baked goods could be seen by all.
After awhile we gathered our belongings and went to the stage area where the egg toss contest was going on. There were about fifteen teams left by the time we got there and as time wore on and the distance grew the eggs started to splatter left and right until there were only three teams remaining. With just three team remaining they all threw their eggs and in unison all broke their eggs but with time only two teams were left. The crowd converged around them and gave them more room to back up and throw the eggs until the eventual winner came after about ten throws between the teams. As we tried to escape the crowd a member of the team that came in third could be heard gripping about how they have come in third place the last five years. This was news to me because I didn’t know that people trained and worried about egg throwing competitions. But as the sun retreated we decided to follow its lead and retreat back to our apartments. The entire experience could be summed up as the epitome of Austin’s counterculture.
As in “Ordinary Affects” the swarming (p. 70) that goes on around Austin’s “hippie” scenes helps give meaning to Eeyore’s birthday. It showcases a movement for freedom in actions and thinking since most laws were relaxed for this event and many see this freedom as the prerequisite for justice. The fact that this is a public event shows how all these little worlds with their differences still have a common root and need to unite.

My First Job- Austin

2008-04-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

I was taught at an early age the value of a dollar. My dad is a Landman in the oil industry and has worked hard for every single cent he has earned. It should be known that not everyone in the industry makes millions of dollars a year and has their own private jet. In the 1980’s the market dropped out and my dad was lucky enough to still have a job and be able to make ends meet. Also both my parents come from families with hard working parents who lived through the Great Depression. My mother’s dad saved every nickel and dime he made until the day he died. I think this is the reason my parents instilled in me at an early age the importance of hard work and saving money.

At age 10 I had my first job as the “yard boy”. I had a regular client base of about 5 yards in my neighborhood and every Friday and Saturday during the summer I would do the rounds and charged ten dollars a yard. Half of this would go into savings (a mason jar in my parent’s closet) and the other half I would pocket. Each yard would take around two hours to complete depending on the temperature and I couldn’t call it quits until it passed my dad’s meticulous inspection. Through hot south Texas days of labor I learned how personal earning a dollar could be.

When I was 16 I got my first real job with the City of Corpus Christi as a lifeguard. Working for the city taught me valuable lessons about dealing with the public and authority. I earned $6.23/hr (about average for an entry level city worker in any department) and was just grateful that I was not pushing a lawn mower any more. The title “Lifeguard” is really another way of saying public baby sitter. My pool was in a low-income neighborhood on the south side of town and most of our regulars were kids under 10 that were dropped off by their parents at the pool at noon and retrieved at 7 pm when we closed. At any given time we averaged 75-100 “patrons” with no parental controls….that was my job. There were two guards on duty at a time which means that for every guard there was usually 40 kids in his/her area. No one is perfect and you are bound to miss something. Our boss made sure that we knew about every single wrong thing we did. Once my boss parked his car down the street and videotaped us from a distance to show us all the little things we missed. He was just a forty year old kid on a power trip.

Kids in small numbers are generally easy enough to control. Most assumed I was approaching 25 and I didn’t tell them otherwise. The older you portray yourself the less problems kids will give you. I learned that it works in your best interest to enforce the rules that are life threatening otherwise you become completely overwhelmed- In those numbers no one listens anyways. I sometimes found myself yelling “Walk!” to kids running by me in the super market (old habits die hard). It was actually the adults that gave me the most trouble. It’s tough being a teenager and telling man in his thirties not to try a gainer off the diving board, or banning a couple from a public place for having sex in the pool. And yes this happened on more than three separate occasions. The pure monotony of working eight hour shifts in heat approaching 100 degrees every day will alone take its toll on you. In many ways it was the perfect first job. I was taught valuable lessons about money, taxes, and responsibility. However, you can’t be a lifeguard forever and I wouldn’t want to be. This first job was motivation to go to college and earn a degree that would keep me out of the sun and allow me to live comfortably on a decent salary.

Thoughts on Falwell

2008-04-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

I have not always lived in the Bible Belt, nor are my parents from here. I was not raised with any sort of religious influence, and do not identify with any religion. That said, the views of Jerry Falwell and other religious leaders don’t always hit home with me. I do however believe that all religion at its core has good intentions and provides a good moral compass for believers.

From the reading The book of Jerry Falwell I come away with the impression that no person is perfect, and that just because something bad (or at least not pious in the case of Falwell) is in your past does not mean that you can’t move forward. It doesn’t mean that you can’t still become a revered religious leader or a corporate CEO or a Senator. People make mistakes and missteps. I know already in my short 20 years of life that I have done many things that weren’t virtuous, and seeing that a religious leader could overcome such missteps, even if smaller, that I can too.

For instance, it was horribly sneaky of Falwell and probably emotionally terrifying thing for his roommate when his fiancé was stolen. Not only did Falwell write love letters, but deceived his roommate by not sending his letters for him as promised. Now, for your ordinary guy on the street this is not a far cry from what happens daily in a society where divorce rates are through the roof, but seeing the man he has become it was a mistake and subject to scrutiny. However, should lust for a beautiful woman years before the climax of his fame keep him from being the man he was? Certainly not. People make mistakes.

The news and media also play a huge role in the uncovering and exploitation of people’s pasts and mistakes. In the old days keeping a secret would have been much easier, now every transgression is broadcasted over national television with one leak to the press. The life in the public spotlight is one that I can hardly fathom, and while all the incentives of money and fame drive people to step out into the public view, I can’t imagine it is easy.

Take for example the Clinton scandal (which Falwell also took interest in). My opinion of Bill Clinton, and one which many agree with, is that he is a brilliantly smart man, he led the country towards great economic success, and he was a great orator. Is that all discounted because the media broadcast to the world that he had sexual relations outside his marriage? Should he do that? No of course not. But the world isn’t going to end because of it either. The media puts excessive stress on public figures to walk a line of acceptable actions and behaviors that the common man will never have to deal with and most could not. I myself cannot imagine life in the public spotlight.

The media isn’t all bad though. Sure much of the media is trash tabloids and slanted news reporting, but it does serve the purpose of keeping those we turn to as examples and for leadership accountable. The media helps identify crooked politicians, illegal activity by public figures, and other deviant actions that the public would otherwise never know about. As individuals we do not have access to the people we follow the example of and listen to for everything from trivial things like the latest fashion to important matters such as that which occurs on Capital Hill.

On a separate note the reading made me rethink what it means to be religious. I think about my peers seeing as I am not a religious person and I am still baffled as to what it means. I see no difference between the lives led by myself and those who call themselves Christians or otherwise. In high school and now in college I continuously see friends and others going to church each Sunday, declaring themselves as being religious, and then having premarital sex, drinking, and being disrespectful to others. It is not that I am harping on these people as individuals I am harping on the institution of religion, not the religion itself. Those who can find happiness and peace through religion and live a life that runs concurrent with the views of the good book are great people and I respect their devoutness. However, for all those who declare themselves as Christians and then stray heavily from the path and ask for forgiveness the next week and throw some change in a basket thinking they are forgiven I can only say they are lucky that the media doesn’t broadcast their actions for their pastor to see.

Impossible or Not?- Ali Livesay

2008-04-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

It’s 12:30 in the afternoon and the air is sticky, the sky is gloomy, and the stupid wind keeps blowing my hair into my face preventing me from seeing where I was going. I think to myself it is just going to be one of those days; those crappy days that feel like any other. I was trudging along the Drag on my way to Which Which to reward myself for making it through another freaking dull and depressing day. While walking, I wallowed in my self-pity for not getting a scholarship to go to Belize, and expressing anger toward those interviewing idiots who couldn’t see my passion for it far exceeded the others who were less deserving. Stupid English majors going to Oxford, I think to myself. Waiting to cross the street, I noticed a car, and I did a double-take, not really expecting to come across it. It was a silver Volvo, even though it is a perfectly ordinary car to have. Volvos are supposed to be a safe car to drive right? But it was the exact car that Edward Cullen drives.

Despite telling myself what a huge loser I was, I couldn’t help but peep into the windows. A guy with a baseball cap on stared blankly back at me. It wasn’t him. I knew it couldn’t be him, since he is a fictional character, but I couldn’t help but to intensely hope that it something I knew couldn’t be real. I wished whole-heartedly that it would be something that would prove me wrong. The whole event was alive with buzzing energy, similarly to the cars around me, and imprinted itself on my memory and my day. This ordinary affect had potential to make the impossible possible; to allow me to see the gorgeous vampire character from one of my favorite series in real life. As he was pulling away I noticed his bumper sticker which read, “I know what you’re thinking. Sorry! I’m not Edward.” And I couldn’t help but laugh and imagine how many times it took him seeing love-struck girls eyeing and perhaps even flocking to his car before he made that bumper-sticker. This event did however get me out of my funk and wallowing in aloneness because I felt a sense of belonging to a bigger group that would get this inside joke, unlike the kid who kept eyeing me as I laughed hysterically for apparently no reason.

I continued on my sojourn to find some sustenance, but with the corners of my mouth turned upwards into a slight smile. It got me thinking about my ordinary and how it was made up of strange occurrences like this one, although most are not as pleasant, and just weird. It’s the small things and events that often make life worth living, like the hope that the most perfect fictional boy, Edward Cullen, would truly exist and that you would see him driving, even though it is logically impossible.

Stress- Austin Luker

2008-04-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

“Stress can motivate you, or it can puncture you, leaving you alone in times of exhaustion, claustrophobia, resentment, and ambient fear.” – Stress pg. 43 of Ordinary Affects

This is the point in the semester where stress is approaching a peak in the mind and body of a student. I for one have a full plate yet again this semester and as I read this passage I could not help but to reflect on my previous eleven semesters here at UT. I personally have seen the ugly face of stress in each of its many facets. There have been times that I have let it wear me down to the point where I did not even want to wake up in the morning and there have been times where I used stress a motivation for getting the job done. I can gladly say that the days of spending five hours a night for five days a week in the JCL Tutoring Lab freaking out about how the hell I was going to survive Calculus and Chemistry at the same time are now over (God bless those people by the way). I consider it dues paid. I can vividly remember the deep level of resentment and hatred I had for any professor during Finals and the nauseating yet very real fear of not passing a single class despite your best efforts. Stress is ugly. No one wants to focus on the negative but when overcome with stress the negative is sometime all that can be seen. It can become the ordinary and consume you without you even realizing it. I know, I have lived it. Now that I have spent five years here I have noticed that I don’t let things get to me like I did in previous years. I don’t think that it is the fact that I just don’t care anymore but rather that I have learned to deal with stress in many ways-some positive and some not so positive. First of all, it is OKAY to ask for help. Second, I surround myself with good people and we help each other out. It is much easier to deal when you are not alone. Third, I found an amazing girl that keeps my feet on the ground and my head up. However, if all else fails there is always alcohol (a sense of humor helps too)!
I have come to believe that college is a proving ground, a mental boot camp if you will. It is proof that anything can be accomplished if you set your mind to it and stick it out. Growth as an adult is not only openly accepting new challenges in life but efficiently dealing with the stress that life dishes out in order to face those challenges.

Job Search

2008-04-23T10:27:00.001-07:00

Everyone has been there at one point or another. Whether running out of funds, wanting a new one, or getting a first one, getting a job is part of everyone’s ordinary life. As a graduating senior, I have found myself in the rather precarious position between ending my college career and beginning my professional one. But there is just one little problem…. I don’t have a professional career. Through my years at UT I have had six various internships (none paid). If professionals in Austin can get workers for free, why in the world would they hire a recent graduate that has to be paid? The interns are basically just as qualified, they are only one or two semesters behind the graduate. The job market in Austin does not cater to those young professionals who want to be able to pay rent and at the same time, have a social life. It makes sense, Austin is a great smallish city that teems with a younger crowd and has a laid back atmosphere. What twenty-something wouldn’t want to live in Austin?

There are numerous websites and organizations to help a person who is in search of a job. Monster.com is one of the most popular, Mediabistro.com is great for a media-related job, as well as countless others. Most of them ask what type of job you are interested in, what city you would like to be located in, what industry and the title of a position. Of course if you do not know the answers to any of these questions, you are dropped into the “mess page” a list of hundreds of jobs from hundreds of areas, so many it is hard to even decipher from the rest. You may see some perfect job for you, exactly what you wanted, until you see that it is located in Vancouver, Canada, of course. There are so many different possibilities on many of these sites that it can be difficult to narrow down a search.

In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich mainly goes in search of jobs that she finds in the paper, or just walks in and checks out if there are any opening positions. She finds that many of the papers in Key West just repeat the same ads because the turnover is so high and they may not be needing someone at the moment. Sometimes I feel like many of the companies on these websites are doing the same process, they are not actually looking to hire someone, but they are just keeping their names out there in case someone happens to quit suddenly.

For jobs that are slightly above the blue collar level, there is much more of a complicated process of resumes and cover letters, interviews, second interviews, phone interviews and elimination rounds. Through this process, there is another road block. Almost every “entry level” job out there, prefers at least one to two years of experience in the area. If someone is looking for an “entry-level” job, they probably are not going to have one to two years of experience, many jobs count internships, but some do not. How is one to pass this with out having the position in the first place?

Most people say that the best way to get a job is through a connection. If you do not know anyone who is in the field related to what you would like to be in, you inevitably have to go through the process that everyone else does, sending in resumes and hoping for an email or a call back, which may or may not come. The long process can be trying and especially if you are trying to make rent. Best of luck to all of you graduating seniors who are looking for that perfect job! You are not the only one!

Making the Bargain

2008-04-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

When thinking about the everyday, bargaining might not be the first thing that comes to mind. It is one of the parts of life that just comes upon us, and little thought is usually given to it. In actuality, bargaining is involved in many aspects of everyday life; from getting a good deal on fresh produce to moving through the grieving process. Bargaining is a type of negotiation, or an alternative pricing strategy to fixed prices. Typically in North America, bargaining is restricted to high-priced or one of a kind items.

There are many places where bargaining can come in handy in the US. Some of these areas include; Discounts on medical bills "many doctors will knock 5 or 10 percent off if you pay up front," says health-care consultant Rocky Fredrickson. Uninsured patients can get even bigger discounts ("50 percent or more," says gastroenterologist Martin Bashir) for procedures that doctors and dentists usually bill to health plans. Find out what doctors and dentists typically bill for services and how much insurers pay at www.vimo.com. Discounts on uncovered repairs, "Companies don't always charge for repairs after the warranty has expired," says Patrick Griffin, a service manager for Dell. Discounts on home repairs and improvements, comparing bids from several contractors will give you some leverage with the one you'd like to hire. Discounts on jewelry, the standard selling price for jewelry is 2.3 times the wholesale price, according to the Jewelry Information Center, a trade association. In other words, if the price tag says $500, the jeweler probably paid about $217 for it. These tips were given by, cnn.com

Part of the culture of bargaining revolves around the language that is used. Many different tones, establishing who is the dominant role in a dialogue and diction are just a few parts of the whole process that is established when making a bargain. In The Book of Jerry Falwell, it is described how important the use of language can be. “[L]anguage is the medium through which born-again Christians, individual and collective, come to understand themselves as Christians. And it is inside this language that much of the born-again movement took place. Preachers like Falwell command a Bible-based poetics of great complexity, variety, creativity, and force, and, with it, attempt to mold their churches into living testaments of the Bible.”

There are lists after lists of numerous items that one can get for free just by researching, asking and bargaining. There are many discounts and price reductions that companies are aloud to give out if the customer asks. Now, it is even common for electronics stores to give big discounts to customers who try to or ask to have the price reduced. Car buying is another area where deep discounts are given if the buyer feels like haggeling down the price.

Bargaining is also the fourth stage in the Kubler-Ross Grief cycle. The steps are as follows:

Shock

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Testing

Acceptance

The only way to handle bargaining with a person who is grief stricken is to never give them false hope. Many people who are grieving try to make a deal with God in order to get something in return. This is a natural step of the grieving process.

Though it can take some extra work, there are numerous opportunities that are available to those who want a good deal on that extra special product.

“Bargaining is ubiquitous. Married couples are almost constantly negotiating over a variety of matters, such as who will do which domestic chores, who will take the kids to the local park on a wet Sunday afternoon, and whether or not the wife should take a part-time job, now that the kids are grown up.”- Bargaining Theory

Just Perez

2008-04-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

Waking up on a weekday morning, I tend to go through the routine process of checking all of my five email accounts, go to the national news, the local news, the weather channel and finally Perez. Perez Hilton, the self proclaimed king of celebrity blogs, posts his daily rants and updates on the secret lives of celebrities online for all to read and gawk at. I began checking out Perez’ blogs last year. It was when all of the celebrity blogs were the most popular sights, like “TMZ” or “TheSuperficial”. In the end, they all pretty much achieve the same goal. Calling out the celebrities in all of their outrageous actions that are above and beyond bazaar, as well as their everyday lives of carrying out simple tasks. It is not unusual to find a picture of two stars grocery shopping together or going out for a morning jog. I often feel that I am invading on their personal lives, think that I should not be peering in on the everyday activities of the stars. The only thought that makes me feel a little better is the thought that they were the ones who decided to become famous, they made the ultimate decision to have their lives invaded by hundreds of photographers. Also, they are the ones that choose to live in LA, there are many stars that are very famous but choose to reside in cities that offer privacy.

The everyday images that are represented on Perez remind me of images that are depicted in Ordinary Affects. The every day lives of ordinary (or not so ordinary) people and their stories that are told in the descriptions of their ordinariness. Perez decides to come up with his own narration, which may or may not be accurate to the actual occurrence. Another highlight of Perez’ inspiration are his drawing that he adorns the pictures that he posts. Many of them are inappropriate and crude, drawing white powder under certain stars noses, drawing peni coming out of their mouths and so on. As Perez has become more popular through the year, he has taken into his own hands to damage or make more popular certain stars that he enjoys. Lately, Perez has become involved in a lawsuit with one of SONY BMG’s children companies. Once this occurred, he announced that he would no longer mention any of the singers that are represented by SONY. This will not only damage their image because they are not being talked about, but also decrease their influence on the blogging community. It truly is amazing the influence that this blog has made on celebrity industry.

There is a way around the celebrity pit fall that being on Perez’s blog can be. Many stars have learned that if they befriend Perez, he can write good things about them and mention them more often which can make them more popular then they were before. I realize that it seems that being on a blog would not make a big difference in the life of a big time celebrity, but the numbers speak for themselves.

Click here for Perez’s cameo on “Family Guy “

http://perezhilton.com/tv/?videoid=31cac32112765

Bretani Heron

2008-04-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

Subculture vs. Mainstream
I thought it was very interesting in Harding’s Book when Jerry Falwell’s church had a haunted house for Halloween. This is a good example of how the church subculture tries to incorporate mainstream activities. They altered the haunted house to teach people about Christian beliefs although a typical haunted house, and even the holiday of Halloween, could be considered sacrilegious.
I have spent a lot of time going to 24 hour fitness and talking to a trainer (Joe) who is training to become a professional body builder. Talking to him week after week has really given me insight into the extreme world of body building. To be a body builder, daily routine and nutrition is important. There is little to no room for error. Falling off the diet or exercise routine for one day can cause you to lose to that competitor who never messes up. So what can body builders do for fun? They can’t go out and have a beer or eat pizza rolls at happy hour like my friends and I enjoy doing. I asked Joe what he did for fun. Joe told me about his Friday night ritual and it reminded me of the idea of subculture verse mainstream as seen in Harding’s book. Friday night is poker night for all of the trainers. The catch is not all of the trainers are body builders. The trainers who aren’t body builders eat chips, pretzels, and drink beer while playing poker. However, the bodybuilders drink water or diet soda while snacking on celery or other vegetables dipped in salsa. Another trainer get together he mentioned was fajita night. “I thought you couldn’t eat fajitas”. I said. He then explained that the people who are bodybuilding eat turkey fajitas. They season the turkey with fajita seasoning and wrap it up in large leaves of lettuce. Once again they are participating in a mainstream activity that has been altered to be in accordance with their subculture.
Another interesting aspect of the world of bodybuilding that I noticed was the difference in bodybuilding and other extreme sport’s reactions to the mainstream’s opinion of them. Most little worlds are aware of how mainstream culture views them. They are aware if what they are doing is thought of as cool, difficult, strange, gross, etc. I honestly do not think the little world of bodybuilding knows that mainstream culture finds their sport bizarre and over the top. The idea behind bodybuilding is to sculpt the human body to perfection…the perfect human aesthetic. I don’t think the idea of human perfection involves a vein popping, fake tan, unrealistically huge muscled body. However, in talking with Joe, I have come to the realization that this is desired and thought to be beautiful by people who participate in the world of body building. In fact a lot of people participate in body building to help with their self confidence issues. I read a lot of body building blogs and the overall theme was people talking about how they used to fat or nerdy and now they look great and have a much better social life. After all, if you have the “perfect human body”, what more could you need?

Here is an example I thought was intersting:
"Do you know how many people are wishing
to lose 10lbs right now? Good for you girl
for finishing. You are that much closer to
your hot bod."

Dreamworlds of Cartagena- Castellanos

2008-04-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

Dreamworlds of Cartagena.

“Before it was known as the Big House in the valley. A yeoman farmer named Burton built the house in 1834. Burton probably came from Virginia or the Carolinas in one of the early western movements for cheaper land. He was dead by 1846. The house is identified on a Confederate map as the Widow Burton House.”

-Allen Shelton

My mom always told me how different the house used to look.

The two stories were connected, the beach reached the back door, Susi’s room did not exist, the front door was much bigger, the kitchen floor has never changed, Pedro’s room was the play room, and your grandmother was not as high strung.

I have never seen a picture of the house before, I don’t know why. The house is identified as my grandmother’s house, Yoya’s house.

We live in the house now. We live in a bedroom, it used to be my mom’s and Susi’s mom’s room, all of my family. My two brothers, my mom, my dad, and me. We live in one bedroom. We eat dinner with my grandparents every night, and I play with Susi every day. We put on plays during the day and invite people in, the maids get mad at the strangers who come, some are drug addicts, some are tourists, all are pretty normal. There is one guy who lives in the front yard, he is usually sleeping when Susi and I come home on the bus, and we get scared but he is mostly harmless. We lived in the bedroom for 8 months.

1997 and we are living in Kansas City, Kansas. My grandmother died in February, we went back to her house in 1998.

My grandfather is gone now and the house, the lower level, is abandoned, where we all lived once. The house is dark, dirty, and full of mice. The first night we slept in the room (we had a party with all the family in the house, about 30 people and mostly under 20 years old) we heard noises and saw a mouse. One mouse, we thought. A week later, reports by every one of mice had been made known to all in the house. And the mice problem continued. The house had been out of use of almost 2 years, enough for the house to be overtaken. The mouse problem was fixed by the end of summer and a long lasting solution had to be figured out.

The millennium came around and once again we were headed to stay at the house. 2000 was here and the mice were gone. Susi lived in the house now, with her parents. The upper level had been rented out, and strangers were living in it. The house looks different than it did before. The front door is now the back door, the back door is the driveway and the patio is back in use. Two dogs live in the new dog houses and guard the house, and the palm trees are blooming. The breeze in the back is very nice; the strangers in the top made it feel like vacation; the house was no longer home.

