Maybe I’m just more aware now or a little less self-centered, but the last few days have me reflecting on people and my own internal battle over what I think of them.  The idealist in me wants to believe we are all innately good.  But days like yesterday keep me wondering.  Can that be so? I’ve been duped, forced to act against that ideal and for my own interest, conscience be damned.  Even if it’s not me who’s naturally selfish or bad.  There are people who are takes actions that get us here, who get us to become selfish, ruthless, inconsiderate, beings just to survive.

But today, in some small way, a few guys renewed my confidence in humanity a little bit.  I sit in the local coffee shop.  It’s quieter than usual, and I like it–there’s not a struggle to tune out the low murmur surrounding me.  Usually it’s just mostly regulars at this time, the cool people who don’t have office jobs, lucky ducks.

Three twenty-somethings walk in–definitely indie with sting bracelets, canvas shoes, v-necks.  Definitely not regulars, though since they introduced themselves to the lone employee behind the counter.   One walks my way and introduces himself, then asks some basic questions (“Working on a book report?” Still look younger than I am).  And he gets to what I think must have been his goal–he works with the college ministry at a local church.

After eight years in the South, and a whole life in the religious minority wherever I am, things like this don’t shock or offend me, or make me uncomfortable,  I respect the differences of religion I encounter and what they require of their followers.  So I explained that I am Jewish (I left out the part that I wasn’t a very a good one).

Usually, the conversations can head down two paths from there, both equally awkward.  Sometimes the conversation just stops there.  Or they begin to explain why I should convert or join them for a service or pick up a bible, to which I respectfully just listen.  It can be hard to listen to that kind of lecture when you get the inkling it’s an “I’m right you’re wrong situation.”

But he did neither of these.  He asked me, taking an interest in what I believed, even if I didn’t give a very helpful answer.  And then we moved on.  Eventually his two friends joined us (oh are you working on a book report? no, it’s summer).  And we just talked–no religion involved.  And that’s a respect I can appreciate and I’m intrigued by.  To have confidence your beliefs, religious or otherwise, so that you don’t feel threatened to the point that you need to defend and explain your position without any sort of questioning or attack is something I don’t see very often.  I respect that.

They left with my blog address so more than one may read this…  awkward? Maybe.

Thanks for giving me something to write about, guys.

Cartersville is still a very hometown place, driving through the square you get the feeling that things haven’t changed here in a century, people just get places a little faster.  You feel that way at the grocery store too.  I walk into Ingles and inevitably see an old friend’s mother, a teacher, an ex, a principal, a boss.  No one is a nameless face in a crowd; somebody knows your name,  your face, where you work and where your kids (or you) went to school.  So it can be startling when I realize that we still all are nameless faces in a crowd to anyone not from this sheltered place.  Especially when you realize it at the cozy gas station plopped in front of the west end’s grocery.

Early this morning I rolled my battered Celica out of the driveway and towards town.  Mom gave me 30 dollars to put in the old girl’s tank.  That thirty was all I had and I wondered how far I could stretch it; if there’s one thing I hate paying for it’s gas… or well, anything I need for that matter.  Wants are just so much more fun to spend on.

There were two trucks parked under the fill station’s cover when I pulled in, and I knew their wallets were probably angrier than mine was at the gas pump.  While I prepared to part with my thirty dollars, both trucks pulled out and another pulled in without my noticing.

“Excuse me miss.”

I looked up as I was just pulling my debit card from the machine.

And middle-aged women, proably younger than she appeared, stood peeking around the pump. In baggy and drab work clothes, khaki ball cap on her head, she appeared to be heading to work.  Maybe at a Shaw plant, or Anheuser-Busch; wherever she’d done it, she worked her whole life.  Beyond the clothes, there was more to her appearance.  She looked desperately hopeful.

“You wouldn’t have a few dollars for gas money, would you?”

Before I knew what I was answering, I blurted, “No, I don’t have any cash.  Sorry.”

