Life in a Nutshell

As mentioned before, this has been a time of beginnings. New apartment, new job, etc., and with all of the "new", I've been neglecting the "old", easily evidenced by my lack of posts.

I. The Apartment

I mentioned the apartment before, mostly in a negative light. It's gotten better, what with furniture and cable and internet, and such. We painted the dining room lime green, the bedroom light blue, and the living room a light cream (after a poorly thought out coat of "pumpkin 3"). We bought a sofa from Value City Furniture, which was a steal and included an ottoman and FOUR high quality feather pillows (retail $60 - 80). In fact, all things considered, we basically bought the ottoman and pillows and got the couch for free. We got a recliner from Tara's parents, and with our glass-topped coffee and end tables, we have quite a respectable living room. We moved our foosball table from the dining room to storage and replaced it with a nice, wooden dining room table (with chairs!). The bedroom has a dresser, and a bedside table. We even have lamps and candles throughout the apartment.

It has really begun to feel like a home. The furniture was pushed into the center of the room to allow access to the walls for painting for awhile, but we have returned everything to its rightful spot. It stays surprisingly warm, which is wonderful as I recently purchased a pair of shorts. They have become my go-to garb for leisure and relaxation. When I get home from work, I strip out of my button-down shirt and my fancy slacks and throw on my super comfy shorts. It's a nice way to calm down after a horrible day of work. What makes work so bad? Well, that takes us to the next new thing...

II. The Job

Yes, it is true, I have a job. It is the first full-time job I have ever held, it pays more than I have ever made in the past, and it is slowly eating away at my soul. My job title is Credit Counselor, and I work in the Early Stage Collections Department of the Consumer Lending Center. Now, when I applied and interviewed for the job, they built it up. It was an opportunity to help people in need, help them in their times of financial hardship. I would be calling customers who were having trouble making their monthly payments, and I would use mighty powers to make everything better.

Then I got the job. Of course, the training didn't actually begin for another month, so I had plenty of time to be lazy. Then I began my two weeks of training, and the training was relatively enjoyable. It was simple, the woman in charge was fun, and there was a jovial, communal atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, I was annoyed at times. The systems were far too simple for the time we devoted to them, and we ended up wasting a lot of time just sitting around waiting to do things. And not to be completely full of myself, but I was by far the smartest person in the group. Doubt me? One shining example of the caliber of people I was with was when the trainer said to us, "Also, if you're not familiar with it, you may want to practice selecting things and then cutting and pasting them." They gave us a packet of pages on how to log in to the systems, which included signing on to Windows. I was done using it after a day, while others among us continued using it up until we finally left the training and got out on the floor.

As the actual nature of the job became more obvious, I began having some moral qualms. I remembered that Dante Alighieri had a special place in Hell for those who charge interest to lend money, so during a break I looked it up on Wikipedia. When we reconvened, I was proud to be able to recount my findings with the group, explaining that due to our relationship with our new employer, we were destined to find ourselves spending a good portion of eternity in the Inner Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, sitting in a desert of flaming sands as fiery flakes rain down upon us. As I sat there, beaming about the opportunity to enlighten my fellow usurers-by-association, one of my fellow trainees said "Well, I don't know what book or movie it is you're talking about, but I don't see anything wrong with charging interest."

[side note to allow me the opportunity to vent: I have not read The Inferno, although I have started to in the past, and I am familiar with its existence. Most people have heard of "Dante's Inferno" whether they actually understand what it is or not. But to have absolutely no conception? To have never even heard of it? Unbelievable. I already knew that I was the only trainee to have a college degree, but this was coming from someone who had actually spent some time in school. Oh, by the way, if you were wondering how much graduating cum laude with a philosophy degree from one of the top 5 programs in the country helped my ability to get a job, you'll be happy to know if did come up in my interview. The interviewer, towards the end of the interview, asked me point blank "I see you got your degree in philosophy. Can I ask you what kind of job you were hoping to get with that?" Thank you, ma'am, for basically telling me that the past 4 years of my life were wasted on intensive study.]