We left that summer to Texas. I went to Rome. While in Rome, my grandfather died. 2007 and the house was soon to be changed again. I saw Susi in Christmas break 2007-2008 and the house was sold. We drove by, and now nothing remains. The house was sold, so was the neighbors house, and so was the apartment building on the right side. The house is only recognized by its location. There is debris, trees, and a huge area with a picture of a building plan ‘coming soon 2010’ in the backyard where the dogs once lived, where the breeze once refreshed our sweat, were once as a little girl I swung on tree swings in the backyard of my house.

The house is now identified as were Yoya lived. The area is anyway, the house is gone.

Now I tell people how different the house used to look.

?Conversion?

2008-04-20T18:50:00.000-07:00

“The process starts when an unsaved listener begins to appropriate in his or her inner speech the saved speakers language and its attendant view of the world. The speakers language, now in the listeners voice, converts the listeners mind into a contested terrain, a divided self” (Harding 34)

When I read this in The Book of Jerry Falwell, I began to think of the process of conversion with in the context of music. Is music a form of social conversion?

(I quit Music Mania, I miss it though, but I think it’s just that I discovered that I do not like having a job, because there is boredom and also the thinking of my mistakes and my future.)

I reflect on Music Mania and the conversion factor. Typically, with those of young age, I remember young children and even some toddlers, shopping intently for music with their parents and statements being made such as:

“Momma I like her she sings pretty”-3 yr old, boy, toddler

“ah, who? Alicia Keys’, she aint hood enough, I thought you liked Keyshia Cole”- Mother of toddler

I am going to continue with this scenario because it outlines the very young (toddler) and the ones starting their maturity (The mother appeared to be in her early twenties). Also, this is an example of how “Hood music” can be seen as a way of converting people in a social and cultural manner. The unsaved listener is the toddler and the mother is one that has been converted and now a converter, of the depiction of what hood is. If we analyze the artist, their lyrics, and the message of what they try to deliver to their audience we see how conversion can be achieved.

Alicia Keys

Everywhere I'm turning

Nothing seems complete

I stand up and I'm searching

For the better part of me

I hang my head from sorrow

state of humanity

I wear it on my shoulders

Gotta find the strength in me

Cause I am a Superwoman

Yes I am

Yes she is

Even when I'm a mess

I still put on a vest

With an S on my chest

Oh yes

I'm a Superwoman

For all the mothers fighting

For better days to come

And all my women, all my women sitting here trying

To come home before the sun

And all my sisters

Coming together

Say yes I will

Yes I can

Keyshia Cole

I'm on the move.

I don't wanna lose what I came to prove.

(It's everything)

I expect myself to be.

And I'm gonna do everything I set out to.

Making my dreams come true.

It means so much to me.

You could never understand how I feel when I'm searching for the words to say.

And I don't wanna be nobody else.

Take the time and get to know me.

(The real me)

And you will see yeah...

[Chorus:]

(I'm just like you)

I'm tryna take my time and get to know me.

(I'm just like you)

Tryna live my life and take care of mine.

(I'm just like you)

I'm tryna be happy.

(I'm just like you)

Ohhh....

[Verse 2:]

I wanna be the one who you can depend on.

And when it feels so bad know I can handle it.

Cuz I've been through so much, oh.

It's so much I've overcome I had to look inside of me and see just who's inside of me.

And know who I need was me.

(Oh, it took so much for me just to see it's all in me)

You could never understand how I feel when I'm searching for the words to say.

And I don't wanna be nobody else.

Try to take the time and get to know me.

The real me.

And you will see yeah.

Both artists say similar messages, they want the listener to know that they’ll pull through their struggles; they’ve been there and know they can prevail. What makes one more hood then the other?

Well, Keys grew up in Manhattan, her mother was an actress and Para legal, her father was a flight attendant, she began playing classical piano at the age of 7, and attended the Professional Performing Arts School a prestigious high school in Manhattan in which she graduated Valedictorian from. She was accepted to Columbia University but chose a music career instead. Alicia has a sitcom show on MTV. (Wikipedia)

Cole was born to a drug addicted mother in Oakland, California, she never knew her father, and lived in a foster home at the age of 2, she began her career at the age of 12 collaborating with M.C. Hammer, she has a reality show on BET titled The Way It Is that depicts her struggle with fame and family, since her mother has reappeared into her life. (Wikipedia)

To the listener knowing this information says a lot about the artist and converts the listener into listening to the artist that shares their similar struggles or their ORDINARY. What does Keys know about hood life compared to Cole?

The mother in the scenario knew and she adopted Cole as her preference or ORDINARY, the toddler chose Keys maybe because of his unfamiliarity to what might be considered hood, but maybe by adopting his mother choice it will form the perception of what suggested “hood life” is like and what his social settings are? That is hood music for hood souls.

In writing this blog I have confused myself, the point I was trying to make is lost. I started thinking of religion and how typically there is one main god and their different stories depict what followers/converters they may attract, but what if their message was similar such as Cole and Keys, but they existed through different social and cultural contexts, what makes them so different if they can both conclude a similar thought, how does conversion really work if one realizes this….

Joel- Castellanos

2008-04-19T10:20:00.001-07:00

Joel

We keep saying we are going to church, but then 6 am Saturday comes around and we are still out and church at 9 am looks too soon to make it. This has been the pattern for a while now… months now.

I’ll go to church with you tomorrow if you want. I say this hoping she won’t wake up. We both come from a Catholic background, neither is very involved in religion, but once were, when mothers made Sunday church a big event and dads stayed home catching up on work, and after church would meet up with the rest of the fam for lunch. That was church for me.

Ok, so if I go to church tomorrow, it won’t be too long, about an hour is the usual, I can pray, and it will be nice. I traditional church like we both went to years ago.

She wakes me and instructs me to shower. I obey. I guess we are going to church and I want to keep my word. I recall seeing a church by her house, where I am expecting she will take me.

“So I went to this church before with Lisa and I really liked it, and I want to take you there.”

“Sure, that’s fine. I’m hungry. Can we eat afterwards?”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

We drive and drive and pass the church I had seen. We are on the highway on the way to church. We reach a huge garage and hundreds of cars entering as we winter the line. I have not seen this church before.

“It is the astrodome, or the rocket stadium. I’m not sure, but now they have church here.”

I hate this already. I don’t like big churches like this, they are usually longer than an hour, the people are fanatics, and parking, entering, and exiting are all a hassle. I realize she didn’t tell me where we were going before because I don’t like these types of things.

“You didn’t tell me we where going to the huge church.”

“It’s very good.”

I realize a future with this girl is over, there is no way I could be serious with someone who likes big church events like this…

We walk into a packed concert; people are dancing, waving their hands, and feeling uplifted as the drums, guitars, and voices of the performers praise the lord. I look around with judgment and try to avoid it; I can give this a chance; people of all different nations are coning together which is a good thing and makes me lay low on the judging.

I don’t like judging, church is a great place to stop.

She is singing; I am sitting. About 20 minutes of music continue and I get skeptical.

Why are these people just singing? Where is the priest? How long is the service? I’m hungry.

She looks at me with anger and I look back.

“You hate it.”

“I’m trying to give it a chance. I just don’t believe in this kind of stuff.”

She gets mad at me and says some mean things, we are in church I think, how could she be so cold? I am the one sitting here with ridiculous things that I swore never to attend and she’s mad at me. Come on!

I get mad too.

As the music dies down I see more people sitting.

She sits too.

The clapping begins and I see Joel walk on stage.

“That guy? I hate that guy! TV Evangelist. I see him on TV all the time!”

“His name is Joel Osteen and he’s very good.”

No more future with you, definitely.

“God has a very special plan for you and right now it’s for you to have both mother and father.”

-The Book of Jerry Falwell, Harding

“I believe that God does not endorse TV evangelist.”

-Affirmation, Savage Garden

Fact of Life- Camila Castellanos

2008-04-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

"Social inequality is a fact of life--what can you do? Their biggest problem is the price of gas."
-Ordinary Affects, Kathleen Stewart

As we drive out of Austin to Houston we have coke, dr pepper, and cigarettes for the ride. Lauren is driving and I am sleepily looking out the window.

3.39 for gas.

"Dude, gas has gone up about 20 cents in the last month. Last time I looked at it, it was 3.19."
"I know. I'm gonna take you to the cheapest gas station, that's where we'll pump."

We are driving past 290 as Lauren's road rages starts emerging. Chill. You are going to kill me on the way there. No she says, it'll be fine.

Lauren's looking for CDs to play and pulls out "W #1" and looks at me.

Oh my. That's the CD I made with songs that remind me of Whitney. We put it in.

We sing and laugh and George Michael comes on.

"Lauren, how would you feel if I woke you up with this song everyday, even when you didn't have class?"

"Yeah I wouldn't like you very much."

I call Whitney.

She sings the song on the phone, tells me of a beautiful NY day as she walks through the grass to meet a professor. "Why couldn't I be in Rome walking to meet you? Ugh. Spring is our time."

"I know."

I hang up. Spring is our time. This is the first spring we are apart, since we met.

I hope she comes. I don’t think she is coming. We talk more often now.

“So, Lauren, Whitney told me she has a boyfriend who thinks she’s a lesbian. And I said, well…”

Lauren smiled.

Savage Garden, T-Pain, La Quinta Estacion, old artists on the old CD. Lauren mocks my taste. Her boyfriend will want a copy. I shake my head. She’s a punk.

And she knows it. And she doesn’t care.

Gas prices. We continuously look as we drive. 3.40 seems to be the average, some lower, 3.33 and some more, 3.42, but mostly around 3.39, round up to 3.40.

“I just want to be there! Can you see, can you see anything? Is there a car or something over there?”

“There are cars… one’s on the side of the road, moving a little..”

Lauren has turned the car so she too can see on the right hand side of the car to see what I am describing. As this happens, a truck plummets through the shoulder to get ahead.

“I hate that shit. I hate it when they do that.”

“I do that. But I think it is against the law… Wanna try?”

“No.” She turns the car back on the lane and we wait.

It is now 2 hours after we left Austin.

“Lauren, I feel like I am going to vomit.”

“yeah, you want me to slam on the breaks harder?”

“No.”

“You want a cigarette?”

“No.”

“Yeah didn’t think you did… Want me to pull over?”

“No. I just wanna get there.”

We keep driving. Should be there relatively soon.

“We are so close! Ugh. Oh, we need gas.”

“We can get some. “

“We have to go to the cheap one.”

We keep driving and it soon becomes 5 pm.
Great. Lauren’s road rage is getting worse, I am car sick, and not feeling any better with the constant stopping and going. We are so close.

“Okay, my gas station is coming up, and that means we are like 10 minutes away. There it is.”

I look at the gas price, 3.39.

“Gas in Austin is cheaper than here.”

“Yeah.”

first job

2008-04-16T23:33:00.000-07:00

“Each job presents a self-contained social world, with its own personalities, hierarchy, customs, and standards.”

Barbara Ehrenreich

Not every working middle class family has enough money to support the needs and wants that children have as they get older. Needs such as cars or wants like the new “in” pair of shoes. In my little world I felt as if every one of the kids my age were given these things except me, but this really wasn’t the case. Some might say I was a late bloomer in the getting the job phase, while others never could have imagined working that early. The summer I was sixteen I attempted putting some job applications in, yet I was anything but vigorous in making call backs and visits to make my name known. Late next spring a couple of weeks before my seventeenth birthday, I was starting to get an itch for a job in order to start saving for a car. My brothers were given my mom’s old car to share, but I certainly didn’t want to use theirs and the forecast for me being given a car looked bleak.

My parents started to think of ideas of good places for me to work. The most important factor was location. Also, I personally worried about the money. Retail didn’t pay enough. The thought of being a waitress scared me, and most of my favorite restaurants wouldn’t hire a sixteen year old as a waitress.

My Dad came home one day saying that he had found the perfect place for me to work. My dad has nifty places where he likes to hang out and get coffee. He told me, “We can head up there tomorrow. I know the owner and we can have a chat with him.” It sounded simple enough. The café was up the street and only a seven minute walk away. I had one memories of being there when I was a little girl and my grandmother was making her yearly visit from New York. My grandmother, my two brothers, and I were all sitting together at booth #9. I remember some pancakes that my brother had, but what sticks out most clearly in my mind was the bad cream that my grandmother was served. She made a fuss to the waiter about the clumps that had formed in her coffee.

The next day, my father took me up to the café. We sat at booth #3, and I ordered a bacon melt. I was a little nervous, and I didn’t feel like eating the bacon melt because there was American cheese on it and I have a strange aversion to that fake junk. As I looked around I could not imagine working at such a place. The barista area was intimidating to me as I watched the workers quickly making all different kinds of coffee drinks. The other thing that frightened me was the way the wait staff carried plates. I have been told that in a traditional café it is looked down upon to carry plates on a tray. The waiter or waitress has to be able to carry up to four big plates on one arm and four small ones on top of those.

The boss finally came up to our table to have a chat. My dad and the boss exchanged some small talk, and then my dad told him that I was looking for a job. I don’t even remember saying anything, but he was offering me a job within five minutes. He told me that I maintained good eye contact and that I had a great smile. Then he told me some particulars about dress code: you must wear slip proof shoes and you must wear a bra.

If I would have known the little world that I was entering into and the struggles that I was going to encounter, I probably would not have wanted the job. I was looked at as the girl who got the job because her daddy knew the boss. I had never really felt hated in my life until the guy who I was hired to replace had to train me. He had no interest in training me properly. Actually, he only took interest in training me the wrong way to ensure that I didn’t take his job. There was the nano world of the waitresses contained within the little world of the café. They were all friends who held dibs on the morning shift, which is the best money making shift. They all partied together constantly outside of work. There was the boss’s daughter who hated the fact that I was allowed to work on the floor as a waitress before she was. The night manager who acted like my best friend to my face, yet he would stab me in the back when having conversations with the bosses about how slow I was at completing tasks. This would result in shifts being given and then taken away from me. There was the almost thirty year old pervert who told me, “You are so beautiful that you make me feel like a pedafile.” There was a forty year old Mexican cook who fell in love with me. The drama was never ending and the work was hard. My body couldn’t get used to me being on my feet for so long. I would be given shifts that I hated the most, like expediting the food in the boiling hot kitchen.

I had to adjust to this “self-contained social world” and learn how to adapt to my surroundings. It was not an easy task, and all the time I see new people come along who always seem to catch on faster than I did. The point is that I did adjust. I dreaded going into work for the first year, and I hoped every time that it wouldn’t be as bad as the time before. Now that it has been my third year there, I have stood the test of time with my bosses and coworkers. I have acclimated to the atmosphere and been accepted into the “family” of the café.

Church an it’s ordinary

2008-04-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

What defines church? The dictionary says it is one of the groups of Christians who have their own beliefs and forms of worship, a place for public (especially Christian) worship. Traditionally; a dream church represented sanctuary, feelings of awe and wonder or a place where you could share your beliefs with others of like-mind, a place of contacting God and spirit, the church was holy, reverent and inspirational of service, and a group of people who hold similar beliefs concerning the bible and our salvation. These people meet together for the purpose of worshiping God, fellowshipping, and helping each other out. Usually, the church meets in a building, which we call the church building.
The religious and spirituality aspect of church can also be defined by the individual involved. Harding's text points out in the late 1970s and 1980s exile that came to an end with the dramatic rise of "born-again Christianity". Among christians, a Born-again Christian is one who has strayed and who undergoes an conversion back. What I take from Dr. Harding's writings about her time studying and interviewing Faldwell and his movement, is that the Born-again have a certain stand-offishness when dealing with the "unsaved". I'm one Catholic who sees herself as "born-again", though I'm the first to admit I often fail to live up to my family's values as expressed in the Gospels. Here are some sections on being reborn from the official Catechism of the Catholic Church: ARTICLE 1THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM: Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit, and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: "Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water and in the word. What Is this Sacrament Called? This sacrament is called Baptism, after the central rite by which it is carried out: to baptize means to "plunge" or "immerse"; the "plunge" into the water symbolizes the catechumen's burial into Christ's death, from which he rises up by resurrection with him, as "a new creature." This sacrament is also called "the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit," for it signifies and actually brings about the birth of water and the Spirit without which no one "can enter the kingdom of God." Popular culture often confuses "born-again" with "narrow-minded fundamentalists." Christianity" seems to be solely focused on drawing up lists of sinners and attempting to write their moral code into national law. People that all who call upon Jesus Christ as their savior are indeed born again.
Church to African Americans is significant places and spaces in our lives. Even those who no longer attend, often return to church in reflective memories or in person for homecoming or home-going celebrations. The way the congregation unites with songs or praise and dances of joys molds our different worlds into one meaning and purpose, to serve God and love humanity. My church is a home, a school, and a shield from judgments. I started head start there and continued to give back with the youth group and teaching bible study to the younger children. For me to grow with those who love the Lord, it allowed a future of progression and hope for success. Church is more than a place, my church is LIFE.

04-12-08 - Anthony Wright

2008-04-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

Most, if not all, of my previous blogs dealt with the pre-K members of my group, mainly because they come earlier in the day, and having a small group allows me to observe more closely than I am able to when the kindergarteners arrive. The focal point of this blog, however, will not be a pre-K’er, but a kindergartener named Dominic.

Also, I feel it necessary to note that this blog is inspired by Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed.

Dominic

Dominic is an absolutely adorable five-year-old. He has brown hair, a heart-warming smile, and the kind of laugh that brings faeries back to life. On top of that, his eyes are two different colors; one is an icy gray-blue while the other is olive green. This is generally the first thing most people notice about Dominic.

Dominic has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. According to WebMD, “Asperger’s syndrome…is a type of pervasive development disorder (PDD)…that involve[s] delays in the development of many basic skills, most notably the ability to socialize with others, to communicate and to use imagination.” Unfortunately, I have not been trained to handle children with Asperger’s or any other type of PDD, and this makes dealing with Dominic very difficult at times, especially during the past week.

At some point last weekend Dominic decided that—in his own words—he hates school, hates Extend-A-Care, and has no friends. He told me all of this when I arrived to pick up the kindergarteners and escort them to the cafeteria. Until then, I never had any trouble getting any member of the group to come with me. I had no idea what to do. Dominic was screaming, crying, rolling around on the floor, and saying that he was not supposed to go to Extend-A-Care, but was going to take the bus. Dominic has never left school on the bus, and I was not about to allow a five year old to make the decision as to how he would get home for the evening, so I tried to bribe him into coming. I told him about the delicious snack of blueberry muffins and strawberry yogurt that we were going to have and that he could pick the book we would read at quiet time. He still refused to come with me. I told him that he could get his toys out of his backpack—a privilege that is rarely granted—but he only screamed louder. Nothing was working, the other children were getting restless, and I was beginning to panic. I was worried that my coworkers were going to be angry with me for taking so long to get back to the cafeteria where I left the pre-K children. On top of that, I was slightly ashamed of myself for failing to effectively handle the situation. Finally, one of the kindergarten teachers came in. She took one glance at Dominic crying and writhing around on the floor and immediately put a stop to it. In a bone-chilling voice she said, “Get up off that floor right now and stand on your legs like a big boy.” He stopped crying, but did not stand up. I’m not sure if he was being defiant or was simply frozen by fear. She raised the bar: “I sure hope I don’t have to hold your hand and see to it myself that you get to the cafeteria with Mr. Anthony.” That did the trick. With a defeated look on his face, he got up off of the floor and got in line. Finally, we all walked quietly to the cafeteria.

I was trying to be optimistic and tell myself that after Dominic ate his snack and cooled off that his mood would level out, but unfortunately I had problems with him for the rest of the day. He burst into tears at every transition, left the group area whenever he felt like it, and got into arguments with practically every other child in the group. I felt certain that he was just having a bad day and it would all blow over.

Unfortunately, I was wrong; Tuesday was worse.

Wednesday wasn’t much better.

Thursday was the same.

Friday was comparable to Monday.

I can only hope he will cheer up over the weekend…

Dominic’s Mother

I talked to Dominic’s mother on Monday evening, and she was extremely apologetic. I could tell that she was tired and stressed out and the last thing she wanted to hear was that her son had a bad day at school. I felt terrible for being the bearer of bad news. I told her not to worry about it, and that if he continued to have problems we would figure something out.

I don’t know much about Dominic’s life, but I have never seen or heard mention of his father, leading me to believe that he is not involved. My information about Dominic’s mother is minimal as well. All I know is that she is single, works at a coffee shop, and looks fairly young. She has a 1950s-style haircut with cropped bangs, a couple of tattoos on her neck, as well as her arms and knuckles. I can tell that she loves her son with every ounce of her being and feels tremendous guilt for having to send him to daycare, especially when she knows he is miserable.

If I got so overwhelmed with Dominic’s behavior that I felt I could no longer handle it, I could ask my director to place him on a behavior contract—a formal document stating very specific behavioral guidelines which Dominic must follow to remain in the Extend-A-Care program. Since he is a special-needs case, he would probably not get kicked out of the program entirely, but it is a possibility. I thought about this numerous times throughout the week as he was screaming, crying, and throwing fits. I imagined how easy things would be if he wasn’t in my group. I considered telling my director that I wanted him on a contract, knowing that he would break it, and I would be free of him. Then, I thought about his mom, and I felt like an asshole.

I’m a single, child-free, college student. I work twenty hours a week and know nothing about the fears and responsibilities faced by a parent who works to the point of exhaustion just to be able to feed themselves and their child. Sure, I get stressed out about tests, onerous amounts of reading, and rent money, but I still only have to worry about myself. With that in mind, how could I even think about putting Dominic on a behavior contract? How could I put that kind of burden on his mother? If I got Dominic kicked out of Extend-A-Care, his mother would have to find a new daycare for him. Since Extend-A-Care is known for being fairly cheap, it would probably cost her quite a bit more. Knowing that she works at a coffee shop and is single, I doubt she has much money to spare. Also, since Extend-A-Care is the only on-site childcare provider available, she would have the added concern of wondering if Dominic made it onto the bus and was safely transported to wherever he would be going. No matter how intense his tantrums get, there is no way I could do that to her.

Conclusion

This is my final blog for the semester, so I feel it appropriate to come to some type of conclusion; only it isn’t really my conclusion, so I guess I should say instead that in this blog I am agreeing with a conclusion that has been reached countless times. As many a romantic sap before me has said, “Money can’t buy happiness.”

True.

However, many people are blinded by this maxim, overlooking the fact that a lack of money generally fosters extreme amounts of anxiety. Like it or not, people need “things” to live, and most of us lack the time, knowledge, or resources to meet our basic needs without buying them from someone else. Most people have no choice but to slave away at jobs they hate just to survive. Even worse, some people can’t even find a job that they hate.

Ehrenreich’s book is a testament to how hard life can be. Dominic’s mother is a real-life example.

