Ahhh, quite a day, quite a day I tell you.
Up at 8:10, ended up in line for a shower. I thought that was kinda bogus, and since I'd taken a shower before going to bed, I felt decidedly un-greasy and so decided to skip out on the line.
I almost went to breakfast. I wasn't sure what time Allen Hall cafeteria was open for the meal, so I hunted down a web page that might explain it to me. Said web page was poorly written, to say the least, so I sent a rude little message expressing my concerns to ... well to uidsa@uiuc.edu which seemed the most relevant authority according to the ph client. You see, the web page didn't really mention whom you might contact about it's maintainance.
And I headed for work ... I swear traffic is getting nuts between Allen Hall and DCL ... maybe I'm just not used to it after a long summer with nobody around, but I know the other day, this girl just kinda wandered into the bike path, and I nearly ran her down not knowing quite where she figured she was wandering. I wacked her bag pretty good, maybe make her think twice about wandering into bike paths. Sure made me a bit nervous .... and I was the one doing the wacking!
Anyways, tried to relax through work, not being as pleased as I could be with the whole "waking up" concept. I sent a silly email to Jenny at some point, for my own pleasure.
And then to CS327, where I was thinking I'd comment on the ISIS forms that lecture should be held somewhere it is easier to sleep in. We have lecture in 1310 DCL. When I discussed it with Erik Klein, he pointed out that the larger lecture hall next door, 1320 DCL is excellent for lecture-time napping, given its roomy desk-size surfaces. We all love 1320!
And I got home, read the DI, headed off to lunch, got back, and was greeted with the start of a rather amusing mail exchange which resulted ultimately in this.
I was somewhat upset by Mr Pasulka's initial response to my email, and was a little bit late, though not noticeably so, to English 302. Now this was an interesting class I tell you! We were discussing this article about push-button technology, relating to cellular phones and caller-ID and whatnot. The article was circa 1990 so it was kind of interesting how the notion of a $500 cellular phone was a good thing.
Our assignment had been to evaluate the article according to some non-sexist guidelines we were supplied to read and to conclude based on that whether the article was sexist or not.
At first pass, the thing seemed rather unoffensive and innocuous, if a bit silly. It was a Newsweek article, so the silliness I would suppose to be forgiveable.
Anyways, looking at it a little deeper, the article was written with a seemingly sexist bias in mind ... all the high-powered, cell-phone-totin' power-brokerin' businessmen were, well ... men! Four of them! And women were relegated to the roles of ... well, less interesting people really, it's a bit much to explain. Some expressed it as "the only ones doing the dialing are the men" whereas the women where interested in caller-ID and hiding from their male stalkers.
My conclusion, at least for good Capitalists anyway, is that if the article were written with the idea of not (however inadvertently) reinforcing gender stereotypes in mind, it might have a more impressive impact on it's female audience. Kathy Kottaras, whom I attended Lincoln Park with, who also happens to be in the class, made a response, and I replied with the mysterious "You know what Kevin would say ... ?"
She didn't guess what Kevin would say, but Dr. Hawisher noted, as an aside, that "We'll have to know more about Kevin." My point, as I explained to Kathy, was that I was trying to make the greedy Capitalist Republican argument as to why we would want to avoid sexist language usage. Kathy, on the other hand, was appealing more to morality and doing the right thing, which is something Kevin often went to great pains in high school to argue against in favor, or at least in view of the fact that a lot of Americans vote Republican, and we wouldn't want to forget their idea of things.
We talked a bit after class, me and Kathy, enjoying the old days;
"Doesn't she remind you of Ms Tookey?"
"Yeah, somewhat. It's kinda weird. She seems okay though."
"I was worried, what with those little cards she had us write our names on, then her desire to organise them in the order we were seated, updating them at the beginning of class all the time."
"Yeah, but aside from that, she seems pretty good."
"I agree."
It works for me though. For whatever bizarre reason, Tookey seemed to like me. Whereas she'd smack down Alex, Jack, or Carlin Metzger for any kind of trouble, I got away with murder! Sure, she'd give me C's and D's, but somehow she knew I was too cool to mess with.
"So Dan, I hear you've become a cultic figure."
Ms Tookey made the remark to me one day as I arrived in class early. Maybe she liked my punctuality, at least for afternoon classes. Morning classes were another matter ... and I was the only one who got away with sleeping in her class - right up in her face!
I've been for a long time puzzled just over what Ms Tookey meant with the "cultic figure" comment ... some suggested to me that I had become a role model for "the shiftless ones" or the class of '95. Judging by the reverence I seem to garner from Ian or Aiolle and even 'berto to some extent, this might be the case. I'm told I've been held up as an example by teachers at LPHS as an example of slackerness ... "Well that's how Dan Howard did it ... boy was that something."
Ahhhh, High School. That's where I first became cocky.
And then I joined the Army ... the stories I could tell about 1994 ... my my my ... another time.
6 September
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