Job Hunting


by Berck

I just applied at UPS. What an experience. I get the feeling I’m the closest thing to an english-speaker they’ve had apply in quite some time. The place was full of ugly Mexicans with bad hair cuts that spoke no english. A mexican lady interviewed me, but she spoke English so poorly, I had a hard time understanding her. I have to shave and buy brown leather shoes to work for them, not the end of the world I suppose. They mostly seemed worried about whether or not I had a criminal record. $8.50/hr, but I’m only garunteed 4hr/day, but I would suspect with Christmas coming up I’ll get that. Luckily I’m a driver helper as opposed to a package handler, which sounds a bit easier. I’m the sidekick i nthe big brown truck knocking on your door, isn’t that exciting? They said they said the driver would call me at 9:30am every morning to tell me how long I would need to work. They also said there’s a $100 bonus on the 24th if I show up on time to work everyday.

I’m not sure that that will pay quite enough, so I figure I’ll go down to a restaurant and see if I can be waiter as well. That’ll just be funny. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes me to get fired.

In other job news, I recieved five very nice rejection letters from people in the tech industry.. Not, surprisingly enough because I don’t have a degree, but because I have no work experience. Quote from one guy,

“Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, our clients require candidates to have at least two years of full-time, on-the-job experience (post school). I know it’s difficult to find a position without experience, and of course you can’t get experience without someone giving you a chance.”

My thoughts exactly.

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Laundry!


by Berck

There is an exclamation point in the subject of this letter because laundry is exciting.

Well, it’s not usually. I haven’t done laundry since before the war, and… Actually, the last time I did laundry was in Knoxville, TN, sometime in early-mid-August. Aside from simply not having any money, Peter, my room mate, assured me that he would tell a rental company to come by our apartment and install a washer and drier.

One of the very neat things about the place I’m living is that it has washer and drier connections. My first response was, “I don’t have a washer and a drier, and chances of me being able to afford one during my college career are not good…” So I wasn’t too excited. Peter found out that for $32/month we could rent both a washer and a drier. That got me excited. I’m sure I spend at least $16/mo on laundry in quarters, so this seemed perfectly reasonable once split between two people.

Peter had assured me of this washer and drier before I ever moved in, and, after I moved in, told me that he’d contact the company before he left for New Orleans on August 17th or so. He didn’t.

I had no idea where, who, or anything about the washer and drier, or if Peter had requested one or not until Peter came back and FINALLY requested one.

Today was the first time they could come install it.

Today was the first day I’ve done laundry in quite some time. Hopefully I’ll start smelling better.

I auditioned for the Senior Studio productions and was cast as the all-important-extremely-exciting part of “Mob 1”. I have been assured that I have the most lines of any “Mob” part, of which there are 4. I’m playing the leader of a Mob in E. E. Cumming’s “Santa Claus”.

Actually, I’m thrilled to have gotten cast at all, and even more thrilled to have been cast in THIS play. I read the script before hand, and it is a REALLY neat play. E.E. Cummings is just… the man.

Luckily this won’t take up too much time, and the rehearsals are all at night, so it won’t affect much if I ever find a job. That’s why I’m in the computer lab at 9:30pm tonight, because our first rehearsal is at 10pm-midnight. It really feels nice to be part of a cast again.

I’ve been to a few more classes, and have a few books now. Abstract Algebra blew me away this morning. At least I understand why it’s “Abstract Algebra” now. Our professor defined functions in terms of set theory today, gave several theorems about sets in terms of set theory and then proceeded to prove them. While functions are by no means new to be, I’ve never dealt with them like this, specifically in terms of set theory. I’ve got to struggle to keep up.

Philosophy of Science is going to be a neat class I think. It’s mostly about trying to answer the question, “Can one really KNOW anything through scientific methodology?” At first, this didn’t seem too exciting, but after the first class I’m fascinated. I’m also thoroughly interested in answering, “Can PHILOSOPHY ever know anything?” It seems to me that one might very well have to answer no, in which case “what’s the point?” But then, I guess that’s why I’m a post-enlightenment fan. And I still say Nietzsche (even though I’ll never be able to spell his name) is great. Even though I KNOW he’s wrong, he’s so much fun. Anything so I don’t have to read any more Aquinas.

Oh wait. That’s just what I’m doing in Theology. Aquinas. Thomas, like most “philosophers” sounds a whole lot more convincing than he is. I think I get frustrated with Aquinas simply because I’m at UD, and the Catholics have trouble distinguishing Aquinus from God. (“Three persons, one God. No really, God isn’t divided!”)

I’m tiring of Catholic theology. It’s impossible to argue with because it’s based almost entirely on “faith” and “revelation” or, better yet, “sacra doctrina.” This is all fine and good if I thought it made sense, but it doesn’t. I realize that it’s good for me to learn such things, but I’d much rather be studying things that excite me. I’m excited to find out that there are THREE non-Christians (including me) in my theology class. This is almost unheard of at UD. Not just three non-Catholics, but non-Christians. This at least makes the class dynamics a little more exciting, otherwise it seems more like a Sunday school class I’ve accidentally walked into.