Iliana: Reactions in Three Parts, Part II

2008-04-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

"A crowd of small metamorphoses accumulates in me without my noticing it...then one fine day, a veritable revolution takes place." -Sartre (La Nausea)

The middle of the night

The middle of the night is not ordinary. Billy Joel sang a song about the middle of the night and sleepwalking. MC Dad played one of his albums, maybe Pianoman, on Saturday nights. He kept it pretty fresh with Loverboy or Michael Jackson and a box of Franzia in the fridge. My mom claims I did a lot of sleepwalking when I was growing up and scared the "tipsy" out of them on more than one Saturday night occasion. Dad remembers when he found me at the top of the stairs looking down and pointing at nothing in the dark.

The middle of the day

4 o'clock humidity. The washeteria is silent save jingly nervous change. A deaf homeless woman claps her hands violently as she watches breakdancing on the tiny embedded screen adjacent to a row of the 2 load washing machines. As she gestures from her seat and joins me in examining my own clothes spiraling in place, I can smell her unwashed body, clothes, hair. She smacks her gum loudly and motions to a burly Filipino guy wearing an I-Pod that she wishes to borrow his cell phone. Then slaps her knee and points to her ears grinning big. She shakes her head no.
Later the proprietor comes around and mutters while trailing away, "she always calls the cops when she's here."

The middle of the night (Christmas Eve)

Dad doesn't see that I'm pretending to be asleep in my big stocking sleeping bag; with one eye barely an open slit. I can see the bathroom light on and I'm getting up to inspect. My mind is droning with awake activity but I rub my eyes in mock-sleep. I see him pull out a box from the attic that says karaoke machine on the side. He jumps back because I've startled him, standing there silently, and searches frantically for a cover to hide the package. He fumbles with something that looks like a child's sweater and places it on the top of the box. The corners jut out obscenely, and my gift stands there naked. I am led by my dad back to my big stocking sleeping bag. He pats my head and whispers soft dream talk. And all the while I'm crying goodbye to my santa.

Iliana: Reactions in Three Parts, Part I

2008-04-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

On Thought & Action
There is a static temporality of affect tied to all events. These situations, however fleeting, transpose the fluidity or rather, choppy disjunctive integration: the life narrative. It is in hindsight that we assign strength or saliency to particular instances in the life narrative that set them apart from the non-adventure happenstance; ordinary life. Upon further examination of typical mundanities we find ourselves wading through, is a microcosmic metalogue of emotionality. That is, our interactions with others and with ourselves. Internal dialogue materializes as a continuous frame story presented as white noise behind our actions- surface regressions in the most empirical terms. Intentions, fears, expectations are abstract paradigms of the life narrative filled in, so to speak, by the physicality of communication.

Catholic School
The plaid jumper and a shiny Lincoln face.

I remember clearly watching my sister fall on the stage of the pulpit platform while getting her wafer in front of the entire congregation. This image played itself involuntarily every time I went to "receive Jesus' body" and I would stand in line waiting for my turn, with my jaw firmly set and bite my tongue to hold it in. One time I laughed in the priest's face as he leaned over to place the host in my properly set hands (left above right, perpendicular). His face grew red like a newborn baby and he scolded me, "Jesus wouldn't appreciate it if you laughed at his crucifixion."

My sister and I hid under a church pew and giggled in hushed girlish decrescendos at our grandmother's funeral. We no longer had to see or hear her catatonia; like a weeping waxed Virgin statue fixed awkwardly atop a sterile hospital bed suffocating under a thick musk of piss and old person cough.

I finally made my first confession at the same time as my first holy communion, after training myself during time-out at catechism (time-out for not listening) to hold in the laughter. I told the priest with a huge grin under a mask of shadows that I'd thought badly against my sister and I lied to my mother.
Sit. Kneel. Stand. Kneel. Sit.

We had a priest at my church who was in his 90s and during the service would look up gloriously. Sanctimoniously. He would cry sometimes and really stir my emotions. I would resolve to stop cheating on school work, stop gossiping behind people's backs; to write everyday in my diary even if nothing happened. When Father Jasper cried normal life was realer to live.

Mass Miscommunication

2008-04-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Recently, while balancing work, school and internship, I have increased my coffee and diet soda intake drastically in the hopes that I will have enough energy to “get it all done” on minimal amounts of sleep. In an attempt to balance out the effects of dehydration caused by my new dependency on caffeinated beverages, I have also increased my water consumption. While hydrating me, the water also caused my bladder to become about three times as active. Usually this is not a problem as restrooms are conveniently located in both of the offices where I work.

Though seemingly unnecessary information, my bladder situation is quote essential to understanding a most shocking mass email and my reaction to it. Since generally I have nothing to do at my afternoon job but surf the web and constantly check my email, that is precisely what I was doing one day. It was an ordinary, dull day at the office, or in my case we’ll call it a closet. I opened up Microsoft Outlook and was checking my inbox when I found a mass email sent to the entire office from the office manager reading, “The water in this building will be turned off on Wednesday from 8 until 6. If you need to use the restroom, you will have to go next door to the 11^th floor of the Frost Bank tower.” Attached was a flyer sent out to the entire building’s management office regarding the water shut down.

My jaw nearly dropped. I wanted to run around the office asking anyone else if they thought this idea was as ridiculous as I did. How can I be expected to go down the elevator 17 floors in my building, then cross the street, then up 11 floors in the building next door just to use the bathroom. And not just once but also three or four times in one afternoon! Then I thought about all of the employees that work in this entire 20-floor building who would have to use the restroom throughout the day. I couldn’t even imagine what the human traffic jams would be like on 4^th Street between our building and the Frost Bank building, or even what the elevator delays would be. My heart began to beat faster and faster as I panicked.

At almost the same instant, I noticed that I had another mass email sent in reply to the first. This one read, “Sherry, you did not read the attachment carefully. It said that the water will be shut off from 8pm until 6am the next morning.” What a relief! I knew that turning off the water in a building, which employs hundreds of people, during working hours was the most non-strategic, illogical, and just plain stupid idea. If only I had been more logical to inquire about the email or even research it more myself, I could have prevented my own emotional chaos and hyperventilation.

Fight Club

2008-04-13T09:51:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the most eventful wedding of a lifetime. Yesterday, my boyfriend’s boss got married to his beautiful wife. He was about 32, and she looks to be about 21. They truly defined that opposites attract. Anyways, at the reception, we all proceeded to drink and be merry for the wedding couple. Everybody was drinking all day long. The three boys I drove up there with, my boyfriend, his cousin and his best friend, were all drunk. We went to an after party that night and they all continued to drink. Around 12 AM, my boyfriend and I went to go to sleep in the car since I told him he needed to sober up and the people’s house we were staying at weren’t ready to leave yet. Around 3:30 AM, his best friend and his cousin come banging on the window to let them in. Everybody had already left except for us, them, and two other boys around our age. The boyfriend was grumpy from being woken up, but called the place we were staying at to get directions. His cousin in the backseat started drunk talking by saying curse words and instigating my boyfriend to fight back for no reason. In The Book of Jerry Falwell by Susan Friend Harding, “It is time to speak harsh language…. And you should not be afraid to make people mad. You don’t change things if you don’t make people mad” (163). However, in Jerry Falwell, this was about a Christian transformation, not a drunk transformation. The cousin was instigating things for no reason other than he was drunk. After my boyfriend warned him to stop multiple times, the cousin started making rude jokes about his mother. My boyfriend continued to tell him to stop and if not then he was going to do something about it. The cousin continued to smack talk, so my boyfriend leaned over in the backseat and hit him. They hit each other back and forth, and we were finally on our way. As we were driving down this dirt driveway, the cousin decides he wants out and he wants to hitchhike home. Again, the alcohol talking. So he jumps out of the car while it was going about 15 mph. My boyfriend and his friend jump out of the car to get him back in but he refused. The best friend talked to him for awhile, and then I talked to him to try to convince him we needed to go home. After about 30 minutes, the best friend picked him up and threw him in the car livid. We started driving some more while the cousin was continuing to be drunk out of his mind. We pulled over for a second to ask for more directions over the phone and the cousin got out of the car once again. The best friend threw him back in the car and we drove off. As we’re cruising 50 mph, the cousin decides he’s going to jump out of the car again. He slams open the door and puts his feet out while the best friend is holding on to his head. We finally get the door closed and the cousin sits in the back and instigates the best friend to be furious. The cousin started banging his head against the window with the intentions to break it. Since it was the best friend’s car, he was getting even more furious. Since the best friend still didn’t flip out on the cousin, then the cousin started to bite him since the best friend has his hands grasped. After 3 bites, the cousin gripped on to the best friend’s cheek. I started screaming of course, and after 5 minutes of the best friend telling him to let go of his cheek, blood started dripping down his face. The cousin still didn’t stop so the best friend flung him off his face and started hitting him in the face. I continued to scream because blood was flying everywhere now. My boyfriend slammed on the brakes and pulled over. He had to pull the best friend off of his cousin while his cousin rolled over to the floor with a tooth knocked out, nose bleeding, and later on had black eyes. I started yelling at all three of them claiming they were acting like children. I told them girls would never fight each other and would handle situations including drunken situations with words instead of punches. Since they were guys, they didn’t understand where I was coming from. “There’s nothing absolutely right or absolutely wrong, there are no absolutes in society, that there is no infallible Bible, there’s no biblical standard of righteousness” (165). For guys, punching is right, while for girls, punching is wrong. Also in Jerry Falwell, Susan claims the ethnographer has to be unbiased as a witness even in the face of danger. An ethnographer is faced with multitudes of actions and changes, and an unbiased decision is what justifies the situation.

Live Wire

2008-04-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

"Like a live wire, the subject channels what's going on around it in the process of its own self-composition. Formed by the coagulation of intensities, surfaces, sensations, perceptions, and expressions, it's a thing composed of encounters and the spaces and events it traverses or inhabits.

Things happen. The self moves to react, often pulling itself someplace it didn't exactly intend to go."-- Ordinary Affects

I suppose that my blogs are moving from less ethnographic and more introspective as I'm feeling like yes, my life is shifting in really small ways. Or my thinking really. My mind's response to ideas and things stemming from my body, video, memory, recording, broadcast and so on. Little things that are/aren't connected are weaving together to make different priorities in my mind. I'm moving things around. I'm filing them, making room for some other ideas that I'm not sure if my I'm ready to subscribe to. For example:
1. I'm pretty sure my mind functions similarly to a computer. In terms of data (memory) storage, organization so on... Things I know like math and reading are like an OS. And things like song lyrics are like RAM.
2. I'm not sure if my mind functions like a computer because I've put those constraints on it.
3. It's true and important that I can describe/map my mind in computer kind of terms...

So, in very literal terms, I guess with the above quote my self is shifting to a computer because I'm obsessing over technology, internet, recording and the body- why do we make machines that fit our body? Headsets that are molded to our ears, belt clips- we're wearing machines on ourselves. This is what I think about a lot. This is why my mind is molding to a computer.

Yeah, but I'm just saying this- I don't know if I really believe it. Why do I disclose these things in a class blog?
1. I feel a great sense of relaxation. I don't need formality on blogspot.com.
2. The internet is very voyeuristic. There is little sense of editing. (It's just the internet...)
3. I genuinely want to share my thoughts with my classmates. I feel more comfortable with this sort of communication and more articulate, while still very comfortable.

Back on track, my self is moving in different directions. The latest one (a subcatagory of this whole technology body mind blah blah)? Numbers Stations!

So apparently there are dozens of radio stations that broadcast only series of numbers. I learned about them through Wikipedia. The best explanation as to why numbers stations exist are for spy communication. There are many videos of the stations... They're really strange. I'm gonna buy some high powered radio equipment maybe so I can become one of those weird radio people and listen to these numbers.

My discovery of these radio stations make me feel very strange. I can't really articulate, but this is an ordinary that's making me different. I think...

That's all for now, I'll try to tie in everything on Thursday. I'm excited to present because I have some great things to show everyone.

Why all the recording?

2008-04-08T09:36:00.001-07:00

Whether it’s sound, text, image, or motion, you can record it. You might not completely capture the thing as you originally perceive, but you can almost always capture at least a fair imitation if you have the right technology and the know-how. In any case, you can create fantastic representations, references, and creations. Not only that, you can share them online, you can back them up on a hard-drive, and you can edit them on your computer.
And what exactly do you record? Well that depends of course. You could record your company trips in photos and text; you record your family’s holidays with a video camera; or you could make your own music with a digital audio recorder. Many people record things for their jobs and also for themselves. They write in journals or record their favorite TV shows with TiVo. They make playlists of their favorite songs on their computers or they take pictures of their friends at parties.
Of course, there are many reasons to make a recording, to make a back up of a recording, etc. But often a sort of psychological shift happens when we prime ourselves to record. We seek out “the event,” trying to guide it into fruition. Once we capture the moment, we can consume it and pass over it for the sake of the next event; but thanks to archiving, the moment can always be revisited later.
And we also have developed strategies for avoiding the recording, for maintaining privacy in spite of the mounting surveillance. We can act like the recording technology doesn’t exist and pay no heed to our own reflections. Or we can constantly reconstruct ourselves and our actions to better fit our shifting ideals and standards. We can become voyeurs or exhibitionists or both.
We seem to stick to little moments or impressions of our realities through our little recordings, digitally enhanced and edited. We seem to live in wait for them, making sense of ourselves and our experiences through them. And as we grow older, even though the days don’t get any longer, the recordings only accumulate (and in a more reliable fashion than our own memories). The situation reminds me of the immortal Struldbrugs in Gulliver’s Travels.

Language

2008-04-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

This blog is inspired by The Book of Jerry Falwell by Susan Friend Harding. I am going to focus on the way that language is used at Extend-A-Care, paying special attention to word choice, tone of voice, political correctness, and the idea that there are appropriate/inappropriate ways to speak to children which are not totally determined by content.

Things have changed since I began observing the children. Most importantly, right after spring break, three new children arrived in my group. Iyana, Savana, and Chastity are all four years old, in pre-K, and female. They have drastically altered the demographic of group one from that of predominately kindergarten aged-boys. I am pleased with this alteration because, in general, pre-K children are relatively well-behaved as compared to kindergarten children, and the same goes for girls as compared to boys. I don’t know what it is about little boys, but it just seems that they have more energy, more confidence, and less regard for authority.

Portraits

Iyana is a cute little girl. Her parents obviously take great care in getting her dressed for school, as she is always wearing well-ironed and seemingly new clothes. Her hair is always fixed in several braids with little plastic clips and her shoes always match her outfit. She stands out like a sore thumb next to some of the other little girls whose parents apparently aren’t as concerned with the development of their child’s fashion sense. Of the new additions, Iyana is my favorite. I know I am not supposed to play favorites or to give special privileges to the children I like, but it can be hard not to sometimes, especially when the children I don’t like are acting like animals. Iyana is the perfect balance of outgoing and reserved, and she has complete regard for authority. If I am paying attention to her and playing with her she is talkative and funny, but if she can sense that I am busy or need to tend to other children, she plays calmly by herself and causes no problems. On the rare occasion that she does something she isn’t supposed to be doing, she always stop the first time I ask her to.

Savana is tiny, wears a lot of purple, and has squinty eyes. She has long, dark, and tangled hair that is always pulled back in a loose ponytail. Savana rarely causes serious problems, but she has a habit of asking me to do the same thing over and over—even when I am in the middle of carrying out the requested action—which can be extremely aggravating. She absolutely loves when I push her on the swings, especially when I hold her high up in the air, count from 10, and yell “blast off!” as I let go and allow her to fly forward at what probably seems to her an incredibly high speed.

Chastity is similar to Savana in that she is tiny and has ratty hair, except Chastity’s is blond. I don’t feel like I know Chastity very well. She is newer than Savana and Iyana, and she is also quieter. She rarely asks me any questions, which is nice at times, but gets her in trouble at others; she often gets up from the table at her own accord and travels across the cafeteria to get a toy from a table that she isn’t even supposed to have access to. Even though I always ask her to have a seat, I have to admire her independence and initiative.

All of these new additions have changed the way that I view my group and have forced me to think about the ways in which I interact with the children, especially in terms of speech and language.

Positively Positive at All Times

Training to become a group leader for Extend-A-Care was one of the more boring experiences of my life. For one week, four hours a day, I had to sit in a classroom and listen to this guy, YoHan, talk about proper table-cleaning procedures, nit-picky rules, positive attitudes, and appropriate language. The rules concerning positive attitudes and language struck me as comical and the time and therefore stuck with me.

Extend-A-Care is very serious about maintaining a positive environment among its many different centers, and the main way this is done is by designating appropriate/inappropriate language. For example, when reprimanding a child it is not ok to say “Savana, stop asking me the same thing over and over again. I heard you the first time!” Instead I am encouraged to say something more along the lines of, “Savana, please be patient, I’m getting you your applesauce right now.” It is not appropriate to tell a child to stop what they are doing, instead ask them to do something different. I have to be honest, I try my best to follow rules and stay positive, but there have been times when I have responded negatively to Savana’s incessant re-requests, and both responses seem to affect her the same way. I’m not suggesting that trying to stay positive is useless or absurd, I’m just pointing out that with this particular child, it seems to have no effect, but I suppose I don’t know what’s going on inside her head, so I shouldn’t make assumptions.

Criss-Cross Applesauce

Most American twenty-somethings would be able to tell you exactly what it means to sit “Indian style.” In twenty more years, this may not be the case. Extend-A-Care discourages the use of such race-oriented language, and favors a more harmless form of “cross your legs” requests—criss-cross applesauce. This is what I was instructed to say at bathroom breaks when the kids are supposed to be sitting cross-legged in the halls. I am not to say “Everyone sit Indian style!” because I might offend a Native American by suggesting that all of his/her people know no other way to sit than in this primitive fashion. Instead I should just say “Criss-cross applesauce!” and the children will know what I mean. “Criss-cross” lets them know that their legs should be crossed and then “applesauce” is just thrown on for the hell of it because it’s funny and wacky and it rhymes. The children think nothing of it. When they hear me say it, they don’t laugh, they just cross their legs.

Walter the Farting Dog

Although race-oriented language has gotten more restricted since I was a child, language once concerned crude or vulgar—namely language describing body parts and/or functions—has become more acceptable. This is evidenced by the book Walter the Farting Dog that Extend-A-Care has provided for the children’s entertainment. When I was a child, the word fart was taboo at school and no one was allowed to say it. The same went for butt and pee. Maybe it was just a consequence of growing up in an extremely conservative town, but it seems that people’s perception of vulgarity has changed. I read Walter the Farting Dog to my group on Friday and they loved it. They acted like they were farting on me the whole time. I imagined what any of my elementary school teachers/playground attendants/teacher’s aides would have done if one of my friends or I would have pretend-farted on them. I don’t think that such a gesture would have been well-received.

Tone of Voice

Besides making positive word choices, it is absolutely necessary to maintain a positive tone with the children. I would say that this is by far more important than the literal meanings of the words used, because children are much more responsive to signs and body language than they are to words. For example, when we are on a bathroom break and a child is misbehaving, saying “sit down please,” in a normal tone of voice will not be nearly as effective as simply saying their name and giving them a stern glance. The children know the rules, and a serious face lets them know that I notice them breaking one. Therefore, when encouraging a certain type of behavior, the words that I say are not nearly as important as the way I say them. If I sound nice, calm, and encouraging, then the children are going to respond much better than if I were to say the exact same thing in a dull, monotone voice.

Speech and language are obviously extremely powerful tools of communication. As a consequence, in professional or public situations there are often very rigid rules and guidelines as to what is appropriate/inappropriate. This is especially true in the childcare environment, where it is assumed that the words we use are going to determine the direction of childhood development and the overall attitudes of the children. There is definitely truth to this, but sometimes truth gets stretched, and rules go overboard, as in the case of “criss-cross applesauce."

Fragments

2008-04-06T08:42:00.000-07:00

This piece of writing is based on the book Ordinary Affects by Kathleen Stewart, particularly the section titled “Fragments.” It is my attempt to elaborate on the idea of “fragments” and “beautiful shocks,” or vivid glimpses of the past.

The Weird One

All of my coworkers agree – Bella is odd.

An anonymous group leader tells me, “When I talk to her she just sits there and stares at me. I just want to shake her and be like: SAY SOMETHING!”

I know what the group leader is talking about. It can be slightly aggravating when Bella refuses to answer a question, or when I ask her to do something and she just stares at me.

“Yeah, she is weird,” says another group leader. “She started crying one time because I asked her to wear her Run-Tex t-shirt.”

This is also true. We got free Run-Tex t-shirts for all of the kids as part of our “Born to Run” program, which encourages the children to participate in a one mile marathon down Congress. Bella refused to wear the t-shirt. She wouldn’t explain why; she just wouldn’t do it. The aforementioned group leader was fairly confident that she would be able to persuade Bella to put the shirt on, but after a few minutes of “Come on, Bella. Everyone else is wearing one,” Bella burst into tears and the group leader gave up.

My coworkers have come up with several possible reasons for Bella’s introverted attitude—none of which I think are credible. They say that her mom seems cold and probably doesn’t care about her. They say that her home life is probably “messed up.” They discuss the possibility of abuse, mental illness, and neglect. I consider all of the possibilities and decide that Bella is probably just a shy four-year-old girl. Naturally, she would rather spend her afternoons with her mother than stuck in a group of fourteen screaming, fighting, un-sharing, nose-picking, pants-wetting four and five-year-olds.

Sitting Still, Staying Quiet

Today during a bathroom break, I got tongue-tied. I was giving the usual orders, “Criss-cross applesauce! Sit on your bottom! Keep your hands to yourself! I’m looking for the quietest person to come to the front and start a game of I Spy!” Suddenly, I was interrupted by a memory—a “fragment.” I was about to tell Donovan to quit flailing his arms around, when I spotted Bella. All of the other children were jumping around, talking, yelling, poking each other, eating boogers, and fighting over spots, but Bella was just sitting on the floor in the midst of it all, perfectly still, quiet, and calm. Her eyes were glazed over and she was obviously daydreaming. I realized that I was seeing a glimpse of my childhood-self in this tiny, four-year-old girl. I saw myself as a shy little boy, and then as an uncomfortable and overweight nine-year-old who wanted nothing more than to fit in, to be able to just live, to talk to girls without blushing, to be one of the trouble-makers that blurted out every single thought that came to my head. Instead, I rarely said anything, and if I did, I practiced it to myself a few times before I actually said it.

This one little instance—seeing Bella daydreaming in the eye of the storm of small bodies—brought forth a whole barrage of “beautiful explosions.” I began to remember random moments of isolation, anxiety, and daydreaming. I remembered textures, smells, clothing, classrooms, teachers, stomachaches, unidentified substances dried up on first grade desktops, new haircuts on old crushes, and soggy brown-bagged sandwiches.

I don’t think Bella is weird. I think she’s just uncomfortable in her surroundings.

Manufacturing Fragments

I remember a particular day in the first grade. It was cold outside, most likely sometime in the fall, and my mom forced me to wear a heavy wool sweater with a ship embroidered on it. I hated the sweater. It was itchy, too big, and I thought it made me look stupid and ugly. I argued. I presented valid reasons why I should not wear the sweater. My mom stood her ground, claiming that I had to wear it now and then because my oma had bought it for me in the Netherlands and it probably lots of guilders. Against my will, I wore the sweater.