I have since begun the actual job. It is horrible. I sit in a cubicle, which is great, but I am nothing more than a collections agent, barely a step up from telemarketer. I wear a headset, I use an automatic dialer, and I stare at computer screens of information. As I'm just starting out, I am on outbound calls only. I sit in my chair, ever at the ready, until a beep in my ear signals the beginning of the call. I look to the screen to find out who I'm asking for, who I'm calling from (as we work third party accounts, too), and what I'm calling about. The entire time I'm at work, I am on call. I can't use the internet. My conversations with coworkers are limited, as they're often interrupted by the horrible beep. A decent amount of the people I speak with are polite, but a similar number are rude or at least in a bad mood. I don't like calling people, but I do my best to see it from their point of view. I try to keep the calls short if they seem like they're in the middle of something, but I also let them rant if they're in that sort of mood. The other day I took a call from a man who was in the mood to talk. I'm bad about interrupting, and I usually enjoy the break in the monotony, so I let him go on. The call ended up being 13 minutes long. The desired length for calls is 2 minutes. Despite this lack of concern for time constraints, my numbers are surprisingly good. Every day they post a list of all the collectors and information regarding their calls: number of calls, number of promises to pay, number of promises kept/broken, and amount of money brought in. After the first week, I had more promises than anyone else in my training group, and, with 95% of them kept, I had a better percentage than any of the other trainees. My total amount of money brought in was double that of the next best trainee. I am surprisingly good at my job.

Sadly, the warm feelings I got from knowing that I'm good at my job faded quickly, and it was only a day later that I went back to feeling like Tom Hanks at the beginning of Joe Versus The Volcano. The problems with the job are numerous, but most of them boil down to misrepresentation in the hiring process. I am not a counselor. I do not have the power to help people, beyond deferring one or two months. My job is to collect money. They still hold on to the misnomer though, calling us "couselors" while at the same time offering us incentive bonuses based on how much money we bring in. What kind of counselors do you know who make a commission?

III. The Dog

Rounding out the hat trick of newness is the dog that Tara and I have adopted. For some time, Tara and I have been thinking about getting a pet. In the old apartment, we were bound by the line in my lease which read "Absolutely no pets or overnight guests" (obviously we didn't follow it completely). After getting the new place, we began a search for the perfect pet. We checked out the local pet stores, we checked Craigslist, we checked Petfinder. We thought about getting a cat, and even applied to rescue one that was at a local Petco. We found that we liked the idea of getting a cute Boxer puppy, and played with one at Petland. Here's something to think about, though: to rescue a 5 year old cat that was given up by a family that got a new dog cost $85 and required an application and a home visit, but to adopt a purebred puppy costs $1500 and requires nothing more (plus, the puppy comes with a warranty!). But in the end, we went we neither. We wanted something more lovable and playful than a cat that already had a family, and there was no way we could support the use of the puppy mills that Petland seems to prefer. We kept our eyes open, emailing and calling about puppies and dogs and getting no response.

Then, one day as I sat on my lunch break at work, I scanned the boxer puppies on Petfinder.com and saw the cutest puppies ever. They were from a litter of seven boxer shepherd mix puppies, strays, a mere five weeks old, and being held at a pound in Youngstown, OH. I called about them and spoke with a guy named Keith. I acknowledged my interest for the ones with black and fawn coloring, and found out there were two, one male and one female. Tara desired a female, so I asked him if he could hold it for us. "Well sir, the only thing is that if I hold it for you and other people come in and want her, I have to tell them no. Then, if you don't show up, she may have missed out on her chance of being adopted, and you know what happens then..." His voice trailed off as he avoided acknowledging the sad reality of a kill-shelter. I guaranteed that we would be there by the time they closed at 7pm. He called back later to take down all my information so he could have the paperwork ready for me when I got there. I called Tara and let her know that we were going to be making a road trip. It was at this point that the logistics of our puppy gathering arrangement.