I really shouldn’t end my sentences with propositions.

I was going to write about making the newfound washing machine overflow, but I must go.

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by Berck

I’m at Dad’s house in Atlanta (Well, Douglasville).

I’ve been unable to get a job, and, as a result, am going to be with Dad until he leaves for Birmingham on Monday 8 August, at which point I’ll leave for Knoxville and return to Douglasville on Friday 11 August. I shall leave Douglasville on Monday 14 August for Dallas.

These “plans” are subject to change at any point (by either my capricious self or any of the parties mentioned above), and may not be relied upon for anything other than a device to make you stop worrying.

I’ll be checking email, so respond if you like. If you are simply so worried that this email hasn’t done any good, (e.g., Mom), then feel free to call me here at 770.489.3352. I suppose you could call for any other reason as well, since you’ll be paying for it.

I passed the strangest thing on I-65 about 100 miles south of Montgomery today. I had the top down, cruise control set, my music playing, and was, in general, doing my best, even if somewhat unsuccessfully, to enjoy the drive, which was doing its best to be entirely uneventful. Few things exciting happen on I-65 between Mobile and Montgomery, AL. The road is boring and patrolled. The weather wasn’t too terribly sunny because of several Mobileish clouds covering the southern Alabama sky. These clouds were waiting for the Mobile Afternoon to come around so they could pour rain for a few hours, then mysteriously disappear, I’m sure. I was heading north, though, and figured I would get far enough by the time the afternoon rolled around that I wouldn’t get too wet. I was wrong. This happens occasionally, but not with great frequency.

I was alternating between passing the endless stream of large semi trucks (WHY are they semi trucks? There is nothing semi about them, they’re whole and complete trucks!) and letting the endless stream of redneck pickup trucks pass me, when I glanced up at the trucker I was passing. I can do this with the top down, but am completely unsuccessful with it up. I usually glance at the truckers because they usually glance at me, and in doing so, create a small moment eye contact of a sort peculiar to the highway. This time I was unable to make eye contact with the trucker because she was wearing sunglasses. I was traveling at least 10 miles an hour faster than she was because she was stuck in the right lane behind a very slow redneck. (I should be fair, its possible that the drive wasn’t redneck simply because of Alabama plates. Nah.) As I flew by, I thought I was seeing things. As someone who has looked at a lot of truckers, I’ve seen the occasional female driver. Never have I seen a beautiful young woman driving a truck. I looked in my rearview miror to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, and hoped I was awake. I was, she noticed me staring, so she smiled and waved. I waved back as her truck faded into the distance.

That was about the only interesting thing that happened. I stopped about 40 miles south of Montgomery, and the clouds, which had become darker and more ominous (ever notice that clouds are always ominous? I would bet that the world ominous is most frequently used to describe clouds than anything else.) than before, began to pour rain. I put the top up in the Miata, and drove rather slowly for quite some time, while the rain cleared. It never really cleared until I got fairly close to Atlanta. It doesn’t rain in Atlanta this year.

I tried to take a short cut instead of heading all the way to Atlanta on I-85, then heading back west on 20. This would have worked fine had I not been trying to drive and read a map at the same time. I ended up missing a turn, and driving 20 miles west instead of 20 miles north, which probably cost me at least 1.5 hours. Oh well. Someone should give me a GPS device for Christmas.

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Lake District


by Berck

I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to send you guys anything before I get back to the states or not. Michael and I have been roaming about Britain for the past couple days. In spite of the fact that I now seem to be sick, we’ve had a wonderful time. We rented a car for the weekend, and have been driving around the lake district, which is about 5 hours from Somerset. It’s is absolutely spectacular up here. Michael and I have had a blast trying not to kill ourselves driving on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car, shifting gears with the wrong hand… All on roads that are barely wide enough for one lane of traffic going one way, but someone they manage to put two way traffic on these roads. And it gets worse because these incredibly narrow roads have stone walls on either side. Not to mention the roundabouts which are a hazard in and of themselves which Michael and I have done surprisingly well on considering we don’t have a clue what we’re doing. “Yield to the right, yield to the right, come out on the left hand side of the road, yield to the right, left hand side of the road…” Chanting in this fashion helped some. Michael made almost no mistakes, and I only drove on the wrong side of the road for about 3 seconds, at which point the prospect of a head-on collision quickly fixed that problem. And I hit a curb. Otherwise, no problems, and not even a scratch on the car so far, we’re not sure how we’ve managed. It’s a fairly new little Peugot with a 1.4L engine that doesn’t seem to make quite enough power regardless of which gear you’re in. Oh, and cheap European cars don’t have ignition lockouts on the clutch, which means that it WILL start with the car in first gear and clutch engaged. Whoops.

We’re on our way back to Somerset now, where we shall spend the night. We’ll head back to London in the morning, and Michael will take a train to Paris where he will spend the night. We both fly back on July 4th, I from London to Atlanta, and Michael from Paris to Memphis. Hope to see some of you soon.

Posted in European Adventures, Wanderings | No Comments