Many “fragments” were manufactured that day:

I remember walking to school that morning. The air was cold, like sticking your face in a freezer. There were little flecks of orange leaves stuck to my white shoelaces. I noticed as I passed the chain link fence that my neighbor’s male basset hound had monstrous testicles, while the female’s teats were swollen to full capacity; I wanted to be a vet.

On the black top during recess, I pulled my arms inside my sweater and swung them around. I accidentally hit a kid I didn’t know and felt embarrassed that I had called attention to my sweater.

Sitting in class was itchy, hot, and miserable.

When I got home, I took the sweater off and lied down on my cool sheets. They always smelled the same. The fan was on, hitting my back, and for the first time in day composed of horrendously uncomfortable minutes, I felt at home.

It’s a strange experience to sift through these fragments, mainly because at the time that I was actually living them; I was not aware that they would become “fragments.” These things just happen. Certain aspects of our ordinary just stand out, while others fade away.

On occasion I have tried to intentionally manufacture fragments. I try to burn an image into my brain. I think to myself, “Remember this for the rest of your life.” It is obviously not effective, because I can’t think of a specific image, I just remember that I’ve tried.

I wonder if Bella was manufacturing a “fragment” at that moment. I wonder if twenty years from now she will be sitting in a waiting room, driving home from work, or folding her laundry and then, all of a sudden, that particular moment—sitting quietly amidst a sea of screaming children, half-listening to Mr. Anthony bark orders—will catch her off guard, perhaps shaking her and telling her to say something.

Religious Words

2008-04-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

For one reason or another, my parents decided that I should be raised Catholic. I don’t know if either of them presently identify as religious, but I think my mother at one point had something like faith. Both of them attended Catholic high schools and they seemed to think that a Catholic education was a good thing, so they sent me and my two siblings to a Catholic grade school in Houston. I think this decision stemmed mainly from the fact that Catholic schools or parochial schools are generally the most affordable private schools but I think they also wanted my day to day education to include some sort of religious/moral element.

By the time I was five, I was pretty sure that I didn’t go for this Catholicism thing. My family went to mass only occasionally, but I didn’t really enjoy the whole stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, kneel routine. And mass was so long and the church was so dark and we had to dress up. The priest could never really hold my attention with his stories about Matthew, Mark, and whoever else because, well, let’s say they lacked some of the pop of my morning cartoons (not to mention the dynamism of Asteroids).

I was a little curious though about what those little communion wafers tasted like, and I liked the idea of sacraments and rituals. They reminded me of stages in video games or grades in school … little accomplishments that I could make, constraints within which I could identify myself. What I really didn’t understand was this book of God stuff. I mean, I could write some stuff and say God voiced it through me. A crazy person could do it. Anyone could. So why take this one book so seriously? (Disclaimer: This is not meant as a challenge to anyone else’s beliefs.)

Some Catholic morals, however, did rub off on me. The teachers made sure of this. They weren’t nuns and they weren’t quoting scripture or anything, but they made sure that you internalized what they thought was right and wrong. In fact, between them and my parents, I think I learned a secular sort of Christian morality.

My last little bout with Catholicsm (besides the yearly battle over the X-mas eve mass) was when my mother insisted that I prepare for Confirmation. I resisted on the grounds that Sunday was my one day to sleep in (I spent Saturdays building theatre sets with my friends), but my parents joined forces and then there I was every morning in the Catholic Youth Center suffering Vacation Bible School all over again.

I remember one particular Sunday when our teacher or leader or whatever invited Catholic couples to come in to talk about their own personal experiences with abstinence. Now this day almost made the whole thing worth it because I found this event just completely fascinating. One couple talked about how they had both waited until they were married and it was great and everything. Then in the other two couples, one person had waited and the other hadn’t. They talked about how they felt about this. Then, we thirteen and fourteen year olds got to ask them questions and oh and man did I grill them. Did they regret it? Shouldn’t they test drive the thing, you know? Get a feel for it? It just seemed like they were putting too much pressure on each other, no?

It was a squeamish but memorable experience, and it helped me develop some strong opinions (albeit not necessarily the intended ones) about traditional Christian sexual morality, faith ideology, and restraint. My final conflict though was with the literal interpretation of those confounded wafers as the “body of Christ.” Now, I had had the opportunity to look at human cells and at plant cells under a microscope and I knew they didn’t look too similar. I also had the feeling that flesh didn’t taste like bread. And that a person’s flesh couldn’t time transport and multiply. But according to my teacher, I was expected to believe that when the priest blessed the bread, it turned to literal actual flesh. If I had had any doubts about religion clouding people’s ability to come to terms with the empirical world, to take responsibility for themselves, etc, that conversation absolved them.

I just couldn’t connect with this metaphor I guess. I don’t know. The “generativity” wasn’t there; the machine and its idioms didn’t run through me.

April Fool's Day

2008-04-01T09:50:00.000-07:00

I live with my brother in an apartment in North Austin. The one thing I’ve always asked him to obey is to not smoke weed in the apartment because I don’t like drugs and I signed on the lease we weren’t going to do any drugs in or around the apartment complex. My brother still does it occasionally inside of the apartment, and I usually get mad at him by yelling at him. Anyways, yesterday I got home and my brother was smoking in his room. I yelled at him to get the stuff out of the apartment and proceeded to be mad for the rest of the night. Today is April Fool’s Day, so I decided to use that against him and play an eviction prank on him. I googled a real eviction letter and changed the reasons for eviction and titled the letter to myself and my dad since we were the ones who signed the lease. I slipped the letter into an envelope then ripped the letter out to act like I read it first. I laid it on the front table, then proceeded to text my brother claiming I couldn’t believe him. When he got home that night, he read the letter, and texted me back saying he was sorry, he would never smoke again, and he asked for forgiveness even though he thought he messed up my dad’s and my credit. In Ordinary Affects, the moment of the letter just lying there would be a still life. “When a still life pops up out of the ordinary, it can come as a shock or as some kind of wake-up call.”(19). He had a wakeup call, and he had to do something about it to make everything right. When I got home an hour later, he was curled up in his bed with the letter between his arms and all of the lights out. He didn’t eat, work out, or sleep. I went into his room and asked him if he told my dad and he said no but that he was sorry. He claimed he had a lot of stuff going on in his life and the letter topped it off. After about ten minutes, I asked him what the date was and he ignored it since he was depressed. Then I asked once again what date it was and he finally thought and said “April Fools? Ah man.” A huge smile came on his face of relief and said I was the first one to ever prank him. Then he went to the kitchen and made himself food since he was too depressed to eat before. Since he knew he was wrong for smoking in the apartment, he was able to believe the joke. His ordinary turned on him. “Lodged in habits, conceits, and the loving and deadly contacts of everyday sociality, it can catch you up in something else altogether” (106). His habit was weed, but the letter caught up to him. I also played the same joke on my friend who lived a few doors down. Since I pranked her last year, I had to make the joke be from somewhere else, i.e. an eviction letter. Since they were guilty for different things which violated the lease agreement, I thought it would be an easy prank as well. I put the letter in her door since we receive all notifications in the door, and waited for the joke to play out. When she got home and read the letter, she went straight to the front office to ask about it in which she found out it was fake. She called me up and asked me if I did it and I tried to deny it, but it was a given I did it. She knew it was a conspiracy theory in which, “It takes the vaguely lived sense that something isn’t quite right and then snaps it into a puzzle form, a search for underlying causes”(88). Since I only have two observations, then it seems like girls don’t take jokes for face value while boys do, but coming from only two subjects will not write a book.

"long live the new flesh"

2008-03-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

Jackie Allen

The little blip, the ordinary un-ordinary. The conditions of possibility... the feeling that little feeling and everyone gets them. You're body's telling you something about that moment. It's nothing special... just your body communicating with the environment much further than the five senses.

It's like I play what just happened, what's going on right now back in my mind. A flash, a video. I record my actions- specific and random, the actions that make your stomach jump: a certain song playing during a certain time in a certain place... when things align, when they line up just right and everything is very particular. My mind records it and plays it back to me. Like a video camera. Parts of your life that- if you were going to make a film about your life... if you were going to edit your life film, they would make the cut if only for a few seconds.

Blood pressure rises? You can feel it in your body sometimes, when you realize that this ordinary moment was special enough for you to replay it . Sometimes an imaginary twitch, a twitch that doesn't exist but your body reacts to your surroundings and you record it in your mind. Like a movie. Your life is like a movie.

There's this part of the movie Videodrome... I really love that movie, but in the movie you can record hallucinations by putting on a helmet and then you can save them onto videocassettes. I like to think about this, the connections between the body and technology... What if my brain is telling me to record things? The feeling, the tickle, the twitch is the urge to record my life? The special time stop moment is a video that I can replay and rewind and replay again.

What I'm really getting at is that
a. I use technological terms to describe my mind (i.e. play, record, movie)
b. Other people understand the mind within these terms as well (within limits, but you know what I'm saying)
c. Computers supplement my/our lives very, very, very much. Shapes personas... (myspace/facebook/youtube...)

I think, perhaps, that one day these moments will be recorded. Somehow they will be stored, for later viewing. The moments will not be blips anymore but real video that you physically play, rewind, record... Everyone will have their own movie that they can edit. I don't know how really this will work, but I suspect that technology will integrate with the mind very far. Memories will be videos. They will be accessed and that we can record them somehow through our body.

Maybe so?

The Significance of Workspaces

2008-03-30T20:31:00.001-07:00

During my fieldwork of studying office culture in two different offices, I’ve noticed that something that all employees of each office have in common is their personal desk space. These desk spaces vary in size, location, and amount of privacy, but they are all something that every member of the culture has in common. Office workspaces not only give an outsider information about the position of employee to whom it belongs, but it also gives some insight into each person’s personality, family, likes and dislikes.

Office workspaces are sometimes a corner of a room, which usual signifies the lowest position in an office. It has no defined boundaries or anything separating one area from the next. Most of them are personalized with wall decorations in the form of magazine cut outs, notes of things to do, or photographs of friends and family. Next in the hierarchy of office spaces is the cubicle. A cubicle is defined as an area partitioned by short, half walls for special use. Cubicles are probably the types of workspaces that are the most stereotyped.

After cubicle comes office, then office “with a view.” And when an employee finally reaches the top of the company hierarchy, one is awarded the corner office with a view. Offices are generally big enough to fit more than just a desk in them. They can be used for not only working but also living. Where I work, the people with offices often have a couch or chair, wood floors (instead of carpet), and nice floor rugs. These offices can be described as more “homey” than other types of workspaces.

What’s unusual is that employees become attached to even the smallest workspaces. After working in an area for a length of time and bringing personal items, when asked to move to a different space, people will often protest (unless it is to a bigger office through promotion). This is a situation that is going in the law firm where I work. Three new attorneys are moving into our office with all of their staff, secretaries, paralegals and file clerks. During this process people have become very protective of their space and property. People must be strategically placed so that they will be closest to the people with whom they work the most. Suddenly it became a competition for the most accessible and most abundant storage space for case documents. There was tension between new employees and old employees on where they thought they should be put and what kind of office they deserved. Finally, as “mature” adults, all were able to rearrange themselves, with minimal complaint, so that the office could run functionally.

Iconic Leaders

2008-03-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

With a mission to present the finer side of Texas, Brilliant Magazine bases its content on celebrities, fine dining, luxury living, and of course fashion and style. Therefore, Brilliant must immerse itself in the fashion world and culture of high style and designer products. This little world of fashion, like many other little worlds, has followers, and it has leaders. Its leaders are leaders because they have power, and the way in which they gain power can vary. Power can be legitimately or illegitimately gained, and leaders can live up to their position or even be hypocritical.

Susan Harding, in one of the chapters of her book, showed Jerry Falwell as a leader who triumphed from the bottom to the top. He started life as the underdog but soon realized that he was “chosen” and favored to become someone great. Then she goes on to describe instances where he has acted in ways that are completely contradictory to the lifestyle that he is portraying; some might even go as far as to call him a fraud.

Style icons can be considered the same kind of leader. Their followers follow them because they live a lifestyle that the followers aspire to live. Fashion designers, socialites, and celebrities all are looked at as people who are more stylish than the rest of us. In many ways other people defer to the power they have on the fashion industry. For example, people see what they are wearing and try to mimic the same style of clothing, hairstyle, or other accessories. Leaders in the fashion world also often wear or design things that are not necessarily stylish or aesthetically pleasing, yet people still seem to follow and copy these trends. There is nothing logical about they way they do things. Certain things aren’t worn to necessarily make a certain body type or part look better or stand out. Even with contradictory actions to their title, style icons are still followed. Much of their power and reputation is based on that they are already established as having done or created something beautiful or interesting. Then people follow them because they are already the established leader, and people seem to need someone to follow.

working class

2008-03-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

All I ask for is one night off over the weekend. Just one night. I don’t think it is that big of a deal, but I made some people mad when I said this one night at work in front of a few waiters.
“You always want nights off.” One of the guys said. My response was, “So what? I’m here to make money to go out with my friends, and how can I go out with them is I am always here?” He just replied with something along the lines of how I must not have bills to pay and then walked off. (I’m leaving out the part that I got really angry, I am paying for my own student loans, and I haven’t seen anything from my family, excluding birthdays and Christmas, since I was 17 years old. So I got angry.)
I brought Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America to work the other night to read while I was at the hostess stand when things got slow. Something I usually do, I always get asked what I am reading, but I never thought I would get the reaction from people that I did get.
I explained the overall theme of the book, why I was reading it and then told them about how the first section of the book is about waiting tables in diner-type of restaurants and trying to survive with that income.
I tell them about something that Barbara Ehrenreigh says. While working at Jerry’s she received some criticism about chatting too much with the customers. All she was supposed to do was take orders and then bring the food to the table. She says, “No chatting for you, girl. No fancy service ethic allowed for the serfs. Chatting with customers is for the good-looking young college-educated servers in the downtown carpaccio and ceviche joints, the kids who can make $70-$100 a night. What had I been thinking?” (P. 35).
At first the general reaction was filled with comments like, “Yeah, that’s right. It takes a special, and intelligent kind of person to work in fine dining.” And, “Waiters at those kind of restaurants are awful, I wont even eat at those kinds of places anymore,” I just listened. I hadn’t gotten an opinion on the situation yet; I don’t think that I even care.
Later on in the evening the comment was still being discussed. People began to get angry. “Does she think that we don’t struggle either? Does she know that we also live in 1 bedrooms with 3 people? Sometimes can’t make rent? My cell phone gets turned off at least twice a year? AND I HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE!?!”
I have no idea what to say back to this. I just listened. Again.
The evening ends with me leaving, and hearing what I hear at least once a week.
The waiters are all standing around together. Complaining. And I hear, “Why am I still waiting tables when I have a college degree?”

in the program

2008-03-26T19:46:00.000-07:00

She understands now what it means when people say that they can feel so alone when they are in a room full of people. People who supposedly care, who care more than the ones who have the same blood as you.
Walking into the room it appears that she is the only one who didn’t curl her hair, pick out an outfit that sparkled and apply multiple coats of a lip-plumping lip-gloss. She is over the idea of first impressions, and the concept that the better you look the more wisdom you have.
Acceptance is completely unattainable.
She tells herself, “They are all going to judge me no matter how perfect I look.” Trying to dig up some last bit of self-esteem or courage that she might have left, stuck somewhere inside.
The whole meeting moves with such a robotic pace, people give vocal cues for other cult like responses. You know the names of all the people in the room, and you begin to know some of their darkest secrets. And you may never of had an actual conversation with them.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
A beautiful and sparkling woman tells her story about living in railroad carts, sleeping in dumpsters and giving head for cocaine. After her fifth husband beat her up so bad that she spent an evening in the emergency room her family finally put her in treatment.
“At least I am not as fucked up as these people.”
Are these the things that we tell ourselves to make us feel better about all of our mistakes? To make us feel better about all of our “isms”? Take the shame off of me, and put it on someone else.
We all tell the woman that we care, that we are here for her and she is so brave. But who is going to talk to her after the meeting? Who is going to offer her a ride home? Or even a cup of coffee?
Not her. She wants to get the fuck out of there.
When she thinks about the time that she spent in those rooms, she remembers it as an abusive relationship. She left with a handful of mistakes to learn from.

Iliana- The Dream

2008-03-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

The Dream

Clutching at an invisible silk net with slits or crescents of sleepward eyes is how I find Robert sitting in our bed; rigid yet half-slouched with an air of panic in his jerky defenses.

"I'm falling. I'm falling. Please don't tell Dad," he whimpers and shrinks into himself. I remain at the lit vanity which reminds me of something out of a Hollywood movie studio or from the back of a dingy strip joint and continue to apply the cold cream. His reflection catches my focus and my cupped fingertips slide unguided across a greased white chin.

"Robert. Wake up, you are having a dream." I sound like a mother.

We don't talk about it in the morning. Robert waits impatiently at his seat in silence while I prepare the breakfast. I can hear myself breathing heavily over the sizzle sounds coming from a pan on the stove. In with the good air, out with the bad air.

"Hurry it up, Woman. I'm giving the Lecture today."

I grunt and flip the eggs, then press down on them to get them extra "juicy", the way "Robert E. Lee himself would have taken them should he be alive this day," as Robert would say. He gives the Lecture whenever any fellow established mathematician or freshly nominated doctoral candidate diverges from his point-set topology theory; like reinforcing the return of a homing pigeon. I know it has something to do with plasma being the perfect homeomorphic and clouds of electrons needing condensation nuclei. I've heard him recite it in the basement from his wine-stained, use-softened brown leather chair.

It belonged to his father, he answered once, then he slammed the door shut; forever banning me entry to his unterwelt.

He comes home late in the afternoon, tired and smug. "Kill the babies, Woman. You must kill those baby principles and unfounded theories before they grow to set a crack in the foundation." Robert continues ranting a moment longer before uncorking his first bottle of plain red wine. I asked about that, too. Just once. "Plain type."
I prefer Pinot Noir.

The bath water instantly puts me half to sleep, and I'm sliding along the smooth contour of its sloped back. The dry grip of the tub bottom loosens and I slip in fast. Small bubbles trapped in my hair trace pictures on the nape of my neck, bouncing along the porcelain, tickling, and I'm awake. I call for Robert to join me and he stumbles in naked, with a new bottle of plain red (pinot noir) wine. "For sharing."

Dreamworlds of Bellaire

2008-03-24T16:06:00.000-07:00

In 1991, my family moved a few miles over into a new white house in the city of Bellaire, a small suburb in southwest Houston. Well, actually an old house built in 1930. I think my parents were moving into their dreamhouse. Enough bedrooms for us three kids and a garage apartment for my dad to convert into an office. Over the past few years, they renovated the kitchen, one of the restrooms, put up a white picket fence, etc. etc. They are always finding new ways to remodel the place. Every time I go home now, I am caught off guard … little things have moved around, the paint on the wall is a slightly different color. Their gradual changes all of a sudden seem much more drastic only because I don’t live with them everyday. The house is no longer my home.

I think they moved into their 1950s TV dreamhouse. When we first made the move, our house was not anything out of the ordinary on our street. Most of the houses were the same size, from the same era. Lots of families, lots of kids, but not too many my age. The fact that I didn’t like sports and didn’t go the school down the street didn’t help me make friends either. But I think the Leave it to Beaver American suburb was dead for my generation even if it was raging in the minds of the parents on the street. We even had annual block parties with brisket, moon walks, and an inevitable water balloon fight. I think a few times they even had a pony ride for little kids. Weird stuff, right?

I should ask my father if this is what his childhood neighborhood was like. He grew up in Briargrove, another Houston suburb only a few miles north of Bellaire. His parents’ red/brown house was built in the 40s. That neighborhood still looks much like it did then with the exception of the trees which are now magnificently large. Most of the houses are still there, and many grandparents (like my own) still live there although the younger generations are gradually taking hold. The feel of “neighborhood” there, however, does not seem to have quite evaporated.

Bellaire has a different story. My mom often tells friends of the family about how over the course of our first ten years in this house, there was always at least one house being torn down and rebuilt. Our house along with three or four others are now the only original houses on the street. And they are now dwarfed by the pseudo-stucco three story behemoths that have come to characterize Houston exurbs. The street is littered with showy luxury vehicles, and most of the new neighbors don’t really socialize with us or one another. And you should hear my father lament the plight of the trees on our street (and I am totally with this one). My mom stopped organizing the block party a few years ago simply because no one else expressed interest or willingness to help out.

Although I didn’t really get all that into the “neighborhood kid” thing when I was growing up, my observation of Bellaire over the past decade and a half tells me that the “middle class” American suburban community only continues to disintegrate. But I do find it somewhat uplifting (and curious) that my grandparents’ neighborhood hasn’t fallen for this sort of insulated short-term showy newness.
christopher

“Man I’ll give you two nickels for your dime”

2008-03-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Even though the quote in the title does not summarize Nickel and Dimed, it seemed to relate my past blogs and some of the course material. Supposedly in the young male generation, a dime is a great girl. Having a dime is ideal for a guy. The quote “Man I’ll give you two nickels for your dime” is basically saying the person will give two alright girls for the perfect one. I recently started dating a new guy Scott. The last time I wrote a blog, I was with a guy named Eric. However, Eric started accusing me of cheating on him because I was too busy with school and didn’t have enough time for him. Anyways, I started to drift apart from Eric because I felt betrayed and hurt that he accused me of things far out of the ordinary because I was busy. After a month and a half past, a new guy rolled into my life. He was tall, dark and handsome, and we clicked automatically. He constantly tells me I’m a dime and one of his friends told him he’d trade two nickels for his dime. Girls tend to stay away from calling guys dimes. The first time Scott told that line to me, my response was “Well I guess you’re a quarter then.” He responded with, “How’s that?” Then I commented how a quarter would be better than a nickel or a penny. Then there was a laugh and he finally stopped calling me a dime because he knew I didn’t like it much. In “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbara goes through different states trying to live a poor life off literally nickels and dimes. She covered up her own reputation and pursued low class jobs to learn about the way the majority of America lived. My favorite quote throughout the entire book was the 3 values of Wal-Mart because it’s the quote for any lower class job/hourly job. “Respect for the individual, exceeding customers’ expectations, strive for excellence.” My first job was at Quizno’s and I made $6.25 an hour at the age of 16. At that time I didn’t have rent or a car payment, I only had car insurance, phone bill, gas, and entertainment to worry about. Even though $6.25 is not much, it allowed me to pay off my bills as a teenager. After working there for 4 months, I quit and started to work at Applebee’s. As a host I made $5.25 an hour plus tip share, which I ended up making way more than Quizno’s. As a To-Go specialist at Applebee’s, I made $6.75 an hour plus tips, and continued to raise my monthly income. Then as a server, I made $2.13 an hour plus tips and averaged an even higher income. I moved on up constantly, then I quit to go to Carrabba’s with the hope of more money. At Carrabba’s I did make more money, and had less work with only 3 tables since the menu was more expensive. I worked at Carrabba’s for a summer, and then worked at AT&T. At AT&T I made a high hourly plus commission, the best job of them all. Working and moving up in status is about experience. I’ve learned through my life and through the smaller jobs that I earned where I stand now. All jobs are going to involve emotional or physical stress, its life. Even a high class job which doesn’t involve physical exertion is going to require a lot of stress. Employees have to respect themselves and others around them and always put the customer first. It’s the strive for excellence which let’s an employee accelerate in life. If I didn’t have any experience and if I didn’t have to have the small jobs at first, then I wouldn’t of been hired at AT&T. Now, I have rent, car payment, car insurance, phone bill, utilities, gas, school, and lots of other expenses that a Quizno’s job would not have been able to pay. All the dimes out there, have to nickel and dime it to make a living for themselves.

st. patrick's day in new england.