Both of us were getting off of work at 5pm. By the time my bus dropped me off at home and Tara made her homeward commute, it would be 5:30pm. The drive to Youngstown from our place is an hour and a half. Things went as planned and we hit the road. We got to the pound at exactly 7:01pm, just as the last pound employee was getting into his car. We jumped out and said "wait, wait" and explained that we had called about a dog, spoken to Keith and that he said we could pick up our puppy. The guy was cool and let us in. He showed us our new, very small dog. We took her to the counter to pay and he explained "Alright, now I'm sorry, but you can't take her home today because it's too late and the paperwork will take too long..." "No, no, Keith took all my information, he said he would have it all filled out," I interrupted him. He looked at me incredulously, then looked for the paperwork, and came back with a surprised look on his face when he found it. A few minutes later, the paperwork was filled out. We handed him $42.50 (well, $42. He pitched in the fifty cents), he handed us our new dog (figuratively, as we already had her in our arms), and we were on our way home.

And now we have a puppy. She's super cute, and growing up fast. She's already twice as big as when we got her three weeks ago. She even has a name, after being referred to as "puppy" for the first week and a half. We were lazily brainstorming names and Tara tossed out the name "Abby". It was cute, it fit the dog, and it was similar enough to "Puppy" that all of our early training would not be in vain. Then Tara said she needed a middle name, too, and proposed we name our puppy "Abby Winters". It had a nice ring to it, and for some reason it sounded vaguely familiar to both of us. I googled it and we realized where we (or at least I) knew it from [nsfw].

And there you have it, the past month or two of my life in a nutshell.

Again With The How I Met Your Mother

**Possible Spoilers Ahead**

I love How I Met Your Mother. I've mentioned this before. I've watched every episode, and I've rewatched the first two seasons an unbelievable number of times. Unfortunately the show, which is now in its fourth season, has started to slide downward in quality.

It began as a Friends-esque experience that could be appreciated by the rest of us. They drank a lot and hung out in a bar, not a coffeeshop. They gave high fives and fist bumps for witty comebacks. The gang hung out, worried about their jobs and money, made jokes, and got into adventures. Ted was always looking for love and failing, Marshall and Lily were always in love and showing the light and dark sides of coupledom, Robin was always there to be gorgeous and keep Ted interested, and Barney was always there to pick up random chicks and bang them. This was a perfect set up. As long as you kept it to the core five there were no problems. You could have random women come in and out of Ted's life, some lasting even a few episodes, but always have his desire for Robin take over and be an excuse to get them out of the picture again. Then, in the times between women, the gang could have awesome adventures, like licking the Liberty Bell (it tastes like pennies).

But then, Ted and Robin started going out. It was great and what we all wanted to see. Then they broke up. Then they went out again. Then they broke up again at the end of season 2. And now, it was time for Ted to find a new girl. Come season 3, Ted finds a new girl in the form of Sarah Chalke.

[BTdub, the whole premise of the show is that future Ted Mosby is telling his kids all about how he met their mother. Each episode is a further hint as to the identity of Ted's eventual wife.]

Now, we all know and love Sarah Chalke. We watched her as Dr. Reed on Scrubs, laughing at her misadventures and feeling bad about her mother issues and relationship hardships. We watched her as replacement Becky on Roseanne, until original Becky came back again. For some reason, she never really mastered the role like original Becky. She was too soft, too kind, just didn't look the part of lower middle class daughter. But we still enjoyed her performances and the return of original Becky was bittersweet (and bizarre). As much as I like Sarah Chalke, there is something off about seeing her in serious roles. She just doesn't play "responsible, serious adult" very well. And in this case, it can be argued that she was basically Ted McGinley in female form.

But don't write the show off just yet! I was broken hearted to watch the third season and see Ted actively pursue Chalke's character Stella. I was devastated when, in the season finale, he proposed to her. When I watched the first two episodes of the fourth season, I saw them continuing their wedding plans and began to plan my memorial for the show. Stella just didn't fit in with the group. The chemistry seemed all wrong. They were just different people. She was too serious, too adult. The gang was still fun-loving and relaxed. The show didn't do a good job of showing why Ted was even interested in her.