She slowly stepped away.  I guiltily watched my own pump rise $20, $22, $28…. I had nothing left to help her.

She climbed back into her truck and sat for a few moments.  I have never seen such a sorrowful and desolate picture up close in my life.

I drove away from the station, and soon after she did too.  I’ll never know if she got where she was going or the help she needed, or she if gave up after I let her down.  I do know that whatever happened after we met, it’s not her fault and it’s not mine either.

She was forced to desperate acts, to put all her dignity aside and ask me, a young kid at a gas pump, for help because someone else wants to make a profit off of a necessity.  The thing they need to have a livelihood, to support themselves, to live.  I denied one woman a few bucks on one occasion and the guilt is getting to me.

I can’t imagine what you must be like to be willing to risk millions of people’s dignity and livelihood for millions in the bank without feeling an ounce of remorse.

Why I Work at the PO: 1-800-BE-SHADY

Before I share with you my first blog-worthy experience in the post office, I should tell you that I felt my boss needed a good respectable nickname for the web.  And when I think of the PO manager I think of two things—patriotism and stamps.  So I came to the utterly uncreative name Sergeant Major Postage.

On Monday afternoons, the post office at Brenau is usually hopping.  Since there’s no one around Saturdays and Sundays to collect the mail, things sort of pile up.  This Monday was no different.  There was plenty to do when I clocked in at one.  But there was some extra action in the PO that neither the boss man nor I expected.  Sergeant Major Postage isn’t exactly computer (or as he so lovingly calls it, “compooter”) savvy.  Sometimes, the technology is beyond him—he knows how to do what he’s gotta do and he leaves it at that.    On occasion, however, he’s got to reach outside his knowledge base of Word, Excel, Outlook and all the Pitney Bowes doodads, and today was one of those days.  Poor Sarg got himself locked out of his customer account on the Office Depot website.  It was time for a call to the customer service hotline; they’re always the best with Postage because he likes to leave ‘em laughing, which usually leaves me laughing too.  But today I got to laugh before he even got a rep on the phone.

As I printed postage on the flood of out-going university mail, I heard the boss’s gravel –like voice: “What the—“

A few more moments pass, his whispers to himself drowned to my ear by the zips and swooshes of the postage meter machine.

Then again he voices his building confusion and frustration, turning to me to say, “this is not right. Chloe, dial up this number for me.”

Then I realized he’d been trying to call the service line, but they only printed the number in that obnoxious 1-800-AS-DIFFICULT-AS-WE-CAN-POSSIBLY-MAKE-IT-FOR-YOU-TO-CALL-US numbers where you have find the corresponding number for each letter.  You know, since when you’re already frustrated with the company’s shit, you really want to spend more time translating their pain-in-the-behind numbers into actual numbers.

So, after a few tries on his own, the boss called in for backup from his right hand lady, the “top woman in charge” in the PO (aka TWIC), me!  He rattled off the company’s number, and I started dialing.  I got customer service on the first try.  But the Mail Marine got it wrong one more time.  He just couldn’t understand!  And I don’t blame him. He explained, “every time I try to dial the number, I get some sex hotline.  It says ‘something hotline, free phone sex for men and women.’  How could the numbers even be so close?”  I couldn’t help but giggle at the boss’s mistake.  He was clearly beyond uncomfortable about the situation.  He admitted the number he dialed in a barely audible voice.  If only he’d gotten to an actual phone operator.  I wonder if he would have stuck to his “leave ‘em laughing” rule. And imagine the headlines if he had: “respectable long-time university employee enjoys explicit telecommunications on school’s dime”.  Shocking.

Life Planning?

So one of the perks of my job as an office assistant for a department at Brenau is that there’s an 80% percent chance I’ll be answering phones.  And it’s summertime, so that means calls can be (and most of the time are) sluggish.  And that leads to a whole lot of unsupervised computer time.  Now, I know what you’re all thinking: Facebook.  But how wrong you are!  Instead, I make what I like to call life plans–forever changing and ever-so idealistic visions for my future.