2008-03-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

People always think that I am REALLY into being Irish, just because my name is Erin. But I am not, and I am maybe 1/8 Irish. (I actually have more Puerto Rican blood in me than Irish blood, but you couldn’t tell by looking at me, or hearing my name.) On Saturday morning around 8am I woke up to the screeching sounds of bagpipes and the even louder sounds of children screaming. I am in Newport Rhode Island and I am about to learn how much St. Patrick’s Day means to people in New England. My friend and I get out of bed, dressing quickly with some splashes of green being thrown into our ensemble for the day. Turns out it did not matter how the lime green stripe accents on my shoes were matching the green in my scarf, or how her sweater had green letters on it, spelling out Boston. We stepped outside into the body numbing cold weather with the steady drizzle making it even colder. I was blinded by the green. It looked like people actually went through their closets, found everything that was green, and then put everything on. There were green wigs, face paint, tights, rain boots and walking sticks. We walk quickly, avoiding the rain and cold to the neighbor’s house. This is where we heard the children screaming. They were all over the place, and they did not stop moving or talking. When we get inside we hear a man scream from the other side of the room, “YES! There up! Lindsay, Erin, your names have been added on to the list. We are taking tally of who drinks the most today. So far, yous guys are losing. Randy is already up to 4!!! Somebody get them an Irish Coffee!!!” I could still hear the bagpipes from outside, they were worming up for the parade. Which didn’t even start till 11am. This is when I could tell that this day was going to be a bit out of control. We had been there for a few days, and never before had I seen so many people in this town. The average 10 min. walk to downtown took 35 min. There were people everywhere. The bars opened up at 8am. The line to get into the popular Irish bar was 45min. And that was if you wanted to go inside, the line for outside was around 2 hrs. And that was if the parade was over in the next hour. I began to ask where all of these people came from. They were from the “mainland” or over the bridges where “the rest of Rhode Island is.” Some people were even there from Boston. Around 2 pm people began to start tripping, some people actually fell. After the fall the friends would usually stand there and laugh, the person on the floor would scream and then someone else would fall from laughing so hard, then they would get up and stumble away. Everywhere people were screaming, “WOO!!!!” hugging, especially men, they appear always to become much more comfortable with their sexuality when they have been drinking. On the walk home we passed 4 different girls crying. The parade was over, so now the police were back at work (and not walking around on the streets, encouraging their fellow St. Pattie’s Day celebrators to keep drinking) and we passed 3 different men getting arrested for public intoxication. It didn’t stop. And Sunday morning, they all moved to Boston.

Bretani Heron: Cruise Goers

2008-03-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

This spring break, I went on my very first cruise. I found the whole experience a bit odd. I mean you are trapped on a ship for five days with people you don’t know and will probably never see again. How does this change people’s personalities, their confidence, decisions, etc?
There are different kinds of cruise goers. There are the family cruisers, the college spring breakers, the first time cruisers, the honeymoon cruisers, the experienced cruisers, etc. I believe the group that fascinated me the most was the experienced cruisers. One couple in particular interested me the most. The first time I saw Mr. and Mrs. Jones was on the second day of the cruise. This was our day at sea before we got to Cozumel, Mexico. I was a little pink from laying out all morning so my friend Paige and I decided to go to the 2pm couples trivia show. There were three couples on stage: newly weds, married for 25 years, and married for 40 years. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were the married for 25 years couple. Mr. Jones looked to be about 50. He had blond hair with a noticeable receding hair line. He was wearing khaki shorts, a half unbuttoned denim shirt and flip flops. Mrs. Jones was probably in her late forties and was wearing a blue and white striped shirt, white shorts and boat shoes. The announcer asked each of the couples how many cruises they had been on. The newly weds were on their first cruise and had actually been married on the boat the day before. The 40 year couple had been on one other cruise when they were just married. Mr. and Mrs. Jones had been on one cruise a year since they had been married… 25 cruises. Needless to say, Mr. and Mrs. Jones won the couples trivia show. It was like they had rehearsed their answers, or the more likely reason they won was because they had played the same game every year for 25 years. Walking around the boat, I began to see more and more of the Jones. I saw them taking pictures at each photo station. Photo stations had the professional photographers taking people’s pictures with cheesy beach back drops. The next day these photos would go on sale for twenty bucks a pop. The Jones never missed a photo station. I also saw them laying out on the deck a lot. This was strange to me because I felt like I looked sweaty from lying out no matter where I was on the boat. The Jones could be lying out and five minutes later be all dressed up in their cute cruise attire at a show. I just assumed that this kind of costume change skill was only possible for the experienced cruise goers. Mr. and Mrs. Jones also ruled the world of night time cruise karaoke. The last night of karaoke, Mr. and Mrs. Jones sang a duet… they were actually good. I think the thing I notice the most was their outfits. She had on a pink skirt with a pink carnival cruise tank top, and he had on khakis with a navy carnival cruise button down t-shirt. I didn’t know people actually bought that kind of apparel. I think the Jones represent all that it takes to be professional cruisers.
The rest of the time that I was not focused on the Jones, I was noticing the decisions people were making on the boat. For example, people were singing at karaoke with no fear, participating in embarrassing game shows, dancing like crazy on the dance floor, wearing tacky cruise outfits that would never be acceptable in public, boys were going up and talking to girls they normally wouldn’t and vise versa. At all of the comedy shows the host constantly reminded everyone to participate because “You are never going to see these people again! They don’t know you!” I think people really took that to heart. I feel like this was odd because if you did something stupid you couldn’t get off the boat. However, in five days these people would be out of your life forever. I guess that is one of the things that appeals to the little world of cruise goers.

the sorrow of stars.the shadows and you.

2008-02-27T21:45:00.000-08:00

it has been almost a year since a series of events allowed us to meet face to face, two years from the time the stars opened themselves up to us. i had held on to the picture of you from the flyer announcing your arrival. i put it in my too tight denim pocket on the way out to the car that night. i folded it neatly, showing your face with a look that i have now come to recognize, i can only imagine the thoughts you had spinning in your head when the photographer said “right there, perfect.” i can only imagine the indention the flyer has made after two years of resting in the same place. i put your picture in a place that would allow me to see it on a regular basis, a frequent stomping ground to keep you in mind. i would not say it was an obsession, but rather an attempt to evade an embarrassing situation. you see, as i have said before, i knew our paths would cross and since i didn’t know when, i wanted to make sure that your face was etched in my head as to avoid missing the opportunity. so the time came, it has been almost a year now, and i recognized you without hesitation. i am not quite sure if i recognized you so easily because of the picture of you from the flyer, the picture with your arms crossed as if you had somewhere better to be, or if it was the way that you presented yourself to me that day. i sat atop the displaced billiard table, legs hanging over the overstuffed, smoke-smelling couch. i had vodka swimming through my bloodstream, and my anxiousness grew as the clock’s arms reached for the five o’clock hour. the sun was begining to make its decent into the western sky, casting an array of shadows throughout the small bar. i sat thinking, focusing on the snag in my tights that was exposing more of me than i had intended. i had a certain energy vibrating beneath my skin when our eyes met. you were just there, in front of me, perpendicular to my billiard lounger. i still don’t know if you saw me sitting, dangling, and vibrating in my skin, before you walked up. i still don’t know why you appeared there. we exchanged words, and i continued to watch the clock. i was going to miss you being surrounded, not by the stars this time, but by the sun invoked shadows. i was going to miss your dance, i was going to miss your melodies, i was going to miss your energy. you went your way and i went mine. i had to calm my nerves, i had to crawl from the shadows, i had to smoke my cigarette. it was that very cigarette that incited our next conversation, or maybe it was the snag in my tights exposing more of me than i had intended that made you speak to me the second time. it wasn’t a regular cigarette that was supplying my sudo-therapy; it was a hand-rolled, vanilla flavored bidi that you noticed my lips around. i offered it to you, the smoke wrapped around your face as you puffed from the leaf that my mouth had just surrounded. we exchanged looks, we exchanged a new way to connect. it all happened so fast that i didn’t even realize that this was the moment i had been anticipating. the stars had unfolded a year before, and here, again, they were placing you in my gaze. i watched as you moved and the energy vibrating beneath my skin transformed . my heart felt a longing that i could not understand. i knew then, it would be just a matter of time that i would feel compelled to share with you the story of how the night sky opened up for us, how the stars melted into bulbs to glow upon your face, how they lead me to you, how they pressed me so close, so snug, that one day there would no longer be room for the instrumental solo i had been searching for.

the sorrow of stars.

2008-02-26T21:50:00.000-08:00

i knew there was something about that house; the house parked on lover's lane. i'm sure it wasn't built there like other houses one board, one nail at a time. i bet it flew there transported by a texas tornado in the middle of hot spring night. i hope the lovers stayed away that night. i hope the threat of a tornado kept them away, but maybe there were two who like the thrill of a kiss beneath threatening skies. i hope they looked up and saw it coming; the tornado with the house nestled in it headed for lover's lane...
the texas tornado he hypothesized might have just as well been a record turning at a speed that kept one from deciphering the music. the needle pressed so close, so snug, that there was no longer room for the essential instrumental solos. caught on a note, one board upon one nail upon one board upon one nail, transported by a rhythm that only a hot spring night could sustain. i believe he has more hope for the two lovers who liked the thrill of a kiss beneath threatening skies. that is the way he would prefer the story. that is the way he prefers his kiss. we both looked up and saw this coming. i predicted it well before he even knew who i was. it was a hot spring night, a caribbean night; the lights were glowing red and orange. i carried a tension with me in those times, it was blinding, it was deafening. the tension had followed me, but as I had done so many times before, i allowed it to linger and i just continued on. nights like those usually led me to seek refugee in something foreign. that night i found my refugee in the glowing lights. the stars had fleed their galaxies and allowed me to settle in amongst them. they wrapped me in their warmth, a halo of destiny accenting my need for an escape. that is where i found him, my head turned slowly, my eyes adjusted quickly and there, within the lights, he stood. i knew it would happen; our paths would cross, in this life or the next. i watched as he moved and my tension withdrew. my heart felt a longing that i could not understand. i knew then, it would be just a matter of time that i would feel compelled to share with him the story of how the night sky opened up for us, how the stars melted into bulbs to glow upon his face, how they lead me to him, how they pressed me so close, so snug, that one day there would no longer be room for the instrumental solo i had been searching for.

Battle Cry

2008-02-26T15:04:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share these links with you about the youth evangelical movement Battle Cry...

Battle Cry

Teen Mania, the Corporate HQ

Ron Luce's special academy

Wikipedia

Rolling Stone article

CNN story

It's really interesting stuff... and a long trail of things to read.

YouTubers

2008-02-12T01:10:00.000-08:00

YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube was created in mid-February 2005 by three former PayPal employees. The culture of YouTube has blown up over the past years. This little world makes it possible for the unknown to get know, for those in need of attention to receive it and the show stars to get recognition. You tube phenomenon has many aspects to satisfy your entertainment while questioning the integrity and respect of America.

First, everyone is a “singer” or think they are. When it comes to showing your talent YouTube makes it happen and all you need is a free membership that will allow you post what you feel. The advantages of YouTube for a young gentleman named Von Smith was recognition and fame for singing the legendary “And I am telling you” by Jennifer Holiday. He made guest aperances on The View and BET’s 106& Park when discovered on YouTube. His amazing soulful voice was a shock to many viewers and as the success of YouTube increases it gives hope to others to continue posting and wait to get responses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od3sbMeYokI

The world of entertainment continues to give hype and illusion that it is a quick success. For example, shows as American Idol, So you think you can dance and many more pretends that one should drop their life for that moment of 1 out of a million chance to succeed. Society gives emphasize on quick money and not on logic of working hard for an attainable career. Even if blessed with the voice to sing some aren’t lucky enough to get discovered or the opportunity to make it a career. My cousin has a beautiful voice and has been on all the shows, American Idol, Making the Band, T-Boz and Chili’s show, Pussy Cat Dolls, etc. It is a very hard world to enter especially with little assistance from the top dogs. Now she is in Atlanta modeling and still trying to get discovered. For others who aren’t able to go to major cities…YouTube is the way to go.

Austin Luker: Water Ski Team

2008-02-11T21:13:00.000-08:00

For the last four and a half years i have been a member of the Texas Longhorn Water Ski Team. I have been around long enough that the incoming freshman were in middle school when i joined the team in fall of 2003. I would like to introduce everyone to this little world that i have come to love. The water ski community (yes there is such a thing) is small yet strong. Everybody seems to know one another in some fashion or can relate back to a common friend usually in less than four people. Basically we are just a bunch of laid back people that love the water. There are many ways to break down water skiing into small worlds. Actually there are many small worlds in small worlds in the sport. For instance, the encompassing little world i am apart of is competition skiing and is made up of a three event system consisting of slalom, trick, and jump. Slalom is where the competitor makes his or her way through a course of 6 bouys in a zig-zag pattern on one ski starting at 28 mph. Trick is where the rider wears a shorter ski, usually 36-40 inches long, with no fin and rounded edges and performs surface tricks. Jump is just what it sounds like. It is the only event in which the rider wears two skis and is pulled off a 5 foot ramp and is judged for distance. No style points here.
The people that make up each event have personality traits fitting of the event. For example, someone who loves high speeds, making quick decisions, and paying close attention to detail would be a great slalomer. Trickers tend to be more passive and creative people while Jumpers are more like the kamakazi's of the sport. If you want a giant adrenaline rush launch yourself off a ramp at 60 miles an hour.
Now that i have introduced the sport i would like to dive further in. Right now on the team we are going through a recruiting period. This is an introduction to the world of skiing. We, as a team, have two boats on campus in order to reach more people. The people I meet as a sit and talk about the team are very interesting and follow a sort of routine when they approach. You have the ones that just walk up and intitiate a conversation and the ones that act like they didn't just make eye contact with you and try to keep their line into the gym until you cut them off. I want to explore the different actions of people as I converse with them over the coarse of the week.

YouTubers

2008-02-11T15:57:00.000-08:00

another regular.

2008-02-07T06:32:00.000-08:00

After work I sat down at the long wooden bar with some waiters and bartenders to wind down. I decided to ask them some questions about some of the regulars that come in to the restaurant and always end up at the bar. I had forgotten about a regular that we had, we will say her name here is Margo. The bartender who usually serves her says the she is the ultimate epidemi of people who come in to the bar and eat by themselves. Their impression of people who are alone is that they are usually really lonely and looking for someone to talk to.
I then asked them to give me a list of words that would describe Margo.
-lonely
-distracted
-alcoholic
-manic/neurotic
-overly friendly (sharing inappropriate information, esp. with sex)
-depressed
I then asked if these descriptions go along with the norm of people, including the other bars that they have worked at. The answer was interesting; they all say that it depends on the restaurant/bar and the environment. When looking at Louie’s, yes, the regulars are all the same. They say that it is because they are all friends, and friends with the owner. And there are occasional days when they are all there together. But when this happens, all they do together is drink.

Free Cell

2008-02-07T00:29:00.000-08:00

I use my computer a lot. Everyday, at least an hour, but more likely much more. It's a vice I just use it too much.

Anyways, I'm addicted to the card game free cell. It's a variant of solitaire. It's kind of hard to explain... you really just have to play it. If you have windows, try it. It's a great game. It's really interesting that every game is win-able. I really like that.

I've been playing free cell since I was around 14 years old... almost eight years now. But I wouldn't say that I've been addicted for that long... probably around 16 I started playing obsessively.

Right now I average anywhere from 5 to fifteen games a day. Sometimes more, but never less. When I was playing a lot, when I was 17-18ish, I probably averaged fifty games a day. I was pretty depressed and would play for hours on and download tons of music at the same time. I still enjoy doing that sometimes now though.

Free cell takes your statistics as you play... Let's see, I had to restart my statistics when I got this new computer, about a year ago. I've played 3044 games since then. That's averaging 8 games a day. If I multiply that by 8 years, I've probably played 23,360 games of free cell. That's a pretty conservative estimate because I'm not taking into account the two years of really obsessive playing... But I think it's fair.

My statistics for this year are:

1762 games won - 58%
1282 games lost

My best winning streak is 22 games in a row, my worst losing streak is 8 games in a row. 22 isn't bad, my personal record is 28...

I know that other people are addicted to free cell, I've heard about a few... and there are a few support groups online. I don't think I need to break the addiction though. After a while it gets pretty mindless and you can play while doing many different things. I usually just have a game open all the time and work on it in stages. However, it doesn't take me long to play a game... usually less than two minutes- it becomes clear that you are either going to win or lose and if you know you're going to win, you can go really fast. Sometimes you have to think about it. I guess I don't really think that much because I like to play faster rather than smarter... looking at my record it's pretty clear (although one period I had a success rate of around 63%).

I can't use a computer without playing a game of free cell... If I'm using a PC that's not my own, I ALWAYS check to see if it has free cell... and I ALWAYS play a game if it does. But if it doesn't, no big deal I don't freak out or anything. I think it's a pretty healthy compulsive behavior compared to others, so I'm happy to have it.

If you win a giant king head pops up.

Sundays-Sixth

2008-02-06T23:53:00.000-08:00

Good Morning Sunday.It is now mid-morning. I grab for my finger and begin typing my ethnographic field notes. As typed in good my finger slipped and I only wrote one o...god. hmm..well i am not going to church this morning service has already started, but I make a mental note to converse with HIM later on today.
I cant believe it is already Sunday. I had so many plans for my weekend and I feel as though I started on each task, got about 20% out of the way and now have 80% *5 to complete during the week where a whole set of other tasks are gonna come up.grrr sunday.
I am just lounging in bed in bed for a little while. I am at the point where I am slightly hungry yet not fully awake. Thus the reason for the lounging in bed. I hear my roommate and her guests in the next room. I am so suprised that they are up. Usually my friends who happen to be members of the "party" little world sleep until mid-afternoon. Maybe I can block them out and try to go back to sleep. This effort is worthless because it seems that there was a cue in the other room to start walking around the house and traveling with the sound as I turned to my side to hopefully nod off to sleep.
I'm up. It's better that I make the most of my day anyway. I go to the bathroom where I greet one of the guests, a member of the "party" and my circle of friends. She goes out I go in. I look in the mirror and greet myself with a scowl-smile. I look awful, but it is humorous. A little streaks of mascara and eye-liner on my face and I too would look like I had been out all night partying. Last night, I actually studied biochem.

Next stop kitchen. I pour myself a bowl of cereal. I say goodbye to the guests who have gone to grab some food. The roommate comes from out of the room with surprising zest for mid-morning and gives me a hug while exclaiming "Roomie!"
I respond with a searching "Yes, Roomie?"
"There was so much drama last night." -the roommaate
Aha, she reveals what has her energy high on this seemingly average sunday. How funny that the night before tensions would be telling of the night/morning ahead. When "party" members were at my house getting ready they were awfully snippy with each other so naturally I assume the drama was between those two girls. I am mistaken. Last night was very eventful but the girls who left this house last night seemed to have had only pleasant encounters with each other after leaving...the beauty of alcohol.

The roommate fills me in on the night's activities. I try to play peacemaker, but soon give up because there is no point. Everyone will be back on good turns by the time the new weekend arrives. Sometimes the groups encounter resemebles our economy ..Recession followed by a recovery and an immediate expansion.

I go back into my room and plop on my bed . i love my comforter it is so, well.. comfortable.Superbowl Sunday is today. hmm i don't know whether to go to a friend's Party or host my own.I know it is last minute but none of my friends don't have plans and a party can easily put together with some pizza , drinks and queso. oh, nvm. After learning of recent events I think a party with the girls may not be the best way to spend the night and since going to a party will require me to maintain conversations with people instead of enjoying the game I opt on staying home.Maybe this year I will pass on the celebration of the Superbowl. I have so many other things that require my attn. like the oh so entertaining bio chem homework.

Beginning to reflect on the past, when Sundays weren't just a recovery period from the night before and when they weren't buried under all the to do's for the past/upcoming week. Sunday's use to be filled with such ease and relaxation. I don't remember ever going to brunch with my family but instead we had a coffee ceremony of sorts. This was one of my most favorite memories as kid.
Our Coffee Sundays start around noon if I can remember correctly. It always started with a really weird looking pot called a menkeshkesh. It has a long extended handle and has vertical sides about the same height as their diameter. My mom would start the process my washing the beans and then roasting them in the menkeshkesh. During the roasting of the beans a really distinct aroma fills up kitchen and when the beans are dark enough the pan with the beans is taken around to everyone. This act allows us to "appreciate" the beans. When the small pot of roasted coffee beans is brought to you it is custom to do a wafting motion with your hand above the pot. After everyone has done this my mom usually went to all the bedrooms giving a chance for coffee beans to extend their aroma through our entire house.
After roasting, the beans are ground and put on a small (no larger than 10in in diameter) straw circular mat called a mishrefet. This item is used as a funnel to pour the coffee into it's pot called the jebena. Water is added to the jebena and the coffee is brought to a boil usually over charcoal but in our house the jebena was made to sit directly in the fire (gas stove). The jebena always had some string like ball at the top of it which remains during the serving of the coffee. i think it's purpose may be to help the coffee brew faster and also purify the coffee by make sure as little coffee grinds come out during the serving of it. During this time when the coffee is boiling my mom is preparing the finjal/small cups used in the ceremony and places sugar in each one. She also loved to make natural popcorn. It was never the microwavable kind. I don't remember if my mom would have incense burning in the beginning of this process but all I remember is that other than the roasted coffee the incense would definitely fill the house with a less favorable aroma, but overtime i grew accustomed to it and eventually enjoyed the smell. When the coffee was done brewing she placed the jebena on its little cushion and put it on this miniature serving tray/cart that she brought out to where we were all sitting. This cart had the jebena, finjal, milk, appropriately sized silverware for stirring the boon (coffee) and placed beside it was the popcorn that was placed in a traditional serving bowl. I specifically remember getting large amounts of milk with my coffee because I was told I was a kid and kid's had to have a lot os tseba (milk) with their coffee. I remember a few times when my mom did this with just the six of us but I think it was usually when her sisters came over or other guests were visiting. There was one time that sticks out in my mind and it was the time my mom was hosting this dinner among family an close friends. Most of the ladies which included my aunt Elsa assisted my mom in the late afternoon boon making.

I miss those Sundays.