[Note: I don't watch shows I really like when they're on (except for House). For HIMYM, I like to wait, then download it. I wait a few weeks, so I can watch like 3 or 4 at a time and have a mini marathon. They're too short to just watch one. It's like having the option of eating a fun size candy bar each day for three days, or eating a king size candy bar on just one day; it's the same amount of candy, but when you have the larger amount it's just that much more satisfying.]

But today, I watched episodes 3, 4, and 5, and found my prayers had been answered! Stella ditches her own last minute wedding and runs off with the father of her daughter. Sad for Ted, happy for me. Robin showed interest in Ted again. And despite the threats of continuing descent into suck, a glimmer of hope shown on the horizon.

Internet and a New Apartment

Upon entering my new apartment building, one is met with two sets of stairs. One goes down to the laundry and storage areas, the other goes up to the apartments. At the first landing, there are 4 doors, each being to an individual apartment, and the second one being to mine. There are more stairs going up to more landings and more apartments, but I don't go up there because I don't live up there.

The people who live behind the fourth door have a dog. It is a small, white dog of the yippy variety. Every day, the people leave for work, recreation, seal clubbing, etc., and they leave the dog at home. The dog proceeds to bark the entire time they are gone. Now, the walls are quite good at blocking sounds, so I'm able to look at the entire situation with a sense of whimsy, as opposed to a sense of anger and annoyance. The dog mainly sticks with a standard set of four or five yips in quick succession, followed by a brief pause. Sometimes, though, the dog will let loose an actual bark, then follow up with two or three yips. It is all terribly exciting.

The layout of the apartment buildings has caused me to become a bit of a voyeur. Each building is in an 'H' shape and houses 12 apartments. Each apartment has at least 5 windows looking out over a parking lot. That means there are an ungodly number of windows that I can see from my window. PLUS, whenever people come into the building, I can use the peep hole in my door to see who they are and where they go (there's an old man who lives upstairs. He was wearing gloves yesterday!!!). I'm not a huge fan of the peep hole though. It is simply a hole in the door with a grate over the outside and a little piece of metal that slides in front of it on the inside. It is obviously from the economy line of peep holes. No box that requires you to press secret buttons, no fish eye lens, nothing to leave the person on the outside wondering if you're actually home. If they have a toothpick and an axe to grind, you're begging for trouble.

As with many apartments, they've slapped on a coat of paint after each tenant. None of the doors close easily due to the accumulation of layers of white latex house paint. They even painted over the bathroom tiles, which line the bottom four feet of the walls. We scraped it off to reveal 4-inch pastel yellow tiles, and a 2-inch border of black tiles. It was a bittersweet discovery. The plan is to finish scraping all of the tiles and then paint over it all with a high gloss black.

The Ethics of Cyber Sleuthing

Sometime in May or June, I received a Facebook friend request from a woman named Sharon Voas. You can see her picture over here in the corner. She seems attractive for an older woman, and I'm sure she's nice, but for the life of me, I don't have any clue who she is. We had a few friends in common, according to her profile, and I kept meaning to send her a message asking who she was, but I forgot and put it off, leaving her in friend request limbo, and eventually the request disappeared.

Then in early July, I received another request from her. This time, I sent her a short, but polite note, reading:

"I'm sorry, I'm having trouble placing you. How do I know you?"

A small conversation came out of this.

"There must be some mistake. I don't know you either."
"Then why did you friend request me? This is the second time you've done it."
"I haven't seen your name before. I've had this Facebook account closed down until yesterday when I opened it back up to check on some of the groups I belong to."

She promptly deleted her account.

It was weird behavior, but I looked past it and got over it. Just another crazy old lady trying to keep up with technology and modern youth culture. We should applaud her for her diligent attempts. She could have been nicer with her responses, but whatever.

Fast forward another two weeks, and I received a THIRD friend request from this woman. I was beginning to get a little irritated. Again, I sent her a message:

"Once again, I do not know who you are. This is the third time you've friend requested me. Please identify yourself."

She responded with a message that I interpreted to be surprisingly rude and impatient, given the circumstances.

"Dan, And this is now the third time that I'm truthfully telling you that I do not know how that is happeneing any more than you do. I'm telling you the truth. No matter how many times you ask, I can't give you an explanation because I don't know how it's happening. The only thing I can think of to do is just ignore the friend request. Or just block messages from my name."