Let’s take yesterday, for example.  In the morning, I worked the switchboard.  Between transferring calls to Financial Aid and Admissions, giving directions, and attempting to pick out names over the loud music playing on the other end of the line, I made budgets.  I whipped up an excel spreadsheet, calculated my approximate earnings for every month between now and December, and clicked in my spending goals.

Then in the afternoon, I moved over to the admissions office to provide my excellent miscellaneous services.  The one woman welcoming committee was out sick, so my boss threw me in to cover the main phone line.  And things were awfully calm.  Inspired by the commotion around me of enrolling new students, applicants, and first year questions, I began a quest for grad schools to occupy my time.  Which lead to a search for internships in the publishing world.  Which ultimately lead to a two year life plan.  I noted deadlines for my dream grad programs, application requirements, and costs and filled them in accordingly on my month-by-month schedule to my dream life.  Along the way I included things like “practice for the GRE,”  “apply for summer internships,” “begin scholarship hunt,” and “decide what to do with your life.”  It may seem crazy, but that pink post-it has put me at ease about the next two years.  I’m getting panicky about the idea of moving on to a new part of my life and making important decisions about my future.  It may seem a little soon for that, but a year from now I’ll be thinking about statements of interest and the GRE subject tests and that’s daunting.  However, with my trusty Life Plan in hand, I know I have a vision of where I want to end up; I’m planted solidly in my undergraduate world, rather than aimlessly floating along counting down to graduation day.  And that feels good.

Why I Work in the P.O.

Today was my first day at my new job: I’m a mail clerk at my university’s post office.  My boss is Post Master Vern.  He’s a retired Marine and probably the nicest guy you’ll meet.  I also know he’s got  jokes and (I hope) great stories.  But today, I was on my own, faking my way through the day.  There is something nice about the cramped BU Post Office during the summer.  It’s mostly calm with just a few folks popping in through out the day.  This may be the perfect job for a charming loner like me.  I’m hoping I can make a Eudora Welty style short story out of it.  Fingers crossed.

Giving it up to the computer screen

Today while some-what eavesdropping on Mother’s conversation with an old friend, he angrily blurted out a few words that got me thinking: “While the kid’s down stairs cursing at strangers, where do you think the parents are?  Probably upstairs watching porn–or you know, whatever!” (Or something along those lines).   His rant got my wheels turning about a ridiculously peculiar scene I witnessed a week or so back.

Picture this:

It’s four-ish on a Thursday at a suburban sushi and hibachi place.  It’s too early for much action in the hibachi rooms, but the sushi bar is buzzing.  I’m sitting at table six in the center of the little shop front with my good friend Laura.  Just an arm’s length away at a table in the window sit a mother and son pair; they seem pretty normal, so I overlooked them when we entered the scene.   Then when our server disappeared Laura noticed something was up.  With her swift head tilt, I found something that would hold my attention my whole meal. The mother and son pair have accessories: an iPad, two iPhones and earbuds.  Mom’s plugged into her iPad, which she has propped on the soy sauce, and seems to be engrossed in a movie, every once in a while she checks her phone.  And her son is taking bites between rounds of games on his iPhone.  I know he played more than one while we were all sitting there, and I’d like to think one was Angry Birds.  It was all I could to keep from staring slack-jawed until my food came.

But I wonder what on earth would make them want to eat their dinners in such solitude, since that’s really what it was.  Do the mother and son really not have anything to talk about at all?  If she’s not having grown up conversations with the kid, where’s he going to learn it from?  I picture this little boy thirty years from now playing the wii of the day and grunting to his family while they all try to guess what it is he wants.  I mean, I know there are people out there who believed this kind of meal would become the norm, but I never thought it would actually happen.  Sheesh, America.  Of course this is all coming from the girl who checks her Facebook three times a day and has been known to spend the entire day on the couch in front of the TV with the computer on her lap.  So you should probably take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Absentmindedly Losing Everything

And by everything I mean stuff and my mind.  Today Mother and I wasted close to an hour looking for a book that I know I’ve seen since I returned home, but I can’t nail down its exact location.  Sure, this time I have the excuse of just moving back in; my crap’s everywhere, and most of it’s still in boxes and bags.  But this kind of thing happens on an all too regular basis–like everyday…. multiple times.  In fact, I probably waste an hour to two hours daily looking for my keys, my bag, my cellphone and my shoes.  It’s exhausting.