My Sunday finishes as follows:

I go to pick up my friend's notes and then on my way home pick up another friend. When we get home I wash Strawberries and Blackberries and set them on the table and I begin to study. The weather outside is really beautiful and adds to this Sunday's ease. Although I am studying it is much more relaxed than any of my previous study attempts that week. The guest that have come back from eating are lounging in my roommate's room and it seems the weather has secured the mood of the day to be a peaceful one. My roommate's door is opened but no one seems to be saying to much. The Superbowl comes on and it is placed on mute so that I have the liberty to keep studying without distraction although I do lift my head up at times. I drop my friend off return to the house after grabbing something to eat and remain in my study state for a couple more hours and then it's off to bed.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qrvno_TXpw4

when you share a wall. part four: the former "b" side.

2008-02-06T22:51:00.000-08:00

it is like walking into a dream every time i go into dave's place. one of those dreams where everything is strangely familiar, yet comfortingly mysterious. he lives on the other side of my wall, a mirrored floor plan of my one-roomed-loft. i never felt the strangely familiar feeling when brent, my first neighbor, lived in the other half. his place was more straightforward. dave on the other hand is a true collector. shelves upon shelves of books; mostly collections of poetry and cooking guides. rows upon rows of vinyl; LPs and EPs, from blues to electronic notes. drawer upon drawer of kitchen details; glassware, the plethora of knifes, and the touch and smell spice rack. then there are the plants that the walls cannot contain. they crawl up the paint, protrude from the corners, take rest in the driveway. dave brought a museum of sorts when he moved in. i must mention though, brent did have the records, lots of them. i have found myself to be very lucky sharing a wall, not once but twice, with enthusiasts of music. not the music you hear on the average radio station, music that doesn’t get the mainstream attention. music that lingers long after the speakers have turned in. music, which even when heard muffled through a partition which serves to separate you from your neighbor, is welcomed. i hadn’t seen brent in a long time, and it had been my fault. up until this last week, i had felt a sense of guilt every time i would think of him. my thoughts of him occured more than i would have ever imagined. every time i would check my mail, there he was. i live on the “a” side and dave lives on the “b”side, when brent moved out of the “b” side his name tag was left in the mail box. two chalk-decorated metal boxes with rusty lids hanging on the wall. the name tag is on the inside of the lid, but due to the weather the lid rarely closes without being provoked. so there, over a year later, is his name written in sloppy yet legible handwriting, exposed to mother nature’s tricks and treasures. although i don’t know dave’s motivation for having kept the tag up so long after its expiration date, i am keenly aware of my rationale. up until i started feeling guilty for having lost touch with brent, the tag served as a friendly reminder of what was then. his living room dance parties, my sneak previews of his documentary work, and the nightcaps on our shared porch. we were friends when in close proximity. about eight months ago, when the guilt began to sink in, the “friendly reminder” tag turned. all of the sudden it seemed more dingy, the corners were beginning to tear, the plastic covering protecting the scribble had developed a thin layer of film. i wonder if it was my guilt for having not been a very good friend that amplified these tag imperfections, or if they had been there all along, yet overshadowed by the good times. i remember the autumn day that the tag came to represent how i felt for not sticking to my word, and for the enjoyable moments i had shared with the former “b” side resident. so the tag was there to stay, masochistic, yet endearing. when i saw brent at the coffee shop this week i knew it was time to face up to the guilt. i didn’t want to seem petty and bring up the phone call i never made, so i instead i asked him how he had been. we shared stories, and reminisced. as i was turning to walk away, before i could even process the moment, the feeling came to me. outside, on the porch, beverage in hand, discussing film and art. it wasn’t the same, but it was strangely familiar.

i am still zipping up my boot as i walk out my front door. nearly tripping over the cats and my mother's overgrown malanga plant, a figure catches my attention. looking towards the mailboxes, i see the mailman. he isn’t our mailman, and i wonder if i was revealing too much of myself while i was tending to my boot and not paying mind to my pleated skirt. “does dave live here?” he asks in a confused tone. he is hutched down, small package in hand, squinting at the tag inside mailbox “b”. i join him at the mailbox, “yes, dave lives here,” i respond, while gently prying my fingertips into the nametag’s protective covering. “i don’t even know why this is still in here,” i say, while stepping towards the garbage tin to dispose of the scribble that once was.

Freaks Rule and Preps Drool

2008-02-06T22:24:00.000-08:00

It’s pretty noisy and crowded at dinner. This was to be expected since it was during the 6:30 dinner rush. The place was humming with movement and the bright lights of the inside contrasted greatly with the dark and dreariness of the chill night. I think to myself that this is the best time to be with friends; inside where it is warm and bright and full of energy. And I have great friends, very eccentric at times, but they suit me. Carie is wearing a Tabasco t-shirt, which I had no idea she even owned, with a grey sweater and her 70’s-riffic colorfully flowered carpet bag style purse. Daphne has on a maroon pea coat and her always present scarf, which is somewhat of a trademark.

As we get our food and find a place to sit down together I spy a somewhat dorky looking guy with his shoulders hunched over his food, trying to catch the eyes of my friends. I felt like I should recognize him, but had no idea where to place him. Carie said hello to the strange looking fellow, whose name happened to be Todd. Apparently he lives in their building and has quite the reputation for being a creepy loner. I’m sure that out of pity Carie invited him to join us, which turned out to be a difficult task concerning the many large trays on the table, but we made it work. I could feel the uncomfortable tension in the air as Carie tried to make small talk and include Todd into the conversation. I glance over at her and see the slight downward turn of her mouth and the tightness of her jaw that is always present when she feel awkward, which is a lot of the time. I know that Daphne also has a similar mannerism when she feels uneasy, because they spend so much time together it’s like they have morphed into the same person. Sometimes they make me feel like a third wheel, but other times it is like we make up a triangle. Tonight I finished one of Carie’s sentences. Daphne had told us that today she had learned that the term “mulatto” comes from a word meaning mule, which is the offspring of a horse and a donkey. Carie then replied that whenever someone mentions a mule she always thinks of something else. I answer with Santorini Island in Greece to which she wholeheartedly agrees.

Anyway the lengthy conversation that ensues covered a plethora of topics from financial to entertainment, to travel, to children. But that’s how it goes with those two; we always land on talking about the strangest things. There is never a dull moment when I am around them, especially Carie who has a knack for getting herself into the very awkward situations she abhors. She put herself into this one with Todd, but lucky for her, he was left out in much of the conversation on his own accord. Anyway Carie asks Todd what kind of TV. shows he likes to watch as an icebreaker. He replies that he really enjoys “Prison Break,” but that he fears that there is not much further for the writers to take the show. That then leads us to the topic of the writer’s strike. Carie confesses that “It is ruining my life.” She states that she has nothing to watch and has resorted to watching re-runs and reality shows and even B. E. T. We then laughed how we would tell our kids that one time we pretty much didn’t even have TV. at all and we compared it the dust bowl. Since, in reality, it was a dry spell of new episodes. We then laughed and said it would be repeated like the stories our grandparents used to tell us about how they had to walk a 10 miles uphill in the snow. “One time there was no TV to watch.”

That got us to the topic of kids, although I’m not quite sure why I asked the next question. I asked them what they would do if their kid was stupid. They both replied simultaneously that they would still love him or her. Carie then added that it would be worse if her kid ended up being the very type of person that she loathed in high school, someone popular. Both she and Daphne cringed at the idea. I suppose I did too as the image of a blonde skanky cheerleader flashed through my mind. They were right, that would be way worse than having a kid who just was not smart. Carie then confided that she wanted to raise her kid to be a freak or a nerd, and I quote, “I want them to have paper or arts and craps stuck in their hair, ‘cause the world needs more freaks.” The term “arts and craps” is used exclusively in this group and means arts and crafts. I nod in agreement that I would much rather have an artsy, musical, or creative kid that might be socially awkward than someone more socially inclined. Is that because I want them to be more like me? Maybe this is the Austin influence speaking or maybe I am just looking forward to molding my spawn into something I approve of and can relate too.

The $1 Coffee Theory

2008-02-06T21:41:00.000-08:00

Okay so all of my observations are finally starting to pay off. In one of my daily observation sessions I finally hit the jackpot. Eavesdropping on a managers meeting. The meeting itself was rather dull. Six people sat around a table in the store. There were five women and one man. And one woman who was brunette and seemed very uptight, yet excited about work was running the meeting. They talked about various things in the store. She was complaining that she wanted to make sure that all the employees were using thorough hand washing practices because she had noticed one of the baristas wipe his nose and then go try and make someone’s drink. She as also complaining about the barsitas not tucking in their shirts, a complaint which was not well received by the women because three of them rolled their eyes when she was talking. She gave out some sort of reward to the man, and gave him a coffee bean shaped pin, and then made some remark about him needing more flair. That then made me think of the movie Office Space. I’m not sure if she was referring to it, but it was really similar, but she really didn’t seem like the kind of person that would have seen that movie.

*But the important thing I heard was...

Okay some of you may have heard that Starbucks has been getting a lot of competition from fast food restaurants and their sales and stocks have gone down. So in response they have been testing out $1 cups of coffee only at their Seattle locations.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/103221?from=rss

But what I heard this manager say is even though this is Austin not Seattle...

If a customer requests the cup of coffee for $1, saying something like you read that they were doing it or something, that they will give it to you for a dollar.

She told her managers not to advertise it or anything but if someone asks just give it to them...

So...the next time you go to Starbucks do it! See what happens...

What do you want?----Castellanos

2008-02-06T21:30:00.000-08:00

“Ps I hit a car today.”

“I gave you three choices.. well just 2 now. Schlotzsky’s or Boston Market… you have to pick between those 2.”

“4.11 Thank you.”

“I’m nauseas. It’s probably your driving.”

Typical conversation as we wait at the Jack in the box drive thru.

Brittany has 28 dollars in the bank. I have about 3.

No more money until Monday; it is only Wednesday.

“I’m really nauseas.” I get car sick very easily and typing makes it worse.

It is almost 10 pm. We have been awake for 3 hours.

I checked my assignments online, none, and now eat my first meal of the day.

Tomorrow is Thursday. Friday I have work again. I am training new employees and finding a replacement for my position, as my boss requested when I told her I could not continue working because school is very heavy this semester. So money has become scarce and homework and downtown have become plentiful.

Tomorrow school 9:30-5:00. It’s my busy day.

It goes by faster than a work day. The change of scenery, the students, the rushing to class, the lack of food, and the learning make it go faster than sitting on the computer making lesson plans, invoices, and phone calls, in an unchanging scenery at work.

I like work though, but I recently changed from administrative work and tutoring to only administrative work because of the large range of driving that goes with tutoring. About 3 hours in the car a day going to and from schools, houses, and the learning center.

Tomato basil, Greek salad, and a turkey original. And a large coke from Jack in the box. This is our meal. Very healthy in my opinion.

Schlotzsky’s deli is a place a frequent to complete homework. Especially on cold days. The tomato basil soup is very good, the broccoli cheese is good too.

Only 5 tables have people occupying them. A large woman with a large black sweater stares at the kitchen while sipping her sprite looking calm and relaxed. In a daze I would say, with a blank stare. She now eats her chips. I can hear the crackle and dazzle as she munches, I can hear it over the giggles and wrapper noises and the old women voices sitting 2 tables away. I can hear the crackle. The large woman sits farther than the voices but I can hear it.

I cannot see who the giggles come from. There are 2 columns in the middle of the restaurant with high tables between them, making visibility limited to the other side. It sounds like college kids, which are the only other college kids here today. The old women are smiling with their pashminas and hair dos ad glasses as they clean up their trash and walk into the cold.

Back to the giggles. It sounds like 2 girls and a boy. Maybe no boys. It seems a lot of times girls can be heard while guys cannot. In any case, the music from the speakers, a calming non vocal mix of piano and string instruments with a hint of jazz is the loudest thing now. It has been on the entire time but the jazz now on makes it somehow louder, more attractive to my ears, and I can no longer hear the crackle and dazzle.

An older man sits all the way across the restaurant. He is not behind the columns. He wears a gold type hat, grey, and reading glasses. He has lots of baggage with him and seems to be doing work. He is reading many papers, still wearing his heavy green jacket which tells of the cold front that changed the warm summer like weather two days ago to the freeze now. He has a Jansport back pack. Vintage. Not really. It reminds e of my older brother’s backpack. He had one when we were in high school. I never had one, I had the trapper keepers. I did not know that people came to do work here. Not that it wouldn’t be a good environment, just seemed like something of college kids, professors, maybe young professionals, not the business man in a heavy jacket that works at the table on the other side of the restaurant.

23. The number 23 card was on our table to indicate our order. The man in the hat took it away. It is 10:16 and they close at 10. Time to go I believe. We are not the only ones here and we are not the last ones to go. I wonder what time the Schlotzsky’s management will kick out, with courtesy of course, the costumers, like us, using their facilities after closing hours.

Carnaval....42---Castellanos

2008-02-06T21:29:00.000-08:00

Julio made a ridiculous head piece. He asked me for wire hangers, which I did not have, to make his head piece. I heard nothing more of it until I saw it on Saturday night at Carnaval. It was red and black, with feathers, paint, makeup and of course, wire hangers.

He looked good. Fit for the occasion.

Brittany and I were wearing cloth skirts and tops we made from 2 dollar fabric we bought at Wal-Mart. I was red and yellow (I wanted to be on fire) and Britt wore green and blue (she wanted to be electricity but looked more like water). We had masks painted on, body paint, and paint on the outfits. We looked fit for the occasion, minus ridiculous head pieces. Which, Julio made because he is an artist and a painter, but I find myself unfit to make a ridiculous head piece due to the lack of talent in such things.

Brittany and I arrive at Carnaval with a water bottle full of Malibu. I figured we would get checked at the door for alcohol and in the line (we would not be able to drink on the street) but as we walked towards the door I saw groups with 24-packs and beers and even some with bottles in their hands as they waited in the cold. The spirit of Carnaval was starting to become clear. A boy in a black thong and a pink boa and a ridiculous head piece walked in front of us. Black boots too. We made some conversation with him as he covered his cheeks with the boa when we walked by cops. It was a sight to be seen. We laughed and drank all the way to the door.

They didn’t check my purse, only my ticket, Malibu was safe. The reason I had the Malibu was because of the crazy time consuming long lines at the bar the Carnaval is known for. It was true. The lines were about 40 people long at every single bar, mind you there were about 40 bars.

“I kinda wanna smoke.”

“Okay baby, let’s go.”

We went to the smoking section, where surprisingly, the bar had about 5 people in line. Jackpot. I got a Bud Light and we headed back into the main stage area.

“TABC.”

Two men with flashlights shone their obnoxious light in my eyes as I strolled around.

“What?”

There were many people, along with the many naked painted bodies, dressed as cops. I thought it was a joke.

“How old are you?”

“21.”

“Can I see your license.”

“for both of us?” I asked, since I was the one drinking.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I pulled out our licenses with no worries. Britt and I are both 21.

The two men looked at the IDs as if they were made of duck tape and there was no way they were real. They were rude. They shone their lights as we waited patiently.

“What’s the address on this? How long have you been 21?”

I answered the questions as he asked me, and he kept asking me, with no time between them as if to ‘catch’ me or something, as if I was doing some terrible thing.

“When did you get your license?”

“Well, I lost it in July so I would say July.”

He looked at me suspiciously and gave it back.

The other man, who was a lot ruder than mine was asking Britt similar questions.

“How long have you had your license?”

“I have no idea…. Since I was 18 I guess.”

The man who was questioning me looked at his partner, Britt got her ID back, and they walked away.

“Assholes huh?”

“Yup. At least we are 21.”

For some reason, I notice more and more, police men are assholes. I admit we look young, and I have no problem being asked for my ID. I think it is a way to keep the Carnaval drinkers under control. But I also think there is no need for the rudeness police men used to ask us questions.

“So what do you check for in the bathrooms?” I asked the security guard in the smoking section doing bathroom watch.

“Mostly for people trying to jump in or out of the fence.”

“Oh, you don’t check for two people going in together? Cause that’s what I thought.”

“No, not really, just for jumpers.”

At first the security guard was a a little cold to my conversation. The dialogue above was after the one below.

“do you want a cigarette?”

“No I quit.”

“Good for you.” I said, sincerely.

I lit up and inhaled.

“Well, actually, yeah, can I get one?”

“Sure, here.”

After we smoked it was nearly 2 am and we were leaving Carnaval.

“You wanna go to Usa’s?”

“If you want to. Did you talk to him?”

“Yeah, he said sure.”

We left Usa’s at 4:30 am.

“Superbowl’s tomorrow.”

“Yeah? Who’s playing?”

We went to bed around 8 am. It was light out and noises were starting to be heard of the early Sunday risers.

It is 5:20 pm on Saturday when I wake up. I go to the kitchen, get my computer, and sit on the couch. I have a test on Tuesday I want to review for. Allie sits on the couch too.

“I wanna get 50 chicken nuggets today. There’s a special at McDonald’s.”

“Superbowl’s today.”

“Yeah, who we rooting for?”

At 7 pm I wake up Brittany.

“Hey baby are you hungry?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“You want 50 chicken nuggets?”

“Mmm-hmm!”

Superbowl special is 50 chicken nuggets, 2 large fries, and 2 large cokes for 12.99.

“Let’s get it.”

The Superbowl was today; the Giants won Superbowl 42.

High School

2008-02-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

The bell rings at 10:45 when I arrive into the classroom. There are 18 young adults who have been either forced, negotiated, or choose to attend school today. Many groan and are loud about completing work because they want to get out of class to roam the hallways with their peers to talk about “real” issues. The majority of student body consists of Latinos then African Americans while the other ethnicities are considered minority or sometimes not even seen in the high school. With this population of the “minority becoming majority” I wonder if one can say that segregation is happening. When the students entered Ms. Lee’s biology class many of the Latino students paired to sit together while exchanging the language of Espanol. The remaining few where African American and sat with other students while not clumping together. It’s as though everyone is “one” and blends together sharing same experiences and economic struggle. Ms. Lee is of the ethnicity Caucasian with this being her second year teaching this subject at this high school, and she’s using her projection overhead off her MAC computer to teach today’s lesson on classification of life. As the lesson goes on the students are doing flashcards on vocabulary from the lecture then they get distracted on side conversations that are settled down by her. A way she gets the class more interested and involved in the subject was offering the correct answer with an ice crème coupon. While observing the gender of the class, four young ladies out of the 18 are present in class.

The history of this high school is that it is low performance on the TAKS test so UT tutors were placed to assist. The goal is to achieve high so the school wont be closed for good. The high school is located in the southeast of Austin where recognition and support form the city of Austin is lower than other areas in the west as LBJ high school or Westlake. This school has many parents at the young age and drop out due to lack of motivation. Can the stereotype of minorities inhibit the support it needs from its society and city?

Bathroom Breaks - Anthony Wright

2008-02-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

January 31, 2008 – 1:45 p.m.

I get to work and set up the tables. Every day we have to rearrange the tables from their regular parallel school-day configuration. The idea is to create a maze to keep the children from running. It doesn’t work.

I am behind the stage trying to decide between the “Dora the Explorer” and the “Sleeping Beauty” puzzles, when I hear the pre-K kids walk in. When I come out from behind the stage, they have already put away their coats and backpacks, gotten out games and crayons, and sat down at the table. I am surprised that they have done all of this without any guidance. I feel unneeded.

Porter starts jumping around and saying that he needs to go to the bathroom. We line up and go on a bathroom break. I emphasize the importance of not talking in the hall. They don’t seem to care. When we get to the bathroom, Porter is the only one who goes. I tell them that they should all try to go, because I don’t want to have to come out here again, but they all say they don’t have to.

We get back into the cafeteria and the children resume their games and puzzles. About three minutes later, Matthew approaches me and says “I have to pee.” I get frustrated and remind him of what I said about everyone going when we were at the bathroom three minutes ago. He smiles at me. I want to make him hold it, but I’m not allowed to do that. If a child has to go to the bathroom, I have to take him or her, and since I can’t leave my group unsupervised to take one child to the bathroom, that means that when one has to go, we all have to go. It isn’t easy to get fourteen four and five year-olds quiet and in a straight line.

We go on another bathroom break against the wishes of Porter, Gracie, and Bella who just want to play. Matthew talks to himself while he is in the bathroom. I tell him to stop talking and hurry. He stares at me for a while as he holds his hands under the faucet, not really washing them, just allowing water to hit them.

We come back into the cafeteria and the games are resumed.

I am listening to Gracie and Porter’s conversation. Once again, themes of gender and sexuality arise. Gracie tells Porter that she is the mom and he is the dad. I hear Porter mention kissing. Bella alerts me that Gracie and Porter are talking about the forbidden topic. Porter gets embarrassed, saying he was just playing. He runs off and Gracie looks distraught. Apparently she wasn’t playing. Her husband has left her. Once again, Gracie is sad. It is funny to me that, as I have pointed out in earlier posts, little boys seem to delight in breaking gender roles and doing things considered to be for girls, but when you imply that they are attracted to a female, they get embarrassed and run from the situation.

Porter runs off to the science table and gets a big red basket of plastic animals. He can’t lift it, and needs my help. I go pick the box up with one hand and Porter is overly impressed. “You’re strong Mr. Anthony!” He says as I carry the the box to the table. “It’s because all of the training I do,” I tell him. He doesn’t ask what I’m training for, and I don’t tell him, because I am lying.

When Porter gets back to the table with the animals, Gracie starts to frantically put her puzzle away. She just wants to play animals with Porter. Right when she gets to the table where her puzzle goes, she drops it. She looks horrified. She bends down and starts to pick the pieces up again. By the time she is done, Bella is already playing with Porter. Ultimate defeat. Gracie decides to color instead. She starts being quiet again.

Porter starts talking about a lion fighting an elephant. Seeing that the toy mountain lion he has is not adorned with a mane of any kind, I identify it as a female. I ask Porter if it is ok for girls to fight. Gracie quickly answers “No!” for him. I ask her if boys can fight. She says “Yes.” Porter and Bella disagree with Gracie. Porter says girls are good fighters and Bella says that she fights her sister all of the time. It’s funny how Gracie, who was so adamant about the legitimacy of female firefighters, thinks that it is so inappropriate for two females to fight.

I ask Bella why her and sister fight so much, and she stares at me like I am absurd. “Do you two fight over what you watch on TV?” I ask. “Nooooooo,” she says. “You’re funny.”

I wasn’t trying to be funny.

A different kind of night: part 2- Amanda

2008-02-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

They call it an event. Something out of the ordinary, that isn’t a regular occurrence of everyday personal routines and formalities. Events can good experiences, yet they can also be traumatizing or horrible experiences that etch themselves into the ordinary. For me, Sunday night was at first a bad event, stressful and not quite like the ordinary that I am comfortable and content with. I was unexpectedly thrown into a situation that I did not want to deal with and that I did not want to admit to needing help with. I was convinced that I needed to prove my capabilities to the kids, the parents, and the program directors. It’s really not that big of deal. You contain seven first graders and four middle school boys for an hour and a half. An event that is frustrating can also be an insightful experience once you’re through it, or at least through the initial shock of the event.

