“It all goes back to people getting paid to do nothing. If they actually fixed it they’d lose their jobs, so they just leave it broken.”
~ Grace (2007 – 6 – 25)
This was about VCU Technology Services doing things backwards (not everyone there, just some of them).
I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids–and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me [...] That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look throught their physical eyes upon reality [...] you’re constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. Or again, you doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren’t simply a phantom in other people’s minds [...] out of resentment, you begin to bump people back.
That’s the abridged version of the first few paragraphs of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Those first few paragraphs hooked me on the book. Sometimes when I’m making my way across campus so many people almost bump into me that it really seems that I am invisible. I try walking straight and not changing my path, but then there’s always a collision. I don’t know if I just look like the sort of person that should have to move out of other peoples’ way or whether I am invisible. Anyway, I was interested to find out what Ellison says about this invisibility stuff, so I started reading. I’m about a fourth of the way through the book right now. The book is not a light-hearted fun read. It is set in the South two generations after the end of slavery. It takes a hard look at identity, descrimination, and human dignity. Parts of the book are pretty unpleasant and down-right disturbing. It isn’t the type of tale that a white, middle-class American is usually exposed to, and it forces one to think about the unpleasant things that we usually skim over and block out in order to preserve the personal bubble of serenity we live in. I give it two thumbs up.
It takes three. One to apply the cables to the dead battery. One to apply the cables to the live battery. And, one to read the directions at least three times before each step. We actually did quite well I think. It took us about 20 minutes, but that was only because we worried when the ground clip kept sparking whenever we clipped it to anything. We all had on our safety glasses and our direction-reader stood back 20 feet whenever we did anything. It was a good experience. It was nice to realize that there are other people in the world as paranoid as I am. I wonder if they wear safety glasses when they clean the bathroom too?
So, the summer is supposed to be a fun time for students because they get a much-needed break from studying. That’s not exactly how it’s turning out for me. Somehow I ended up taking a summer class, doing research through the Honors College, and working two jobs. Grace is working full-time also. Plus, with all the planning and wedding stuff, there is also the backlash (there is plenty of work to do after you get married, also!) So, while we do have a few nice fun things planned, most of our leisure time is spent trying to learn how to make those fancy dishes like the ones in the cookbooks. This is fun, but sometimes it turns out to be a headache.
So, my jobs are cool-ish. I guess you could call that fun. One is doing web-site work for the VCU T/TAC. Another is working on the same research grant that my research seminar is for. That is, I’m working for Dr. Chan and Dr. Dyer at the dyerlab doing C++ coding to simulate pollen spreading. Not bad. My class is pretty fun, and it’s exposing me to new ideas, which is always cool.
So, all in all, I’m really pretty busy. I don’t have time to write much, read comments on facebook, chit-chat on the phone, or drive over to Charlottesville and hang out with old friends. That kind of stinks, but so does the gas situation, so it is a blessing in disguise. Netflix and Mary Stewart are my wasting-time diversions for the summer when my brain is just too fried to do anything useful.
How’s your summer been?
We have put up some wedding photos up on the Sequent gallery. We will add more as we get them, so please send us your pictures if you have any good ones!