Mother blames her parenting skills for my pain-in-the-neck flaw.  She thinks she micromanaged me too much.  Her theory is that because she was always tidying up after me, I never learned to keep track of my own stuff.  I don’t like her theory too much, even though it’s probably true.  It just encroaches upon my rosy image of my independent, wise beyond my years childhood.

I’d much rather blame it on genetics.  After all, Daddy is always forgetting things.  Mother has to check everyone of his pockets for pens, cash, credit cards, keys, cell phones and who knows what else before she throws anything in the washing machine.  His brain’s got bigger fish to fry than keeping track of those minor things that make life go smoothly.

Or maybe it’s a medical mystery… I think I like that option the best.  Maybe it will be my claim to fame.

Whatever the cause, solving this issue would be a huge weight off my shoulders.  It’ll make my metaphorical hike to that unknown destination noticeably easier.   I’m going to spend some time pondering how to fix this.

Lesson 2: It’s not a girl’s school, it’s a women’s college.

My experience with a women’s college began like most: “ack…. an all girls school? No way!”  But once I got

Brenau University Pearce Auditorium, Gainesville, GA

there, my tune changed fast.  Now I make it my mission to prove how unique the women’s college experience is.  When you look at statistics, it’s obvious to see how I’ve been swayed.

First, according to a Hardwick Day study commissioned by the Women’s College Coalition, women’s college students are more invested in their campuses.  They are more likely to be involved in campus publications and student government (43% compared to 31% at coed liberal arts schools and 13% at public flagship universities); they hold a leadership position on campus twice as often as liberal arts school students and over three times more often than at flagship universities.  Addtionally, they usually live on campus for their entire undergraduate career (81% compared to just 34% flagship schools).

Not convincing enough?  I would like to argue that women’s colleges produce better people.  Women’s college grads are more than twice as likely to work in the non-profit sector than students at coed flagship universities are.  They are also more likely to consider contributing to their communities a priority, and more likely to contribute to foundations or community organizations.  Finally, they are more likely than their coed peers to participate in community service projects.

And they make better leaders.  First, their students have more experience than students at other colleges and universities.  A student at a women’s university is around 20% more likely to hold a leadership position than her friend at the flagship school.  She’s also attending a school that’s a member of the group of universities receiving the highest effectiveness rating in developing leaders–60% in the 1992-2002 test group compared to 19% for public coed universities.

But enough with statistics.  I see this everyday on my campus.  The women around me love Brenau; they are devoted to it unconditionally. Even the most prestigious organization on campus demands that its members only prove their loyalty and love for the university.  Their mission statement explains, “Everything a student does from her entrance into college, to serve the college…will bring her that much nearer the goal” of membership.  This organization is often referred to as “Highest Given Honor,” and I think that says a lot about women at Brenau.  There is no higher honor to a Brenau Woman than recognition for her investment in and service to her campus.

I see a budding passion for service in school mates too.  The recent Fill the Bus canned food drive organized by Brenau University Athletics is an incredible example of this commitment.  The Golden Tiger Athletic teams collected cans and donations for the Good News at Noon clinic and food bank.  They eagerly involved the rest of their Brenau community and the Gainesville community for the first annual event, who were more than happy to contribute.  The drive raised over 1,000 cans of food.  Good News at Noon had only expected a few hundred from the collection.

And of course, Brenau’s chock full of leadership opportunities.  Here, I see few women that don’t hold an office in one organization (or more).  And the proof is in our almnae.  The first woman to receive the Scientific Achievement Award, Roslyn Wallace, graduated from Brenau.  Two former congresswomen also graduated from Brenau: Florence Reville Gibbs and Lera Millard Thomas.