I could finally them loose into game time. I tell them all to line up at the door and wait for the other group to let out of game time. Since my lazy middle school boy helpers weren’t ready to lead the line, the kids just ran wild to the doorway of the game area. The kids needed this change of pace. I needed a moment to get my thoughts together. As we are standing in the doorway of the game room, Maria starts to tell me, “You’re the best leader ever, and I’m so happy you came back. I thought you were never coming back!” I’m kind of surprised about the comment; not about being the best but about her bringing up that I was gone. I’ve been home a month from Christmas vacation and she’s still talking about when I was gone.

Mr. Andrews always gets the AWANA books together during game time and marks off the sections that they passed so we can give awards out. I didn’t feel the need to do all the clerical stuff, and I figured he could just do it next week. I walk back into the room to find my only mature worker, pulling all of the books together to log all of the sections. Joseph is the oldest of seven kids, and I started babysitting for his family back when I was eleven years old. They only had four kids then, but Joseph was enough to make up for all of them. Brilliant kid but with his intelligence came extremely stubborn traits and too much energy for anyone to handle. It touched me to see him acting all grown up and taking responsibility into his own hands. Well since he seemed to have it all under control, I asked him if he was good at telling stories. Whenever I’ve taught kids I’ve had bad experiences. I just don’t know how to keep their attention, so I thought it was better him than me. At this point, if no one wanted to tell the story, I was planning for us to play games the whole time. I went back to watch the kids into game time to cheer them on, and talk to the kids who weren’t playing.

We made it to 7:00 and only thirty more minutes to go. Everything was cool until I realized my reliable story teller disappeared. This means plan two; more games. One of my childhood favorites that weren’t too crazy for our small room was Heads Up Seven Up. I swear I can remember playing it in my first grade AWANA class too, but it was not working with these kids. Colin was disrupting everything with going around the room picking every thumb. Terrance was too shy to say when he was picked. The middle school boys were playing too, which meant most kiddos only wanted to pick them. Besides the mechanics not working, one of the helpers decided it would be funner if we turned the lights off and he did not consult me. Suddenly the lights are off and kids are crawling under the chairs; perfect timing for one of the helpers to come in the room and ask “What’s going on in here? Why are the lights off? I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be under that chair Thalia.” I tell the kids that we are going to finish the game up because Joseph is back and is going to do story time. Timid little Terrance practically whispers to me asking if we can play one more time so he can be a “picker” this time. Who can turn down the request of the shyest and sweetest boy in the class? I certainly couldn’t. We play one more game and then Joseph seems to have gotten cold feet about telling stories. He suggests that the kids tell their stories that they need to tell for the “tell someone a story” section of their books. I’m thinking good luck getting them to want to tell stories, but I needed to suggest it with lack of something calmer to do. I should have figured that my most competitive child, Serena, would want to get that section done with. Once she hears the prospect of getting something else done in her book, she jumps to the opportunity. My helpers are less wired with the main ring leader of trouble not there anymore. I must have scared him off when I yelled at him before game time.

We all gather together at the feet of the armchair that Serena apprehensively sits on. She tells us what her story is about but she is shy in getting started. Thalia starts to say how easy her story is to tell and how she could do it with her eyes closed and sleeping. I tell her to be quiet and respectful to Serena. Serena is talking with a really quite voice and the boys are having a hard time staying still. By boys I don’t just mean the first graders. Since Serena is having so much trouble I ask her if she wants Thalia to go up and help her. It ends up being more of a conversational story, where I asked questions to engage the kids into the stories and get them to start talking on their own about it. Madison tells her story next, but she asks Thalia to stay up there and help her. Brandon is the last one to tell his story which was good because he got to the boys more engaged into the time. It was neat to see how the kids interacted with story telling to each other. By the end they were all paying attention to one another and helping each other out. The parents starting coming during the last story, and the kids and helpers were quickly gone. I picked up the room of all of the little scraps and crayons, and I moved chairs back into their places. I picked up my ethnography notebook that had about five lines of notes in it. I turned off the lights and exited the room.

It was a rocky start for the night. It was an event that caught me off guard, but the end was rewarding and fun seeing all of the kids engaged in each others stories. Also, seeing Joseph, someone who I have seen grow up, having such maturity over the situation at fourteen years old. It was a different kind of night.

everyday culture

2008-02-06T20:01:00.002-08:00

When originally writing my field notes there was a sense of anxiousness that would always precede and proceed my writing. The idea of observing people was something I had always been interested in but now that I had the opportunity to do it, I had great difficulty to observe without being "seen" and to find interesting things to observe. I thought that I would be able to uncover some many of people's nuances and hidden self-truths just by observing them in their natural environment. The truth is I could never really hear well enough or write fast enough to capture anything I felt had a real story. Even though I knew the where and I knew the What I found that my true focus was the why and how; something that I could only capture by interacting with my subject. So, after realizing that I need more of a connection with my subjects to give meaning to my field notes, I turned the attention to my friends and specifically how their culture effects their everyday. The class activity I mentioned in a previous blog started be thinking on why my culture is so important to me and how it is a part of my everyday.I took literally 10 minutes to think about how my being Eritrean affects me on a daily basis and I drew a blank. You would think that I would have no trouble with this thinking task considering how passionate I am about my culture and my heritage...this got me thinking. What do my friends think of the role their culture plays in their lives. Is it something that can simply be pointed out. For example "I write with my right hand because of my culture." or is it something that serves as a backdrop to who they are and really has no role in their present-day.

My group of friends is comprised of many first-generation Americans. I took this opportunity to ask them how the felt their culture was a part of their everyday and this is what a couple of them had to say.

U...
in my opinion, I believe my "Nigerianess" is what causes me to have such a deep respect for those that are older than me. In my household, respect for your elders was of utmost importance. When anyone older than me spoke, I had to listen..it was like a chain of command...all the way down to me. Older brother, older sister, then me...this has into my every day life. At my job, I am noticed for the respect I show to those around me. More Nigerianess, - my morals and values - My mother and father pushed on me the importance of hard work. They showed me how without hard work, I would not get anywhere what kind of person doesn't work hard?? not working hard was out of the question..u have to do everything and anything to achieve success..nothing else was an option...nigerianess..in my household, I was always expected to care for those younger than me, cleaning cooking helping with homework everything.. I believe the reason I cook so much now is bc it has been ingrained in me that this is what i am going to have to be doing for my children and my husband...my name...when anyone speaks my name..the are speaking my culture...whenever a big meeting..in my culture, all the men get together.break kola nut, and talk about the issue..food..rice and stew,plantain, pepe soup..in my name is an igbo woman...my mode of thinking is different....maybe i'm fading away...or maybe its just a new era...a mix of th e good parts..morals, food, ..and some western views...

P...

As an Indian, my daily life is different than others in many ways. I do not eat
meat so whenever I eat dinner I do not have any meat on my plate. I believe
that if I was not Indian, I would have loads of meat on my plate. Also, I was
raised with strict obedience, which means that I always listen to what someone
tells me and do not argue back. This also has a lot to do with values.

" P, what other aspects of your culture do you notice in your every day? When you go bar-hopping for example how do you think your experience differs from anyone elses?"

Well, part of the Indian culture is a chivalrous man. Whenever I go out I never have to pay for anything. It isn't because they are trying to show off or trying to woo me, it's just how they take care of me. With Indian guys i fee like there is an innate obligation to take care of the indian women.

S

We as Eritreans, we value our family a lot. we value our parents so much and we love our siblings so much that we feel obligated to do what is best for not only ourselves but for our family.

"What about all the other individuals who are the same way? Placing a high importance on family is not something specific to Eritreans?"

You know you have those wristbands that say what would jesus do..as eritreans we have those wristbands that say what would my parents do.

"What does that mean"?"

As an Eritrean the way being an eritrean affects our daily life more than others is simply that we use our parents as a source of strength throughout the day. You know how people ask for Jesus's help ...I dont do that I say 'if my parents can do it I can do it" and i say that for various things throughout the day.

"What about other things that show an Eritrean influence?"

I use a gabbi when I sleep.

(gabbi= sort of blanket made of cotton)

I use kemem in my shahi.

(Shahi=tea)
(Kemem=spices)

The gold chain that I have around my neck. Gold is much more appreciated and valued in Eritrea and I saw this growing up from my dad, my uncles and older friends having them as well.

Sen

We always have a reason to eat sweets. You don’t typically have a dessert with every dinner. Our main reason for eating sweets comes from a holiday or guests coming over. That is why I think my eating sweets behavior is reflective of my culture; there has to be a special reason to engage or indulge in sweet. I never have sweets for the sake of having sweets.Also, I feel like in general our primary proper behavior is installed by our parents. Socially in America we like to be relaxed, but we keep everything in our heads. Eritreans like to tell you everything they are feeling but they looked so reserved. Our default is what our parents have taught us. When you don’t know what to do we resort to our default programming by our parents. And I feel like our default is even more evident in social situations. OUR default situations are reserved and reflective of eritreans of the 20^th century, the Italian influence, Eritrean pride…in contrast though we are not reserved in our expression of how we feel and what we say.

Frolf

2008-02-06T20:01:00.001-08:00

Sitting at the table at Pease Park and facing northward I notice that the sun is just past overhead and brings warmth to the area. The individual rays penetrate through the canopy of the trees, while exposed areas are left drenched in sun. It is a beautiful day.

I feel as if in previous blogs I have already provided an idea of what Pease Park has to offer as far as physical appearances and most common activities. Therefore, today I want to take a close look at a specific little world: Disc golf. According to Wikipedia…

“Disc golf (sometimes called Frisbee golf, folf or frolf) is a disc game in which individual players throw a flying disc into a basket or at a target. According to the Professional Disc Golf Association, "The object of the game is to traverse a course from beginning to end in the fewest number of throws of the disc."^[1]

Disc golf is similar to traditional golf and uses much of the same rules and terminology. As in ball golf, a course usually consists of 18 holes. Unlike ball golf, most courses are located in public parks and are free to play, although some courses require a nominal fee, and the sport requires inexpensive discs instead of costly clubs and balls. ^[2] The modern disc golf target consists of a metal basket with chains hanging over it and was invented in 1976.

There are five public courses in the immediate Austin area. Disc golf is unique in that it is free to play and the courses are maintained by the city rather than a private organization. Thus, disc golf is a much more accessible sport than real golf as the equipment and playing costs are lower. I am not an expert on disc golf but I have observed and played enough to create certain assumptions or opinions about this particular little world.

I have played at both the Pease Park course and the Zilker Park course. They are both fun and provide a similar atmosphere. However, I prefer the Pease Park course as it is prettier and more elaborate in how rugged it is.

The most interesting part of this little world to me is the people. There are people who have tens of discs, special carrying bags, and keep score rigorously. There are also those people who are clearly good at disc golf but shun the over-the-top disc golf apparel and bags. Then there are those that are there for social reasons or just for fun that have a singular disc and don’t truly care about the outcome. I fall into the last category.

Across each of these groups of people there are some similarities. While each could be a little world inside a little world of its own, beer seems to be the common connection. Disc golfers love beer. The drink of choice seems to be anything 32 ounces or larger, and coolers are not out of place to carry reserves.

I am intrigued and rather enjoy the culture of the sport. So many groups of people try to be exclusive but disc golfers are friendly, using public courses, and drinking beer along the way. There is not another sport in which it would be odd NOT to see someone with a beer in their hand while playing.

The sport itself is not easy, even though most people think it doesn’t look too hard; those people are sorely mistaken. Putting is the biggest problem for me. I notice this among all the skill levels present at the course, and that is a similarity to real golf I believe. Most people can get a good initial huck for some good distance but the actual precision to get the disc in the basket is tricky.

I also enjoy Disc golf clothing. Anything from hiking apparel, to athletic wear, to dressing like a hippie is acceptable. It is a little world that is absent of pressure, stereotypes, and rigidity…and for those attributes I think it is terrific.

Autopilot

2008-02-06T18:38:00.000-08:00

The school day ends just as fast as it began and I start shuffling back to my apartment in order to change into my work clothes, which consist of a collared shirt with Crossmark stitched into the front and a pair of jeans. I move down into my car and start the drive to the five different Home Depots that I will be servicing for the day. My work for Crossmark has many different aspects in it since I am a vendor and work in groups sometimes but more often I work just by myself. On most school weeks I just go stock candy and drive the exact same route making it feel as though I am on autopilot.

After arriving at the store it became apparent that there had been a rat problem on one of the platforms and I quickly removed the entire shelf of product that had been affected. As I move to throw it out I run into my friend, John, who works from his wheelchair. He begins to berate me with jokes as he makes a gesture to try to steal the candy from the cart. A lady approaches us to ask where she can find a pipe for her sprinkler system and I tell her that I don’t work at this store but that John could help her. She restates her question and John tells her where to go, however, she can’t understand what he said due to his speech impediment. Understanding exactly what he said, I reiterate it to the customer and she leaves as she keeps looking back at us as we are conversing. This must be a common scenario for John because he never turns around to see people as they stare at him when they walk away. Many people tend to see him as a strange employee since he is handicapped at a do-it-yourself type of store. Most people try to talk to him as if he is a child, or just altogether try to avoid him since they feel uncomfortable around him for one reason or another. Our conversation comes to a close as he is summoned to go on his break and I get back to fixing my mouse problem.

Being a vendor gives me the unique perspective of the interactions between Home Depot employees because they see me every week and some have developed a friendship with me. At the same time I am not part of their usual workforce and thus am unknown by many. This means that I don’t have any perspective of what has been happening at the store rather I just get a week by week glimpse of the Friday morning workforce. As I move through the check-out stands quickly shuffling through the boxes of candy many customers and employees stop by to talk to me. Perhaps because they are interested to learn why I am there but more often they call me the candy man and try to ask me if free samples are being given out. Most people when they ask me this think they are being sly or originally comical when in fact it is the most cliché statement that occurs every time I stock candy. Although I find it annoying, most the time it seems to be ordinary for me to turn around and fake a laugh for them. This probably exacerbates the problem by giving people a false sense of originality but I can’t seem to avoid appeasing them.

Moving through the store I arrive at the contractor area. This side seems to be its own little world because the customers on this side come in almost daily to buy supplies for the construction project that they are working on. The interactions between the customers and cashiers are livelier and are based on a friendship level rather than as a business transaction. The cashier on this side, therefore, is always telling me about what type of candy the customers are requesting on this side of the store and asking me to change the lay out to satisfy them. The contractors are the highest consumers of candy and other snacks on account of the fact that they are always looking for food on the go and because it is easy to slide onto the company account at the store. They always joke about putting it on the account before they do it but they do this in order to relieve the guilt of charging the company an extra dollar so that they can get a snack. The head cashier comes to talk to me about ordering more candy to fill in the holes on the platforms. I inform him that he still needs to take care of that himself by doing a manual count of what he needs and that when he puts this information into the computer system I will be able to fix the problem.

After tearing through all the boxes of candy I begin to retrace my steps back through the checkout stands to fill any holes that were missed or product that is back stock on my cart. As I begin to finish up another customer comes up to ask me a question about where to find mower blades. I inform her that I don’t work for Home Depot and she seems surprised just like many of the other customers. It baffles me why people assume I work for Home Depot when I am not wearing an orange apron and instead am wearing a shirt that clearly states I work for Crossmark. Many people must assume that whoever owns the retail store they enter is whom all the workers must be hired by. Many people are unaware that vendors are usually used by many product labels to force the store to stay faithful to the floor plans and product placement that they previously agreed upon. Moving to the receiving area I begin to filter out the plastic from the cardboard boxes so that I can use the compactor. After throwing out the trash and putting away the back stock still on the cart I go back into autopilot mode and drive to my next store to do it all over again.

Homesick in a foreign City

2008-02-06T18:31:00.001-08:00

Friday evening my friends and I headed out for an evening meal. We were in a new city for the weekend, Marti Gras weekend, in New Orleans. Several of my friends had never been to New Orleans or even to Louisiana for that matter, and I wanted to show them the heart of true New Orleans. One of my friends was from the French city and was content on eating dinner at home, because she had ‘been there and done that’. I felt that everyone who was with us needed to experience something new, so we were going to have great Cajun food. It took us quite a bit of time to decide on a restaurant, there were many things to consider. What the ambiance should be, whether we should go to an upscale restaurant with good food and probably a high price tag to go with it. There was a café that New Orleans was famous for, it didn’t necessarily have the healthiest food, but it was classic for the city. Then there was a moderately priced restaurant that seemed to fit most of our needs, those were the needs of 3 vegetarians, a vegan and 4 who loved a big steak. I didn’t want to tell them that they were not going to find the same kind of steaks that were in Texas, in New Orleans. We finally decided that the wait would be way too long at the first two options, being landmarks in New Orleans and all, so we settled on the moderately priced third choice.

We walked through the streets after our native friend’s parents generously dropped us off as close to the restaurant as they could. We arrived and admired the attractive patio that we crossed through to reach the inside of the restaurant and the hostess stand. We approached the stand with high hopes.

Us: “A table for eight please”

Hostess: “ Inside or out”

Us: “First available”

Hostess: “ It might be quite some time until we have anything that will be available, inside or out, for a group that large. If you like, we can seat you separately and you might be seated earlier”

Us: “Exactly how long are we talking about for first available?”

Hostess: “Well, I can’t exactly say, close to an hour, up to two”

Us: “Please just put our name down and well wait”

Hostess: “Name Please”

Us: “Hansen”

We walked out of the entrance to wait in the pretty court yard that we had seen earlier, a little defeated but determined to eat eventually. As we walked out, a friend of mine spotted a bar next to the court yard and our spirits lifted a bit more. As we lined up, one after another to get drinks to ease our wait, we were confronted with a new experience. New Orleans has always been known for its excentricness and we were confronted by one of the spirits of New Orleans. An elderly gentleman, probably 65, was dancing around us with an umbrella in the classic Marti Gras colors, wearing little more than a yellow Speedo, sunglasses and a scarf. We were shocked that he had somehow made it past the doorman and into the court yard of the restaurant, not to say that it was the nicest restaurant, but we felt that we were not quite on the parade route also. Then all of a sudden it was as if we all had the same universal thought, it was as if we never left Austin! And we all felt a little homesick in a foreign city.

Second Family

2008-02-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

Family is the people with whom you have a permanent bond. You are connected to them through blood, share the same DNA, or maybe you are family through law. However, it is your family is connected doesn’t matter. Families come in all shapes and sizes. They are always there to support you, in a time of triumph or a time of crisis.

Because we work so much, sometimes we see our coworkers more often than we see our actual family. In this case, sometimes our coworkers become a sort of interim family. Much of the relationship dynamics at work are similar to those in a family. There is the nurturer, the one who takes care of all of the tasks that everyone else forgot to do. The goofy one who is always cracking jokes at inappropriate times. Those who are proud of you for doing well. And those who get jealous.

Sometimes the hard times are when you need your family the most. A few weeks ago, I received an email informing me that one of the partners of the law firm where I work part time as a file clerk, had a stroke the night before. I couldn’t believe it. The first thing that came to my mind was seeing him turn the corner of the hallway and finding one of the other partner’s visiting sons who was about five years old. “So we meet again!” I remember Mr. Long said in a villainous and animated voice.

Without knowing him, I know that Daniel is the kind of man who is always friendly, always positive, and lives life to its fullest. How could something like this happen to such a good person? This is one of those questions that I think people ask many times in life. It just doesn’t make sense. Daniel is probably in his early forties and in extremely good shape. He looks like one of those dads you seeing running around the neighborhood pushing a stroller. He is a former Marine and JAG who looks like he has carried over athleticism and fitness into his current lifestyle.

Immediately following the first email about Daniel’s stroke, many more followed. Several a day, in fact, updating the office on Daniel’s progress and his wife’s and children’s coping. The children are too young to fully understand what happened to their dad so they were told that he was sick and would be away for a while getting better. His wife is pregnant so I can’t even imagine how she is feeling at this point.

The firm decided to leave a journal in the kitchen so that people could write encouraging notes to Daniel. I felt compelled to do so, but then thought about the fact that he probably doesn’t even know who I am. There was also a collection for money to buy Daniel’s the things she had registered to receive for the expectant baby.

I felt as thought the firm was strangely connected on a deeper than professional level. It was a spiritual and emotional level and all through email. I didn’t know Daniel or anyone else who works at the firm except for when we’d occasionally pass each other in the hall or copy room, but I found myself sincerely concerned for him and thinking about how he was doing. It’s amazing the kinds of impressions people can give you just by a glance or a quick encounter and how office relationships can turn into a second family.

Iliana- One starry night

2008-02-06T18:10:00.000-08:00

His teeth are stained purple and his breath reeks of sour merlot, the wine we shared for dinner this evening over small racks of lamb. The little booties the chefs at La Cuillere D'or put on the rib tips strangely make me yearn for a child. I don't dare tell Robert. It isn't until we reach the Coleman St corner off Pearson that I say anything at all.

"He would be a piano player, Robert."

For awhile, he continues to stare into the southern night sky as he walks, then closes his eyes to be introspective. A small breeze licks my collar, and I find that I'm regretful I said anything about having children. The unruffled profile comes to a halt.

"Woman. I have something to show you."

Panic.
Fearful excitement. He grabs my hand and I jerk it back slightly, disgusted by the cold and clammy leather texture of his palm skin.

I am being led. Up? Up. We are floating. Robert floats, levitates, and he's taken me. Flattery: he chose me. Resentment: rightfully so, the neglectful bastard. Forgiveness: how could I hate him.

Right away I feel the air pressure melt away, leaving my arms and legs. Robert looks stern and determined, his wrinkles are being forced back by the change in gravitational force. A scream is painted on my face because I cannot close my mouth completely.

Rising.
Moving past the troposphere. The sky is frozen there, and I see everything because I cannot close my eyes. Farther up, closer to the sun, it's warmer. Past the stratosphere, I feel his wet leathery hand's tight emotionless grip. My clothes are wet from melting ice and we breach the electromagnetic field. Like AM radio transmissions, I can hear Robert's thoughts for a brief moment then they're cut out with a loud pop of static. "...quantum set...an edge along the parameter...we are stars...POP!"

We are floating with a pace I cannot measure. Ascending. Descending.

"There he is. That is our beautiful child."