It's important to understand that when I asked her to "identify" herself, I wasn't necessarily asking her to tell me how I know her. I would have been happy with a quick response outlining the basics: what you do, where you live, if you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. That sort of thing. But instead I got anger and frustration. It was like she was blaming me for her lack of internet savvy. So I did what anyone would do, given the situation: I googled her.

Back in the day, googling someone was the simple act of going to Google and searching someone's name. As time has passed and technology as grown, I feel that the term "googling" has evolved, becoming something more akin to internet sleuthing. There is an uncanny amount of information on the internet, and far too much of it is accessible to anyone with a most basic knowledge. We touched upon this in a limited form with the whole Megan's Law entry, but now it's time to delve deeper.

*** Note ***

I wrote this entry, at least up until this point, back in early August. The problem was that I hit an ethical wall. How much detail can you give about internet sleuthing (stalking) before you've given too much information? I mean, everything I found was available to anyone with an internet connection and the basic information I gained from her Facebook account. Even that much is negligible. She had sent me a friend request, granting me access to all of her page's information, but anyone doing a search for "Sharon Voas" would have come up with her name, the fact that she lives in Pittsburgh (or is at least in the Pittsburgh network), and a small image of her. From there, the image's URL needs only one letter to be changed to be shown at a larger size. So now you have name, city, and picture. Have I said too much by sharing this information? If I go on to say that I typed her name into Google, is that crossing a line? What if I actually link to Google?

This whole issue came back to mind today, nearly two months after I began the post, because I read an article about a security flaw in Adobe's Flash server software that allows internet users to download and save movies from Amazon's Video On Demand service for free. The article describes the flaw and explains in layman's terms how it works. It makes mention, by name, of an additional program that is necessary to take advantage of the flaw and lists the URL of a page that details the step by step instructions of how to use the program. At what point, if any, does the article go too far? Should Amazon take action against the website publishing the article for assisting would-be pirates? I got the link through the feed on my Gmail page, does that mean Google should also be held responsible?

I suppose there is a distinct difference between something like enabling/assisting piracy and enabling/assisting cyber sleuthing, but where does one draw the line? The websites I used were all common knowledge and free to use. By plugging her name and city into one site, I was able to find her address. From plugging her address into another site, I was able to find a picture of her house and the price of it, as well as the fact that it was listed as being sold in 2002 for $1. This simply means there was a transfer of ownership, and a single search cleared the mystery by leading to an obituary for her husband, who passed away in August of 2001.* Other searches gave our mystery woman a career. Surprisingly, her job history was the hardest item to pinpoint. The internet left strange, inexplicable gaps, but her Facebook page further bolstered the information that could be found.

Now, I've given a lot of general information here, but at this point she could still be anyone. The scary thing is, I only used three search sites to get this information. One of them, as I've already alluded to, is Google. A second was an internet white pages search. The last was the ever helpful Allegheny County Assessments page.**

I've kept the one page secret, as it really serves as the missing link. I feel like this is enough to release me from my ethical chains. What do you think? Have I gone too far, or not far enough? At what point does it go from innocent to creepy? Does the fact that she contacted me first have any bearing on the situation? Let's hear from the audience on this one, and especially the MLIS students and ethicists out there. Does your Information Sciences training touch upon this sort of stuff at all? I know there's at least one medical ethicist in my readership, and while this is out of your field a bit, I'm interested in hearing your views considering the high premium the medical community places upon confidentiality. Can a person freely share information that is freely found on the internet? At what point does it become a matter of personal responsibility?



*And as information tends to lead to more information, the obituary named his children, his former profession, as well as his alma mater.

**Honestly, whoever thought of putting the assessments information online, you are a god in my eyes. I remember when I first discovered the site and rushed through the entire list of people I knew, searching out each and every home. It was easier then, as you could search by name as well as address. They've since done away with the name only search, probably a smart move on their part.

