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party this weekend Monday March 28
there's a party at my apartment this saturday beginning at 9pm. plinko and i are throwing it together, and it's a formal affair. if you'd like to attend, please let me know. there are a few rules: (1) you cannot wear jeans, (2) you cannot pay for anything, you can only bring things and (3) you must talk to 5 people you don't know at the party, unless you are leslie and special and exempt from this requirement.
leslie commands enough attention as it is; she'll have 5 people talking to her no matter what.
los angeles overview Thursday March 24
i'm putting the cart before the horse here; i should be talking about boston first.
los angeles is incredible. i thought i wasn't going to like it: gas-guzzling cars everywhere, superficial people who only want to know if they can use you for themselves, hordes of film people talking about films i've never seen nor will ever care to see --
after three full days, though, i'm coming to see that while los angeles has all of those things fresh and in-stock, that doesn't mean it doesn't have more to offer. naomi's area is great -- hills, wildlife, hilarious friends. good restaurants. the sunshine is certainly spectacular, it simply puts everyone in a good mood, all the time. i've already seen them take it for granted. that is what we, as humans, do -- acclimate, and then treat any special circumstances as normal (as our environment has redefined our perception of normal).
there will probably be a play-by-play post that follows this this weekend discussing the details of the trip, but i just wanted to check in and tell everyone i'm still alive, sandra bullock looks as good in person as she does in the pictures, and that my big lebowski vacation checklist is complete.
i can't wait to tell you all about the sniper-turned-boxer who loves cobb salads and hates minorities, about how i have learned to love fast food again, about the anniversary screening of an old dolly parton film, and about how i went from chip leader to broke in hold'em in five minutes flat.
we'll see you this weekend.
bauston part iv Friday March 18
this is my fourth time in boston in less than a year. my first time ever was last summer to visit nathan, and then again in october, november, and now march. it's absolutely wonderful here. massachusetts, in general, seems to be more my style than illinois.
nathan and i started this discussion yesterday; he's been in contact with various state educational agencies around the country. apparently, the woman from north dakota discussed how it's difficult to keep good students (i.e., top of their classes) in-state for their undergraduate work.
now, for north dakota, is anyone surprised? what is surprising, at least to me, is that nate was able to share the same sentiment with her: apparently massachusetts has the same problem, despite being the home to harvard, MIT, bu, bc, and a whole host of other famous schools.
we kids are fickle: we always want to go where we are not.
so for me to say that i would like the east coast better may be true -- but is that only because it's a new experience from the same old illinois i've known for years? i'm sure that i'll find the west coast equally interesting for entirely different reasons.
an easter egg Tuesday March 15
i think i've come to a decision about what i will do in september. i offer this information here as a reward to anyone who reads; i will most certainly tell others soon enough, but i want it all to be confirmed before i announce it more publicly. also, i need to keep it on the downlow for most of april.
i spoke with professor goodman today, the man who initially suggested i apply for the IUC program instead of the JET program. now that i don't have a choice, i can actually see (as rick suggested) that the JET declination was more of a blessing than anything.
goodman told me informally that i had been accepted to the program, and that the next step was to secure funding, for which he also pointed a few resources my way.
looks like this mug is finally confirmed to go to japan in september.
working for change Thursday March 10
one of the greek houses on campus does a yearly philanthropy where they beg for change around the quad, and then donate all that money to child abuse concerns. it's the most successful philanthrophy on campus.
my new job takes me between two buildings (one on the quad, one right off of it), and so i've passed these girls at least 10 times this week. i haven't given them a red cent yet.
it's not because i don't have any money, and while i can be cheap, i do like to give my money away, so that's not even it. there's something that bugs me about it, and i knew it from the moment i saw it; i just couldn't put my finger on it. this post is an experiment to do so, and we'll see where it leads me.
these girls stand out in the cold yelling "every penny counts", "help stop child abuse", and the like. they'll probably each collect around 20-30 dollars per day, and there are approximately 15 of them at any one time. quick math tells us that for a week, they rake in about $2,300 dollars. that's a highball estimate.
but let's take a moment to evaluate man-hours (er, person-hours). if there are 40 hours in a work week, and 15 people working, they're running $2,300 over 600 person-hours. so, the rate per person is $3.85 per hour. that's just over half of minimum wage.
that's one part of it that bugs me -- inefficiency. these girls can give up an entire week (in shifts, naturally) to beg for my change, but really, they are all young, capable workers -- workers that care, no less, because they're out there standing in the cold.
why are they begging for money to pay for help for children? why not cut out the middleman, and just try to help children on their own through volunteer projects with the champaign county DCFS? because that's not as glamorous? because it's actually REAL work?
and here's beef number two: for every single one of those girls out there, how many were wearing nice coats, nice jeans, nice earrings, listening to a nice, new ipod, and let's not forget the nice shoes. if they cut at least one thing out of their monthly budget valued at $20, multiplied by the 120 girls in the house, they'd have $2,400 right there, and they'd have saved a lot of their own time.
time they could have spent volunteering.
time they could have spent thinking about what it means to be so privledged to come from a home where they weren't the ones being abused.
does this make any sense? or am i totally off my rocker?
long story short: if you want to work for change, forget the pennies and nickels and dimes, work for change on the inside first, and everything else will fall into place.
ha cha cha Tuesday March 8
i'm doing a lot of travelling this spring. first, boston next week. then, LA the week after that.
and now? in june, i'll be spending a weekend in the supposedly-fabulous las vegas with nate and the shams crew. let's just see if it's what it's built up to be.
well, that's done with Monday March 7
i have a real battle to fight at work. and it's an internal one. in this job, i can let certain things slide, or i can choose to work to make everything how i want it to be. the question i've been wrestling, then, is how futile my efforts might be in trying to control certain aspects, such as patron behavior.
students will always put their feet on the balcony. if i ask them not to, they won't, but then next time they will again. is there a point? will they ever understand the liability if something were to fall on patrons below on the main floor? why do i think about these ridiculous contingencies? why doesn't anyone else? can't they see what the problem is with that?
these are the kinds of thoughts i've been having. and i'm starting to realize that i do have a stronger background in facility management then i had thought; i am a details person, and the whole thing is one big detail, one big collection of "we must do it this way or we can't do it that way because what if", only there are thousands of what ifs, and there's no way of pinning them all down in your head, but you have to know them when you see them.
all i can do is fall back to my chinese lit class from last fall: is it better to govern with rules and regulations, or govern with the lack of? the less rules there are, the less people are breaking them: reducing the total stress felt by everyone. does that make sense? daoism versus confucianism in political processes.
i'm taking short days on monday and tuesday this week to make up for the fact that i spent the entire weekend at work. tuesday todd and i will be making a chicago trip to see erik. he's going to show us a good time, i guess.
frenzy-ing Tuesday March 1
i had an 'otto' moment yesterday. started to frenzy a little bit about work. my job isn't particularly stressful; there aren't thousands of dollars on the line or anything like that, but there are potentially over a thousand people whose experience here relies on what i do.
and what the students who program the building do.
it's very important that i keep that line solid, because it's very easy to become a programming advisor for these groups. they don't know what lights look good, or what show orders work well, and so on. and i do advise them if it comes up, but i can't very well tell them what to do. i am a vehicle for their performance, and that is all.
that reduces the stress greatly, because if the program goes poorly, it's not my problem. but it still reflects negatively on the building that i am very proud of. so you see the bind -- i am disconnected from the programming in a way, but still must always keep it in mind if i am to propogate a positive image of my building.
and yes, i think the reason monika selected me for this job is because it was her building, and she saw me taking ownership of it. do not mess with our building.
