I was waiting on Green Street for the bus to take me to the train station. A campus bus called the Illini pulled up and I nodded my head "no" to save him the trouble of stopping. He stopped anyway, pulling the door open.
"What bus are you waiting for?"
"Green."
"That one aint running anymore."
"I need to get to the train station. Any suggestions?"
Clearly this was a difficult request. He hopped on the radio and asked about another bus.
"You can catch the yellow. It's up there. Hop on."
I rode with him a block towards Wright. He stopped in front of the Union to pick up a group of students.
"See that bus up there?"
"Ya."
"That's the yellow - he's waitin' for you."
"Thanks!" as I took off running in front of Everett to catch up with the bus resting at the Wright Street shelter. As the doors opened I looked at the driver and tried to explain myself.
"The other guy sent me."
"That would be Chip."
"He's a great guy!"
"Yup."
Yup
25-1-98 19:02
I am so excited. I haven't rode a train in years. Being in one of the front cars, I swear I can hear the sound of what I believe to be the beautiful putt-putt of the train's diesel engine.
The leg room is astonishing! Trains, being the wonderfully fuel-efficient devices that they are, have less to gain by packing us in like sardines. To serve more passengers they only have to add anther car. For an airplane or a bus to do the same ... well they can't do the same!
And that, of course, is why trains are superior. Nowadays even trucks ride trains, in a sense, for the long-haul. There are modular containers which can be stacked on trains and ships and placed on trailers for local delivery. That's just cool.
Tue Jan 27 23:17:51 CST 1998
Friday evening was kinda lame. I wanted to catch a movie, or do something interesting. I tried to recruit some Ground South folks but they replied that the idea of going outside in the fresh air and spending money on entertainment was not at all appealing.
Fuck 'em.
Saturday night I started my recruitment activities earlier, and was rewarded by getting a group of us out ice-skating at the University Rink. With a student ID you can skate for $1, and that's for shoe rental. Adult townies get in for under five dollars.
i concluded the night by falling and scraping my arm right before it was announced that the rink was closing. i had much fun.
later, me, don, Chris, Tharun and a coupla girls, George-Anne and Cindy, went dancing. We headed up to C-Street but it was packed. We eventually ended up at Cochranes and had a pleasant time. The dance floor was packed and there was some amusement when one woman started getting funky with ol' dannyman. I was much flattered, but didn't bother at the opportunity beyond that.
Oh, forgot the most interesting girl we had Maureen go with us.
Altogether, Saturday kicked Friday's arse.
Sunday I took off for Chicago for the Monday court appointment. the van's been acting up on occasion, but I figured a trip to Chicago and back, fate willing, then I take it in to a place Ethan recommends for service. No such luck. The transmission seem to be on it's last whatever, and I was questioning my ability to make it back after getting as far as Rantoul.
Anyways, the van got back to the lot safely enough, I feel bad for stressing it so. I figured I might grab a ride back with Dave, but after figuring out why there was a tone of hesitation in Linda's voice I opted for Amtrak instead, catching a bus through the foresight of heading out appropriately early and through the good grace of an MTD operator named Chip. I have a feeling I've dealt with Chip before. As unattractive as MTD tends to be, they do have some excellent employees, and that makes a big difference.
Tue Jan 27 23:30:57 CST 1998
So, Monday morning I got up at 0630h and rode to work with mom. I dozed off in her office, then grabbed a very inexpensive breakfast of French Toast in the cafeteria. After that we headed off to traffic court for my 1030h hearing.
On the way out, mom introduced me to "the girls" - all her Physical Therapists seem to be in their twenties, which seems weird but cool. Like college, only everyone's a few years older, and there's four peers as opposed to 40,000.
Anyways, we waited in traffic court, the proceedings going uninterestingly. From what i could tell, mine was a somewhat special case. Others seemed to feature mainly repeat offenders for speeding and other infractions. I was in there for a moving violation which resulted in an accident with no injuries, property damage, and no problems insurance wise. All the same, when I was called forward to the bench, the witness, Mr. Goldman, whose car I had hit, was not present, and the prosecutor said that the police officer was sick with the flu and asked for a reschedule. As the judge explained that I would have to come back in March, I interrupted, "Your honor, can I just plead guilty?" She seemed a bit surprised, but complied, issuing me a thirty dollar fine, a light penalty considering other fines were running forty to sixty with "supervision".
My intent was, of course, to avoid the expense of traveling to and fro for such a trivial matter. Thirty dollars is less expensive than the cost of round-trip between Chicago and school, without even counting opportunity cost of missed classes and work.