Helen Dortch Longstreet, a prominent figure in Georgia, and a political activist also attended Brenau, although in her time it was still known as the Georgia Baptist Female Seminary (no affiliation to the Baptist Church).  She is known for authoring bills allowing women to hold positions in the Georgia state government, spearheading one of the first environmental conservation movements when she fought the Georgia Power Company’s dam at Tallulah Falls (she unfortunately failed), and serving as a delegate  to the Progressive Party’s 1912 convention.

Now, after spending two years at a single-sex university, and studying up on the statistics of alumnae of schools similar to mine, I can’t understand how anyone wouldn’t want to attend a women’s university.  I’m also slightly embarrassed by my own shallow first impression of an “all girls school” when I started my college search.

But now I know better.  Brenau University isn’t for girls; it’s for grown ass women.

Desperately Seeking: Single Man With Funds

…. Well, only as an absolute resort.  In the meantime, I’m quieting the socialist in my head who is outraged that in the US students only get as much education as they can afford.  She’s getting loud and distracting me from my scholarship hunt.

So far, I’ve found two I qualify for:  a Servant Leadership program through my university, and the Ty Cobb Foundation Scholarship.  And I’ve applied for one through a local foundation in my hometown.

But the snag is, I’m applying for aid to pay for next year’s classes, classes I can’t even register for even now after school is out.  Why can’t I register for classes you ask?  Well I’m in a financial pickle, that is I’m $1,400 short for the 2010-2011 school year.  I’m in over my head and I’m barely treading water.  It’s hard for me to believe that I’m in such a dilemma.  After all, I’m a Brenau Scholar; it’s the highest non-athletic, four-year award a student in the Women’s College can win; it’s full tuition and a huge honor. And yeah, I get more than that, but this isn’t my resume.  How is it that with the ultimate academic award at my university, I may not get to return in the fall?  My stomach turned as I wrote that sentence.  For the first time, it feels real.  Really real.  And really wrong.  I try to picture myself at any other school–perhaps coed, lacking the beautiful pink architecture, with out the “Brenau Woman’s Spirit,” wanting quirky traditions, missing the Brenau Ideal.  The fact is that I am a Brenau Woman; I won’t be home anywhere else.

So I must find the solution.  I have already begun taking action to secure my future as a Brenau Woman.  I am pleading with administrators, hunting for aid, even advertising to edit papers on craigslist and taking paypal donations.  I am doing rather than dreaming.  I can and will return to my Brenau home.

Lesson 1: Be Selfish

Two years ago, when I graduated from high school, a close friend gave me the most insightful guidance an 18 year-old woman entering the world of higher education could gather.  She reminded me: be selfish, college is the last time in your life when you can look out for you alone.  Since that day, I’ve lived by those words; every choice I make comes down to how it will benefit me.  The wisdom she gave me has guided me down a path filled with opportunities that I greedily harvest for my own improvement.  After all, that’s what college is about–experiencing new things, making new friends (and new enemies), seeing new sights, scooping up every chance to learn, all in the name of a better, happier future.  At the end of my second year at Brenau University, I’ve had some miraculous harvests; my basket’s piled high with conferences, leadership, best friends, parties, heartache, lost friends, greek life, hangovers, inspirational mentors, changed majors, and enlightening professors.

My name is Chloe.  I am nearly twenty.  I believe more than anything else that college is my time to selfishly devour any lesson I can learn about myself, my peers, my passions, and my world.

Recently, I’ve been offered the chance to take a bulldozer to my winding, narrow path.  And that bulldozer comes in the form of studying abroad this summer.  At Cambridge University.  I have made it my mission to crank that machine, clear the brush that stands in my way, and make it to England.  I’ve decided to share the experience of clearing the path, what I find on the way and lessons I carry with me, like briars on my walking shoes, long after I return.