House, Hypochondria, and Shampoo

Being unemployed is kind of like being deaf or blind. Suddenly, it's like your other senses have become heightened, but rather than suddenly being able to see through walls or figure out the last person to touch something based on taste alone, it's more like you're able to notice odd irregularities within the mundane, and then, as an additional super power, you're able to dwell on them for far too long and put way too much thought into them. Here are some examples:

1. The USA television network had a House marathon the other day. They also had one last weekend. They may or may not have had one sometime during the week. At what point do you, as a network, just sort of throw in the towel and stop referring to them as "House marathons" and just admit that you show a lot of episodes of House? I looked online and found that this week they will be showing 18 episodes of House. There is one block of five episodes, but I don't think that equals a marathon. That's 18 episodes, 18 hour-long episodes, and no marathon. What's the point of even saying that they're having House marathons at this point? They've basically decided that House is the new Law & Order, and following the Law & Order trend, they're showing it nearly non-stop. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, I just want them to acknowledge what they're doing.

2. Watching so much House has adversely affected me recently. Last week, I was sick for two days. My main symptoms were headache and fever. This freaked me out. I was sure that there was something far more sinister lurking beneath the surface and that I was on the brink of death, the unknowing host to some ultra-rare strain of death-inducing illness. As I rested, shivering with my eyes closed, my mind raced through a mental checklist of body parts, checking each one for symptoms. I was demonstrating all of the hypochondriacal sufferings of a first year med student, but without any of the medical knowledge that would allow for an actual self diagnosis, leaving me painfully aware of my impending death, but painfully unaware of its source or how to stop it. I got better, but the worry will not fully dissipate until I have health insurance and can get an actual check up. Then my mind will finally be set at ease.

3. As I took a shower the other day, I grew nostalgic as I looked at my nearly empty shampoo bottle. When I first moved into the city, my mom allowed me to take with me a brand new, economy size bottle of Herbal Essences shampoo. Two years later, it's finally on its last leg, just as Tara and I are gearing up to finally move out. Somehow, fate timed it perfectly. The rarity of my showers, combined with the small amount of shampoo I use on my nearly hairless scalp, has perfectly offset the overuse imposed upon the bottle by long haired guests. And now, on the cusp of a brand new frontier, the bottle is letting go, allowing this little bird to spread his wings and take flight independently. Nothing gold can stay, and no bottle of shampoo can last forever.

I Got A Job

I sent out my first resume this summer on July 18th. Over two months later, I've sent out hundreds, literally hundreds, of resumes, and I've only been called back about two positions, not including the temp agency I signed up with (who only called me once).

At one point, I went to visit the university's Career Counseling center about my resume and cover letter. I imagined some glaring, obvious error that screamed "Don't Hire Me!" to potential employers, like I had accidentally stumbled upon a secret employer code. I went into the office half expecting the woman to read my resume and say "get out". Perhaps she would find that the first letters of each line were arranged to spell out "cunt" or something, and taking great offense, she would kick me out without actually pointing that out as the reason.

Of course, this didn't actually happen. Instead, she read over each of them, told me to combine my education info under the heading of the university, as opposed to listing the community college separately, told me to left justify all parts of my cover letter, and that was it. Other than that, she said they both read very well and looked good. Then she began to speak about the online career assistance they offered. She sat me down at the computer and had me log in. She took me to the pages that were supposed to help me, the pages to see where other philosophy majors had gone, to connect with alumni who could be helpful contacts for me. The occupations that came up for Philosophy majors were Lawyer (which requires Law school), Librarian (which requires Library school). Only one alumni name came up as someone successful who you could contact, and the details of her background didn't actually show philosophy at all. The career counselor freaked out a little, attempting to sound upbeat about my future and avoid admitting the one thing that was painfully obvious- there is no hope for a straight up Philosophy degree.

I continued sending out the resume, applying to any job that I looked to be even halfway qualified for.

But now, now I have a job! Today I received an official offer of employment from PNC Financial for a position as a Credit Counselor. Sounds impressive, right? Yeah, I get to call up people who are delinquent on their payments and inspire them to give me money. I start in 7 days 4 weeks.