After paying my fine I saw Mr. Goldman in the lobby. He had been delayed
due to car troubles. Irony. He seemed disappointed or frustrated or otherwise
unhappy with my guilty plea. No, you say
My understanding ran contrary to
this, but I know Mr. Goldman's testimony and that of the police officer could
only have helped. This is this matter of impatience on my part. Some have
suggested this gives me a criminal record or somesuch, but I figured if just
going and pleading guilty was so bad the judge might have said something,
especially as I hadn't bothered to consult the legal counsel, which would
have taken longer.
Not guilty
because it was
just an accident and they let you off!
Ahh, the intricacies of court.
So, after that, I drove back, with mom in the car, which was very nice of her. I didn't want to miss all the things I had scheduled, like the NASO meeting, dinner with Li Chun, and work from 1900h.
At the NASO meeting I volunteered to write thank-you letters for Organizations that had contributed to Pow Wow. Bill said he thought that the lack of thank-you letters was offensive, and that furthermore he hadn't time to finish the rest.
I'm a Rhetoric major.
Of course, this was after one of the more ... outspoken members launched an attack on what she felt to be a terrible lack of Native Americans in Native American Student Organization, being reflected in the President and the Treasurer-elect being non-enrolled persons. This sparked a debate that was way tangential about the meaning of enrollment, qualifications for what is a Native American, and stipulations that NASO might attach to it's executives. She was particularly offensive in her approach, but she seemed to be the only one who felt such a way. The other enrolled Indians seemed perfectly comfortable with us white oppressor types pitching in to help the group. The president is a white guy, which is kinda cool in it's colorfulness, while still illustrating the problem of Native Americans at the University: there just aint enough.
One of her objections were to fake Indians
or folks who claimed some
Indian ancestry but weren't enrolled. I may be 1/16th Cherokee, but as far
as I'm concerned, I'm a white guy, and that's all I've ever claimed to be. I
thought she was just barking up the wrong tree with me. Lots of passion and
justifiable resentment, but it just isn't targeted very constructively, in my
opinion.
Anyways, Li canceled again. I called her and she said she was about to shower, and since I had work at 1900h maybe we should cancel. I wasn't going to argue with her, despite my eager optimism. Some day, I will have dinner with Li. It was awfully nice to speak with her over the phone. I felt a friendly connection. Pleasing.
At work I felt lazy, spent time catching up on Usenet. Jason Zych and others dropped by to converse, I got little work done and was up 'til 0230h finishing things up.
Wed Jan 28 00:02:42 CST 1998
Well, so This morning I was up shortly after seven, and at class on time for 0800h. Catherine Waitinas took me out in the hall to rip on me for not coming to class on time last session and for displaying disinterest in class. She said I should maybe drop the class. I told her I needed the class, which isn't quite true, but true enough considering the circumstances. She suggested I pay more attention. I suggested to myself that I thought it overly arrogant for TAs to be complaining about students not seeming so interested in class when in fact I'm in class for my own benefit, and am paying the TA money for that benefit, and if I'm disinterested it is to my own disadvantage and might reflect more on the curriculum or otherwise on the TA than on the student in the first place.
The customer is always right, except when he's being graded by the employee.
Colleges are queer. I don't know how Republicans tolerate them.
So, other things went uneventfully, if hurriedly. I registered for another B&TW class I'll head for tomorrow, bringing me up to 18 hours. If I like it I can dump Waitinas and her 0800h miss-a-few-classes-and-you-fail-you-damned-inattentive-schmuck attitude. After history section, which wasn't particularly fun, but which has a cute gal I made a little bit of eye-contact with, I headed up to ACB to run a cable for one of the machines. This particular job had been being put off for more than a month due to various complications and even when I had got it done I hadn't time to make sure it actually worked, so I explained that if it failed to work it wouldn't be hard to just switch the machine back over to it's old connection and let us know.
I rushed then to a lecture by Cynthia Selfe about technological literacy and such. Much went above my head, but it was interesting nonetheless, and I got to see old faces like Hawisher and Prendergast there as well as score a few brownie points with my Writing Technologies Prof.
After dinner I headed over to Assembly Hall for volunteer orientation for President Clinton's visit tomorrow. They had a surplus of volunteers, and so I figured given the sacrifices I'd be making, including missing the class I just registered for tomorrow, that it might be wiser to pass on the grand opportunity. The whole place is abuzz with who's going and who can't make it. Tsoni has an extra ticket he can give me, should I change my mind and nobody else grabs it, but I think I'll just skip work and watch it on TV tomorrow, just so at least I've participated in this once-in-a-lifetime event for the campus in some way.
Life's a bitch and then you get accused of adultery.
Oh, before I go to bed, be advised I've built a "notify" email list. If
you like, you can receive email from me when I add an entry here, and
participate in whatever discussion members opt to engage in. If you'd like to
join, send a message to dazed-request@dannyland.org
with the word subscribe
in the body of the message.
Good night.
22 January
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