My buddy, Sean Strommer, came to visit me and his other English Department folks he adores. He graduated last spring and recounted to me and Kim how he’s been spending his time: at a 9-5 job doing medical recruitment work. He was recently fired and, naturally, he had to be mocked. Then Ryan Black walked in and joined in the conversation, made fun of Sean’s firing- and bringing up my own termination.
Yeah… So that job I was very excited about in my first post didn’t really pan out… I was supposed to be a proofreader at an after school tutoring center. I showed up on the first day and given a quick overview of the center’s essay structure which was easy enough to remember. She also gave me a few answer keys along with tests to grade and essays to mark up. I think I was doing fine for a while. Then I had to let the children in for their after school English lessons and returned to my desk. I think it was as I saw the kids walking in and reprimanding them constantly not to run that it became clear this wasn’t going to work out. I went back to my desk and continued to mark up work but disregarding my impromptu training and embracing the experimentation in these 3rd graders papers.
In retrospect, I think my discomfort in grading had something to do with the fact that these kids, according to my boss, were being honed for specialized high schools. They were being trained to take standardized tests and write the perfect 5 paragraph essays. I think I may have been projecting my own annoyance at having to take the GREs, which I’ve been preparing for. I don’t know if I’m the only one but I get the feeling that I have to be a bit of a robot to perform well on the GREs. You can’t take liberties in the verbal section. Or maybe I’m just making excuses. But it’s okay because I’ve got another temporary little gig going.
I have so much to do in what feels like not enough time but that feeling is the only way I can get things done.
Right now, I’m in the department’s Honors Seminar. The theme for this year is “Technology.” This week’s blog assignment was to find an image of a clock and write about it.
I chose this clock, designed by Thorunn Arnadottir and this is what the Icelandic designer has to say about the project:
Each bead in the necklace
represents 5 minutes, and the whole necklace a one solar day.
The orange and red beads represent the whole hours.
As the wheel turns, one bead falls off and drops down the string.
To tell time one must count the beads from the silver bead (midnight) or the golden bead (noon) to the last bead that fell off the wheel.
With this project my aim was to create a more ‘emotional’ perception of time, measured in relation to events in one’s life rather than rigid units by which most of us slice up our day. Which is where the beauty of this project is revealed: for although the beads themselves do represent units of time when positioned on the wheel, they can also be removed from the wheel altogether, representing freedom from time. Then you should wear the necklace proudly around your neck as a statement that you are “in control of your minutes.”
I was somewhat snarky and critical but I’m pretty enchanted by the concept. God knows I would love to be able to control time as casually as I put on a necklace.