This was weekend was apparently the real life equivalent of a power point presentation on karma. It began when I got my mail and found two checks, one for payment for a freelance graphic design job, and the other for stock dividends. I also found out that my undergraduate diploma had finally arrived at my mom's. Of course, karma is nothing without the bad side. I was stricken down with a migraine that began while I was asleep, infecting my dream with its painful nature, and lasting after I woke up. I suffered for a few hours then went back to bed. I was awoken after a couple hours by Tara.

"I answered your phone. Take it," she said.

I took the call and it was a woman from PNC asking if I was still interested in the position I had interviewed for and that the official offer would come on Monday. It was awesome. I got up, the headache much calmer than before, and drank a bottle of wine. That night, karma kicked me in the nuts again. I came down with a fever, shivering the whole night, waking up every hour or so to beg Tara to hold me closer and keep me warm. At 7:30 in the morning, the sound of jackhammers woke me up. At 7:45, they woke up my upstairs neighbor. At 7:47, she called a friend (who I assume she woke up) and proceeded to talk loudly to her. I got some more sleep after I took some DayQuil (the only item in our medicine cabinet that lowers fevers) but had a general miserable feeling for the rest of the day.

But the pendulum of good karma swung back in my direction again. I stopped at my mom's, looked at my new diploma, and was shocked to find the words "Cum Laude" printed on it. I rule. Today, at ten till 9am I received the official offer for my job. I rule. Finally, I can stop worrying about jobs. Finally, I can stop coming up with money making schemes.* I can stop looking around my apartment for items I can return to stores for cash.** Soon...soon, I shall be able to buy big tvs, go out to fancy restaurants, and buy suits! Suits!!! I'll be able to finally get a nice pair of leather dress boots. I will have such impeccable style that it'll be a shame I deal with people over the phone and not in person.




*I had an idea the other day for a money making scheme. I will buy/find a large piece of board, about 6' by 4', paint it white, and print a grid on it of 4'' by 4'' squares. I will then go out to the corner of Forbes and Bigelow and charge people a dollar to write whatever they want in a square. Absolute freedom of speech. Students love exercising their rights. They love writing stuff on walls with markers. This is a genius plan.

** I found a surge protector from Staples that was still in the packaging. Tara and I took it back, but changed our mind about returning it when they told us we'd only get 53 cents for it.

Seaweed, Egg Drop Experiment, and Silent Spring

I couldn't get to sleep tonight. As I laid there in the dark, my mind started pondering my old age amongst other things. I began to think about younger years and ended up focusing on my eighth grade science class.

In eighth grade, I had Mrs. Clark. She was an acceptable teacher, probably even falling on the good side of the scale, but in the end she left me with strong dislike for her. To be honest, there are only four things I remember about her and her class: seaweed, the egg drop, seeing her again when I was in high school, and Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring".

Being a science teacher, it was her job to open us up to the wild and weird world of science, pushing our boundaries and piquing our interests. One way she did this was by introducing us to the seemingly disgusting concept of eating seaweed. On one of the first days of class she passed around a small tray with half inch squares of seaweed on it, inviting us to be amongst the daring and try it. This was eighth grade, so I was unfamiliar with the whole concept of nori and sushi was still more of a gross idea of eating raw fish than a delightful delicacy. The seaweed tasted good though, and I remember taking small squares multiple times a week, as she placed it on the counter for the rest of the year (looking back, that seems unhygienic and gross). Obviously, feeding me wasn't how she got on my bad side, so let's continue.

The second thing I remember was the egg drop experiment. Basically, we had to build an apparatus to allow a raw egg survive a two to three story fall. To keep it interesting, she built up a back story explaining why we were in such a position, why it would ever be necessary to create this magical egg saving device. The premise was something like this:

You work for NASA. In an upcoming mission, astronauts will be sent to
the moon (or some unexplored planet) and need a way to drop their rover,
utilities, supplies, selves, etc., onto the surface. For some reason, jets
can't be used. Because their is no atmosphere, parachutes won't
work. Build your enclosure in such a way that the egg will survive the
fall. Egg must be able to be removed to prove that it has survived. Surviving eggs will be broken to ensure they are not hard boiled. Entire enclosure may be no larger than 6'' by 6'' by 6''.