Girls deserve to be treated like diamonds

2008-02-06T18:03:00.000-08:00

My boyfriend got home from work today, and so I walked over to his apartment from mine since we only live a building apart. I walked in, and he was sitting on the couch with his roommate's girlfriend talking about his day. He rambled on like he always does about the things that went wrong with his day. Both of them said hi as I walked in and I dropped off my stuff into his room and went back out into his garage because I needed to fix the random things on my car. I needed to clean it again, because the other day before our class, I went through a cheap car wash and the water/soap sprayed straight into my convertible. I've been through a few car washes with my convertible and this was the first one that sprayed through the sealed window. Ironically, it didn't even clean my car on the outside, except for soak the inside. I was pissed. Anyways, I replaced the windshield wipers and wanted to hand clean my car. My boyfriend came out about 5 minutes later and helped me replace the wipers. He then detailed his car and we went to Wal-Mart to go get some glue. At Wal-Mart, we were in a random clearance section because my boyfriend decided he wanted a racing helmet since it was on sale. Only because it was on sale. I told him he was just like a 5 year old boy and an older man overheard who had his 2 boys with him, and said "No, these are 5 year old boys." He then jokingly told me that it gets worse as my boyfriend ages. I was like oh shoot. Anyways, we got random things from Wal-Mart, including gorilla glue, leather cleaner for inside my car, and simple green stuff to get oil off concrete. When we went to check out, the girl at the register joked around with my boyfriend and then when I tried to pay for my stuff she didn't say anything whatsoever to me. I always find it funny how girls don't talk to girls when guys are around. Why do they have to act like a bitch to me just because I'm standing next to my boyfriend? If I'm by myself they usually talk to me, but if I'm next to a guy my age they don't say anything. Anyways, I guess when I'm working I tend to do the same thing. If a couple comes up my age, I usually don't talk a lot to either of them unless they're outgoing towards me. I don't want to talk to the girl's boy because the girl might think I'm hitting on him. So I usually try to have small talk with the girl. However, it always seems different when I'm out with my boyfriend. They always end up talking to him and not me, even if I try to have small talk with them. As I walk out, I usually go thanks and they don't say anything to me. When he says thanks, they say thanks. Ahhh.. I just want a girl cashier to be nice to me if I'm with my boyfriend. Anyways, that was even the point of this blog. So as we leave, we decide we'll wash my car tomorrow because it started getting much colder outside. We go to sonic, then go home. We eat at his island in his kitchen while his roommate with his girlfriend are on the couch filling out his tax return on the 60 in' TV screen in their living room. See... my boyfriend finally put a lock on his computer because his friends kept on looking up porn and putting viruses on his computer. He didn't want to tell his roommate the passcode so the roommate had to show him up by connecting his CPU to his huge television in the living room. Anyways, after we finished eating, we all sat on the couch and watched an episode of Rob and Big. His roommate's girlfriend was drinking; more or less intoxicated. She had her DWI court hearing earlier and they convicted her of a DWI. Ever since then, she's been drinking. A little background history on his roommate and the girlfriend, they've started dating a week after New Year's. She's always been more into him than he has been into her. He told one of his friends that he didn't like her that much even though he continued to hang out with her. His friend who dates her best friend told his girlfriend, so one thing leads to another, and the roommate's girl finds out. Of course she yells at him about it because it was a dick thing to say and even more of a horrible thing to continue talking to her if he didn't like her like that. Anyways, tonight she was drunk, and she sits there and tries to kiss him and cuddle on him. She uses his restroom, and then comes out and apologizes about dumping the paint that was sitting right next to the toilet onto the toilet. It was paint on porcelain which comes off with a towel, but he rolled his eyes and went to clean it up. She sits there, looks at me and gave the accident eyes. I felt bad for her because he had no right to be overtly mad about the situation. She continued to drink as we all watched Rob and Big. My boyfriend's roommate continued to shrug her off and she continued to take it. I don't understand why she sat there the whole time and gets hurt over and over again. If I ever felt like I wasn't wanted, I wouldn't continue to sit there and take it. I felt bad for her, but then again, I didn't. It's her fault for putting up with it, a girl needs to put her foot down and not take shit from guys. Guys don't rule the world, and guys def. don't rule a heart. For political office, I want a girl to be president, but I'm not going to vote for a girl who chose to stay with her husband who cheated on her. Yes, it's a good political decision to stay with a guy who has already been president, but he cheated on her! It shows a woman's strength with how they deal with certain relationship situations. If a woman stays with a man who cheated on her, then it shows they're the weaker one. There are a million other opportunities for happiness in the world, and a man who cheats on you is not your soul mate. A girl needs to be treated with respect, and shouldn't put up with men who treat them like dogs. I want to feel bad, but then again, they're asking for it.

Monday

2008-02-06T16:05:00.000-08:00

The alarm clock reads 7:45 am. I wake up realizing that I have no idea when I am supposed to meet up with one of the undergrads from the lab. I start to think of what to do. Thought process is as follows:

I should have sent that e-mail out notifying Sean and Steph about the adjustments to the schedule. If I would've done that I would have something to go by, but now I have no idea when I am supposed to meet him. Is Sean at the Arc? *I Check my phone* No, I would have definitely received a phone call from him. If he is there I am definitely screwed. Why did I take that nap yesterday? If I hadn't taken the nap I would have made it on time to the meeting and then my tardiness today wouldn't be so bad. Jeez, I am supposed to be more responsible now that I get a stipend. Well, I guess I should get out of bed and get ready in that case if our meeting is early this morning it will take me no more than 12 minutes to get there.

* an hour and a half passes*
*check my phone*

Thoughts continue: Relief "Sean hasn't called yet. I don't think we set a time at all. Man, these guys are really gonna start wondering why I am in charge of this study. I have to get that e-mail out so they can know when we are meeting."

*I lay my head back down on the pillow thinking I have enough time before class to get a few more minutes of sleep. I wake up abruptly. My eyes pop wide open and I look to the clock. It is now 10:30. The freaking out begins... Class started at 10:00.S--t! "I'm gonna fail." Hand goes to head in disbelief. Why didn't I just get out of bed earlier? Now i have not only missed another lecture but I wont get the chance to remind my group to review Project 1 with the Ta's. I am gonna be so pissed if I dont make a 30/30.

Phone rings.Oh sh-t.Sean!Why is he calling from a different number?

"Hello??" moi
"Roomie?" The roommate . whew, it wasn't Sean.
"Yes roomie?" moi
"Are you home?"
"Yes."
"Can you open the door? I don't have my key."
"Sure. Just call me when you are outside."

I hang up the phone, look at the time and lay back down. Roommate calls again and I go to the door and unlock it. Then I rush back to bed because I have just realized that I am freezing cold which makes me wonder what my roommate is doing in a tank and capris. I start talking to my roommate about how I missed my class that started at 10. She let's me know that she is going to work and that she wouldnt mind dropping me off on her way. I am all of sudden much more relieved because my day will turn out to be productive after all. Going to campus early =productive. I can do a number of things. I'll have easy access to the ARC just in case Sean calls, I will be able to go to office hours for the class I just missed and maybe even get help with project that is due next week. 20 minutes later we are out the door. My day has turned around for the better and all the negative thoughts going through my mind earlier are now replaced with positive, encouraging thoughts.

Library Books by Christopher

2008-02-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

I am addicted to the library. Sometimes I feel like I pay tuition just in order to have a library card (although I know that I could get a guest card for an annual fee of 50 dollars). Every morning, I have to step over the stacks of library books lining the perimeter of my bed. I even have the library catalog on my firefox bookmarks toolbar for easy access.

I currently have 84 books checked out from the UT Library System. This number does not include the six or seven books that I have out on ILS (interlibrary loan service ... which is an amazing service because you can get almost any book, CD, movie, graphic novel, whatever). I generally take a few in and a few out each day that I am on campus. Sometimes I take the bus simply because I don't want to bike all that extra weight around.

I am friends with some of the people who work at the Fine Arts Library and the AV Library, and I know the personalities of most of the regular check-out desk people at the PCL. The security guy at the PCL doesn't even ask questions anymore when I have to pass my backpack around the sensors (because ILS books would set off the alarm). I've been to most of the libraries on campus and they each have distinct personalities... the minuscule Classics library, the monotonous Physics/Astronomy library, the labyrinthine Benson, the enormous PCL, the ornate architecture library, the stately Life Sciences library ... I'll stop there. Well, the architecture library is really awesome too.

I work for a professor in the French department, and one of my main responsibilities is to get books from the library for him. Which works out excellently for me because it allows me to do my rounds and work at the same time.

I have had late fees only once or twice. Online renewal makes them easy to avoid. The hold/recall system can cause a little havoc although the recalls do help regulate my reading by making me focus on a single book for a little while.

Sometimes I search by author or publishing house. Sometimes I use Amazon to scope out popular texts on a given topic. Their lists can be quite useful. Other times I just grab books off the shelf. I look through the return shelves a lot too. The new books section generally isn't that great though.

I think my addiction stems from the thought that I won't have access to these books forever. It's similar to how I was about music a few years ago, downloading and archiving obsessively. I burned 16 spindles of CDs during my freshman year at UT. Probably not terribly healthy. But one thing leads to another and there's always something new. Interests lead to new interests, new resources, new media to be explored. More information to be processed, analyzed, archived, returned.

Spin Class: Bretani Heron

2008-02-06T15:33:00.001-08:00

I was running late as usual. I run late to everything. Spin class at 24 hour fitness starts at 5:30. Hurry up. We are going to be late. I know, he said. Calm down we will get a bike. It fills up fast, I said. I don’t want to get stuck in the front by the instructor. We ran out the door and drove the 5 minutes from avenue F to 24 Hour Fitness.
Gyms at 5:30pm are terrible. I guess everyone gets off work and tries to go forget about their day. The parking lot at 24 Hour Fitness probably holds 200 cars. There are far more than 200 people at the gym around 5:30pm. There are 50 people alone in the spin class. When there are no spots available, people park at HEB, behind the Hancock Center, or along the street. So if there are 300 cars parked for people at the gym and maybe 1/3 to ½ of those people came with another person, there are somewhere between 400 and 450 sweaty bodies all in the same room, using the same equipment, drinking from the same water fountains. I hate going to the gym at “rush hour”.
We run to the front desk and ask for the 5:30 spin class signup sheet. It is 5:15, but the classes fill up so quickly that sometimes it is necessary to get there even earlier than five. I don’t know how we got so lucky. Maybe people’s New Year resolutions are starting to wear off. Last Wednesday, I was infuriated because I came at ten till five and with a mocking voice the receptionist told me “You have to get here early if you want a bike”. “4:50 is early”, I said. “Not early enough today! Sorry!” We were lucky today.
We made our way through the gym to the stairs because the spin studio is upstairs. I couldn’t help but notice the ratios of girls to guys using certain equipment. Most of the girls were on the treadmills or elliptical machines. Guys were mostly using the machine weights and free weights. Not everyone fell into these categories. I’m talking majorities. This made me think about France. When I lived in France, I never did weights. Not because I didn’t want to, but because it wasn’t acceptable for girls to lift. This was a masculine form of exercise. I learned this after school one day at the beginning of the term. Emma and I went and bought a work out pass. Her boyfriend plays for the University of Colorado Baseball team and had written her some work outs we wanted to try. When we walked into the weight room, everyone stopped and stared. I was like time had been frozen. During this period of awkward judgment, I noticed there were no other girls in the room. “Want to leave”, I asked. “No way”, said Emma. “We have just as much right to be here”. Not even one minute into our workout we hear, “Arête! Arête! Stop! Stop! C’est dangereux! (It’s dangerous!)” “Is he talking to us”? I asked. At that point this little old French man came over and proceeded to tell us how we were doing our exercises wrong and that if we didn’t know what we were doing we should be in here. He told us maybe if we stuck our butts out further our form would be better. At that point we left. Why is focused more towards men in any country? It’s good for anyone’s health to increase their strength and balance.
Upstairs in the spin class it was confirmed that we were late. There were no more bikes. We asked the instructor what the problem was because we had signed up and the class wasn’t full. This short little man had a deeper voice then I would have expected. “Whoever did not sign up for a bike must get off their bike and leave NOW! That is bad spin class etiquette!” Slowly one at a time two people dismounted their bikes and glared at us as they left the class. “Don’t be so late next time”, said the instructor.
The spin class room is all mirrors. There are 25 bikes on each side. The really hardcore “spinners” sit in the front. If I can help it, I sit in the back. Today I had no choice and took a seat in between two slightly overweight middle aged men. Are you kidding me? We haven’t even started the class and I can’t breathe. The class consists of about 8 3 plus minute songs. Each song is a different type of terrain; flat race, big hill, multiple little hills. Most everyone moves to the beat of the music. It’s nice because there is no competitive atmosphere. Everyone is in charge of their own resistance and no one knows how hard your personal workout is. The male to female ratio is about 4 to 1. I think that girls are more concerned with cardio. I don’t know why. Either they really enjoy it more or society has told them this is more appropriate form of exercise. Why do people choose the workouts they do? I only have two friends who consistently go to spin classes. They both said they started by going with their moms. Maybe family/friends have a lot to do with it. Who knows.

Honk only if it's necessary

2008-02-06T14:33:00.000-08:00

Clock’s ticking, telling me that I should leave soon to my cousin’s apartment on 24th street. I’m supposed to meet him at Starbucks on 24th street by 1:00 PM. Yesterday around 3:30 PM, my cousin, Chris, called and asked me if I could do him a favor. Chris is one of those cousins or relatives who are always there to help you if you need anything. Knowing that, I told him of course. He’s currently triple majoring, including Radio-TV-Film. One of his project was to film an event: an ongoing event. So he decided to film his Japanese class. The only problem was that he has so many heavy equipments and there aren’t many place to park by UTC. He asked me if I could take him to UTC and drop him off.

We drive to his apartment and start loading his equipments to my car. As I start to back out of the parking lot, I hear someone honking at me really loud. This girl comes out of nowhere and starts to honk at me like I drove into her car or something. I say, “Was that really necessary.” I try to be calm and start to move my car forward so she can drive behind me. I know a lot of people get very defensive and say stuff they won’t usually say when they drive. I understand. I mean driving has to do with your life and others. If someone drives very immaturely and put other people in danger, I’d be very upset too. However, I usually keep those emotions to myself. I don’t know why. I just do.

Unlike my reaction to this incident of almost getting into a car collision, Chris, bursts out cursing and yelling at this girl. I’m not so shocked by his reaction; I’ve seen him doing this probably a million times. After few seconds, without realizing, I start to laugh out loud. Chris looks at me from the passenger seat like I’m losing my mind. After I’m done laughing, I tell him that I’m just so fascinated by our two totally different reactions from the same experience. If anyone should be upset and cursing, it should be me since I’m the one who’s driving and it’s also my car. Chris nods in agreement but tells me that maybe it has to do with our personalities and own experiences with cars and driving. This time, I nod in agreement. But we realize that we have both been a car collision. My first car accident was with a police officer. Whenever I say this to people, they look at me weird. I mean. Car accident with a police officer does sound strange. This is what happened: I was at a Korean store getting stuff for mom because it was the lunar new years, [Chinese new year people call it] and was driving towards exit to get on the road. There was a stop sign and a police car. I waited behind the police car, hoping that she’d leave soon. But no, I waited behind her for a long time but didn’t have the courage to honk at a police officer. Then out of nowhere, she started to back up to my car. That was when I started to honk at her like I was going crazy. The weird thing is that she was looking straight at me, but kept backing up to my car, and hit my car pretty hard eventually. My front bumper was all cracked and broken. I felt weird. My shoulders, neck, and arms were hurting badly, especially my elbow [I fractured my elbow in high school from playing tennis]. That was probably one of the weirdest experience I’ve ever had in my entire life.

Back to Chris’s parking lot. The mean girl behind the wheel is gone and I start to back out and drive towards the road. On one side of his apartment, we find that girl, trying to reverse park but doing a horrible job at it. She took the both sides of the road, blocking me to drive towards the actual road. Chris is yelling at me for not honking at her. But I do not honk at her; I have this weird feeling that she’s going to scratch her car real bad from the garage. Chris looks at the girl and senses the same thing. So we just wait. In our car. Staring at this girl. Waiting for something to happen. After like a minute. Of course. She backed up to the side of the garage, scratching the whole left side of her car. As soon as we hear that nasty scratch noise, we both started to laugh. We both feel that evil victory feeling. This sounds really bad but we couldn’t help it for some reason. When I finally drove by her, we both looked at her and gave her this “yes. Karma’s a b@&%h.”

In approximate time span of ten to fifteen minutes, Chris and I witnessed and experience the same incident. I can say that our initial reaction were somewhat similar but quickly advanced to different emotions. However, we did somehow ended up sharing a sense of ‘evilness’ after witnessing the girl’s tragedy with her car. Maybe we were being very mean. Maybe we are just mean people. Or…that b@&%h got what she deserves..

Shoplifters and Robberies

2008-02-06T14:26:00.000-08:00

Sometimes at Music Mania I worry about my safety, its not just the fact that it is an Urban Music store, and I work till 11pm, I’m thin, I don’t like to fight, and there is no real protection besides cameras that might get viewed if an incident happens. I worry because there have been incidents that have happened, that are never really assessed properly.

Incident ONE--- “IT” (Told to me by Big Girl=MAtt ):

Big Girl and Arnold (part time worker/ music producer? /dj? /homophobe) are working the longest, boring, and most dreaded shift: Noon till 8 pm, Sunday. It is dreaded because for 8 hours nothing happens, few customers come in and it’s the day of the Sabbath so our Gospel customers get REAL UPSET if the music is to their distaste. This Sunday was different though around 4 pm a couple walks in and is looking around the aisles acting like regular customers. Then 15 mins later a big Transvestite walks in:

“IT” a strong muscular 6’4, man/woman, with acrylics, sunglasses, a big empty bag, missing teeth, and looking totally cracked out; bugging a bit sweating and twitching

As soon as Big Girl Saw “IT” he sensed there might be trouble. Arnold quickly got nervous because he is very much homophobic.

Time passed and “IT” looked as if “IT” was shopping, holding a couple of albums in “IT’s” hand. Arnold looked away from “IT”, in fear that the individual might try “crispin” on him. The couple remained in the store as Big Girl watched “IT” through the monitor, Arnold was sweating with discomfort, then Big Girl noticed that “IT” was at an angle that he could not see what “IT” was doing. “IT” was acting like crack heads do sweating, rolling their heads, twitching, fidgeting.

The couple then walked over to Arnold and Big Girl asking them questions about what albums came out and where they could find a certain album. Big Girl had to show them where it was. He left the register gave Arnold a stern look and walked over to the R&B aisle to find the album the couple was looking for, as he did this “IT” walked around the R&B aisle to the back side of the aisle; so as creating a wall between “IT” and Big Girl.

The couple distracted Big Girl more and Arnold was to busy trying not to be seen by “IT” that he wasn’t noticing that “IT” was bagging albums into “IT’s” bag. Once Big Girl was able to get around the aisle to see what “IT” was doing, “IT” noticed him and the chase began, “”IT” raced across the store to the door, Arnold stood behind the register with his mouth dropped like a DoughBoy, as Big Girl was running after “IT”, the couple then ran out after Big Girl to the parking lot, where Big Girl had caught “IT” and was fighting “IT” to take the bag out of “IT’s” hands, “IT” let go of the bag and ran into “”IT’s” car and so did the couple… and they sped off, the police never came, the store owner didn’t even say thank you to Big Girl, and Arnold “Doughboy” cried?

LUCKY: Big Girl could have easily been taken out by the three individuals (not knowing if they were carrying) and for what the store owner is spineless, he wouldn’t even have covered any damages done to Big Girl, and besides that Big Girl could have gotten hit by a car running through the parking lot of FIESTA. (Fiesta is madness on Sundays; there are cars and people everywhere).

Why can’t all trannys be like this:

There are other incidents to tell of, but this was the most interesting to tell. Others just deal with big looking gangster types (ankle bracelets, tons of tattoos, baggy clothing, mean face, no smiles) that tell you they just got of jail, and then they grab a bunch of LIL’ WaynE albums and take off into a car with more gangster types, which was conveniently waiting for them in the front of the store. Those you don’t mess with they go hard!!!!!!!!!!!

FLAG-Third

2008-02-05T23:44:00.000-08:00

Today in my HDF 378K class, a class mandatory for Human Ecology undergrads, a question was posed, "If you had a choice to remove five things from your home before it went up in flames, what would they be?" First thing that popped into my head was this Eritrean flag I have hanging on my wall. The next thing that came to mind was a memory book my mother had given to me upon graduation of high school. Figuring out the next three items I would save from the fire took more effort than I felt like exerting so I decided to forget about them and focus on why i would try and save a flag that can easily replaced. It was something that was bothering me because I only recently got this flag so it doesn't seem logical to save it over let's say a music collection that I have been building up for years or my research data that I have been working with since last semester?
Whenever I identify myself, I almost always start off with "I'm Eritrean" then I go into my major and my interests. The idea of leaving behind my flag to burn in flames was unthinkable. i mean I don't think anyone would be happy with a flag of their parent's birth place burning but it most likely isn't one of the 5 things they would save.

This in class activity helped me to understand that one of the little worlds i participate in includes a role as daughter, sister, cousin but with the backdrop of an Eritrean symbol. To further explore my little worlds I try and follow the direction of the 378K activity and look to the objects in my room. As I am looking around my room, I spot the Eritrean flag on my wall and below it the beautiful gold perfume set I purchased in Dubai. I notice pictures of my little cousins who live in Oregon and picture frames without pictures. Floating near my closet is the balloon bought for me in celebration of my birthday. Near my windows I have on one side my bed and on the other my desk that is juxtaposed to my bookshelf.

These items in my room don't have any real connection to who am I on an everyday basis.

Mt. Bonnell

2008-02-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

The observation to the north at Pease Park as previously planned will have to wait for another day…

In keeping with the same theme of different uses of public space, I reflect on a recent trip to Mt. Bonnell. Monica (my girlfriend) and I decided that we were sick of the dreary weather that had been relentlessly making us dismal for the weekend. The kind of weather that was not an exciting storm, not pleasant to be outside…just blah, as far as weather is concerned. Finally, a day had arrived in which the sun was shining and yet the temperature was kept in the low seventies or high sixties.

I climbed onto my ’06 Kawasaki 650 and as it roared to life we secured our helmets and Monica jumped on the back. Her getting on is always slightly amusing for me because she is five foot one (and three quarters she would add) and this particular motorcycle has a higher seat height than most. Additionally, she doesn’t seem to share my passion for motorcycling and the beauty of cruising in the open air on a fun to drive machine. She does participate though because she knows I enjoy it and wanted to go to Mount Bonnell.

As we cruised out west on 38^th past Lamar, over MoPac and continuing on towards our destination it was an enjoyable ride and the air was clear, but a cool moistness added to the feel of the outdoors on this particular day.

We pulled up to the roadside parking at the park and I was surprised by the number of cars that were parked there. We dismounted the bike and locked the helmets to the bike before heading for the limestone stairway. There was a very diverse mix of people at the park; a blend of men and women, young and old, and hikers and casual day trippers.

I was surprised to realize that the Mt. Bonnell park offers more than just the one overlook but actually includes various trails and interesting sights. As we finished climbing the long stairs and approached the wall of the overlook, the beautiful view of the hill country west of Austin came into view and the river below had few boaters on it. I am always astonished by the beautiful waterfront homes that are visible from this point.

I realize that I am there as only an observer there for pleasure and the view. Also present was a maintenance person who was raking and sweeping up the area to look nice. He was rather old and his face was leathery and wrinkled. There was another young couple a few feet from us. When we got there they were chatting and pointing out the sights, but soon were tongue deep in each other’s faces. Too much PDA for my liking. There were also people picnicking and an old couple who were climbing the stairs with ankle weights on and out of fashion track suites.

We didn’t stay for long on account of being hungry but the scene was pleasant. Once again I noticed the array of activity that people use Austin’s public spaces for. Walking, biking, playing, talking, dogs, running, and apparently making out excessively are just a part of what goes on.