My dad happened to be in town for work this particular weekend and we spent many hours building enclosures and tossing them out of my bedroom window. Eventually, we designed one that worked. It was cardboard, housing the egg in the center between a bottom surface and a top surface. The sides were open, and around the egg were multiple cardboard "springs" to lessen the blow. I was excited. I had gotten to work on a school project with my father (a rare treat), and we had succeeded in our attempt to solve this engineering dilemma. He went back to California, and I looked forward to taking my project to school.

In class, there was a buzz in the air. We placed all of our projects in a garbage bag (very un-NASA like), and us students headed to the patio outside of the cafeteria while Mrs. Clark headed to the roof. As she threw the first one down, it became obvious that something was wrong. She simply reached into the bag, grabbed a project, and tossed it down towards the ground. Not out, mind you, but threw towards the ground with force. Project after project failed. Finally she tossed mine.

Crack.

I was utterly devastated. I was in the majority, but that was of little solace. The students who had older siblings fared better, having the knowledge that the real secret was to place the egg in a plastic peanut butter jar filled with Jello. Being the eldest, however, I was not privy to such knowledge. I felt like I had failed not only the project, but my dad as well. We finally get to work on a project together and I go and blow it for him. But I didn't place all of the blame on myself. I placed a large portion on her. Mrs. Clark, that lying failure of a scientist. She went against the backstory. We're working for NASA. We need to get this enclosure to the surface from a space craft that is orbiting the planet. There is no atmosphere. Obviously, we have the technology to at least send it out of the ship in the right fucking orientation! Beyond that, why the need to hurl it at the ground. NASA is generally a pretty conservative bunch, avoiding unnecessary risks and liabilities. It doesn't seem that they would send something towards the solid surface of a planet at 50 mph when 15 mph would do. If you're going to give a backstory, stick with it. Instead, she made the concept of the experiment non-canonical. Suddenly it's all just a fun little story that actually has nothing to do with the project.

I'm not going to say that this was what broke my spirit and ruined me for the rest of my school career, but it certainly didn't help.

Third item: Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring". At some point, being a science teacher who was a fan of the earth, Mrs. Clark told us about the book that outlined the dangers of DDT, blowing the whistle and leading to change. She lent out some of her personal copies to those who were interested in reading it, and I ended up with one. After the school year had ended, I was still in possession of the book, and despite the egg drop misinformation, I felt a sense of guilt about it. I wanted to return it, but never really found any reason to go back to my former middle school.

That is, until my Senior year.

Senior year of high school, I took part in my school's production of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown". In an effort to raise awareness of the show, myself and a few other cast members were sent to my former middle school to speak to the eighth graders during their lunch period. On the ride over, I remembered the book, kicking myself for not remembering sooner, and contemplating searching her out in the school and sharing an apology for my tardiness in returning it. The speaking went well, very informal, and then we spent the rest of the lunch period going to different tables to talk to students and answer questions. Now, at the time, I was a bit of a punk. My hair was died black and was long enough for my bangs to go behind my ears. Everywhere I went I wore my steel toed boots, my wallet chain, and my black sweatshirt bearing patches for various crappy local punk bands. I don't remember what the dress code was for this engagement, but I likely had the boots and the chains, less likely the sweatshirt. Despite this, I still ended up at some table with little eighth grade punks. In conversing, I found out that one of them was the younger sister of a kid I knew from a year above me, Nate Sheridan. We all talked until the end of lunch, when the students left for their various classes. I had noticed Mrs. Clark monitoring the lunch period, so I now approached her. She was speaking to another teacher and when I came over she spoke first, saying "Is that your sister? Are you Nate Sheridan?"

Slap in the face!

I understand that I was taller, had dyed hair, and was dressed a bit differently than I had in eighth grade, but still! I simply said "no" and walked away, fuming. Yeah, yeah, I know it's hard for teachers to keep all their former students straight year after year, but all things considered it was just too much. It was at that second that I relinquished all guilt over hoarding her copy of "Silent Spring", vowing never to return it. Its cover price is simply a small payment towards the anguish she has caused me.